Pirated distributor was arrested followed a tip from the citizen
- 18Nov 2008
On November 19, Asahi Police Station, Osaka Prefecture, sent a 64-year man of no fix abode to the Osaka District Public Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of violation of the Copyright Law. Police arrested the man on October 28 and seized many pirated DVDs.
He distributed pirated DVDs at 1,000 yen per disc. The seizures included titles such as “Wall-E” and “The X-Files: I want to believe” (not yet released in Japan), and “The Dark Knight” (theatrically released in Japan but not yet available on DVD). He distributed the pirated goods at a short-term rental shop in a shopping mall at Asahi-ku, Osaka City.
The October 28 raid followed by a tip from the citizen and was a good example of quick collaboration between the public and the governmental agencies for eliminating pirated goods.
pageTopMan Arrested for Illegal Distribution Of Not-Yet-Released Movie via Winny File-Sharing Network
- 18Sep 2008
On September 18, officers from the High-Tech Crime Control Center of Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters arrested a 33-year Sendai man on suspicion of violation of Japan's Copyright Law. The suspect, charged with infringement of the rights of public transmission, had distributed the movie Wanted, not yet released in Japan, via the Internet using "Winny" file-sharing software. Wanted is due to be released in Japan on September 20.
The arrest was the first in Japan of a suspect who had illegally distributed an unreleased movie via the Internet, and if convicted, the suspect faces up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to 10 million yen.
At the beginning of July, the Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association (JIMCA) identified the illegal distribution of the movie file and submitted a criminal complaint to the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters. This year, JIMCA has identified more than 30 movie files that have been uploaded to the Winny network prior to their Japan release dates.
The suspect admitted to police that he had uploaded the file, which is subtitled in Japanese. Police believe the source of the file is a camcording in a theater in the U.S. and that the suspect added the subtitles. The suspect is believed to have been extremely active in subtitling foreign films and uploading them to the Internet via Winny.
The 'Winny' peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing system came to prominence in Japan in November 2003 when police arrested two Winny users for illegally distributing game software and a movie. Both suspects pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for three years.
In May 2004 police arrested the developer of the Winny system, Isamu Kaneko, and charged him with abetting the infringement of Japan's Copyright Law. On December 13, 2006, Kaneko was found guilty of aiding and abetting the infringement of Japan's Copyright Law by the Kyoto District Court and fined 1.5 million yen
Rather than serving files from a single location, the system distributes cached copies of user-provided files around the 'Winny' network to other users' computers, facilitating faster downloads of popular titles. Thus, all users of the 'Winny' system open their computers up to others' files, possibly contributing to copyright infringement.
Pirate Retail & Internet Operation Shut Down in Osaka
- 28May 2008
On May 27, following an investigation by JIMCA, officers from the Environment and Consumer
Protection Division of the Aichi Prefectural Police Headquarters, Nishio Police Station and
Gamagori Police Station arrested the owner of a DVD shop, and another man living in Osaka
City, on suspicion of violation of the copyright law.
Police seized 21 optical disc burners, computer equipment, and thousands of pirated and
pornographic DVD movies. Among the seizures, police found illegally camcorded versions of
movie titles. The suspects said that the source of these DVDs were purchases from street
vendors at the Nipponbashi-suji shopping mall in Osaka City.
On March 11, 2007, JIMCA discovered the suspects' illegal business, and issued a warning
within the framework of its TAP program. The suspects ignored the warning, and changed
their business model in an effort to evade detection and prosecution, shifting to sales
via Internet auction site and mobile phone auction site and sending lists of offered
titles to customers via e-mail.
This year, however, they expanded their business and opened a DVD shop offering pirated
titles in Osaka City and advertised the business monthly in five sports newspapers.
On being questioned by police, they confessed that they had earned around 1.5 million
yen (US$14,225) per month.
Filipino shop owner and three others arrested for piracy
- 10Apr 2008
On April 9, 22 police officers from Chiba Prefectural Police Headquarters and
Nagareyama Police Station, accompanied by a JIMCA investigator, arrested a
43-year-old Japanese-Filipino shop owner and three other men on suspicion of
violation of the Copyright Law. The four were distributing pirated VHS tapes
of popular Hollywood movies.
In September 2007, police officers from Nagareyama Police Station observed the
illegal duplication of VHS tapes while visiting a food materials shop and
restaurant in Nagareyama City during a regular patrol. In the April 9 raid,
the officers seized 521 pirated VHS tapes, 93 VHS tape decks and one personal
computer.
Further investigations revealed that the master tapes had been sent by airmail
from the Philippines, and then duplicated in an apartment in Kawasaki City.
The tapes were sold to customers for 300 yen per tape to customers who placed
their orders via telephone.
Police Officer, Other Man Arrested in Landmark File-Sharing Case
- 25Mar 2008
On March 24, the Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCA) announced
that the Environment and Consumer Protection Division of the Fukuoka Prefectural
Police Headquarters and Tsukushino Police Station had filed cases against two men
with the Fukuoka prosecutor's office.
The men, one a police officer stationed at the Hyogo Prefectural Police Headquarters
and the other a Fukuoka-based businessman, were charged with violation of Rights
of Public Transmission statutes for having made digitalized map software transmittable
to the public via the Winny file-sharing software application in January.
The case represents a landmark prosecution in Japan because the men had not
deliberately uploaded content, as was the case in previous Winny prosecutions
When the accused downloaded content, due to the design of Winny, they ended
up unintentionally offering for upload the files stored in their computers'
memory cache . Winny users' computers are network "slaves" that upload
content according to network demand and regardless of user preferences,
downloaded content that is not cleared from the computer's memory cache
is "on offer" to other network users at all times.
If the prosecution is successful, all users in Japan of Winny or Share
or other file-sharing software applications may be considered to have
violated Rights of Public Transmission statutes if they do not clear
their computers' cache immediately following unauthorized downloads of
content.
Kobe Man Arrested for Illegal Manufacturing and Distribution of Pirated DVDs
- 13Mar 2008
On March 12, acting on a tip, officers from the Environment and Consumer Protection
Division of Hyogo Prefectural Police Headquarters and Suma Police Station arrested
a 48-year truck driver living in Kobe City on suspicion of violation of the Copyright
Law.
On January 29, police raided the man's residence and seized more than 800 pirated
DVDs, as well as computers, scanners and printers.
The man admitted to police duplicating pirated DVDs after downloading movies using
file-sharing software or renting legitimate DVDs at video rental shop, between the
latter part of September 2007 and January 2008. He distributed these pirated DVDs
via word of mouth at a sale price of around 1,000 yen (US$10) per disc.
Man arrested on distribution of pirated DVDs disguising as secondhand goods
- 22Jan 2008
On January 22, Kashihara Police Station arrested a 21-year old man living in Tama-ku,
Kawasaki City on suspicion of fraud and violation of the Copyright Law. With police,
he copied "LOST Season 1" on DVD-Rs without authorization of the copyright holder
at the end of August, 2007, and exhibited it on Net auction site disguising bidders
as secondhand goods.
He sold it to a woman living in Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture who deposited 20,000
yen to his bank account. Also, he distributed another pirated DVD-R to another woman
at the beginning of 2007.
Recently, exhibitions of pirated goods have been increasing under the guise of legal
secondhand DVDs on auction sites. If you wonder it is cheaper, please take care!