The 5th Nipponbashi Street Festa
- 23Mar 2009
On March 20, the 5th Nipponbashi Street Festa was conducted at Naniwa-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture. The Festa is to enlighten the public not to purchase pirated goods and the sponsors are Nipponbashi-suji Shopping Street Promotion Union, Den-den Town Association and Osaka City. The number of attendees was larger than the previous year as about 200,000: about 166,000 in 2008. They were interested in the exhibitions comparing legitimate and pirated goods.
JIMCA set up show cases to exhibit legitimate and pirated DVDs or others and explained attendees how to identify pirated goods from legitimate ones. Also, we appealed them not to purchase pirated goods and distributed about 300 leaflets, "Illegal file-sharing: the risks aren't worth it."
pageTopBill of amendment of Article 30, Copyright Law passed the Cabinet
- 11Mar 2009
On March 10, the Cabinet meeting decided to amend the Article 30, Copyright Law, to criminalize downloading of music or movies illegally distributed on the Internet without authorizations of right holders. The bill also includes a regulation on legalization of caches to server for searching services. The bill will be submitted to the current Diet aiming for an enactment in 2010.
For illegal contents such as mobile phone melody, under the current copyright law, distribution by operators or individuals on the Internet is prohibited but no restriction on downloadings. Downloaders of such contents will be subject of regulation for control the distribution of illegal contents on the Internet. But when user download such contents knowing its illegalities, no penalties haven't been ruled.
It's now illegal to reproduce copyrighted works without authorization of copyright holders except private use under the current copyright law and operators who provide search service generally set up their servers in other countries. For promoting the developments of various services in Japan, the amendment will make it clear that caches in server are not illegal.
Winny Software Developer Pleads Not Guilty Again At Appeals Court OSAKA
- 20Jan 2009
On January 19, a former University of Tokyo researcher pleaded not guilty Monday at the Osaka High Court to abetting copyright violation by his developing and publicizing of the Winny file-sharing software program.
Isamu Kaneko, 38, and public prosecutors have both appealed a sentence imposing a 1.5 million yen fine on the defendant by the Kyoto District Court in December 2006.
The district court found Kaneko, who publicized the software on his website in May 2002, guilty of assisting two Winny users who illegally made movies and other files available for download through peer-to-peer online file exchanges in September 2003 in violation of copyrights.
The case marks the first time in Japan that a developer of software has been charged and found guilty over unlawful acts by the software's users.
Kaneko's defense said Monday that distinguished technologies always involve the possibility of being abused and questioned if engineers should be punished when their technologies are misused.
People who developed automobiles are not punished for speeding by vehicles, the defense told the court.
Prosecutors are appealing as the district court rejected their demand for one year in prison for the defendant. They claim Kaneko developed the program intending to destroy the copyright system and encouraged unlawful copying of protected content.
In rejecting a custodial sentence, the court said Kaneko, who was arrested in May 2004, did not intend to bring about copyright violations. The two Winny users in the case were found guilty of violating the copyright law.
Winny software enables the transfer of files over the Internet, and a number of information leaks involving the file-sharing program, including defense secrets as well as investigative and medical information, have been reported.