Assignment #4: Famous Copyright Cases

Arnold Schwarznegger and Zero One Design - The Japanese Commercials

Zero One Design is a Canadian Web Design company, they were responsible for creating the website known as The Gaijin a Go Go Cafe. This website was used to show Japanese commercials that featured famous american celebrities, Arnold Schwarznegger being one of them. The problem with this website was that it brought commercials that were originally meant only for the Japanese market onto the internet. This had upset the celebrities who were featured on the websites because of how they were portrayed in the Japanese commercials. Now keep in mind that they participated in these commercials consciously, but they were told these advertisements wouldn't leave the Japanese market. The reason for this being was the nature of certain commercials. Japanese commercials are pretty wacky...

Now you might ask yourself, why would it matter if Americans saw these Japanese commercials? Well for a celebrity your image is everything; and Arnold believed that these commercials would tarnish his image in the American market. So what happened is that multiple people, not just Schwarznegger, had accused the The Gaijin a Go Go Cafe of copy right infringement. And so because of this the website was taken down. Although it seems a little redundant because the same videos that were featured on Gaijin can now be found on Youtube. One step forward, two steps back, and one step forward again it seems.