After being arrested earlier this year, three people have been handed suspended prison sentences and fines for uploading so-called “fast movies” to YouTube. Their trial, which took place in Japan, heard that the defendants uploaded minutes-long movie summary edits to YouTube with accompanying commentary. All three pleaded to criminal breaches of Japan’s copyright law.

In the summer we reported on an unusual situation in Japan where copyright holders felt that the rise of so-called ‘fast movies’ represented a threat to their business.

‘Fast movies’ are essentially heavily edited copies of feature-length films that tell the entire story in just a few minutes. However, unlike most official trailers they also tend to come with commentary, in addition to an abundance of spoilers. Available on dedicated YouTube channels they became a roaring success but in Japan, this is a risky business.

With no broad ‘fair use’ style exceptions to lean on in a crisis, channels generating millions of views were seen as a major threat to the movie business. In response, rights holders vowed to do something about them and soon after, three suspects were arrested under suspicion of uploading ‘fast movies’ to YouTube.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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