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Comment by atentaten | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has watched and enjoyed some of the films from Studio Ghibli, but fails to appreciate the reason for releasing these images, can someone explain what this is all about?

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Japan has a very limited fair use law (see also Article 30[1]) to the point that a single frame capture from an anime is considered gray area unless it was used as a reference (引用) with a proper copyright attribution in the format of "(c) <Year> <Author>" usually obtained by visiting that work's home page^1. Though there's no clear line what is counted as a reference.

I think this is just Ghibli open up the possibility of using these images in those gray area (e.g. posting these shots on social media, referencing from a blog, etc.)

[1]: https://www.cric.or.jp/english/clj/cl2.html

Would it be legal/illegal to vectorize these images and print T-shirts and sell? Not that I'm going to do it, I like my bathtub too much to do silkscreen stuff at home but curious about the legalese.

IANAL, some will say it is OK under the private use cause in Article 30 as long as you print it yourself, but some will say it's not since you're wearing it in public thus it no longer become private use. I'm not aware if the private use cause in situation like this ever been tested on court. Ghibli saying "within common sense" doesn't help clear this case either.

Appears briefly discussed in their magazine article but I don’t have access to full quotes, gist of it is trying to protect rights could accelerate obsolescence contrary to intent:

https://twitter.com/ockeysan/status/1307119386235461637

https://twitter.com/nmisaki/status/1306950045091139585

https://twitter.com/doridori/status/1307554413406384129

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