They definitely must follow Japanese law for their Japanese customers. That doesn't mean Japanese law applies to all of their customers worldwide, though.
The copyright law that applies to a work is the copyright law from the country the work was created in. Japanese works fall under Japanese copyright law for all customers worldwide.
Source? Copyright applies where the work is distributed. If you sell a counterfeit Japanese book in Germany, the Japanese publisher will need to sue in a German court. That makes sense because Japanese laws and courts have no bearing on German nationals (unless they are in Japan).
Copyright still works internationally, since what constitutes infraction in your own country is probably an infraction abroad as well. Most countries have signed the Berne convention and have very similar copyright laws. Yet there are still differences, for example the length of time it takes for a work to enter in the public domain, and local markets reflect this.
Things are complicated online, since platforms based in one country distribute to many other countries, and so they open themselves up to liabilities in many countries. Where platforms don’t have the resources to differentiate by country, they might choose the most restrictive available interpretation…
To be clear, what Berne does is remove the requirement to get a registration in every single country in the world if you make a copyrighted work. You may be required to file a copyright claim with your local copyright office, but otherwise the main goal of Berne was to make it frictionless to pursue someone in say, Germany, for violating a copyright registered in Italy, without needing to register that same copyright again at the German copyright office.
As for what's used internationally - 50 years after author death at minimum is mandated by Berne. Practically it's author death + 70 years or if there's a shorter international length for a foreign work, then apply that.
That's because that is Germany's copyright law, which got harmonized across the EU. The US's "Sonny Bono act", which extended copyright to the same length, was mostly aimed at not having Hollywood movies and other such exports fall to the public domain in Europe after 50 years (the prior extension, which was made to be a signatory to Berne).
Yes, because of Berne you don’t need to register copyright, and your copyright applies in all countries that are signatories. But it’s still national copyright you are dealing with.
As a German publisher, if an Italian publisher distributes a counterfeit copy of your book in Italy, you are in your right to send a cease-and-desist, but under Italian law, which just happens to be similar to the German one (because they are both signatories to Berne). If the Italian publisher doesn’t comply and it ends up in a lawsuit, it is going to be a lawsuit in Italy.
If the Italian publisher also distributes the counterfeit book in Germany, you have standing to sue them in a German court (theoretically only for the copies distributed in Germany).
As to the length of copyright, it’s not relevant if it’s a foreign or domestic work (that’s actually the point of Berne!)—you have to apply the length of copyright of the country you are distributing in. For a long time Canada had the minimum death + 50 years, which is 20 years shorter than most common death + 70 years. This did not mean that Canadian authors got 20 years less internationally. Rather, it meant that Canadian publishers could distribute any work, whether domestic or internationally, 20 years earlier than most other countries… as long as they only published in Canada.
The Sonny Bono act similarly has no impact on the EU public domain, it was to prevent works to enter into the public domain in the US.
> The Sonny Bono act similarly has no impact on the EU public domain, it was to prevent works to enter into the public domain in the US.
It does - the EU public domain law is "70 years after author death or, for a foreign work, the international copyright length, whichever is shorter", not "70 years after author death".
Source? There are no EU laws. There are only directives, that member states need to implement, just like they need to implement the treaties they are signatory to, in their local laws. This is a good overview of the different directives and treaties that affect the members:
I’ve never heard of “70 years after author death or, for a foreign work, the international copyright length, whichever is shorter”. It’s not in 93/98/EEC (that harmonised EU on 70 years)° or in the Berne Convention. But I’d be happy to be corrected.
I don't have a source, but upon doing further research the larger problem is the enforcement as countries through various agreements countries only have to give at least as strong protections as they give to their own nationals.
Right, but the treaties set the baseline of enforcement that all countries that sign them need to respect, and Berne convention copyright is already pretty strong. If you make laws stronger than that, they only apply in your own country. That makes a lot of sense.
What makes enforcement difficult then is the cost of legal action… it is already expensive and time consuming in your own country, so it gets really expensive if you want to sue someone abroad, even if, because of copyright treaties, you have standing.
I've seen a comment on that video suggesting that he could simply restrict his videos not to be shown in Japan for now. But I understand that, given that Nintendo has caused him two copyright strikes now and a third would kill his channel, he doesn't want to take any further risks until he's reached an agreement with Nintendo.
Someone linked the law below, but even without checking it, it is widely accepted at conventions that people make money from doujin works on IP they do not own, for example.
Not always. See DBAF (both deviations from DBGT). Yes, later the former authors worked for Sueisha/Toei, as the had lots of experience copying Toriyama's style, but back in the day they were totally legal sales of these mangas.
Nintendo has a hard time with the fact Japan law does not apply in the west.