Overview
- Tokyo’s District Court sentenced 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi to one and a half years in prison and fined him 1 million yen for running a site that posted long, spoiler-heavy summaries of films and anime.
- The case focused on two posts flagged by rights holders through the Content Overseas Distribution Association, covering an Overlord episode from 2018 and the 2023 film Godzilla Minus One.
- Judges found the posts broke a statute that bars creating a new work that preserves the original’s essential characteristics without permission.
- Prosecutors cited the site’s advertising income, reported at about 38 million yen in 2023, to show a profit motive and potential economic harm to Kadokawa and Toho.
- CODA said it will act against similar “spoiler sites,” extending its earlier crackdown on short “Fast Movie” video recaps to text in a country that lacks a broad fair-use rule.