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Sydney Perkins claim through list of Godzilla bootlegs view history page on 11 January 2025:
the anglo fandom's continuing designation of these old releases of godzilla vs. megalon as "unauthorized" or "bootlegs" stems from a misunderstanding of the history of copyright. prior to the 1996 U.S. copyright restoration of films in copyright in their home countries, godzilla vs. megalon (a pre-1989 release with no copyright notice on the film) was legitimately in the PD in the US, and all of these VHS distributors were fully within their rights to proliferate it.
I have researched information that clears up some of Sydney’s statement that is not fully accurate.
I would like to offer this as an addendum to what Sidney has stated above. Godzilla vs. Megalon was originally copyrighted in Japan in 1973. It entered the U.S. public domain due to missing a copyright notice on U.S. release. Budget VHS releases occurred during 1980’s through the 1990’s. They were considered legal at the time due to the English language print not containing a Copyright notice. Many budget home-video companies legally released the films on VHS during this time. (they were not bootlegs at this time) This changed January 1, 1996, when the U.S. implemented the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) of 1994. This restored U.S. copyright to foreign works that were still protected in their home countries but had fallen into the U.S. public domain solely because of missing formalities such as a missing copyright notice. This allowed Godzilla vs. Megalon to have its copyright fully restored. After this occurred, all unlicensed VHS, DVD, and digital releases-regardless of when the master tapes were created-became unauthorized.
While the earlier VHS releases were legal at the time they were produced, they are no longer lawful to reproduce or distribute today. They were not ever bootlegs. They technically are “unauthorized,” because the U.S. law corrected a mistake that was made.
Furthermore: The character “Godzilla” is a heavily protected trademark owned by TOHO. So, even during the 1980’s, budget companies needed to be very careful how they marketed the “Godzilla,” name to avoid trademark infringement.
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