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!
while i think that two years of prison for this is completely ridiculous, a “let’s play” video of a visual novel, it’s essentially the same of “playing” a visual novel
Yes, but for those who don’t watch anime or play anime games, it can be great to get summaries so you have context for some conversations. Like, if a friend of mine watches a TV show or plays a game when I don’t, if I have no interest in watching or playing, I have no context. Maybe I want to support my friends interest without putting in the same hours so it’s nice to be able to get a summary or just the important parts so I know what my friend is talking about and can at least converse with them on the basics. (Though I do believe such videos should have giant spoiler warnings)
Anyone else suddenly struck by an urge to make let’s plays of stein’s gate in their less draconian copyright law home region?
Japan is very bad in terms of copyrighted stuff. If that person lives overseas this would never have happened.
so ridiculous and sad.