Saturday 26 February 2011

A Copyright Battle of Epic Proportions?

A Japanese company, Sotsu Co., is assessing whether Floraland, a Chinese amusement park has infringed copyrights it manages by displaying a huge representation of a Gundam robot, which features in the Japanese anime series "Mobile Suit Gundam."

Apparently, the 30th anniversary of the comic series was celebrated in Japan with the display of an 18-meter Gundam robot replica. The replica was later moved to a location near Bandai Co, a toy-making unit of Namco Bandai, which manufactures toys based on Mobile Suit Gundam.

The Wall Street Journal reports that tourists in China alerted Sotsu to the existence of an extremely similar 15-meter Gundam robot replica.

Is this another instance of shanzai?

1 comment:

John R walker said...

just curious- what is the situation with kids 'superman' costumes? And what if an artist was to paint a picture of a Gundam robot, that was a close copy? Was Andy breaching copyright when he silk screened the soup label?