A Japanese court orders 500 million yen to compensate for losses caused by uploading “fast movies” to the Internet

TOKYO, Nov. 17 (press Jiji) — A Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered two people to pay a total of 500 million yen in damages to film companies for copyright infringement by uploading “fast movies” to YouTube.

The ruling represents the first damages order relating to fast films, which were edited without the permission of the copyright holders to approximately 10 minutes each. On Thursday, the Tokyo District Court awarded the full amount of damages claimed by 13 companies, including two major film distribution companies, Toho and Nikkatsu.

The two, and another man, were arrested by the Miyagi Prefectural Police Department in northeastern Japan last year. They were found guilty of violating copyright law and a suspended sentence was finalized.

According to the complaint and other sources, the two defendants began uploading snapshots to YouTube around early 2020.

The two are accused of producing short trailers for 54 Japanese films, including “Shin Godzilla”, and uploading them to the video-sharing site YouTube to get advertising revenue.

The ruling is said to be Japan’s first court decision regarding losses caused by unlicensed fast movies.

(Originally written in English, Jiji Press)