Man arrested for selling pirated copies of Godzilla that he colorized using AI

A 66-year-old man has been arrested for distributing pirated copies of Godzilla that he colorized using AI.

On June 17, Japanese police arrested a 66-year-old man for selling pirated DVDs of Ishiro Honda’s legendary monster film, Godzilla. While the original movie was shot in black and white, Toho has never officially released a full colorized version of its kaiju classic.

Despite this, the emergence of AI software has given fans the tools needed to attempt the colorization themselves. During Godzilla Festival Online 2020, an official colorized trailer for the film was shown, giving fans a brief look at what Honda’s classic could look like if such a project were to be greenlit. 

However, part-time worker Miyamoto Ippei was keen to fulfill fans’ requests and set about selling pirated copies of Godzilla (1954) that had been colorized. 

Man arrested for selling Godzilla 1954 DVDs

According to The Asahi Shimbun, Miyamoto was arrested on suspicion of selling an illegally copied DVD of Godzilla to a man in Tokyo via a flea market website in November last year. 

The 66-year-old man explained that he “did the work of colorizing it and selling it all by [himself] using a computer.” Miyamoto also revealed he “used commercially available video conversion software equipped with AI to colorize it.”

Police also discovered that his website sold other black and white films that had been colorized, advertising them as “converting silver screen cinema to color (for films whose copyright protection period has expired).”

Toho

There was evidence that similar DVDs were listed on multiple flea market sites, with the claim that they were “legal” copies. The colorized versions were sold within the range of 3,000 to 30,000 yen each, which is around $20 to $206. 

Authorities confirmed that Miyamoto had made a total profit of around 1.7 million yen ($11,716) between January last year and May this year.

While the charges against the man have yet to be revealed, the police have stated that the current copyright protection period for Godzilla (1954) will continue until 2031.