YouTuber Sentenced To Two Years In Prison For Posting A Let's Play
It's been announced that a YouTuber called Shinobu Yoshida was found guilty of copyright infringement by Sendai District Court earlier this week, with a Stein's Gate: My Darling's Embrace Let's Play series mentioned as one of the main causes.
In an article from Japanese outlet Asahi Digital (translated by Twitter user KaroshiMyriad), it's been revealed that Yoshida has been sentenced to either two years in prison or a five year suspended sentence, and whacked with a 1 million yen fine. Judge Koichi Nakamura found Yoshida guilty of copyright infringement for posting a Let's Play series of Stein's Gate: My Darling's Embrace (a dating sim based on the anime of the same name), as well as edited videos of the Spy x Family anime series.
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Yoshida claimed in court that all he wanted to do was share content as one of his hobbies, but prosectuors apparently argued that doing so negatively impacted the sales of both products and that Yoshida's actions "maliciously trampled on efforts of content creation". It's unknown what route Yoshida is going to take or what the conditions of his potential five year suspended sentence are, but what we do know is that this is the first time that a content creator has been found guilty of copyright infringement over posting gameplay videos to YouTube.
Yoshida was arrested for this case back in April earlier this year for posting several "spoiler videos" of Stein's Gate: My Darling's Embrace and Spy x Family to YouTube without permission form their respective studios. At the time, Yoshida apparently confessed that he "posted the videos knowing that they were illegal" during police questioning, and admitted to all of the charges
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