A dispute over contract terms has surfaced between comedian Hiroshi (54) and outdoor gear maker Sho’s, whom he’d approached about creating an original campfire stand. Since company president Shoichi Takaku suffered a mild stroke ten years ago and can’t take the public-facing role himself, his wife has been explaining the situation based on their LINE messages. According to her account, the conflict began when the contract — which originally just said “we won’t make the same product” — later had clauses added stating “no versions in different sizes or materials either” and “non-exercise of the author’s moral rights.” On 5ch, opinions split sharply along lines of legal knowledge over whether that clause amounted to stripping the manufacturer of all its intellectual property.
9/5 (Sat) 11:00
“My husband, who serves as the company’s president, had a mild stroke about ten years ago, and I don’t want to put him in the spotlight, so I’ll be answering based on our LINE conversations instead.”
So says the wife of Shoichi Takaku, president of outdoor gear maker Sho’s. In late August, comedian Hiroshi (54) — known as one of the entertainment world’s most dedicated campers — announced on X that trouble had broken out over the production of a “campfire stand.” The uproar has drawn major attention online.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
A stroke ten years ago? That's not a real excuse lmao
That's a weird way for a company to handle this lol
Just let the president explain it himself lmao
Probably to avoid dealing with guys like you
He's got a good wife.
Maybe he's the type who drags people into his mess, so folks want to keep their distance
And yet ↓
>Since we're also a brand ourselves, it seems we assumed this would be a collaboration or a simple OEM deal (just swapping the logo on a finished product).
Is that the stroke talking?
Bringing up his illness like that is just wrong as a human being, honestly
To add:
He was trying to get it made in China and sell it under his own brand
Truly, an idea alone can't take shape,
and skill alone can't stand on its own —
it's only when the two come together that something's actually made.
What he had doesn't even rise to the level of an "idea" in product-development terms — it's more like a customer's vague wish list.
Needless to say, there's zero originality in it.
Slapping a contract like that on the company over something like this reads exactly like an attempt to hijack the manufacturer's IP.
The contract basically says "I'll pay you, but I'm taking all the IP."
Sounds like you're the one who hasn't actually understood the manufacturer's explanation lol
I feel like some YouTubers and influencers have started acting like the old mass media used to.
They seem to have convinced themselves that with their reach, they can steer public opinion however they like.
This time too, he hinted at releasing the LINE chats while asking the public to judge whether he was in the wrong —
as if he were confident that revealing the messages would prove him right.
If the manufacturer hadn't pushed back, there's a good chance public perception would've been manipulated and the company unilaterally cast as the villain.
It's basically the same playbook the old media used to run — except this time it was an individual wielding his own reach, and it didn't work.
That's probably what set off this whole mess lol
To begin with, all that repeated trial and error — the prototyping, design, and manufacturing —
was done entirely by this small factory.
Hiroshi only provided a rough sketch.
That contract effectively bans the manufacturer from ever making it again — it seizes the IP outright.
If anything it's worse than just "hand over the IP for this one item" — it's an outrageous clause that could block every existing product the company makes.
Non-exercise of moral rights is nothing like transferring all rights.
That wouldn't let anyone block the manufacturer's IP, would it?
Non-exercise of moral rights just means the manufacturer agrees not to assert those rights against Hiroshi —
it's not something Hiroshi can turn around and use against the manufacturer.
Isn't that pretty bad though?
Doesn't that mean Hiroshi could rip off Sho's products wholesale and Sho's couldn't say a thing?
It's not a rights transfer, so that's a totally different thing
Seriously don't get it.
Material costs and labor costs were involved,
and he wanted it made for free with no payment?
Probably wanted to grab the blueprints for free, get some cheap manufacturer to produce them, and sell them under the Hiroshi brand for a profit
There's no clause transferring all rights.
>Given that it was originally created as an original product, the contract stated "we won't make the same product," but a new clause was added saying "you can't make it in different sizes or materials either," and "non-exercise of the author's moral rights, with compensation included in the manufacturing cost."
This company's acting pretty immature somehow.
You're skipping over the part where they asked for the IP clause to be reconsidered.
That's about the moral-rights clause, right?
It says "intellectual property rights" though.
Moral rights are also a type of intellectual property right.
The contract included a moral-rights clause
↓
They asked for it to be reconsidered
That's the whole flow, nothing more.
Sho's explanation that "the contract assigned intellectual property rights, including the blueprints, to the other party" checks out across multiple articles. Maybe you're just fixating on this one piece and not reading the ones that are less convenient for your argument.
From the Nikkan Sports article:
"It states that the intellectual property rights belong not to me but to the other party — and that even the blueprints belong to the other party."
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
The point of contention was how to interpret the contract’s clause on the “non-exercise of the author’s moral rights.” Opinions in the thread split between those who read it as “a clause that strips the manufacturer of all its rights” and those making the legal point that “non-exercise of moral rights is different from transferring copyright — the manufacturer’s own rights don’t change.” Moral rights (such as the right of attribution and the right to preserve integrity) are, by nature, non-transferable; a non-exercise clause is simply a promise by the rights holder not to assert those claims. According to reports, the original contract only said something like “we won’t make the same product,” but the conflict is said to have started when clauses were later added stating “no versions in different sizes or materials either” and “non-exercise of the author’s moral rights, with compensation included in the manufacturing cost.” It’s worth noting that, as of this writing, there’s been no final legal conclusion on how much of Hiroshi’s “idea contribution” actually counts as intellectual property, and the two sides’ accounts still don’t line up.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Express+) thread “‘Being Called a Copycat Was Something I Couldn’t Forgive’ — The Manufacturer Caught Up in Hiroshi’s ‘Campfire Stand Trouble’ Speaks Out for the First Time on What Went Wrong.”
