Authorities from Hiroshima Prefecture arrested the president of Nagai Works, 39-year-old Nobue Katō, for the suspicion of violating Japan's copyright laws by selling unauthorized cosplay outfits, specifically civilian outfits from the 2011 Super Sentai series, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
Katō allegedly conspired with his employees from March to April to recreate four jackets from the said series (seen in the photo are Captain Marvelous, Gai and possibly Joe's outfits) without permission from Toei, the property's copyright holder. Police suspects that the company earned 32,000 yen (US$320) during this period.
Accordingly, authorities believed that they have already earned about 300 million yen (about US$3.04 million) from sales of similar products. They added that Katō was selling more than 4,000 types of cosplay clothing through six online retailers under names such as “Trymax."
via Anime News Network
I didn't know that there's an official Gokaiger cosplay product...
ReplyDeletehuh...
You shouldn't pirate the pirates.
ReplyDeleteIn the u.s this wouldn't be a big deal since making clothes that people want is a business.
ReplyDeleteOnly in Japan would you be breaking the law for making cosplay clothes.
Do otakus really still think Japan is amazing?
Oh my god!!!
ReplyDeleteThere goes my chances of cosplaying as Troy from Super Megaforce.
ReplyDeleteTartar sauce!
Did any of you even READ the article? This is not a case of 'The big Evil Corporation keeping the Little Man down'. These people wern't simply 'making cosplay clothes and getting arrested' If all they were doing was just making cosplay for themselves, that'd be fine. The problem comes in with them making and SELLING the items.
ReplyDeleteBottom line is, it's not their property to make money off of. Why should they be allowed to profit and get rich off of a property that they don't even own?