Major Japanese movie companies, such as Toho, Shochiku and Toei (plaintiff), filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against three uploaders (defendants) who edited the full-length version of the original movie and uploaded it without the permission of the copyright holders. On August 24, 2023, the Tokyo District Court (TDC) ordered the payment of 500 million JPY in compensation for damages to one of the three uploaders whose whereabouts are unknown. Prior to the judgement, the TDC had ordered the other two uploaders to pay damages for copyright infringement on November 17, 2022. Such illegal act of editing the original movie down to about a 10-minute short movie is a so-called online “fast movie” and is a growing controversial issue in Japan.
The question is how the court proceeding takes place when the whereabouts of a defendant is unknown. Under Japanese law, even if the whereabouts of a defendant is unknown, a plaintiff can file a request for “service of public notice” at the courts to move forward in the proceeding. The notice is to notify that the Court issues legal documents to be sent to the party at anytime. By posting it on the court’s bulletin board for a certain period of time, the notice is deemed to reach out to the party. As a result of the notice coming into effect, the TDC approved a request by the plaintiff for service of public notice and handed down a ruling that the uploader should pay the compensation for damages.
Moreover, the TDC approved the calculation method proposed by the plaintiff. The plaintiff calculated the damages per streaming viewing as 200 JPY based on the price of partial viewing of fee-charging video sharing site, and the calculated price is also considered deducting the fee of the platform. Since the total number of views of the “fast movie” reached more than 10 million, they calculated the amount of damages as two billion JPY. As a partial claim for recovery of minimum damages, the plaintiff requested 500 million JPY at the Court.
In response to the ruling, the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) issued the statement: “We hope that this ruling will help create momentum to ensure that even those whose whereabouts are unknown and who are believed to be overseas cannot escape the wrongdoings in which they are involved.”
[Reference]
CODA News on August 24, 2023 https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/355/