In a lawsuit in which the Chunichi Shimbun sought compensation from the operating company of the "Tsukuba Express" for posting a newspaper article on the intranet for employees without permission, the Tokyo District Court ruled, "The article was devised in terms of expression. It is a copyrighted work, and posting it on the intranet constitutes copyright infringement."

The Chunichi Shimbun, which has its headquarters in Nagoya City, said that the metropolitan area new urban railway, which operates the "Tsukuba Express", will publish its own "Tokyo Shimbun" from immediately after the start of operation in 2005 to around 2019. The company sought compensation for posting the article on the company intranet for employees without permission as an infringement of copyright.



The metropolitan area new city railroad was arguing that ``newspaper articles are nothing more than the transmission of facts and cannot be said to be copyrighted works.''



In the ruling on the 6th, Yoshiaki Shibata, presiding judge of the Tokyo District Court, said, ``The published article is recognized as a copyrighted work because it has been devised in terms of expression, such as organizing and conveying a considerable amount of information in an easy-to-understand manner. It is an infringement of copyright to publish it."



After that, he ordered the metropolitan area new urban railway to pay compensation of more than 1.9 million yen, saying that ``the number of articles published on the intranet by around 2019 is 591.''

Chunichi Shimbun "Evaluation for Recognition of Copyright Infringement"

Regarding the ruling, the Chunichi Shimbun commented, ``We appreciate that copyright infringement has been recognized, but there are some parts where the claim was not recognized in terms of the amount of compensation, and there are doubts. ”.