Supreme Court, Third Petty Bench · July 21, 2020 · Heisei 30 (2018) (Ju) No. 1412 · Judgment: appeal dismissed

A user who retweeted a post containing an unauthorized copy of a photograph, where the platform's specifications cropped the image so that the author's name was no longer displayed, infringed the author's right of attribution and was the "sender of the infringing information" under Article 4(1) of the Provider Liability Limitation Act.

Case seeking disclosure of sender identification information

Facts

The plaintiff, a photographer, had published on his own website an image of his photograph bearing a © mark and his name in one corner. In December 2014 an account on a short-message social network posted, without permission, a copy of that image, which was stored as an image file on the service's server. Three other accounts then retweeted (reposted) that post. A retweet causes data specifying a link to the original image file and how it is to be displayed to be recorded on the server for the retweeting account's timeline page, and the original image is then sent automatically to viewers' devices. Under the service's specifications, the image shown on the timeline was cropped at the top and bottom so that the name was no longer displayed. The plaintiff sought from the operator of the service, under Article 4(1) of the Act, the sender information of the users who had retweeted. The court below granted the claim.

Issue

(1) Whether "offering or presenting a work to the public" in Article 19(1) of the Copyright Act requires an exploitation of the work falling under the rights in Articles 21 to 27. (2) Whether the retweeting users infringed the right of attribution, and whether the fact that clicking the image would reveal the original with the name amounts to displaying the author's name. (3) Whether, for that infringement, the retweeting users are "senders of the infringing information" under Article 4(1) of the Act who infringed rights "through the distribution of infringing information".

Ruling

(1) Article 19(1) is not limited by its wording to presentations made through exploitation under Articles 21 to 27, and its purpose of protecting the author's personal connection with the work applies regardless. Presenting the work to the public therefore does not require such exploitation; displaying the image on viewers' screens was a presentation even if the retweet was not an infringing exploitation. (2) By transmitting the link and display data, the retweeting users caused the cropped image without the name to be displayed and did not otherwise display the author's name. Although the display format followed the service's specifications, the users retweeted using that system whether or not they were aware of it, and the result objectively arose from their acts. That clicking the image would show the original with the name means only that the name appears on a separate page, and nothing indicates viewers would ordinarily click; this does not amount to displaying the author's name. The retweeting users therefore infringed the right of attribution. (3) Regardless of their subjective awareness, the retweeting users recorded the link and display data on a recording medium of specified telecommunications equipment and transmitted it to viewers' devices, bringing about the display of the cropped image without the name; that transmission directly caused the infringement. The rights were infringed through the distribution of that data, and the retweeting users were the senders of that infringing information. The appeal was dismissed. One justice filed a concurring opinion and one a dissent (reasoning that the retweeting users could not change how the image was displayed and that the unauthorized upload was made by the original poster, so they could not be regarded as the infringers).

Provisions

Copyright Act, Art. 19(1), 19(2); Provider Liability Limitation Act (before the 2021 amendment), Art. 4(1)