Police have arrested 2 hobbyists for the grievous crime of modifying a figure to look like another character, charging them with criminal copyright infringement.
The pair, aged 35 and 36 and involved with the operation of a Niigata toy shop, were found to have modified a figure to resemble a villain appearing in Toei’s Kamen Rider W, selling the completed figure in an Internet auction to a Tokyo man for ¥270,000.
The figure at issue was identified online:
Reportedly their work was of exquisite quality and popular with fans of the show – certainly the case considering the quality of the work on display on their homepage.
They admit the charges, explaining that “As we weren’t making mass manufactured goods but a single hand-made item, we thought they would overlook it.”
The arrests are an unhappy reminder that virtually anyone involved with doujinshi events, parody art and even cosplay is liable to be arrested should copyright holders become unhappy for some reason, or even should police get bored with arresting people for having sex in groups of 2 or more and instead decide to launch independent prosecutions for copyright infringement themselves.
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I think it looks awesome.
I was hoping for makaizo :X
I don't even follow Kamen but that's a killer mod and freakin awsm.
We need Kamen Rider to defeat these crooked police and save the day!
I got to say: this Kamen Rider figure looks awesome.
And what's with these copyright laws these days?
Because going after real criminals is just too damn hard and dangerous.
To be clear thats not Kamen Rider but a Dophant(monster).
Being able to turn Nazca into Utopia. Thats real craftsmanship.
Sentai's not my thing and I still find that pretty badass.
WOW! thats pretty silly not to mention a complete waste of police resources. I have no doubt if it got so much attention that the makers of the show would of been aware of it. They know you dont want to piss off the grass roots support like this.
This is why I have no faith in our justice system aside from the fact that the people who robbed me never got arrested for it...
BTW, did something happen? I notice that now the comment segments close up when I click "Add Comment" & then it also seems that my comments always show up now, did something get fixed perhaps?...
LoL srsly? Copywrong has gone out of control... And the original wasn't half as cool...
and those cops want it... so they falsely charge them so they can "confiscated" the evidence... sly trick from poor bastard...
Shotaro, Philip, time to make these officers count their Sins!!
Not within their jurisdiction (sadly).
Akumetsu on the other hand...
How is this not in Kamen Rider W's jurisdiction... nothings out of their Jurisdiction XD
ATASHII KIITENAI!
It was so awesome that it looked better than the original so the company sent cops out to arrest them
lolz jealous cops these days.
I don't get it instead of hiring them as artists they persecute them as criminals...
WTF is wrong with their brains?!
I WANT ONE!
apparently freedom of expression through art is illegal over there
I blame the politicians and the people that voted for them for this ridiculous law
hell for all we know it could have been a commission that the buyer asked and paid for
Police must be bored. No murderers or kidnappers, they turn their look on artisans.
True. This is a case where the police should NOT have been involved, nor should this be CRIMINAL copyright infringement.
I swear..... these companies keep on wanting to put more and more people in prison, and get rid of their BEST CUSTOMERS this way.... how frigging stupid is that?
If they hadn't SOLD the figure, you might be right. As it was, they were making money off an unlicensed imitation of a copyrighted character, which can be prosecuted as criminal.
Admittedly, I still think the police are way overreacting, but I'm not going to insult them for this one.
If ALL of the law was defended this zealously there would be no reason to complain, but that's not the case...
Police must be bored. And copyright holders are greedy.
Yup, this is becoming kind of dumb
no dumb is stuffing a glass jar up your ass having it shatter and then digging the pieces of bloody glass all of your ass.
this is fucking retarded, harassment, and police douchebagary
retard laws cause retarded things
there should be a paragraph clearly stating that unless you make wagons of cash selling items modelled after copyrighted material you are ok
Perhaps they instituted an arrest bonus clause.
thats how you get ahead, you make more arrests, and make superiors happy at the same time.
they arrest yakuza, you get yakuza layers and shit, where the charges may not stick 80%+ of the time. this pisses them off because everyone looks bad when a yakuza goes free.
arrest a kid, they have no money for defense, and some times the defense works with the system to make the prosecutors look good.
put the kids away, general public will say yay they deserved it, people who know will defend them, and every one looks good because they got an arrest to stick.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
and people with talents are punished.
Awesomeness is a crime. I better hide.
If they just gave the thing to someone then it would have been fine with the copyright holder, but they sold it.
They knew that if they had sold many of these they would have been fucked but assumed 1 would be ok.
it's japanese police and copyright holders we're talking about here... so duh.
it took 3 years to overturn the verdict against kaneko (of winny fame). by that logic, every kitchen knife, baseball bat, electrical appliance, rope, detergent, car, blowtorch, etc. etc. manufacturer could be convicted. after all, they all make tools that can be used to kill someone. japanese law interpretation ftw!
Kamen Rider looks cool... ermm final dopant they fight was it.... just awesome
That's fucking Taric, isn't it?
The final fight paled in comparison to Shotaro going in there just armed with the memory gadgets and his awesome fedora, fucking Utopia's shit up royally and then escaping with Wakana unscathed.
Clay Davis couldn't have responded better than me to this kind of corporate faggotry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0hjSaYCRnA&feature=related [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0hjSaYCRnA&feature=related]
This has to be a publicity stun!
negative publicity?
For a country with extremely low crime rate, of course police must resort to some unnecessary arrest to generate commission and boost their income if not they cannot afford to live and eat.
it's not necessarily low, it's just that the police are more or less gimped.
Let's say yakuza a shot at you, as a cop, if you return fire, even in self-defense even, if it's life or death, you will most likely be suspended from police officer and even if you keep your job it will only be a desk job after that because you shot a gun.
With that kind of disciplinary measures looming over your head at any given moment, I can't blame them for not going after real criminals and going after people that they are safe from.
Ok, this sucks, whats the point of being a policeman in the first place if you can't shoot armed criminals? Obviously , they are not doing their job, the job of the police is to catch real criminals, not people that infringe blurry defined copyrights. This should be up to the company's job to sue them, not the police's job to arrest them .
okay I can understand copyright law if they were mass-producing these, but this was a one off labor of love.
I have a question, in America is illegal to make something like this, technically or with precedent( as in someone's already gone to jail for something like this)
This honestly sounds like something you Sony did a long time ago with the PSP launch in Europe where they sued the importer out of business because they "diminished the hype"
its Legal as a work of art
as long as your not selling it or making 100's of em
next are cosplayers . if they change the color of haruhis school uniform
lol at first I thought "modify" in another way :D. i hate these copyright bastards... copyright shouldn't be used to get money for something -.-..anyway
I actually watched the show and I got to say, this looks fantastic! Foundation X would be proud
what ever that is it looks badass xD can I have one?
So... Did someone actually order the police to arrest these guys?