The police of Miyagi Prefecture (Tohoku, northeastern Japan) made Japan’s first arrest of those alleged to be producing “fast movies” in violation of the Copyright Act, on June 23, 2021. What is this all about?
The “fast movie” (ファスト映画, fast-eiga) is a form of entertainment that gained popularity in Japan in the past year or so. Video editors in Japan took full-length films and formed ten-minute versions of them to give fast-paced summaries that they then uploaded to sites like YouTube. In the case above, three persons apparently made and uploaded such “fast movies” for five Japanese films around June and July 2020, adding narration to the original footage. Their channel had a total of about eighty films on it and seems to have been generating considerable advertising revenue.
Japanese Content Overseas Distribution Association（CODA) discovered dozens of Japanese YouTube channels holding over two thousand popular films’ fast movies as of June 2021. With over 47 million total views, it estimates that the copyright damages for all the fast movies is about 900 million yen (US$ 8.2 million).
The desire for quick summaries of film is quite a sign of the rushed culture and the pull of entertainment, but as the Manga-mura and JASRAC music school and background music battles in Japan have shown in recent years, Japan is becoming more and more scary for copyright pirates.
* The information provided on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
** For questions or consultation, please contact us for more information.
Contact: Taro Yaguchi
Sources
三井新, 吉沢英将, and Akada Yasukazu. “「ファスト映画」初の摘発 無断で短く、プロも雇って… [A first nab of ‘fast movies’; unauthorized short films made by pros …].” https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASP6S6WS9P6SUTIL00V.html Asahi Shimbun. June 25, 2021. Accessed July 8, 2021.
Header image by Recklessstudios from Pixabay.
