Mr. Michael C. Ellis, President and Managing Director, Asia‐Pacific, Motion Picture Association (MPA), visited Japan and presented Certificates of Appreciation to the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters Cyber Crime Division and Fushimi Police Station October.04.2016

On September 27, 2016, Mr. Michael C. Ellis, President and Managing Director, Asia‐Pacific, Motion Picture Association (MPA), visited Japan and presented Certificates of Appreciation to the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters Cyber Crime Division and Fushimi Police Station. The commendation expressed gratitude for the contributions that the officers have made to actively protecting intellectual property rights involving filmed entertainment and counterfeit products.

This year, the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters Cyber Crime Division and Fushimi Police Station executed investigations into alleged illegal uploaders illegitimately uploading to websites subtitled movie files without the rights holders’ permission., Four suspectswere arrested during the operation.

This is the first case in Japan where the illegal uploaders of copyrighted films of MPAA member companies were arrested for illegally uploading subtitled movie files without the rights holders’ permission. The six consecutive crackdowns by the authorities sent a strong warning to those possibly contemplating similar illegal activities in the future.The uploading of subtitled movies on the internet has a rofound and damaging impact on the future of the film industry.

Given that this was a particularly significant case, Mr. Ellis visited Japan to express his personal gratitude, dand presented Certificates of Appreciation to Mr. Takeshi Hamada, Chief of Fushimi Police Station; and Mr. Kimiya Kimura, Cyber Crime Division Chief, Kyoto Prefectural Police, for their important work. Mr. Ellis also expressed his hope to see continued criminal actions taken against those involved in movie copyright infringement.