Conan: The winner is justice

Now, the factory pollution case has been concluded, and less than half a year has passed.

Moreover, now Gu Meimen still has to pay off the mortgage and urgently needs a sum of money to pay off the balance of the house.

It's time to take over that commission.

Of course, before that, Gu Meimen still needs to confirm.

What is the current progress of plagiarizing novels, and whether plagiarism really exists.

Therefore, some time ago, he assigned Xiao Ai some work in this area.

"Oh, about that matter, I actually investigated it almost that night. If you didn't tell me, I would have forgotten about it."

"So fast?"

"Nonsense, who do you think I am? You are lucky to have such a good employee like me in this life."

Xiao Ai rolled her eyes at Gu Meimen.

Then, I opened the work document on my laptop and called up a file inside.

Open the file, which is a table document.

A paragraph of text is displayed on both sides of the table. The text paragraphs are occasionally annotated with different colors.

It looks like a color palette.

"I have read both novels once, and I can confirm that there is plagiarism in them."

Xiao Ai came to the conclusion first.

She stretched out her green-white finger and pointed at the words on the palette.

"The text excerpt on the left side of the table is Kimura's original novel "The Wandering Tanuki", and the one on the right is Daisuke Tokura's plagiarized novel "The Adventures of the Shield Black Cat". I will use the same color for the passages involving plagiarism. It’s all marked.”

Gu Meimen looked at it carefully and nodded.

Indeed, as Xiao Ai said, there are many similar words in these two novels.

Plagiarized novels excerpt some of the best passages from the original novel and use the "Japanese-to-Japanese" technique to slightly change the subject, predicate and object grammar of the text, and make it their own.

This technique is commonly known as "washing the text".

It is a very shameless and common novel plagiarism technique.

"Very good." Gu Meimen nodded, "So what's the current progress of plagiarizing novels? How much money did the plagiarist make?"

Xiao Ai replied: "The progress is almost 700,000 words. The seventh volume has been written and the eighth volume is being written. The content of the first seven volumes is currently on sale in physical books in various bookstores and online electronic sales platforms across the country, which is very popular."

Gu Meimen raised her eyebrows: "Half a year has passed and you only wrote this?"

"This progress is very fast. The plagiarist has written at least 400,000 words during this period." Xiao Ai reminded, "He is a very diligent author in the light novel channel that was serialized online and opened at the same time."

"So what? I only wrote 400,000 words in half a year. What a waste!"

Gu Meimen shook his head and said.

Can it not be waste?

It’s also a web article. Let’s try switching to a web article from a country across the ocean.

At this pace, I'm afraid you'll starve to death, and the rolls will roll you up to death.

If a country across the ocean does not write 10,000 words of online articles a day, can the author be called an author?

waste! waste! waste!

What's more, the structure of Japanese is much looser than that language.

A sentence with the same meaning can easily have more than a dozen characters in Japanese.

If it were watered down, one chapter would not have much actual content at all.

After sighing, Gu Meimen asked again: "So, what about animated games and other peripherals? Are they released?"

"The animation has been released, and the first season has been completed. The ratings have been good, and the second season is being planned. At the same time, the game copyright has also been taken over by the studio, and the production progress is very fast. A trial version has been released on the Nintendo switch and steam platforms. . In addition, designers are developing a series of peripheral toys and entrusting manufacturers to produce them."

Xiao Ai said, operating the mouse to open another document.

Inside is a column chart.

The statistical chart lists the royalties and copyright fees received by plagiarists in various fields.

"To sum up, the current profit amount of plagiarists, excluding taxes and a series of miscellaneous expenses, is estimated to have exceeded one billion yen."

"So tall?"

At this time, even Gu Meimen raised his eyebrows.

"He just wrote so few words and made so much money in such a short time?"

Gu Meimen usually doesn't pay much attention to Japanese light novels and has little interest in these things. Thinking about it this way, it almost shocked him.

"Daisuke Tokura is a great writer, one of the top best-selling writers in Japan."

Xiao Ai pushed up the glasses on the bridge of her nose.

"I see."

Gu Meimen nodded.

This is quite normal.

The career of a writer can also be regarded as a tool for attracting money.

But not every writer can make money.

Most writers are on the street and can only make ends meet, and some can't even afford to eat.

Only top writers can live a glorious life, and people think that the income in this industry is very high, giving people the illusion that they can make money.

Here, Xiao Ai hesitated.

"Well, actually I've always had a problem."

"explain."

"I remember that Article 119 of the Copyright Act stipulates that anyone who infringes upon the author's copyright, publication rights or neighboring rights shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than ten years and a fine of not more than 10 million yen."

Xiao Ai moved her mouth, looking at her appearance as if she couldn't bear it.

"You let Kimura deliberately wait for the plagiarist to write a lot more words, and then let the plagiarist produce animations, games, and peripherals, which greatly expands the impact. In this way, if the plagiarist loses the civil lawsuit, he will inevitably be charged criminally. Is it equivalent to sending the other party to jail?"

"Tsk, my Doraemon, I feel sorry for you and there is no need to spam you."

Gu Meimen raised a finger and shook it gently.

"Europe, the United States and Japan have very strict enforcement of copyright laws. If plagiarists dare to plagiarize, they must be prepared to go to jail. According to the intensity of copyright control in Japan, even writing an anime fanfic will be difficult. He was caught. There is no need for me to arrange this kind of thing. As long as he writes, the person involved will definitely go to jail. Moreover, the act of plagiarism is inherently shameful, and he deserves it no matter what."

"Okay, you have a point."

Xiao Ai thought for a while and agreed with Gu Meimen's point of view.

She wrinkled her little nose, as if she thought of something again.

"You said you would be arrested if you wrote anime fan fiction in Japan. So if someone from another country, such as a country across the ocean, wrote anime fan fiction here in Japan, would they be arrested?"

Gu Meimen raised her eyebrows: "Why do you suddenly have doubts about this?"

"On a whim." Xiao Ai said, "Recently, haven't I been learning the language of the country on the other side of the ocean? During this period, I went online and logged into the website over there, looking for some novels to read. It turned out that there were so many writers there. I am writing Japanese fan fiction. I would like to ask, are these people considered infringement?"

"Why doesn't it count? Of course it counts as infringement." Gu Meimen answered directly.

Xiao Ai nodded: "Well, then they will all go in, and they will all be sentenced."

"What's the sentence? It can't be sentenced."

Gu Meimen disagreed.

"You may not have thoroughly studied Japanese law. Please recite Article 1 of the Japanese Criminal Code to me."

"Well……"

Xiao Ai blinked and then rebelled.

"Japanese Criminal Code, Chapter 1 General Provisions, Chapter 1 General Provisions, Article 1. This law applies to persons who commit crimes in Japan. In addition, it also applies to persons who commit crimes outside Japan but on ships and aircraft registered in Japan..."

Xiao Ai had recited this piece of information to him when he took refuge with Gu Meimen.

(See Chapter 21)

"Do you know what this passage means?" Gu Meimen asked.

Xiao Ai thought for a while and replied: "I understand. Japanese law is based on the 'territorial principle', so only those who commit crimes locally will be arrested and sent to prison."

"It seems you are not too stupid."

Gu Meimen smiled and touched Xiao Ai's little head.

The latter gave him a look.

"Understood? In the countries across the ocean, no matter how they write fan fiction, the work is done within their own territory. In Japan, because the criminal law uses the 'territorial principle', there is no way to arrest them and sentence them. Essentially, these people are innocent, because this is what the law stipulates. Unless some of them travel to Japan and update novels in Japan, the police will come to arrest them the next moment."

"Well, then no one will care if these authors infringe copyrights at will?"

"They will also take care of it. Although they are not guilty criminally, they still constitute tort liability in civil matters. As long as they file a lawsuit, they will have to pay compensation."

Gu Meimen said so.

Immediately, he changed the subject.

"But, do you know who are the people who write fan fiction over there? They are all poor, poor guys who have no money. They work very hard every day to figure out plots and code words, and only get a small amount of royalties to eat. I can’t even eat enough, and I’ll be scolded by readers for not writing well. It’s so stressful. I went across the country to sue these guys who have nothing. What can I get? The compensation I get is probably not as good as hiring a lawyer. There’s a lot of money…”

Gu Meimen said a lot, and Xiao Ai was stunned for a while.

After a while, she looked Gu Meimen up and down: "You seem to know a lot about this."

"I knew a little bit about it before."

Gu Meimen shrugged.

"In short, you have to know that the concept of law is that only by forming a 'claim' can we talk about illegal crimes. Civil cases are private prosecution cases, and the principle of 'whoever claims it has to provide evidence' has always been followed. If there is no claim, then It’s equivalent to not breaking the law.”

There was a pause.

"Do you know "Gintama"?" Gu Meimen asked.

Xiao Ai nodded: "I've heard of it. It's that anime that makes jokes about other works."

"That's right." Gu Meimen said, "Strictly speaking, the Gintama anime definitely has all kinds of infringements. As long as someone sues it, it will definitely end in defeat. But because the author is so popular, no one sues, so Not only was it okay, it was also made into an animation and broadcast on TV. So can you say that Gintama is illegal?"

Xiao Ai shook his head and said, "It's not illegal."

"So, if someone really writes a fan-defendant, then he is really breaking the law at this time, and he can only be considered unlucky. After all, in such a lawsuit, the plaintiff will only lose money and not make much money. ."

"I see."

Xiao Ai nodded.

At this time, the girl put her hands on her chin, her big eyes sparkling, and she was listening with great interest.

Gu Meimen occasionally gave her some legal knowledge.

Xiao Ai especially likes this kind of time, and can always learn a lot of interesting knowledge.