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Japanese police make first YouTuber arrest for uploading video game gameplay
- tedunangst 3y agoWas wondering how the upload in this case might be different than the AOE2 game I watched yesterday.
- crop_rotation 3y agoThe article answers that > "Steins;Gate" is a visual novel, and as the name implies, the gameplay consists primarily of reading, with few prompts or inputs required by the player. With the intended appeal being much more watching the narrative unfold than directly controlling the onscreen action, visual novels are, comparatively, closer than other games to a book or movie In contrast, even a campaign in AOE2 requires a lot of actions to go anywhere.
- cubefox 3y agoThe article says: > In a statement following his arrest, CODA, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Promotion Organization, asserted that, “in principle,” any use of gameplay videos requires permission from the rights holder. The legal situation might be different in other countries.
- astrange 3y agoMicrosoft could DMCA a let's play of one of their games, but Western publishers generally don't care about like Japanese publishers do, so they don't bother. But the US also has fair use and Japan doesn't, so it'd be easier to fight. Instead, Japanese publishers who do want to encourage streaming put up rules promising not to take you down as long as you don't show X content, or especially lenient IPs like Touhou will have copyright grants for fanart, and you can't do anything outside of that in public.
- charlieyu1 3y agoI guess it is quite opposite to what I know, doujins (fanfics) of anime characters are very popular in Japan. On the other hand, don’t think anybody is dare to sell fanfics of Disney characters.
- astrange 3y agoYou mostly see illegal pirated copies of those. There are series no one will touch (Nintendo or Doraemon), and series that people will sell at real life events but won't upload anywhere permanent or allow resale (mostly if it involves actual people, like bands or movies). The series where they're open about it commercially like Touhou/Vocaloid have explicit rules for what's ok and what isn't though.
- rtpg 3y agoVisual novel youtube uploads are definitely a thing. All of Umineko is available as just an auto-playthrough for those that want that. It's hard to argue it's not just outright piracy, even if you're not shipping around the bytes. Would be nice to just get the videos pulled instead of outright arresting people. Maybe someone is wanting to make a point.
- jalk 3y agoWas thinking the same, but wonder if an arrest in Japan is somehow different to an arrest in US for instance, and hence not quite as excessive as it immediately sounds.
- tedunangst 3y agoCriminal copyright infringement is new to Japan. https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/report-japan-criminalizes-piracy-other-copyright-infringement/amp https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/report-japan-criminali...
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoCriminaloty of copyright is a tragic mistake a4ound the worls- it should be handled like patents -the accusor should file charges in civil court and demand compensation The way things are, my tax dollars are being used to protect profits of companies that often themselves pay no tax.
- ehnto 3y agoJapan has a nearly 99% conviction rate, which tells you a lot about their justice process. It is not good to be arrested in Japan, even when you are innocent. You can be held for long periods without trial as well, essentially serving time with no certainty that you were actually in the wrong.
- coobird 3y agoThis. Also doesn't help that many ordinary Japanese think that getting arrested basically equals they're guilty. So much for due process. That said, the 99% conviction rate is a bit misleading in that the prosecution rate is pretty low (as low as 10%?). Seems as the prosecutors are picking and choosing slam dunk cases than sending cases through the courts to avoid not guilty verdicts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...
- tedunangst 3y agoSeems the first fast movie arrests were about two years ago. https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/three-arrested-in-japan-for-posting-short-versions-of-full-films-to-youtube/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/three-arrested-in...
- treme 3y agoOld society arrests youtuber for giving better than paid ads promotion for their game. silly beliefs about copyrights for certain media was one of major reasons why Kpop crushed Jpop. Kpop companies lets people edit & share all clips freely, Japan only recently start allowing people outside Japan to be able to view their content on youtube.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoThis is another reason why Sumo which is an amazing martial art never really grew in popularity outside of Japan. Even now, a bunch of us enthusiasts need to watch the bashos with the help of YouTubers who can be DMCAed any moment.
- busterarm 3y agoIf your cable provider carries TVJapan/NHK you can watch it. Also I assume that you're aware of this: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoYes this is good but we used to have some great english speaking breakdowns of the events on youtube and they keep have to change the channel as they are taken down. A lot of the fun is to talk about the fights and who will win etc.
- w-ll 3y agoNHK is an amazing channel if you got it. like 817 on comcast in the bay. but just the fact they dont have ads. and have so many great programs. If I need dead air background during the day its on NHK * Railway Journey * Cycle Japan * Somewhere Street * Lunch Expo * Bento Express * pythagoras switch (theres a new one thats like programing focused) * I really miss Supreme Skills tho
- collaborative 3y ago
- wilg 3y agoWe need to figure out a post-copyright world. This sort of thing is untenable.
- CamperBob2 3y agoArgument for discussion: with the advent of large language models, copyright is not only untenable, it's a literal threat to the progress of civilization.
- wilg 3y agoI agree. Perhaps there's a productive way to leverage this to publicly (or privately) support and fund artists, authors, and others who are critical to properly training our finest computer programs.
- permo-w 3y agois making bigger and better neural networks really the same as progressing civilisation? I think Hacker News is one of the few places where the majority would say yes I would say stripping artists of their rights is the opposite of progress
- wilg 3y agoIf AI powered tools are able to provide a lot of value (they probably will), and they require lots of data (they probably will), then it's a conversation worth having. Though artists are often very leftist and/or liberal they tend to be extremely conservative about intellectual property rights because their livelihood depends on it. This is fair enough, but unfortunately even outside of AI, intellectual property law is already overzealous. We probably need alternate funding models or something.
- tpxl 3y agoTheft providing value doesn't excuse theft. These giant companies can absolutely afford to properly license their datasets, and if they don't want to license them, they can create them. Mozilla has been creating an open dataset for text-to-speech/speech-to-text for years now with thousands of contributors, why can't Google do the same?
- brigandish 3y ago> Yoshida has admitted to the charges, saying “I knew it was illegal, even as I was doing it.” Japan’s “justice” system is based on something outlawed in England nigh on 800 years ago under Magna Carta (remedied as habeus corpus). It’s basically legalised kidnapping by the police where they hold you hostage to yourself until you admit the charges against you. You may be held indefinitely, if the court so wishes. Thus, his confession should be seen with scepticism as to its truth.
- pokepim 3y agoAren’t laws in Japan constructed to be like that? Cumbersome, inefficient and thwarting meaningful progress? When we defeated Japan in WW2 we made sure that they became our “ally” and also had huge role in creating their laws and government. So this is intentional so that they are not able to surpass us ever again. Any reform will be shut down by current japanese government which was and still is propped up by CIA basically. This is what you get when you lose world war
- ashildr 3y ago> This is what you get when you lose world war (Coughs in German) No.
- smallstepforman 3y ago[flagged]
- AraceliHarker 3y agoVisual novel streaming is generally prohibited by publishers. In particular, MAGES. or 5pb., the company that sells Steins;Gate, is very strict. The main reason why there was an arrest in the recent streaming case is probably because MAGES. was involved. MAGES. was previously a subsidiary of Kadokawa, but is now a subsidiary of Colopl.
- astrange 3y agoMAGES. is also not even the only Japanese company to go bankrupt because the CEO decided to spend the money on producing a J-pop idol group instead of releasing products. Also, Steins;Gate, which does not contain sexual content, was briefly banned on Steam because Valve is run by the kind of people who think everything from Japan is child porn. (And then the only product they've ever unbanned from people complaining about this.) This is /after/ they changed policies to supposedly allow absolutely anything on the store, which is why it's full of trashy 3D rendered porn now; turns out "anything" means "anything Western".
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoI never heard of Steins;Gate but I suddenly want to pirate it.
- justinclift 3y agoThe anime is good, the visual novel isn't worth the effort (in my opinion).
- userbinator 3y agoThis is another reason why you shouldn't tie your offline identity to your online one(s).
- 1lint 3y agoWhat law was he actually charged with breaking? I didn't see this mentioned in the article and it seems like this would be relevant information to include. Anyways based on the available details, I'm surprised the police were even involved in what should really be a civil case between the rights holder and the YouTuber. I don't know if the Japanese public is safer or better off after this arrest.
- glandium 3y agoJapanese news say 著作権法違反, which is "violation of the copyright act", IOW, copyright infringement.
- nirui 3y agoThe game mentioned, STEINS;GATE: My Darling's Embrace, has following description on Steam: > Fall in love with the lab members all over again in this sweet and slapstick romantic comedy! Plus the impression that I got from their promotional video on Steam, I wanted to ask... Is this a porn or a semi-porn game? Because if so, then it makes sense for the creator/publisher to restrict the exposure of their game based on both the legal grounds and commercial interests.
- yellow_lead 3y agoI don't think so. Australia has it rated PG. https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/steinsgate-my-darlings-embrace https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/steinsgate-my-darli...
- lemoncookiechip 3y agoNo, there's no pornography whatsoever in the Steins;Gate franchise, and it's one of the biggest visual novels out there, as well as a very popular anime (adapted from the VN), it's not some unknown IP. VN Database: https://vndb.org/v6618 https://vndb.org/v6618 For comparison, the Fate series did start with pornography and is easily one of the most popular franchises in and outside of Japan. I'm sure you've heard of Fate/Grand Order which is one of the most profitable mobile games out there. For reference, a lot of popular anime series and manga started as pornography. Manga, anime, light/web novels, visual novels and games have a symbiotic relationship in Japan, so they get adapted from one to the others quite frequently. As to why they do this, well, it's Japan. The average age is 48, and the average CEO is 60+. They don't really have the concept of fair use like in the US. IF you want a perfect example of how detached they are from the internet, you can just look at Nintendo who to this day still goes hard after Youtubers who just cover their games. They're extremely protective of their IPs, especially when it comes to foreigners or people in Japan whom they have no professional relationship with.
- pedrosorio 3y ago> you can just look at Nintendo who to this day still goes hard after Youtubers who just cover their games > They're extremely protective of their IPs, especially when it comes to foreigners or people in Japan whom they have no professional relationship with. If that's the case. What are all of these gameplay videos of their most recent release doing on youtube (all of them uploaded by foreigners afaict)? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=totk+gameplay https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=totk+gameplay
- ldehaan 3y ago[dead]
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]