Man arrested in Japan for selling AI-colorized pirated 1954 'Godzilla' film
Ippei Miyamoto, a 66-year-old part-time worker, is accused of having sold the DVD -- which features the iconic fire-breathing, city-stomping giant reptilian monster -- for 2,980 yen ($21) to a man in Tokyo last November.
Police suspect Miyamoto used AI-equipped software to add color and produce the DVD.
Miyamoto, who was arrested on Monday, has admitted to the charge, saying, "I sold it knowing it was a crime."
He is also believed to have sold about 1,500 fake DVDs, ranging from 3,000 yen to 30,000 yen, on online flea market websites from January 2024 to May 2025, earning at least 1.7 million yen, according to the police.
He had advertised the films as being "legal" and "masterpieces colored by AI."
Toho Co., which distributes and owns the copyright to the long-running Godzilla franchise, filed a complaint with the police in February this year, leading authorities to search Miyamoto's house on Monday and confiscate about 70 DVDs.
The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, of which Toho is a member, said that it has been aware that pirated color copies of films had been circulating and vowed to strengthen its watch over unauthorized production.
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Osaka man arrested for selling colorized version of the original Godzilla from 1954
Color me surprised! Colorizing old movies has long been a controversial process, with many in the industry thinking it's an absurd notion that 'color = better.' Even in this era, where AI can make colorization more accurate and realistic than ever before, just because we can doesn't mean we should. A great example of this is the original Godzilla movie from 1954. Its starkly dark tones give it such a foreboding atmosphere and adding color to that would only serve to highlight that it's just a guy in a rubber suit breaking a bunch of models, as so well exemplified in many of the subsequent color films of the '60s. That didn't stop one man from trying though, and on 17 June, the Osaka Prefectural Police arrested a 66-year-old man for selling a colorized version of Godzilla . 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This meant authorship went to a loosely defined group of key people, the most important of whom for this situation was director Ishiro Honda because he ended up living the longest. ▼ Actually, Godzilla composer Akira Ikufube outlived Honda, but possibly for contract reasons was not included as an author. He certainly should have been though. Then, in 1971, the law changed and the period was extended to the death of the last author plus 50 years. This new law stated that regarding older movies the longest period should be applied. Here's where things get kind of kooky. ▼ We're talking Gamera-level kooky. Toho is not the author at this point so we can rule out their validity period altogether, which leaves the last death plus 38 years under the old law or plus 50 years under the new law. Since the law stated that the longer period should be applied, a three-year-old could probably tell you that 50 years is longer than 38 and should be applied. However, because the authors were still alive in 1971, no specific period could be established and, as illogical as it might sound, it couldn't definitively be said that 50 years after death is longer than 38 years after death in this case, so the old law of plus 38 continued. Another revision occurred with the TPP negotiations in 2018, during which Japan adjusted its copyright law to be more in line with other countries. Here, the period was extended again to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author with the longer period being applied, and to streamline everything this time using common sense, all works were to be automatically upgraded from 50 years after death to 70 years. But wait! Remember that Godzilla never had the 50-year law applied to it in the first place and therefore was not subject to an automatic 70-year extension. In the end, it will remain unchanged and still become public domain on New Year's Day 2032. If you could understand all that, then I'd feel really proud of myself for having explained it, because I had to reread this stuff about 20 times and draw a diagram to figure it out myself. I think at this point it's easy to see that the copyright status of the original Godzilla film is really, really convoluted. Police said they intend to look into other colorized movies for sale online like Seven Samurai , but need some time to untangle which ones still actually have copyrights on them first. So, if you're planning on colorizing or in any way reproducing classic Japanese movies in Japan, you're probably best not to unless you're really sure it's OK. And I'm sure you're not sure it's OK because no one is, including many of the filmmakers and lawmakers themselves. It's all best left alone anyway. 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