Entertainment and IP rights clearance and negotiations

After graduating from Waseda university, I got a job at record label Pony Canyon (“PC”), audio visual contents company. I left the advertising company I joined after resigning PC to study entertainment laws at Cardozo Law School in New York at my own expense, earning a master’s degree (LLM), and a certificate in entertainment marketing from New York University. Since then, I have been drafting various types of contracts, negotiating licenses, and consulting for entertainment, IT, and content-related companies in both publicist and legal aspects.

After obtaining an attorney license  in California, I also established an office in Los Angeles, and both offices are available to handle entertainment-related consultations. Of course, support is available in both Japanese and English languages.

Copyright and other rights clearance

Please leave it to me, who has knowledge not limited to the industry’s mindset, customs, and other laws, to clear copyrights and other IP rights for artists, songs, digital content, infringement countermeasures and negotiations, utilization & protection of corporate assets such as trade secrets and know-how, and license agreements.

About copyright – Artist become an owner of the work at the time of creation, so there is no need to register it with the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government in Japan. Registration is useful for countermeasure when someone copies your work or uses it without permission, but in Japan, it is not a mandatory requirement for lawsuits while, in the US, registration is a requirement for lawsuits.

In Japan, rather than registering, I believe that money and time should be spent on how to protect or how to utilize copyrighted or non-protected creative work , and what kind of permission under license agreement, will be useful.

Personal information, privacy, consumer protection

With the emergence of various content portal sites such as SNS, YouTube, and TikTok, influencers can earn money from their activities, and the use of AI in various situations is becoming the default, many issues such as privacy, personal information, and consumer protection have arisen. I can also consult with you on issues on the Internet, privacy policies for content sales, and the making term of use related to consumer protection.

Content advertising and publicity, Performance Visas and Labor Issues

Having spent the first half of my career in advertising and PR areas, I still advise content handling, company branding, publicity, and making the presentation materials. In addition, artists, athletes, and fashion models who come to Japan or the US for having concerts,  attending matches or event need a residency status called “performance status” (although this is one of a typical works as gyosei shoshi), so I accept requests. In the US, this process  corresponds to an O visa or P visa.

As for unfair dismissal from the employer, I have worked as the Japanese representative of a recruiting agent for five years and as legal counsel for many years at Japanese and 

oreign IT companies, so I have a good understanding of labor matters and have consulted on how to deal with it.

If another professional is more suitable dealing with your matter, I will introduce you to another professional with which the office has one-stop partnerships.

Recent case

This will be an iconic case regarding AI copyright for fair use.

Excerpt from https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/court-definitively-rejects-fair-use-3114969/

Thomson Reuters v. ROSS – Thomson Reuters sued ROSS for unlawfully copying and using Westlaw, Thomson Reuters’ legal research platform, for the purpose of training its AI-based platform. The court ruled on February 11, 2025 that ROSS’s copying was not fair use, emphasizing the fact that ROSS’s copying was intended to create a product that directly competed with the platform.