Legal Tokyo court orders two to pay 500m JPY over 'fast movie' uploads

Unbelievable. Yesterday, the Tokyo District Court ordered a man and woman to pay 500 million JPY in damages to 13 major film production companies for uploading minutes-long, edited versions of their films, known as "fast movies", on YouTube without permission. The court awarded the plaintiffs, including Toho Co, Shochiku Co and Toei Co, the total amount they had demanded in giving the first court decision in Japan concerning damages for unauthorized uploading such edited films. According to the ruling, the pair in their 20s edited and posted the videos from the beginning of 2020 to October of that year and earned at least 7 million JPY in advertising revenue, an amount far smaller than the damages approved in the ruling.

While I understand that such uploads are illegal, 500 million JPY in damages seems totally out of proportion. Corporate-friendly courts?

The plaintiffs claimed over 50 films, such as "Shin Godzilla," the Oscar-winning drama "Departures" and the horror movie "Cold Fish," were edited and illegally uploaded by the defendants and viewed more than 10 million times. The companies determined the amount by basing it on the price viewers had to pay to watch the edited films and decided the monetary value was 200 yen per view. The total damages amounted to around 2 billion yen in their assessment, but they claimed only a portion.

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Paywall alert:

I upload/download on 4kvideo Download. Is that illegal in Japan?

I often worry that my avatars I photoshop from pictures off the internet will get me into trouble with copyright laws , but I figure I change them once or twice a day and rarely ever use them twice. I figure if you don't try to sell something for profit and just use it for personal use , you should be safe.