Toei Considers Legal Action Against Illegally Recorded Uploads of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Footage

Toei revealed on Monday that it has identified about 3,000 cases of illegally recorded footage uploads of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero — the second anime film in the Dragon Ball Super franchise — on various platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, 10 days after the film's opening. According to Toei, the number of cases is about 10 times that of the previous film, Dragon Ball Super: Broly.

The company added that it is looking into legal action against these uploads, and is eyeing the matter as both a criminal and civil case. Toei has also filed a request with the respective platforms to remove the illegally uploaded footage.

People who violate Japan's Copyright Act and its Act on Prevention of Unauthorized Recording of Films and the general Copyright Law face up to 10 years in prison, up to 10 million yen (about US$73,000) in fines, or both.

Suspects were arrested or charged under the law for recording in theaters from Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection in 2010, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer in 2011, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 2nd A's in 2012, The Wind Rises in 2014, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train in March 2021, and more recently, Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet in June 2021.

Another anime studio, Khara, posted a notice in June 2021 about the unauthorized recording and uploading of footage from Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time (Shin Evangelion Gekijō-ban :||), the "final" Evangelion film, which opened in Japan in March 2021. The studio added that charges have already being filed in a similar case that occurred in July 2018.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero opened in Japan on June 11. The film sold about 498,000 tickets for about 670 million yen (about US$4.99 million) in its first two days. The film has so far sold a total of 1.4 million tickets for 1,903,144,340 yen (about US$13.99 million), as of July 3.

The film opened after a delay due to the Toei Animation hack in March. The film was originally slated to open in Japan on April 22. The film began screening in IMAX starting on June 11, in 4DX and MX4D starting on June 25, and in Dolby Cinemas starting on July 1.

Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures will screen the film in theaters worldwide this summer starting in August. The summer screenings will include both the original Japanese audio with subtitles and with a dub. The companies will distribute the film in "all continents, including North America, Latin America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (excluding Japan)."

Sources: Cinema Today (倉本拓弥) via Otakomu, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero's website