Date of
Judgment: March 30, 1993
Issuing
Authority:
Supreme Court
Level of
the Issuing Authority: Final Instance
Type of Procedure: Judicial (Civin( �o:p>
Subject
Matter: Copyright and Related Rights (Neighboring Rights)
Main
text of the judgment (decision):
1.
The final appeal of the present case shall be
dismissed.
2. The costs of
the final appeal shall be borne by the appellant.
Reasons:
Reasons for the final
appeal made by the attorneys for the final appeal; namely, WATANABE Takuro,
FUJIWARA Kanji, and BANDO Shiro.
The fact that the Compilation
titled "Chiekosho" [literally meaning "Selections of
Chieko"] is a collection of poems written and previously published by
TAKAMURA Kotaro, a poet, as well as of his works of poetry, tanka
[thirty-one-syllable poems], and prose, and the fact that the Compilation was
published with the author's consent during his lifetime, were legally made
final in the court of prior instance.
Given the foregoing, if there is in fact a person who is other than
Kotaro and who was involved in compiling "Chiekosho," it is presumed
that Kotaro, too, was personally involved in the compilation unless there were
special circumstances. Accordingly,
it should be said that the copyright to the compilation belonging to a person
who is other than Kotaro and who was involved in the compilation is conceivable
only in very limited cases.
In the first place, upon
determining whether or not any person other than Kotaro was involved in the
compilation of "Chiekosho" in the present case, the findings of the
court of prior instance concerning the matter were sufficient to give an
affirmation in this regard in light of the evidence presented in the judgment
of the prior instance. The findings
constitute the following. (1) The
person who suggested to Kotaro to compile "Chiekosho" by presenting
Kotaro with a draft of poems and the like which can be included in the
collection is D, who is a successor of Appellant A and has been engaged in
publishing business under the name of A2 (hereinafter simply referred to as
"D"). However, the
selection of the poems and the like which are compiled in "Chiekosho"
is not based on the ideas of D alone, but also those of Kotaro, who, based on
the suggestions made by D, personally and with careful consideration, chose the
poems and the like to be included in the collection, from among all of Kotaro's
works concerning his wife, Chieko, in addition to making final decisions about
the poems and the like to be compiled in "Chiekosho" and deciding on
the title, "Chiekosho".
(2) The arrangement of the first draft of the collected poems presented
by D to Kotaro is different in part from the arrangement used in
"Chiekosho". In other
words, the arrangement of the poems in the first draft is in the order of
appearance in "Dotei", a collection of poems previously published by
Kotaro, or, in the case of the poems which appeared in magazines, they were
arranged in the order of publication dates of the magazines, or in the case of
the poems which appeared in the same magazine, they were arranged in the order
of their appearance in the magazine.
In contrast, the works in "Chiekosho" are arranged, in principle,
in the
chronological order of creation except for
the work titled "Koryotarukitaku". (3) While D made a suggestion as to the
addition of a few more poems and the like to the collection of the first draft,
D completely followed the intention of Kotaro, who made adjustments to the
first draft and added or subtracted some works.
The facts described above confirm
that Kotaro personally finalized the selection and arrangement of the poems and
the like in "Chiekosho", and that Kotaro compiled the works. Even if D gathered some of Kotaro's
works, it should be said that, from the perspective of compiling and authoring
of works, such act is merely within the confines of a proposal or a
scheme. Even in light of the other
facts which were legally made final in the court of prior instance, it cannot
be said that D compiled "Chiekosho", and it must be said that Kotaro
is the person who compiled "Chiekosho". Accordingly, it must be said that the
copyright to the compilation belongs to Kotaro, and that the appellee obtained
the above copyright from Kotaro by way of inheritance in a sequential order,
and thus the judgment of the court of prior instance, which determined as such,
shall be approved as justifiable. There is no
violation of law in the views presented by judgment in prior instance, and the
appellant's arguments cannot be accepted.
Therefore, the court unanimously
renders the judgment as per the main text pursuant to Articles 401, 95, 89, and
93 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
(This translation is
provisional and subject to revision.)