From our other sites
The story
The smash-hit film ‘Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island’ has left official merchandise in short supply, and homemade figures made by fans are now trending on social media. After Bengo4.com News covered the story, 5ch users traded opinions like “Just posting it should be fine, right?” and “Isn’t it a problem once sales or ad revenue get involved?” Opinions split over where exactly to draw the line — including cases where someone pays another person to make a figure for them, and how to treat cases where likes and view counts translate directly into income.
Published 9/4 (Fri) 10:40
Bengo4.com News
The blockbuster film ‘Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island’ is currently in theaters. It’s so popular that official merchandise frequently sells out, leading some fans to make their own goods for fun.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
What about if they post it and actually earn ad revenue from it, though?
As long as they're not doing affiliate stuff with it.
You should study copyright law before replying to this thread.
but no, they're showing off the whole build process because they're starved for validation.
So what if they're showing it off?
Honestly, idiots who don't even know that shouldn't be posting on social media.
What if they're earning revenue just from posting it on social media, though?
That's a no-go.
Selling it and earning ad revenue from it amount to the same thing.
Likes and view counts would probably count too.
Stuff like this is best left as a gray area and never spelled out.
as long as you're just enjoying it yourself?
Wouldn't the person who got paid to make it be the one in trouble?
Paying someone to assemble a model kit you bought is fine,
but having someone build something from scratch for you shouldn't be.
Illegal.
Just sending someone the official artwork and saying "make something like this" is already a copyright violation.
Personally, I wouldn't lump all of these together as the same "unauthorized derivative work":
making one for yourself at home
↓
showing photos of the finished piece
↓
distributing the 3D data
↓
distributing finished copies
↓
selling them
Because there's a difference between "permission may technically be required by law" and how much actual impact it has on the rights holder.
Because
ChatGPT ('Chappy') is scary smart.
Random tangent, but it also just walked me through how to fix a sealed Tsubota Pearl oil lighter, and I'd literally just finished the repair. This was the AI built into Chrome, though…
Garage-kit derivative figures actually often do get proper permission, you know.
and there's a risk that if the official version comes out later, the fan work gets accused of copying it.
Well, if they wanted to commercialize it, the company would've already locked down the trademarks and such in advance.
With the Gundam cards, the official artist was dumb enough to straight-up copy a fan artist's derivative work lol.
The fan artist noticed and complained to the official side about being ripped off,
and Gundam otaku ("Ganota") lost it on the fan artist like "who do you think you are!"
It's the official artist's fault for screwing up,
but fan creators accusing the official side of "copying" is seriously not a good look either.
https://jprime.ismcdn.jp/mwimgs/7/5/380mw/img_75b9cceda5d93923bec411e227810a29506523.jpg
Actually, Comiket staff check everything, and anything too close to the official design gets pulled from sale on the spot for copyright infringement.
Even so, there have been past arrests over doujinshi too.
Is the Chiikawa boom over?
Yo-kai Watch and Kemono Friends both became massive social phenomena too,
and when they ended, they ended in an instant.
But the official side hasn't said anything about this…
I think Yo-kai Watch just self-destructed after a bad change in direction.
But with this particular case, the official side isn't treating it as a problem at all —
it's just low-IQ internet locusts ("net-inago," slang for online pile-on mobs) making noise, isn't it?
Only if you're making money off it.
Background and key points of this debate
Under Japanese copyright law, turning a character into a 3D figure counts as reproduction/adaptation and in principle requires the rights holder’s permission. Making one privately just for your own enjoyment generally falls within the bounds of private-use reproduction and isn’t much of an issue, but posting it on social media goes beyond “private use,” which is technically considered a gray area. The thread’s central debate was over the difference between simply posting something versus monetizing it through sales, ad revenue, or affiliate marketing — the latter causing greater harm to the rights holder’s interests and being viewed as more clearly problematic. At the same time, doujin markets like Comiket only function the way they do because organizers proactively screen out works that infringe copyright — the fact that something is “tacitly tolerated” is not the same as it being “legal,” a distinction that’s easy to misunderstand. There was also the point that paying someone else to make a figure for you could itself amount to commissioning an unauthorized reproduction of a copyrighted work, making it different from simple private enjoyment.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Newsplus) thread ““If this isn’t allowed, is everything not allowed?” Homemade Chiikawa figures spark debate — is posting on social media NG even without selling? A lawyer’s take“
Leave a Reply