Cops Find Nude Nami Pirate Figures Arresting Material
- Author: Artefact
- Categories: Anime Figures, H, News
- Date: May 31, 2012 03:22 JST
- Tags: Copyright, Crime, Doujinshi, Ero-figures, Made in China, Mods, One Piece, PVC, Toei, Tokyo
A man has been arrested for selling nude figures of One Piece’s buxom pirate princess Nami, being charged with copyright infringement for not obtaining Toei’s permission to sell the racy items.
The case centres on the auction of so-called “ma-kaizou figures” (魔改造フィギュア), figures which have been modified after sale, usually to enhance their erotic appeal.
Chiba cyber-crime investigators found a 33-year-old unemployed Tokyo man had sold 3 modified One Piece figures depicting Nami in erotic situations to men in Nara and elsewhere via an online auction site, with proceeds totalling ¥40,000 ($500).
Some likely examples of his work (for some reason police have not released photographs of the offending articles):
They charged him with criminal copyright infringement as he had not obtained the permission of copyright holders Toei Animation to sell the figures.
Police claim there is chance he was importing figures in quantity from China and are investigating further, after confiscating 50 “pirate” figures of various female One Piece characters from his home after raiding it, and suspect his total sales may be in the region of ¥1,000,000.
He denies the charges, saying “I obtained permission to sell them from the makers in China. I thought they were official products.”
Toei also launched a similar case against modified Kamen Rider figures previously, although this is the first time One Piece has been targeted.
Online there is much concern about what such liberal use of copyright law might mean for the doujinshi market, to say nothing of what it implies for anyone who resells a modified version of a product without the copyright holder’s permission:
“You can be arrested for something like this!?”
“I suppose they are going to arrest everyone at Comiket next then?”
“So doujinshi are OK but figures are NG?”
“Selling completed kits is presumably illegal as well then…”
“If this is out then ero-doujinshi are going to be annihilated. Pushing copyright this broadly is totally reckless – so modifying a car you bought and then reselling it is an illegal breach of copyright as well?”
“As usual, they completely ignore pachinko and benefits fraud…”
“Is it certain this case was to do with the mods and not the fact he was apparently importing them from China?”
“Leave him be, it is not like he was mass manufacturing them. Pressing copyright claims like this only impedes cultural growth!”
“So it’s illegal to buy a product, add value to it, and then resell it to a third party without the original seller’s permission? Or is this just because they didn’t like it being erotic? In which case this could wipe out the doujinshi field.”
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Yo dawg I heard you like pirates...
Did the figures explode/implode since they were made in China?
Check the bootie matey, I'm sure you'll find a nice surprise like a China maid sewer system blowing up the manhole covers and spewing geysers.
yeah dawg i do...yo btw can you ''HOOK'' a brother up
with a nami fig'ma or two and make sure you swing them by my crib later ok
Just another example that something you own isn't really yours.
I was about to say that until I read he got them from China.
I was about to say that until I read he got them from China.
You expected them coming from another pirating country?
There's Korea and Thailand in queue as well, but of course China is the most usual suspect.
The best example of something you own not being yours is consoles. Mod chips, ps3 hacks, Indiana Pwns all stuff you should be allowed to legally do but man do console companies not want you to.
True jail breaking a device you paid money for should be a right.
Only if the device is rented like a cable box or similar should they be able to say you can do something to it as then you do not own the device it still belongs to the company.
it is not illegal to hack your console, what is illegal is to distribute the hack. Anyway if I was a video game publisher I would want people to hack them either, I would lose money
Its not losing money if people wouldn't have bought the games in the first place.
^ I wouldnt*
Welcome to the United Nations of Big Business.
I'm waiting for the moment they arrest someone for freedom of speech, as surely 100% of words used someone had copyright on them.
It's already been happening in the USA for a long time. The Zionist owned News media just won't report it.
Live in denial until the New World Order comes to full.
The anime Beck Mongolian Chop Squad was discontinued and then reappeared mysteriously without the Beck in the name.
That alone should tell you that people are going IP copyright happy over a fucking name.
Fucking society sucks fucking ass tit fucking balls.
More a case of suicide .. ops ... not this time .. If the case was selling the absurd price of the original well done ..
Chain him ..
I think a steal the price charged by the original figures!!
This is retarded. If I bought something, I can do with it anything I want, and sell it after. HOW is it "copyright infringement"? WTF?
Welcome to the capitalism.
Capitalism is dead.
This is Corporatism, which is just a revitalized form of ancient feudalism.
I don't need Toyota's written permission to put a spoiler on a Camry and sell it.
Yes, but it's still a Toyota and Toyota wouldn't have a problem with their name associated with a souped up car.
I think the real issue here is the nature of the alteration.
If the guy had just repainted it to change the color of the outfit (or w/e) there probably wouldn't be a problem. Toei Animation probably wouldn't be as adverse to having their name associated with a repainted figure.
However, he took a stock figure and made it into an ero figure. Toei Animation is probably not comfortable with having their name associated with ero figures. Hence the action against the guy who modified the figure.
yes, but devil mod figures arent anything new. And its obvious theyre not official. Its like saying an adult one piece doujinshi is copyright infringment.
I'm calling bullshit. Mega House did a cast-offable version of Boa Hancock.
only a faggot puts a spoiler on a Camry
but you don't alter 90% of the car, in this case the guy literally altered most of the figure and sold it as something else all together.
Hey, he needed to buy the figure first from the original seller to be able to modify and re-sell it. The maker already got their profit, this just helped them sell more. They should be happy about it.
If I buy 50 cars, modify and resell them, Toyota will be happy that they sold an extra 50 cars they otherwise couldn't have sold as they are not selling the modified model, nor are they planning to do so in the future.
I bet the problem here is that he modified cheap counterfeit versions of the figure instead of the official ones, which is the same as selling unmodified counterfeit stuff : illegal.
Anon @ 09:04, I think in this case the "Toyota" is a car with Toyota logo but filled with non Toyota engine and 3rd part parts and cheap steel structure. Then someone modify 90% of it, even put a new Honda engine in it and modify the structure but it is still not a Toyota no matter how you define it.
nope.. still nami... just as a toyota is still a toyota even if u modify 90% of it.
What if you bought mass quantity of an item and altered the original object for a profit; any company is going to get mad that they aren't getting a cut from their original product being used, while you get away with all the money.
Then again, these are nude figures. Why in the world does Toei want to be associated with nude figures?
Technically some people in the car bussiness do something like this it's called customization.
Famous examples include the Shelby cobra and Lingenfelter corvette.
This is how it goes in the US if they are simply altered original merchandise then there is no legal claim the copyright holder can make but if they are counterfeits being sold as original then it's considered bootleg.
Wait if he bought them doesn't he have the right to modify and sell it?
Don't people make resin figures themselves and resell them?
He only has the right to do that if he bought it from Toei or a licensed distributor. He bought it from a completely unrelated company in China. Thus both him and the company are in violation.
I don't see why so many people are saying it's over stepping the bounds of copyright. I would understand if he bought them from Toei and then modified them, but he didn't.
The guy pleased not guilty because he was told that the product he was buying from China was official.
He basically got screwed trying to cut raw material costs.
In that case they should offer him a deal to drop or greatly reduce the charges if he helps out in ratting out the Chinese supplier.
Arresting the little guy will do nothing to stem the tide of counterfeits but would waste time and money and farther tarnish the police's image.
Ie people will simply become more afraid to report counterfeits because they may fear they could be charged for something.
If he bought them from China, no. From Japan? Yes.
Depends if the Chinese figure was a licensed product as I think a lot of them are made in China as it is.
So more correctly is are they licensed figures or unlicensed.
While I do think copyright laws need to be greatly scaled back, I don't think I can get too mad at Toei for this. They could've brought the hammer down on fans SO many times before this and for much, much worse things. For them to occasionally say "ok, look, we aren't going to let this slide"--eh. It may suck, but it's way more reasonable than freaking Disney.
>believing China would produce legitimate goods
for that he deserves to be punished
It seems nearly all consumer goods are made in China these days.
If you want to deal directly with the source of something it often means dealing with someone in China.
But that's what we get when companies try to find the cheapest labor and most unenforced pollution laws they can.
He didn't believed but you can't prove that he wasn't fooled by some dirty chinese. The cops wanted to arrest the chinese but couldn't so they just arrested the one who was reselling the figures.
Watch the anime "Otaku no Video". It's about some guys (Gainax) making money from selling figures in japan, then moving their headquarters to china for mass production. In the 1980s this was perfectly okay with everyone.
“If this is out then ero-doujinshi are going to be annihilated. Pushing copyright this broadly is totally reckless – so modifying a car you bought and then reselling it is an illegal breach of copyright as well?”
Fuck yes this comment nails it.
If he was making and selling these wouldn't that make him an entrepreneur vs unemployed?
jaja que bien se ven
}
couldn't he have gotten away with it by not not having "one piece" or "nami" on the product? otherwise the fake vaginas that have a picture of nami on the box would also be shut down.
Doujinshi is next.
Brought to you by the land that worships ACTA.