A shooting and distribution form outside the commercial studios developed in parallel with internet distribution, forming its own ecosystem and building a segment that now stands alongside commercial AV in the structure of the sex industry.

Kojin satsuei (personal recording) is the umbrella term for adult video shot and distributed directly by an individual or a very small producer, without a commercial AV studio or major label. This entry covers its union with internet distribution from the 2000s on, its difference from POV (hamedori), and the legal environment after the AV Act.

Overview

Personal recording names a shooting and distribution form that developed outside the institutional frame of the commercial AV industry. Commercial AV has a three-layer structure: organised production by major and mid-tier studios; mosaic and other modification handled by self-regulatory bodies; and sales through official platforms such as FANZA. Personal recording differs at each layer: shooting by an individual or tiny producer; modification at the producer’s discretion; and distribution through individually run platforms, social media, and paid subscription sites.

The concept took hold from the late 2000s into the 2010s alongside the growth of internet distribution, and is now closely bound to distribution through paid platforms (myfans, Fantia), photo-set sites, and self-run subscription services.

History

A distant precursor is the spread of amateur video in the 1980s with home VTR. Equipment was then expensive and distribution extremely limited (mail exchange, small local circulation), so “personal recording” in the modern sense did not yet exist as a business. Through the 1990s, professional gear shrank and dropped in price, expanding the technical possibility of high-quality individual shooting, while organised amateur activity in doujinshi culture made the individual creation-and-distribution model socially visible.

Personal recording established itself as a business through the 2000s growth of internet distribution infrastructure: video-sharing platforms, content sales via personal sites, and subscription billing. From the 2010s, paid platforms (myfans, Fantia, fan clubs) systematised the personal-recording and personal-streaming business model, forming a second distribution channel parallel to commercial AV’s main platforms.

Characteristics

Personal recording covers several shooting formats: the POV (hamedori) type, in which the shooter and subject act in the same scene; the third-person type, with the shooter as an independent observer; the self-shooting type, in which the performer also shoots; and the webcam type accompanied by live streaming. Distribution runs across paid sites (myfans, Fantia), doujin platforms (DLsite, FANZA Doujin), self-run subscription services, and overseas platforms such as OnlyFans.

The main differences from commercial AV are the producer’s organisational form (individual versus studio), the operation of modification (platform-dependent versus self-regulatory body), the structure of the performer contract (individual versus production exclusive), and the distribution platform (self-run versus official). These differences function as the market differentiation between the two.

Relation to law

The 2022 AV Appearance Damages Prevention and Relief Act (the AV Act) sets general rules for AV appearance contracts, and personal recording can fall within its scope. It mandates a cooling-off period, written contracts, and a waiting period before shooting begins, so personal shooters and distributors may bear legal obligations under it. In practice, institutional development in this segment lags well behind commercial AV, and the Act’s scope and operation remain unsettled.

Whether personal recording falls under the Anti-Prostitution Law is judged case by case on content, distribution form, and the structure of payment. Generally, payment for the sale of a recorded work has been read as not directly constituting “prostitution.” The 2014 Revenge Porn Prevention Act punishes the circulation of sexual images without the subject’s consent and is invoked against cases in personal recording that lack explicit consent.

Ethical issues and harm

Because personal recording lacks the institutional consent process of commercial AV (production-managed contracts, pre-shoot confirmation of intent), consent verification can be structurally fragile, a problem identified as a principal motive for the tightening of legal rules after the AV Act. Cases in which personal-recording works spread beyond the agreed scope (unauthorised distribution by the shooter, leaks via hacking, unauthorised copying) have been a continuing problem, addressed under the Revenge Porn Prevention Act, copyright law, and the unauthorised-access prohibition. The dispersed, individualist character of the segment makes a self-regulatory body comparable to commercial AV’s hard to establish, a structural limit on its handling of ethical and legal issues.

Cultural treatment

Sociologists including Nakamura Atsuhiko continuously analyse the shifting institutional boundaries and labour conditions of the contemporary Japanese sex industry, personal recording included. It forms a continuous spectrum with commercial AV, POV, and amateur work, and mapping those boundaries is an important research question for understanding the sex industry as a whole.

See also

• Amateur (shirouto)
• Hamedori (POV)
• AV
• Nampa
• AV Act
• myfans
• OnlyFans