Anime Channel Copyright Controversy and YouTube Policy

  

Last December, Anime YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick (Totally Not Mark) who has over 700 thousand subscribers received 150 copyright strikes on three years’ worth of videos. 

Through his channel, Mark revealed that Toei Animation had requested the removal of up to 150 videos that contained material from Dragon Ball and One Piece (and given the long form, full series reviews on his channel, it made up for quite a huge percentage and years of work).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark creates montages of the anime he’s reviewing, discussing the work through voice-over. 

It’s a format many video game reviewers employ to talk about their favorite parts of the game. Whether it is legal or not, however, varies by country. 

Controversy over Anime YouTube channels basically starts from this point.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fair Use Policy Difference between Countries Causing the Problem

 

 

 

 

In the United States, this usage generally falls under ‘fair use‘ in terms of copyright law. 

 

There are four factors, which U.S. judges determine whether a fair use is valid or not. Certain uses satisfying these factors are considered not to infringe the copyright owner’s rights.

 

1.     The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.

2.     Using material from primarily factual works is more likely to be fair than using purely fictional works.

3.     Borrowing small bits of material from an original work is more likely to be considered fair use than borrowing large portions. However, even a small taking may weigh against fair use in some situations if it constitutes the “heart” of the work.

4.     The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work:

Uses that harm the copyright owner's ability to profit from his or her original work by serving as a replacement for demand for that work are less likely to be fair uses.

 

However, that’s likely not the case in Japan – where the rights holder resides.

Instead of fair use policy, there are certain legal exceptions, which are called “moral rights”.

 

•  The author shall have the right to offer to make available to the public his work which has not yet been made public.
•  The author shall have the right to determine whether his true name or pseudonym should be indicated as the name of the author.
•   The author shall have the right to preserve the integrity of his work and its title against any distortion, mutilation, or other modification against his will.

 

 

If the copyright holder of the contents doesn’t want people to use their content in any possible way, the copyright holder can forcibly take down the processed content according to the third moral.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Totally Not Mark" Case: YouTube Is About to Upgrade its Geo-block Policy

 

 

 

Last Thursday, Fitzpatrick updated his fans on the fact that he had not only won the copyright strike battle against Toei Animation, but also helped YouTube to improve the copyright policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As now, as he explains, this policy will be applied to copyright for the first time to allow for some flexibility in the copyright law applicability on different regions. A video would be removed in Japan due to their interpretations of copyright law, but could stay up for fans in the video's other regions, for example.

 

Fitzpatrick claimed that someone “high up at YouTube'' reached out to him through Discord and informed him of the policy, which YouTube intends to roll out on a wider scale in the future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"SUEDE"'s Case: Shopro's Lawsuit against the YouTuber

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, the YouTuber Suede, who created the parody/review "Pokémon Journey" series, will have his channel deleted entirely in three months.

Unlike Fitzpatrick’s case, in this case the copyright holder company has manually sent legal threats instead of utilizing YouTube’s automatic copyright claim system. 

 

In a video posted on Wednesday, he explained that Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (Sho-Pro) sent a court complaint demanding that he pay 80,200 yen (approximately US$700) in damages plus legal fees.

 

 

Suede clarified the steps Shopro took to take down his channel in the same video. 

 

According to his words, Shopro creates a rudimentary claim in Japan, aim it at the creator, and send it to YouTube. 

This way, YouTube has to step back since it is legal proceedings, and after the lawsuit ends videos go down instantly with no option to counter-claim.

 

 

 

 

 

This means the YouTuber will not be able to fight back by issuing a counter claim through YouTube system.

 

 Suede points out that YouTube should provide access to geo-blocking (blocking the content in specific countries as they want, in order to prevent the same kind of issues. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What kind of solution YouTube will come up with for problems caused by different copyright policies in each country is getting attention, as similar issues have become a hot topic one after another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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