Godzilla has been taking the world by storm on multiple fronts in recent years. While North America has seen the King of the Monsters dominate Legendary’s MonsterVerse, Japan’s Toho has been creating Academy Award-winning entries of its own. This November, the long-awaited sequel to Godzilla Minus One, Godzilla Minus Zero, is set to arrive in theaters, seeing director Takashi Yamazaki once again in this kaiju universe. Unfortunately, prior to the sequel’s theatrical release, the latest Toho film landed a kaiju enthusiast in the slammer for an unexpected reason: posting spoilers online.
In Japan, copyright and intellectual property laws can be quite different from those in North America. For example, even describing the events of a film and its spoilers can be considered a crime, even if footage from said movies doesn’t accompany the text. 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi posted a detailed description of Godzilla Minus One’s story from early 2023 to 2024, which landed him in hot water. On top of posting spoilers surrounding the lizard king, Takeuchi also posted spoilers for the anime sequel film, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom. Posting the spoilers came with quite the hefty penalty, as Wataru was sentenced to a year and a half in prison with a one million yen fine to boot, earlier this year.
Alongside the wild sentencing, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association, CODA, explained the reasoning behind why Takeuchi was facing a strict penalty: “Numerous websites that extract text from movies and other content have been identified and are considered problematic as so-called ‘spoiler sites.” While these actions tend to be perceived as less serious than piracy sites or illegal uploads that upload the content itself, they are clear copyright infringements that go beyond the scope of fair use and are serious crimes. The problem with websites that extract text from movies and other content is that they reduce the willingness to pay fair price for the content, leading to people not watching the official full-length movies and causing significant damage to rights holders. Furthermore, the act of infringing on content that creators have invested time, effort, and money in producing, and unfairly obtaining advertising revenue from such sites, is extremely malicious and should never be tolerated.
The organization then detailed their steps for the future when it comes to spoilers that find their way online: “CODA will closely monitor the details of this case as they unfold during future investigations and criminal trials, and will continue to strive for the proper protection of copyrights and implement effective measures against similar websites. This activity was conducted as part of a project commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.” Godzilla Minus Zero, the long-awaited kaiju sequel, is set to arrive on November 3rd in Japan, so keep an eye out for any other sentencing when it comes to the lizard king’s path of destruction.
What do you think of this wild Godzilla news? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
