Osaka man arrested for privately selling porno movies
Let this be a warning to all aspiring adult entrepreneurs out there.
The manager of an Osaka restaurant has been arrested for making and selling pornographic DVDs from an apartment.
Shoji Matsumoto (46) sold 46 DVDs to a Saitama man in his forties for ¥7,000 ($58) in July. Matsumoto started a website to sell his DVDs, as well as renting a nearby apartment, where he stored around 70,000 types of adult videos!
When he got an order, he would press the video into DVD format and send it to the customer.
Matsumoto sold each DVD for ¥200, offering two free films if you spent over ¥4,000. Over a ten-year period he had accumulated sales of more than ¥30 million ($250,000)! That’s a lot of films!
Matsumoto has admitted his guilt. “I wanted a quick way to make a buck,” he is as quoted as saying.
It’s not yet clear why Matsumoto was caught out now, though perhaps the Saitama man was nabbed for some other reason — and the DVDs were found in his home.
People who challenge the might of the major porn retailers and makers face harsh punishment from the police. Of course, much of the mainstream porn world is controlled by both the Yakuza and big business. They don’t take kindly to small-timers tried to cut in on their profit margins. Japan is also a rare market where the porn industry has not faced much reduction in revenue due to the internet. DVD sales and rental are still high.
