Japanese YouTuber Arrested For Sharing Gameplay Footage
Japanese police have arrested a YouTuber for sharing gameplay and anime footage without permission for the first time. Shinoba Yoshida had been posting footage from Steins;Gate and Spy x Family for years, but it seems one of the YouTuber's more recent videos was deemed serious enough to be the final straw, seemingly being the upload that led to Japan's very first arrest for this particular crime.
Reported by Japan Today, Yoshida has been posting footage from Steins;Gate for a while, but it seems to be three more recent videos that include footage from My Darling's Embrace that have led to the YouTuber being arrested. Not only did Yoshida make money from the videos despite not having permission to use footage from the game's rights holder Kadokawa, but one of the videos spoils the game's ending.
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Since entries in the Steins:Gate series are visual novels and require little input from the player, watching a YouTube video in which the entire plot is laid out effectively means you're getting the game for free. Since the videos were monetized, not only is Kadokawa losing out as potential players enjoy the game without having to pay, but someone entirely unconnected to the studio who doesn't have permission to share the footage is benefitting from it.
This isn't a case of the YouTuber simply not knowing what they were doing was wrong either. Since their arrest, Yoshida has admitted they knew full well what they were doing was illegal. An interesting admission as Anime News Network highlights there isn't currently an industry standard when it comes to this sort of thing.
Studios handle how much of a game's content can be used by YouTubers and the
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