Toho have not yet officially released a colorized version of their 1954 original Godzilla film, so when a 66-year-old man decided to sell pirated copies of the classic film he himself colorized using AI technology - it caught the attention of local authorities.
Repoered by The Asahi Shimbun (via dextro), Miyamoto was arrested on suspicion of selling an illegally copied DVD of Godzilla to a man in Tokyo through a flea market website in November of 2024.
According to the report, Miyamoto was selling colorized copies of a variety of films for between $20 and $206 each and apparently made a profit of over $11,700 (1.7 million yen) since last November!
While he thought, or at least claimed the copyright protection for Godzilla (1954) had expired, authorities clarified that the protection rights for the original Gojira don't expire until the year 2031!
Charges and penalties have not been publicly shared yet, but we can safely assume they will exceed whatever profits that were made on sales of the pirated films.
