A Kyoto man has been arrested for selling lewd “devil modifications” of Love Live! figurines, with such a business apparently being much more in demand than some might have expected.
49-year-old Kyoto resident Takuya Matsuda has been arrested for selling figurines in which the heads of Love Live! (and Gundam) characters were put onto more lascivious bodies as they made sexually suggestive poses. Matsuda’s figurines were labelled as “makaizo”, or “devil modifications” owing to their sinful and illegal nature.
Matsuda managed to sell four such devil figurines via net auction in November and December of 2018 for a total price of ¥51,750, or slightly under $500, to customers including a 29-year-old civil servant in Gunma, before he was caught by Gunma’s prefectural police and charged with copyright violations.
Examples of the devil modifications as showcased on TV:
Matsuda has confessed to the heinous crimes, saying that he sold the figurines in order to pay off debts and deal with general living expenses. Although he was charged for the sale of four figurines in late 2018, detectives found that he had received a total of ¥39 million from online auction sales over the last ten years, suggesting that he may have a longer history of selling devil modifications.
How is that illegal?
copyright violation.
Japan doesn’t have first sale doctrine?
No. Japan does not have first sale doctrine.
For example, you could not sell used games in Japan for a long time, and even now if they complain the stores will stop them.
It wouldnt protect you in case of derivative work even in america.
That’s literally what it’s designed to do, though. You could buy a PSX back in the day, mod it to play pirated games and sell it at a higher price. Because after you bought the thing, it was yours to do with as you please and that includes reselling after you are done.
US copyright may be a fresh hot a mess but something on this level is not likely to get you arrested and mostly likely would only result in a cease and desist letter and possibly a civil lawsuit usually in that order though Disney is very sue happy.
Even then the case may not not hold up in court since it’s a modified original vs a full bootleg so did the IP creator loose any income.
Either Japan’s copyright laws are even more messed up than the US’s or their police do not know their own country’s laws and concepts like due process.
He can modify it.
And if he was selling like 1-2 dolls no one would bother.
But he sold dozens and dozens of them. That is no longer fair use.
Like making doujin is ok , but not printing 100 chapters of alter saga Bleach and selling it for your own profit …
What he is doing is closer to buying a copy of Bleach, a copy of One Piece, binding them together and reselling it. I see no problem with that as long as he wasn’t advertising the figures as official merchandise.
So Harmony Gold basically.
You may not see a problem, but I can assure you that Shueisha would sue your ass into the ground if you were to do what figure guy did.
Because I’m sure you know that One Piece is the best selling manga series of all time and a Shueisha property. They would never allow anyone to do anything that harms the brand in any sort of way. For arguments sake they would come down with the same level of legal force as Nintendo would if someone messed with the Mario IP lol.
In addition to using and marketing 2 figures that both belong to two companies, you are earning money using the 2 brands, in this case it is illegal.
People in Japan make money off of brands all the time. What do you think doujinshi is?
Love Live specifically banned doujinshi merchandise a few years ago.
Doujinshi goods exist only at the pleasure of the license holders. There is no law in Japan that stipulates that doujinshi are legal, there’s just a tacit gentlemen’s agreement between the license holders and artists to leave each other alone. The license holder gets a bit of publicity and the artist gets to make a little money. And most license holders don’t want to bother policing derivatives of every title they own.
But every now and then a license holder will put their foot down. In this case they were very clear that merchandise was off the table, but were quiet about printed works. Likely because fan merchandise competes with official merchandise while the R-18 doujinshi you get at Comiket isn’t really competing with the official manga. Even then, Love Live has a disproportionately small showing at Comiket compared to other heavyweights like iM@S, Touhou, KanColle/Azur Lane, etc.
You do realize that Doujin material is basically buy on that day or if its a weekend, two days and done so they don’t get fucked by copyright right? Why do you think fans gather in huge numbers at these events! It’s a once in a lifetime thing to buy your fav authors work.
They generally don’t go after these people(yet) because they’re not really harming anyone.
However what the figure guy is doing is fucking someones IP and companies take that s♥♥t seriously.
Or buying doujinshi from brick and mortar shops.
Okay what about doujin games on dlsite?
I would assume by virtue of the fact dlsite is a company owned and operated in Tokyo that they have a sort of royalty thing set up with any company that raises a fuss over their license. They wouldn’t exist if they were a sort of pirate haven for people to sell their s♥♥t.
That said I’ve only been browing the site a few minutes and I’m not looking at any infringing work, but what I do see could fall under fair use.
Sounds stupid as I can take the engine of a Corvette and stuff it in a Miata and then go sell it for more than it would fetch in stock form.
Yes, but you can only sell doujins or works like that in certain dates.
But But he sold it at any time.
It’s not “certain dates” rather, its whenever the big event for doujin work is. There’s no law that states you have to sell on that date. But since Doujin is limited print run once that work is done they take the money and run.
Yikes if they ever decide to enforce copyright with Doujin work.
A hero lost for all time.
I said it once and I’ll say it again: the only devilish thing here is such enforcement of copyright law. He’s just been swapping plastic pieces between commercially available products.
Agreed this is even shittier behavior than what Disney does in the US as at least they send a cease and desist letter or threaten to sue you before getting the police involved.
Of send Ben Larson to berate you.
AND selling them. So he is getting money by selling Love Live products WITHOUT being legally able to
next thing you know, it’ll be illegal to sell old figurines without playing a “transaction fee” to the makers.
After that, you’ll also need to pay an annual subscription to the maker for you to keep the figures you purchased.
That would f♥♥k over 100s of Japanese stores both offline and in the real world so that wouldn’t happen. I think the disc rule applies here.
When you buy a videogame or movie you only buy the rights to play the game or movie on whatever devices you like. If the game or movie breaks you’re not entitled to a new one because your “license” is done. Basically you don’t own the game itself, that will always belong to the publisher.
It doesn’t. If it is, it would only limit you from getting a new figure. The guy modifes the figures he bought and sells it.
Are you daft? Figures are like any consumer product that is protected by copyrights and patents. Buying a product/service submits you to the legal terms to the product unless you just choose to not buy it at all. You are free to resell your product as a consumer/reseller as long as it isn’t altered visually or internally. “Transaction fees” is not only stupid, it is anti-consumer and doesn’t even make sense.
You know? Kind of sounds like you
Once you buy a thing its it’s yours to resale as see you see fit, modified or not.The only things to be somewhat sanely limited are vehicle/firearm items and DRM circumvention on media devices, tho looking at all the HDCP circumvention stuff it seems like its up to manufactures to give a damn about it a console s♥♥t hits the fan an HDMI hub no one bats at eye yet both are covered under the evil empire DMCA BS…
I am sorry but there is no reasonable excuse to say you can’t merge figures you bought and resell them, it just goes to prove our current thoughts on IP law and free trade is bunk, as long as nobility stays in power no one cares….a shame it takes forever for rich heads to roll in the modern era….bloodless change of power is BS you, you just bleed slower than via revolution…
It’s a joke, not a dick. Don’t choke on it too hard
No goy should be able to modify our cheap plastic!
MAZEL TOV!!!
Oy vey.