Last year, we noted that the “fast movie” (ファスト映画, fast-eiga), edited abbreviations with story spoilers of full-length movies, had caused huge damage to movie companies in Japan recently. And we reported that some people had been arrested on charges of…
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On October 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of Japan issued its decision to dismiss the appeal against the IP High Court’s March 2021 ruling regarding the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)’s trying to force music…
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In short order after our update from last week, another update to an intellectual property issue found in our archives has come up. Cloudflare, having complied with Japanese courts before, now is hit with a new accusation of accountability for…
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Goldfish, bred for centuries in Japan, are a major business in Nara Prefecture’s Yamato-Koriyama city. Barely used telephone booths are common around Japan. Modern artist Yamamoto Nobuki combined the two to promote water protection in his work “Message” in 2000,…
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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)…
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As reported in 2019, several leaders of the once-popular Manga-Mura (Manga comic village) portal of illegal manga data were arrested and tried. Finally, on June 2, 2021, Hoshino Romi was convicted for his role in uploading content passed along to…
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Following the May 13 passage of revisions for the Patent Act, May 25, 2021, a bill for smoothing out copyright issues for digital distributions passed the Upper House (House of Councillors) unanimously. The Copyright Act is being updated to: 1)…
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The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) has been engaged in battles to enforce copyright of works it manages against use for free by music schools around Japan. This battle has been ongoing since 2017, and…
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Every year the Ministry of Finance of Japan (MOF) reports on confiscated intellectual property-infringing items imported into Japan (you can review our report on the results of 2017). Customs catches certainly are not comprehensive, but the results continue to concern….
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Further provisions to Japan’s revised Copyright Act went into effect January 1, 2021, tightening restrictions on the users of copyright-infringing materials online. In addition to modifications to procedures for registering and examining copyrighted materials, the noteworthy revision is making it…
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