In suspected violation of copyright laws, the US Embassy in Tokyo is sharing more than 90,000 news stories from 115 Japanese media outlets, including regional and national newspapers. The stories – the majority translated from Japanese – are uploaded on the website Japan Media Highlights, produced by the Embassy’s Media Analysis and Translation Team belonging to the Public Affairs Section.
According to the website, all the content is “copyrighted material and must not be disseminated to the public.” The website states users need IDs and passwords – and it warns not to share the articles outside US government channels without the Embassy’s permission. However, until 24 December 2023, the site was publicly accessible, and anybody could read, search, and download the articles.
The articles date from 2013 to the present and they originate from 43 local and national newspapers, 42 magazines, and 30 TV or social media sources. The website categorizes the articles into topics including politics, security, and economy. One category specifically focuses on Okinawa, containing 9960 articles translated from news sources including this newspaper. Articles include those related to crimes committed by US military personnel and legal wranglings over the new USMC base in Nago City.
In addition, the website translates political cartoons from Japanese newspapers. One section is also dedicated to coverage of Ambassador Rahm Emanuel; it contains approximately 500 articles.
In principle, the Copyright Act prohibits the reproduction, public transmission, or translation of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder. In 2020, the Ministry of the Environment found itself in hot water when it emailed articles from 91 media outlets to its employees without permission.
Karatsu Mami, an attorney in Japan and New York State with expertise in copyright issues, said the website is “full of problems'' from a legal perspective. Even if it had originally been intended for internal government use, "there are problems with the unauthorized translation of articles and manga, and unauthorized downloading of manga and photos.” The Embassy might need to pay fees to the copyright holders whose work it shared, she said.
On December 22, last year, this newspaper asked the US Embassy in Tokyo about the concerns raised in this article; although it has not provided a response to that enquiry, by December 24, the website was no longer accessible to the public.
(Additional reporting by Abe Takashi)
