I felt like posting this saga once enough time passed when an anime restoration and archiving company closed down and had to figure out what to do with thousands of anime film masters or destroy them. Few companies are capable of storing film masters, and Tokyo Lab was one such company. Film Masters are essential for film preservation and restoration (especially 4k restorations of older works).
The problem came when Tokyo Lab’s parent company, TOHO, announced they were shutting down Tokyo Lab.[1] The main issue revolves around what the company was to do with thousands of unclaimed film masters. As we’ve discussed in class, there are orphan works where if you cannot find the copyright owner of an IP that works, you can gain a license to use that work after convincing the Copyright Board of Canada you’ve done a reasonable job to find the rights holders.[2] Japan also has an orphan works system, which requires a decision from the chief of the Cultural Affairs Agency that reasonable efforts were made to find and contact the copyright owner. This decision is generally made after two months, as Kensaku Takase, a partner at Baker Mackenzie’s Tokyo branch, responds. The system itself, as he argues, is very burdensome to some. Considering the efforts a museum would have to go through for all 20,000 works, it’s clear that the system to protect rights holders from their copyright being violated through orphan works does not fit with Tokyo Lab’s case.[3]
Tokyo Lab made a statement asking any rights holders to contact them to retrieve their film masters. Not all masters were picked up, making this a crisis for media preservation. It was so much of a situation that it had Japanese Members of Parliament like Zenko Kurishita make a public statement on Twitter (X, I guess) that he was working with Tokyo Laboratory to prevent discarding as much of the works as possible. He says the main issue is copyright, and because the rights holders are difficult to locate, no transfer is possible to an entity like a preservation entity like the National Film Archive. Furthermore, he explains the cost to store all these film masters is roughly 5-6 million yen yearly. This is approximately $46,742.02 – $56,090.42 in Canadian dollars.[4]
Despite the grim situation, as unsurprisingly, not all the rights holders could be found, the parent company TOHO created the TOHO archive to manage the material on November 30th. So, the problem is put on hold for now, but changes in Japanese copyright law are probably needed to figure out the fate of all 20,000 of these film masters.[5]
On a positive note to this crisis, David Miranda, a producer at Discotek Media (a film restoration company), is under suspicion that this whole process of looking for rights holders has led to the favorable situation that some lost media was found. Last month, Golgo 13’s 1971 anime adaptation was announced to have been found and set to be rebroadcasted this month for the first time in 52 years. While it is not publicly stated if it was found through this rights holder search, the timing is quite uncanny.[6]
Hopefully, the problem surrounding orphaned works in Japan won’t be ignored, seeing that there’s a whole warehouse full of them and a company that probably would like not to be spending roughly millions of yen each year waiting for the problem to be resolved.
[1] Crystalyn Hodgkins, “Tokyo Laboratory Shuts Down in November, Works to Return Film Originals”, (9 September 2023), online: Anime News Network <https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-09-09/tokyo-laboratory-shuts-down-in-november-works-to-return-film-originals/.202144>.
[2] Copyrightlaws com Editor, “Orphan Works in Canada: Unlocatable Copyright Owners”, (5 September 2022), online: Copyrightlaws.com: Copyright courses and education in plain English <https://www.copyrightlaws.com/orphan-works-in-canada-unlocatable-copyright-owners/>.
[3] Admin Administrator, “Obscure copyrights in Asia – and what they mean for vintage films”, online: Asia IP <https://www.asiaiplaw.com/section/cover-story/obscure-copyrights-in-asia-and-what-they-mean-for-vintage-films>.
[4] くりした善行 🌰 参議院全国比例 @日曜『東ヒ44b』 [@zkurishi], 歴史的な価値を持つ大量のネガフィルム原版が行き場を失って廃棄せざるを得ない状況にある問題。本日、東京現像所の方にお話伺いました。社としても68年間の活動の結晶であるフィルム原盤には歴史的価値があると認識されており、出来る限り廃棄はしたくないとの思いをお持ちでした(続 (2023).
[5] Kevin Chu, “Huge Anime Crisis Averted – Thousands of Classic Anime Were Just Saved”, ScreenRant (2 December 2023), online: <https://screenrant.com/classic-anime-saved-tokyo-laboratory-toho/>.
[6] NNAMDI EZEKWE, “Golgo 13 1971 Anime Resurfaces, Rebroadcasts in December on Japanese TV – Crunchyroll News”, Crunchyroll News (15 November 2023), online: <https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2023/11/16/golgo-13-1971-anime-resurfaces-december-rebroadcast>.
By Samuel Honer
Communications Law