Court Rules Foreign Service Provider Must Disclose Information in Piracy Case; Illustrator’s Work Shared Illegally

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:05 JST, March 3, 2025

The Intellectual Property High Court ruled that a foreign telecommunications service provider which allowed Japanese copyrighted material to be posted on a Japanese website without the permission of the copyright owner is subject to court orders to disclose information on the person who uploaded the material, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

According to judicial precedents, information disclosure orders by Japanese courts are given only to domestic companies. But Chief Judge Masatoshi Miyasaka said that a flexible interpretation is necessary, given the internationalization of information distribution.

The high court on Oct. 4 overruled an earlier decision by the Tokyo District Court that had rejected a petition filed by a female illustrator from the Kanto region seeking damages for copyright infringement from a Taiwan-based service provider, after her work was posted on a Japanese website through the firm. The high court sent the case back to the district court, which had ruled in March last year that the post is exempt from Japanese court actions.

The district court on Jan. 7 ordered the Taiwan company to disclose such information as the name and address of the person who had posted her work without permission as she had demanded. The woman has begun procedures for the disclosure.

With instances of copyright infringement through piracy continuing unabated, the judicial decisions may pave the way for relief for victims.

The illustrator discovered in August 2023 that an illustration she had created had been posted online without her permission. Based on the Provider Liability Limitation Law, she filed a lawsuit against the Taiwan-based service provider, demanding that the company disclose the name and address of the person who had posted the illustration.

The Provider Liability Limitation Law was created with reference to the civil procedure law stipulating that a lawsuit cannot be handled in a domestic court unless it is “related to business in Japan.”

Based on the framework, the district court dismissed her claim as it is “not subject to domestic court actions, as the content seems to have been uploaded through a connection service for users in Taiwan.”

The high court, however, stated appropriate measures need to be taken so that judicial remedies are not hindered in the case of cross-border online copyright infringement. “Rigid judgments are not appropriate, given the characteristics of connection services that are open regionally and internationally,” it said.

Since the post in question was run on a Japanese-language website and contained Japanese text, the high court judged that it is highly likely that the post was made on a device using a SIM card provided by a Taiwan company for use by Japanese people.

“The case should not be judged as being outside the scope of a domestic court action just because it involves a foreign service provider,” the court said. “[The illustrator’s] complaint concerns business in Japan.”

Wataru Takitsubo, the lawyer representing the woman, said, “The court decision was something based on the actual situation as there is no end to the unauthorized posting of contents across national borders online.”

Digital piracy is the online copying or distribution of copyrighted works such as music, anime, films and manga without the permission and fair compensation of the copyright holders. With the increased digitization of works of all types and the spread of smartphones, it has become easier to copy and distribute works illegally.