Illegal Anime Uploader Called "God" Arrested by Police

The man uploaded more than 600 anime titles

September 29, 2012 6:51am EEST (9/28/12)

By September 28th, the Yamaguchi prefectural police and its Consumer and Environmental Protection Division arrested a 44-year-old office worker Yoshikazu Hirota and a 24-year-old unemployed man Teruyuki Funabashi, who were both from Yamaguchi prefecture, on suspicion of using Share file-sharing software to upload the TV anime Eureka Seven: AO (by Horota on September 23rd) and the anime film Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (by Funabashi on July 15th) to the internet without the permission from the copyright holders.

According to the prefectural police, Hirota had been called "God" among the anime fans, because he had illegally uploaded anime titles to the internet immediately after its official release. Funabashi was one of "Enco Shokunin" (Encoding Artisans), who was specializing in encoding videos. The police thinks Hirota had uploaded more than 600 anime titles illegally to the internet.

Source: Hochi Shimbun, Shimotsuke Shimbun

Eureka Seven: AO image © BONES/Project EUREKA AO/MBS

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