Anime fans encouraged to resume “normal fan activities” after three people got arrested for running an anime spoiler website 

Last month, Japanese publishers Kadokawa and Toho filed a criminal complaint against individuals running an anime spoiler website, which led to three people being arrested. The arrest was made on the grounds of copyright law infringement, as the three men are suspected of posting anime digests, snapshots and transcripts for commercial gain. 

One of the titles mentioned in the case was Overlord, and on November 12, the production committee of the Overlord anime (the companies that funded and own it) published a follow-up letter to fans, which is perhaps meant to address concerns raised by people following the news of the arrest (reported by ITmedia). 

In the statement, Overlord’s production committee clarify that they are not attempting to go after anime fan sites nor stop fans from engaging in discussions, analysis, predictions and fanart creation. They apologize for the misunderstanding and explain that a criminal complaint was filed in this case because the persons operating the spoiler site were a company, and it was judged that they were using copyrighted material in a malicious way for the purpose of earning revenue. 

In their press release following the arrest, Kadokawa stated that the spoiler website hosted full textual transcript of the third season of Overlord, which went beyond the scope of what can be overlooked as “lawful quotation.”