Written by: Jei Beltrano | Published on: January 9, 2021 at 12:11 AM PHT (GMT+8)
A massive outcry on Twitter which started Friday afternoon is continuously happening as Japanese company Shueisha slams the platform users with DMCA "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" strikes claiming to infringe the company's copyrighted works. As of writing this news, Shueisha is trending worldwide on Twitter with 41,000+ tweets.
Shueisha, known for owning and publishing hit manga series including One Piece, Demon Slayer, Dragonball Z, Naruto, and many others, started sending copyright strikes to Twitter users resulting to some of the users being banned to several features on Twitter and even resulted to their Twitter accounts being completely blocked or removed.
It was also reported that there are official anime and manga accounts receiving the same notices. AniRadio+ is still confirming these reports.
According to most of users who were pinned by the copyright strikes, they've received infringement claims on their One Piece and Dragonball related posts, and some even received a strike by using a Shueisha-owned character as a profile picture. Worst, some also shared their story of receiving a strike on their fanarts and doujin works even it should not be the case as far as 'Fair Use' is concerned.
'Fair Use' states that copyrighted works used for the purpose of news reporting, criticism, commentary, teaching, scholarship, or research and parodies such as fan-made, doujin, fan-fiction arts, and other derivative works may be considered fair.
Many users also think that the incorrect tagging of copyright strikes to works under fair use may be caused by the automated detection bots being used by the company or the third-parties if there are any.
The notice of infringing Shueisha's works in-line with DMCA were sent to the email addresses and Twitter inbox of the striked users. It can be seen on the shared Tweets below.
Here are some of the Tweets made by the users:
This user received a DCMA strike that she claims to came from a Dragonball Z GIF she posted.
Artur - Library of Ohara, a famous content creator on Twitter even did receive a DCMA strike for a One Piece art he used as a profile picture.
The worst is even a user personally involved in the company itself also did receive a strike for his works. Fenyon, who was described by Twitter users to be affiliated with Shueisha was not spared by the copyright strikes.
It is still not clear if this unprecedented move by Shueisha has something to do with the Japan's Revised Copyright Act, but only one thing is for sure. Japan is moving towards eliminating piracy. It might not be today but on the following years ahead.
Original Story by AniRadio+
