Japanese Government Considering a Stricter Rule to Turn Cosplay into Copyright Infringement

Cosplay, as known as “costume play” which means dressing up as anime, games, or movie characters, is getting more and more popular in Japan and even all around the world in recent decades. Although the act of cosplaying had been considered to be uncool or geeky by the public before, cosplay itself is now becoming a more popular and lucrative hobby. A lot of professional cosplayers have been started to make cosplaying their career. They earn money through public appearances, selling photos or photobooks of them dressing as some famous characters and even endorsements.

However, as cosplay does not infringe copyright according to the copyright law currently and the act of cosplay isn’t required to get any permission from the creators who create those characters they are cosplaying and making money from don’t get any cut, the Japanese government has just proposed changes on the current copyright law.

(Figure 1: Photo of Shinji Inoue handing the letter of Cool Japan ambassador appointment to Enako on https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/19581207/)

According to Sankei News, Shinji Inoue, the Minister of the Cool Japan strategy, mentioned at a press conference on 29th January that the government is considering stricter copyright rules in order to regulate copyright disputes between creators and cosplayers such as requiring cosplays to pay copyright fees. (Sankei News, 2021) The government is now finding a way to protect copyright without inhibiting this culture and promote it overseas in a positive way through the Cool Japan strategy such as naming Enako, who is knowns as the most successful professional cosplayer in Japan as one of the Cool Japan ambassadors. (Figure 1)

(Figure 2: Enako’s tweet explaining uploading cosplay photos of non-profit cosplay will not count as a copyright infringement on https://twitter.com/enako_cos/status/1353209485167259649)

The public has been worrying about whether the copyright law changes will apply to both cosplays done with and without profit motive as Kyoto News has mentioned that uploading photos of cosplaying on social media will also be considered as copyright infringement. (Kyoto News,2021) Fortunately, Enako who has discussed with the government about the issue on the day she was named as the Cool Japan ambassador, explained on Twitter that she didn’t hear about copyright infringement based on the proposing copyright laws will include uploading cosplay photos which are non-profit on the internet personally. (Enako, 2021) (Figure2)

Commentary

I am an illustrator who totally understands the importance of copyright in the creative industry, but I was also a cosplayer when I was still a secondary school student, I know that there is a need for the Japanese government to have changes on the current copyright law to prevent all possible disputes related to intellectual property if the government would like to promote cosplay overseas positively due to the rising of cosplay into popular culture. However, I have concerns about whether cosplay will become illegal due to copyright infringements. Although some people support the proposing changes on the copyright law in Japan as the changes can be able to protect intellectual property, the most controversial points of this issue are whether the changes will be applied to non-profit cosplay and the current copyright law in Japan isn’t clear enough to ensure that both cosplayers and creators can be guaranteed so there should be a set of rules which is standardized.

Reference:

Enako. (2021). Public Tweets. Twitter. [Online] Available at: https://twitter.com/enako_cos/status/1353209485167259649 [Accessed: 3 Feb. 2020].

Kyoto News. (2021). 政府がコスプレの著作権をルール化へ 海外への積極展開を後押し. Livedoor News. [Online] Available at: https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/19581207/ [Accessed: 2 Feb. 2020].

Sankei News. (2021). コスプレの著作権、政府がルール整備　トラブル防止へ. Sankei News. [Online] Available at: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/4acf10c096083643d020559da893eb1bf03097ac [Accessed: 2 Feb. 2020].