Following the judge's order, everyone in the courtroom stood up. The spectators present could not help but become nervous. The first-instance verdict of this unprecedented ancient book plagiarism case is finally coming. This case is related to the reputation of the highest university in the country.

What decision will the court make in this case?

Judge Takanashi stood behind the referee's bench and announced: "Kyoto Sakyo District District Court, First Instance Civil Judgment Kyozu [25] 0857. Plaintiff: Yoshihiko Shimokawa. Plaintiff's attorneys: Eto Law Firm lawyer Kitahara Giichi, Eto lawyer

Lawyer intern at the firm, Saeko Miyagawa"

"Defendant one: Yoshiro Fujimura. Agent: Hisaku Utsunomiya, professor of law at Kyoto University and part-time lawyer. Defendant two, Kyoto University, legal representative: Nakaharu Ouchi; defendant three, Kyoto University Press, legal representative: Terasawa

Ryuji. The common attorney of the second and third defendants is Goro Ikegami, a lawyer at Mori Hamada Matsumoto Law Firm in Tokyo.”

"The case of the copyright infringement dispute between the plaintiff Yoshihiko Shimokawa and the defendant Fujimura Yoshihiro, Kyoto University, and Kyoto University Press was filed by this court on February 17, and ordinary procedures were applied in accordance with the law. On March 1, March 9, and 3

On March 16th, a public hearing was held on March 23rd.”

"Plaintiff Shimokawa Yoshihiko, attorneys Kitahara Giichi and Miyagawa Saeko. Defendant Fujimura Kayo, defendant's attorney Utsunomiya Hisaku, and Ikegami Goro attended the court to participate in the lawsuit."

"The trial of this case has now been concluded. The facts found during the trial are as follows: The plaintiff Yoshihiko Shimogawa is an associate professor employed by the Graduate School of Humanities of Kyoto University. The plaintiff carried out a review activity on "The Journey to the Eastern Lands to the Tang Dynasty" five years ago, and successively

The first draft with proofreading, the second draft with proofreading, the third draft with proofreading, the fourth draft with proofreading, and the fifth draft with proofreading were formed. The above five editions of the manuscript are all certified by notarial certificates with the corresponding electronic generation time."

"Two years ago, the defendant Fujimura Yoshiro took the title of 'Correction Project of the Ancient Version of the Eastern Land Parade to the Tang Dynasty' and applied it to the Oriental Academic Promotion Committee through Kyoto University, and the project was successfully approved. The project team members included the plaintiff. 1

"Years ago, Kyoto University Press published a book with the ISBN 972-215-001-2 and the title "The Journey to the Eastern Lands to the Tang Dynasty". It has been found that 1,235 copies have been sold."

""The Journey to the East to the Tang Dynasty" was written before the seventh year of the Yuan Zheng Dynasty. After comparing with the Mustard Seed Garden edition, the Plaintiff Dian edition added 17 new articles about Guan Gu, the envoy to the Tang Dynasty, 8 ancient poems, and added portraits of Guan Gu, biographies, collection prefaces and postscripts

Abstracts, anecdotes, appendices, a brief summary of Sekiya's life, etc. The defendant's proofread version was compared with the plaintiff's proofread. The proportion of punctuation marks that are the same is about 98.6%. There are 32 differences in the collation words and 16 differences in the annotations.

They are all the same. Except for the preface and postscript, the order of the table of contents is the same, and the collected collections of lost works are also the same."

"This Academy believes that although the collation of ancient books is the arrangement, annotation, correction and arrangement of works that are already in the public domain, it can also produce corresponding originality if certain conditions are met. In the review of "Eastern Tour"

During the compilation of "Report to the Tang Dynasty", the plaintiff not only added punctuation, but also made annotations, corrected typos, and adjusted the order of the text from chronological order to the order of the route to the Eastern Land Tour. After being edited by the plaintiff,

"The Journey to the East to the Tang Dynasty" has produced significant differences and changes from the original version of Mustard Seed Garden, so this court recognizes the copyrightability of "The Journey to the East to the Country to the Tang Dynasty" edited by Shimochuan."

"In addition to copyright infringement, this court adopts the method of 'contact with substantial similarity' to make a judgment. Although the evidence presented by the plaintiff fails to prove that defendant 1 has had access to the plaintiff's electronic proofreading, given that the plaintiff has been included in defendant 1's

Among the scientific research projects reported, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant has the possibility of accessing the plaintiff for electronic proofreading."

“In judging the substantial similarity, this court believes that it is necessary to take into account the creative rules of the punctuation of ancient books. Although the ancient books have limited punctuation and sentence fragmentation on some words and sentences, there are differences in the details of the correction of other words, segmentation, annotations and other styles.

whether it can have an overall impact on the reader's reading experience. In this case, the similar influence of paragraphing, word correction, annotation and other styles is enough to give readers a similar reading experience to the plaintiff's and defendant's collated editions.

.Therefore, the defendant’s published proofreading work constitutes a substantial similarity to the plaintiff’s electronically proofreading manuscript.”

"At the same time, considering that the defendant Fujimura in this case did not submit relevant documentary evidence of his independent creation. Therefore, this court does not accept the defense of independent creation cited by Fujimura."

“As for the plaintiff’s claim against the defendant Fujimura that punitive damages should be applied, this court believes that punitive damages must be expressly provided for by law. In the case where the Copyright Law does not provide for a punitive damages system, this court can only apply damages in accordance with the law.

The filling principle.”

"Regarding the claim of requesting the second defendant, Kyoto University, to impose academic discipline on the defendant, Yoshio Fujimura. This court believes that whether Kyoto University should academically discipline Yoshiro Fujimura belongs to the management relationship within the unit and does not belong to the legal relationship between equal civil subjects.

, so it is not within the scope of civil litigation.”

"As to whether Kyoto University and Kyoto University Press bear joint liability for infringement, this court believes that the plaintiff Yoshihiko Shimokawa has complained to Kyoto University many times regarding related disputes. And the editorial review staff of Kyoto University Press also include Kyoto University's

Member of the Academic Ethics Committee. Therefore, the university and the publishing house should have known that there was a dispute over the copyright of the work involved. Therefore, Kyoto University and Kyoto University Press were also at fault in the publication of the work involved."

"The verdict in this case is now as follows."

"1. Defendants Fujimura Yoshiyo and Kyoto University Press shall immediately cease infringement activities as of the date this judgment takes effect."

"Second, the defendant Yoshiro Fujimura apologized to the plaintiff within ten days after this judgment came into effect, and published an apology statement on the front page of Kyoto News with an area of ​​no less than 5cmX5cm. The content of the statement needs to be reviewed by this court."

"Third, the defendant Fujimura Yoshiyo shall compensate his infringement income of 4,763,360 yen within ten days after this judgment takes effect."

"Fourth, defendants Kyoto University and Kyoto University Press shall bear joint liability for compensation within 10% of the amount of compensation received by defendant Kayo Fujimura."

"Fifth, reject the plaintiff's other claims."

"The case acceptance fee shall be borne by the defendant."

"If you are not satisfied with this judgment, you can submit an appeal to this court within 15 days from the date of delivery of this judgment, and provide copies according to the number of parties involved, and appeal to the Kyoto High Court."

"Judges: Takanashi Masako, Wakabayashi Yoshimitsu, Obayashi Kazuo.

"The verdict of this case is over."

"Click!"

The gavel fell.

The first-instance verdict of the plagiarism case of ancient book editing has been completed. The Sakyo Ward District Court held that the editing of ancient books also falls within the scope of protection of the Copyright Act! It is a work stipulated in the Copyright Act, and is not protected by the application of neighboring rights! Kyoto University Graduate School of Humanities

Long plagiarism of associate professor Shimokawa’s works was established!

The faces of the university management in the auditorium were as pale as ever. The university actually lost. There is no doubt that the dignified dean was found guilty of plagiarism by the court. This will be a huge scandal that Kyoto University has never seen before, and it will be enough to affect the reputation of the university and its internal affairs.

Personnel adjustments have caused unimaginable impact.

It was as if a cold spring wind was blowing into the courtroom. Some keen old foxes had already noticed that the wind was about to rise in the university. An unprecedented management earthquake was about to occur!

Utsunomiya was stunned when he heard the verdict. Within ten minutes of the verdict being announced, he seriously suspected that there was something wrong with his hearing. The last statement made by Kitahara really frightened Utsunomiya. He even thought that if he really lost

If so, we may lose on the issue of neighboring rights.

However, I never expected that the court would actually recognize that the collation of ancient books was a work stipulated in the copyright law.

absurd!

This is truly unprecedentedly absurd!

Utsunomiya still couldn't believe the fact before him. He...he was actually defeated by a newly graduated lawyer with no practical experience in copyright law. How is this possible? How is this possible?!

Utsunomiya looked at the empty seats on the trial bench and was completely distracted. He didn't understand why his student Takanashi wanted to confront him like this. After all... what benefits could there be from doing this?!

Chi Shang, who was sitting next to the defendant's dock, looked uglier than ever before. As a representative of the university and the publishing house, his position in this lawsuit should have been safe. After the publishing house received the injunction from the court, he

There is nothing wrong with immediately removing the infringing work from the shelves.

But it happened! Inexplicably, it was decided that Fujimura should bear tort liability within 10% of the amount of compensation. The total amount was not large, only more than 400,000 yen. However, this small amount was just like the amount of porridge in a pot of porridge.

Ikegami was disgusted with mouse-like precision.

With a "clang", Hirose's face turned red after hearing the verdict. He couldn't wait to open the wooden fence of the courtroom and rushed to the plaintiff's seat. Her eyebrows were curved like a hook.

His eyes became a line because of his smile.

"Thank you! Lawyer Kitahara! Thank you! Saeko!" Hirose was so excited that he could not speak coherently for a moment. He opened his mouth and seemed to want to say some more beautiful words of thanks, but he could only come out with scattered words.

, can't spell a complete sentence.

This female monk who worked for her mentor was once faced with the pressure of being expelled from the university. At this moment, all the pressure poured out, and the annoyance in her heart seemed to disappear at this moment and no longer existed.

Miyagawa looked at Hirose's joyful expression and hugged her into his arms. These two high school friends were like sisters at this moment, hugging each other tightly.

Shimochuan felt as if he was dreaming when he heard the verdict.

From the moment he saw Kitahara's lawyer filing an application to withdraw the case in court, he felt as if he was in a dream. Immediately afterwards, Fujimura stood up for some reason and refused the request to withdraw the case. Then came the referee's verdict.

Everything seemed to be happening in a dream.

Won.

Actually won.

He couldn't believe that he actually won.

Even though he had already filed to withdraw the lawsuit, he actually won when the chance of winning was already zero.

Shimokawa turned his head in disbelief and looked at the plaintiff's lawyer beside him. This lawyer was only twenty-five or six years old. Although he was wearing a suit, if these professional clothes were replaced with ordinary clothes, I'm afraid that

Others would regard him as a college student.

It was such a young man who helped me.

It was such a young man who defeated the dean of the Graduate School of Humanities whom he could not defeat no matter what.

It was such a young man who accomplished something almost impossible.

"Lawyer Kitahara. I don't know what to say anymore." Shimokawa stood up from his seat, his face trembling slightly.

Miyagawa, Hirose, and Kitahara all looked at the prospective professor in unison.

After experiencing a break with the students in his teaching and research department, Shimokawa already felt that everything he had done before was meaningless. In the face of the cruel reality, the so-called pursuit of academic ambitions seemed so naive and ridiculous. He already wanted to start from scratch.

I woke up from this unrealistic dream.

However, the young man in front of him seemed like a firefly in the darkness.

It is clearly this boundless darkness, but there is a ray of light that is weak but cannot be swallowed by the darkness.

Disgusting.

I am obviously older than this lawyer, but in the end, I still have to rely on this young man.

Shimokawa felt that his eyes were a little blurry, as if something was spinning in his eyes.

"Lawyer Kitahara, I am really a coward. I am really sorry." The prospective professor bowed deeply, "Thank you, thank you so much. In addition to thanking you, I really...

I really don’t know what to say to Lawyer Kitahara. Thank you so much.”
To be continued...