Kurosawa films and copyright suit

[Aaron Gerow]

>
> What word are they using for "originality." (I'm hoping it's  
> orijinaruchii!)

The word is dokusosei ???. You can easily find the old  
copyright law on the net.
>
>
>> Or is Toho audacious enough to claim copyright revenues even as  
>> they assert the film is an original creation of an author? One  
>> wonders whether it will not take just one lawsuit by a former  
>> director's estate to open the Pandora's box.
>
> On the contrary, I suspect one of Toho's motives is to tamper down  
> any other potential rivals to its archive simply because  
> distributors don't want to risk lawsuits....lawsuits to defend  
> themselves, OR lawsuits to challenge Toho and stir things up (the  
> Pandora's Box theory).

Certainly, they are trying to frighten other potential DVD  
distributors. But what if Cosmo wins? And what if there are lawsuits  
from other directions, like directors' estates? These presumably  
would be based on Toho's own argument, just playing it to its logical  
conclusion.



Aaron Gerow
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu