Toei Animation says it will take legal action against anyone who shared pirated clips of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero online.
In a report from Japan's Cinema Today, which was translated by Twitter user @DBSHype, Toei Animation vows to file both criminal and civil charges against anyone who shared leaked clips of the studio's latest animated feature, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, online. According to Toei, over 3000 illegal clips of the movie were uploaded online within the film's first ten days of release, which is ten times more than the amount of clips that were shared for the previous movie in the franchise, Dragon Ball Super: Broly. "We will continue to take legal action to deal with such acts, and we have already discussed the issue with our law firm about the damage caused by this voyeurism," Toei told Cinema Today.
The new Dragon Ball movie premiered in Japan on June 11 and within hours of its debut, social media worldwide was flooded with spoilers about Super Hero's biggest surprise twists, some of which included video recorded in theaters. Shortly afterwards, Toei began to incorporate spoiler-filled material into their commercials for the film in Japan, though these trailers have notably been blocked from streaming outside of the region. The movie will not be released internationally until Aug. 19, when distributor Crunchyroll will bring the highly anticipated film to theaters in North America.
Toei Animation's promise of legal action is not to be taken lightly, as the company has built-up a reputation for being very protective about its intellectual properties online. Last December, the studio was heavily criticized for using YouTube's copyright strike system to remove over 150 videos created by YouTuber Totally Not Mark. According to the content creator, the videos were mostly reviews and drawing tutorials, which should have been covered by standard fair use protections. The dispute between the YouTuber and Toei Animation caused YouTube to overhaul its copyright policies. Totally Not Mark's videos were allowed to remain online, though they are now blocked from viewing in Japan, which notably does have the same fair use protections for reviews and other derivative material that some other countries have.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the first movie in the franchise to be animated entirely using CG. The movie has earned 1.7 billion yen (about $12.8 million USD at current exchange rates) in the three weeks since it was released, which is a healthy sum by most anime standards, but is noticeably less than the franchise-best performance that Dragon Ball Super: Broly achieved when it was released in 2018.
All of the previous Dragon Ball anime series are available for streaming on Crunchyroll. Akira Toriyama's original manga is available in English from publisher VIZ Media.
Source: Twitter, Cinema Today