Technology

TL;DR He was arrested for uploading a recording of the entire VN two days before the game came out, which, being a visual novel, debatably cost them sales from people who just read his video instead of buying it. It's a bit like if someone filmed themselves turning the pages of a new Harry Potter book before the street date so everyone could read it.

Seems to me that it's less "uploaded lets plays" and more "posted game footage before the game release", and they nailed him for anything they could.

I don't think piracy should be punished, but like, if you're gonna do it, don't post video recordings of yourself doing it before the game comes out my guy.

A lot of people are going to be super quick to post something, but actually read what it says. If you stream or upload game footage before it's official release date, they have full rights to shut you down

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A Japanese court has convicted a man of violating copyright law after he uploaded gameplay and anime videos without publisher permission.

Reported by Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, the 53-year-old man, Shinobu Yoshida, was sentenced to two years in prison and assessed a 1 million yen fine (or about $6,700 USD.)

Yoshida was arrested in May of this year after uploading gameplay videos of the visual novel Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace back in 2019.

Yoshida also uploaded videos summarizing episodes of the Spy × Family and Steins;Gate anime shows.

CODA characterized the complaint as “malicious cases of posting videos containing content and endings (spoilers) without permission from the rights holders, [...] and unfairly gaining advertising revenue through copyright infringement.”

Asahi Shimbun reported that the prosecution stated Yoshida’s actions were, “a malicious act that tramples on the effort of content production.” They argued that because he uploaded videos that condensed and spoiled anime episodes and videos of gameplay from a visual novel — a style of game that focuses on reading to experience the story rather than through gameplay — consumers would be less incentivized to spend money on either.

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Yikes, I wonder if they issued a warning first