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Japanese YouTuber convicted of copyright violation after uploading Let’s Play videos::A 53-year-old Japanese man has been convicted of copyright infringement after uploading gameplay videos of visual novel Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace and videos summarizing Spy × Family and Steins;Gate anime episodes.
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This is a complicated situation because it’s a real life embodiment of an argument often used in the copyright and reaction content debate: the game is a visual novel, which means that unlike say The Witcher 3, the creator can indeed argue that by showing the entirety of the game as a recorded video, the final customer does not need to buy the game to have pretty much the same experience.
For a big game, irrelevant. For a small indie developer? Your visual novel being a YouTube longplay or a streamer react could be the end of most of your revenue.
That’s the devil’s advocate instance on it. My own worldview is very much radical to the opposite extreme, so I’ll refrain from talking much.
It’s even more complicated because he posted it to YouTube two days before the game even came out, potentially devastating their early sales
It’s impossible to prove the harm piracy does or does not do, and in general I agree that it shouldn’t be illegal in the first place or at least shouldn’t carry more than a slap on the wrist fine, this is the world we live in and the dude uploaded a game to YouTube in its entirety before the game released, which is the kind of thing you don’t do in a world where copyright claims send you to jail
It’s even more complicated because he posted it to YouTube two days before the game even came out, potentially devastating their early sales
Yikes, this is the part where I side with the developers.
Let’s play as a consumer helps me determine if I should buy the game or not. Because watching someone play a game isn’t the same as playing it. But, showcasing the whole game before release? That feels wrong.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s wrong for a lot of games, but for a visual novel, that can definitely be damaging to sales. If an entire let’s play of cities skylines 2 came out, showing every progression milestone and all of the features, I’m still buying it on release. If anything the video would help cement that decision. For a visual novel? Well I’ve already seen the entire novel so, who cares. Generally though, if you have early access to a game before release, you should be respecting the developers guidelines, and are likely contractually obligated to do so.
he posted it to YouTube two days before the game even came out
It’s apparently a port of a game that came out in 2011, though?
Yeah, avoiding copyright infringement (at least in the US) usually requires that your derived work is transformative in some way. And in most games’ cases, simply playing the game and adding some commentary is enough to qualify. Basically, the argument is that you’re transforming the game from being something played to something watched. That the game was originally meant to be played, so the streamer is transforming it into something new by playing it in their own unique way and adding their own commentary about the game.
But for a visual novel, this all goes out the window. At best, the games are a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You make some small decisions to direct the game’s story, but the game is largely just something that you watch. You make those decisions, then you watch it play out until it’s time for another decision. So the added commentary by itself isn’t enough to transform the game into something new.
But all of this happened in Japan, and I have no idea what their copyright laws are like. I know part of their laws require rights holders to actively attempt to shut down infringement, or else they risk losing rights. That’s one of the big reasons Nintendo is so notorious for taking down emulation sites, because they risk losing the rights to their own IPs if they can’t prove that they’re actively defending them. That’s probably a large part of what started the original lawsuit.
What is the purpose of jail time? Wouldn’t a fine be enough to stop him doing it again?
The studios he offended are trying to make an example out of him. Reminds me of Nintendo suing Bowser for $10 Million.
yeah japan is really cruel when it comes to sentencing
Thank goodness they caught this one guy who made these videos without any distribution from a billion dollar company, which for sure did not make any money off of copyright material as well. Smh
Did a billion dollar company stole your gf buddy?
YouTube would need to ban 90% of its videos in Japan to protect its uploaders from copyright violations.
That would probably force Japan to update its copyright laws, but YT won’t do it because they’d loose profits for one quarter
Why is this man getting years in prison for a copyright violation? People shouldn’t be jailed for that, monetary fines is enough. There’s no reason this man should be jailed for uploading gameplay videos online.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Japanese court has convicted a man of violating copyright law after he uploaded gameplay and anime videos without publisher permission.
Reported by Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, the 53-year-old man, Shinobu Yoshida, was sentenced to two years in prison and assessed a 1 million yen fine (or about $6,700 USD.)
Yoshida was arrested in May of this year after uploading gameplay videos of the visual novel Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace back in 2019.
Yoshida also uploaded videos summarizing episodes of the Spy × Family and Steins;Gate anime shows.
CODA characterized the complaint as “malicious cases of posting videos containing content and endings (spoilers) without permission from the rights holders, […] and unfairly gaining advertising revenue through copyright infringement.”
Asahi Shimbun reported that the prosecution stated Yoshida’s actions were, “a malicious act that tramples on the effort of content production.” They argued that because he uploaded videos that condensed and spoiled anime episodes and videos of gameplay from a visual novel — a style of game that focuses on reading to experience the story rather than through gameplay — consumers would be less incentivized to spend money on either.
The original article contains 281 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 33%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I saw this happening eventually and I agree with the copyright strike. I love Let’s Play videos and I have them on in my house all the time. However, spoiling the entire game for a story based game really does cut into the developer’s efforts. But 2 years in prison plus a million yen fine is ridiculous. Prison time is too far. This should be just a copyright strike.
Copyright law doesn’t exist to prevent spoilers.
The term “spoilers” usually refer to small but impactful parts of the plot (character X dies). If this is a translation perhaps it’s referring to something else. The post says the anime content was condensed - I take as containing the most impactful scenes (perhaps even the majority of the work). Perhaps being a market substitution “spoils” it from being re-watched from 1st party source.
Copyright law exists so creators can create works and bring them to market in a economical manner.
If I livestream me reading a mystery novel in it’s entirety I’ve devalued that work. This is because any viewers no longer could receive the same enjoyment from the novel meaning they’re less likely to buy it. I’ve essentially republished their work, violating their copyright.
IIRC, the reality of gaming YouTube videos and streams is that you do it with permission from the studio. I heard that arrangements for streamers are built into the license for the software since streaming is obviously beneficial for many studios. Even so, some content creators still get written permission from publishers to stream. (Frost on YouTube got permission from HiRez to stream Smite, for example.) if a studio says you can’t stream the game, they have the right to enforce it.
To my knowledge, almost zero games incorporate licenses that actually give any legal space or protection for streaming, it’s almost always a “we 100% have the right to sue you but we probably won’t, we totes promise fr fr” kind of situation.
But for this case in particular, what’s actually happening is that Japan is one of the strictest countries in the world w.r.t. copyright law; I can’t know the laws of every country in the world, but in 90% of jurisdictions the worst you’d expect to happen is the videos get taken down, maybe your channel gets deleted.
Don’t screw around with copyright law in Japan though.
