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Tokyo Court: YouTube Must Help Regulate Text Manga Spoilers
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The Tokyo District Court ruled as a temporary measure on Tuesday that YouTube must disclose the user information for an account on its website that allegedly violated copyright laws. The account reportedly posted just the dialogue text from the Ushijima the Loan Shark manga without permission. The court determined that it is illegal to share not only the manga itself, but also just the text from a manga, without permission.
Shogakukan filed a case on October 4 on behalf of the manga's creator Shohei Manabe. The claim asked that the account information of the YouTube user in question be disclosed on copyright grounds. The court then ruled that YouTube must disclose the user's information. The case is still ongoing.
Manga piracy has been recognized as a social issue in Japan. Some YouTube users post images of manga pages as videos on YouTube, which exposes story spoilers when videos reveal a work's text.
Source: Anime! Anime! (仲瀬 コウタロウ)
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