Copyright law

[Aaron Gerow]

David provided the main answers on terms for copyright protection for 
film. Do keep in mind that copyright law stipulates that the copyright 
for a motion picture belongs to the producer. This was actually the 
subject of a court case which had a decision last week. Kadokawa Haruki 
(yes, he still exists, though he's currently serving his term in jail) 
sued Kadokawa Publishing for the copyright of the films he produced when 
he was president. The court decided against him and reiterated that 
copyright belongs to the company.

Here are some sites that give lots of useful information on copyright. 
The first one even has a pamphlet in pdf that you can download.

http://www.netlaw.co.jp/
http://ha1.seikyou.ne.jp/home/ueno/copyright.html
http://www1.odn.ne.jp/~aac13570/
http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet/8975/

I should add that in January a government committee on intellectual 
property rights recommended extending the copyright on materials like 
film and game software to 70 years to keep in line with many other 
countries. That means many films currently in the public domain would 
return to copyright protection and films like Tokyo Story and Ugetsu 
Monogatari, which are scheduled to become public this year, would not. I 
personally doubt this recommendation will not become law.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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