On May 17, 2023, the Living Environment Division of the Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters and the Minamisanriku Police Station arrested one man for allegedly violating the Copyright Act by uploading gameplay videos and animations via YouTube without permission from the rights holder.
In 2022, a man uploaded to YouTube a video of a game play (about an hour long, including the ending), which is prohibited by the guidelines of the game “STEINS;GATE: Hiyaku Renri no Darin” copyrighted by Nitroplus Inc. and others, and earned advertising revenue.
The man also uploaded so-called “fast contents” that were edited, subtitled, and narrated without the permission of the copyright holders of “Steins;Gate”, an anime copyrighted by KADOKAWA CORPORATION and others, and “SPY x FAMILY”, an anime copyrighted by TOHO CO., LTD. and others without the permission of the right holders.
On video-sharing sites such as YouTube, game-playing videos are becoming increasingly popular. However, in principle, it is necessary to obtain the permission of the rights holder for the use of game play videos, and unauthorized uploading is an act of copyright infringement. In particular, the act of posting a video of a game with a storyline that has been edited so that only the movie scenes of the game are spliced together so that the ending can be understood in a short time, or the act of extracting and posting only the ending scene, has been recognized as a problem in recent years. On the other hand, more and more game makers and their respective games are now setting guidelines and allowing uploading of gameplay videos, and in some cases it is possible to upload gameplay videos as long as you follow the permitted content.
The game play video that was the subject of this arrest was an extremely malicious case that meets the examples of the aforementioned problem, which is why we have taken this action.
In the case of animation, of course, as in the Fast Film case, the unauthorized processing and uploading of works created by creators with their time, effort, and money to obtain advertising fees is never permitted.
CODA will continue its efforts to eliminate unauthorized use of Japanese content and properly protect copyrights.
(translated by automatic translation system)