Nearly nothing happens—3 months after Japan’s jail-time-for-downloading law
It has been three months since the enactment of Japan’s Jail-time-for-Downloading Law and almost nothing has happened.
Since October 1st, downloading pirated material in Japan can result in two years in prison and a fine of two ($25,600 USD) for each pirated file. For uploading, you can be facing 10 years in prison and a fine of ten 115,320 yen ($115,320 USD) (3Yen/2012-07-02).
Let’s look at the boxscore of the Japan’s jackbooted jackasses of JASRAÇ (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Çomposers and Publishers) and their assmonkeys at ACCS (Association of Copyright for Computer Software of Japan).
The following lists all the current arrests for copyright infringement involving illicit downloading/uploading –Google Translate of the official Japanese site: www2.accsjp.or.jp/criminal.
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• 2012-Nov-22 (Case 8) Illegal distribution of Pachiko/slot machine “music” [painful noise] by Japanese hobbyists via “Icecast” on a US server—A man arrested by the Fukuoka Prefectural police’s ‘Cyber Patrol’
• 2012-Nov-19 (Case 7) A wall clock with an unlicensed photo AKB48 (3,400 yen / $39 USD) was caught being sold at Internet auction—A man arrested due to a copyright owner complaint
• 2012-Nov-15 (Case 6) Sales of pirated Microsoft Office Pro (60,100 yen total)—A man arrested because of a purchaser complaint
• 2012-Nov-06 (Case 5) Sales of pirated Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit (8,960 yen total) through an Internet auction site—An arrest instigated by copyright owner complaint
• 2012-Nov-01 (Case 4) Unlicensed pillow cover of AKB48 members caught being sold (6,660 yen total)—Three households raided and arrests made by the Tochigi Prefectural police’s ‘Cyber Patrol’
• 2012-Oct-22 (Case 3) One man uploaded “Ichitaro” wordprocessing software to a cloud storage site with the intent of sales—A man arrested because of a copyright owner complaint
• 2012-Oct-16 (Case 2) Upload pirated Tecmo Koei Games through WinMX—Three men arrested due to action of the police ‘Cyber Patrol’ in Fukuoka, Ukiha, Asakura and Ogori
• 2012-Oct-15 (Case 1) Uploading English teaching materials through the Cabos file-sharing program—A man arrested due to the action of the Ibaraki Prefectural police’s ‘Cyber Patrol’
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That’s it.
A whopping eight cases and fewer than 15 people prosecuted—Your taxes at work!
Even more “effective” than those eight cases was that A Month After Japan’s Strict New Download Law Comes into Effect, Survey Suggests that Consumers are Spending Less Than Ever on Music (RocketNews24 | 2012/11/05).
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January 2nd, 2013 at 11:30 am
Kaza Gold
January 3rd, 2013 at 5:42 am
The particular picture of the Japanese “pirate” girl you used is actually secondary if cross-purposes — What we are seeking action against the forces of evil Content Industry.
January 3rd, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Funnier yet are the details of these Japanese pirate busts…
January 3rd, 2013 at 1:46 pm
Supposedly, this is the anime in question—Wouldn’t you really want to go to prison for this piece of crap.
http://youtu.be/cJucIRhSgu8
January 15th, 2013 at 3:52 pm
Update
The Number Of Pirates Arrested In Japan Since October Might Surprise You
Kotaku.com | Jan. 17, 2013
Well, it's been 3 months since Japan's own version of SOPA was passed. For those unfamiliar or cannot be bothered to research: in October, the copying of copy-protected and encoded materials, the sale of software and hardware that circumvents copy or access protection, and the intentional download of illegally uploaded materials were deemed illegal and punishable by prison time and/or a fine in Japan.
The law in question is written in such a way as to be vague and open-ended, allowing for potential abuse by any authority who wishes to. Even video streaming sites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga could fall under the law's definition of “illegal download” (although authorities later stated that they would not). So, how has the island country suffered under this new tyrannical rule? How many music, video, and game pirates were carted off to the slammer to face justice?
In a word: None. As of January 9th, no cases have been reported of anyone being arrested or tried under the new law…more…
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No case fully prosecuted in the past three months since the copyright law revision
NHK News | 20130jan09 (crazy Google Translate)
In the three months since the anti-pirating law that stipulate the jail penalties for people who illegally download movies or music, not one case that has been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The effectiveness of these anti-pirating measures has now become an issue.
“Copyright Act amendments” enacted in October of last year, calls for a prison penalty of two years or less and a fine of 2 million yen or less for knowingly downloaded music and movies pirated was posted on the Internet illegally.
Violators have been caught, but because of the law’s ambiguity, the background damage judgment and that it is pirated or apply for the case minor criteria of penalties is the side that complaint pointed out that there is a voice that has become cautious.
On the other hand, can be downloaded pirated sites are still present.
For this reason, organizations such as music companies have decided to only investigate violations of individuals analyze while seeking cooperation with law enforcement agencies in finding out the websites post pirated copyrighted materials.
Determining which malicious pirating cases to prosecute has been a impossible challenge.
January 18th, 2013 at 2:51 pm
TFC (The Filipino Channel) Japan all-out in its anti-piracy campaign
The Philippine Star | 2013/01/17
…Japan made headlines when the bill revising its copyright law to add criminal penalties for downloading copyright material or backing up content from a DVD was passed by the nation’s legislature and took effect October of last year. The new law has quickly led to several arrests, the latest of which involved a police sergeant in Fukushima prefecture last week after he was caught using a digital camera to record an animé movie while it was playing in a theater. It was found out that he had recorded the movie in three separate locations, each in a different theater. He claimed it was for personal use, but the new copyright law also prohibits the use of hidden recording devices in theaters and adds severe fines, including prison time, to illegally downloading content from the Internet.
More…
January 18th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Every one of those “arrests” was about pre-existing laws — in fact, they're all about laws that predate the internet, because every one of them has to do with selling other people's copyrighted materials.
January 20th, 2013 at 11:53 pm
The new Japanese law specifically requires the “victim” to press charges before an arrest can be made. This means that the movie and record companies— the copyright holders—have to do the policing. However, in Japan those companies don’t have the skills or the legal right to ISP records… yet. It’s no wonder there haven’t been any arrests.
January 31st, 2013 at 11:02 am
Excerpted view
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Excerpted view—View the rest of the comic here.
February 6th, 2013 at 9:44 am
Japanese Government Plants Anti-Piracy Warnings Inside Fake Downloads
February 5, 2013 | torrentfreak.com
Last year saw a major upgrade in Japan’s anti-piracy legislation in an attempt to shift Internet users away from file-sharing sites and networks and towards the country’s legitimate outlets. But while the change in the law was significant, getting the legal-downloading message to users proved problematic. In response the government and rightsholders are now seeding fake files with anti-piracy messages hidden inside…
…At the end of last month, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in conjunction with movie and music studios announced “Operation Decoy File”, a copyright awareness campaign stuffed inside – you guessed it – fake files.
“To deter illegal distribution of content using P2P file sharing software the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications [and various rightsholder companies and organizations] will until mid-February 2013 conduct experiments to contribute to the enlightenment of users who attempt to download illegal content using the same software,” the Ministry announced.
More…
February 8th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
European Court: Convictions for File-Sharing Violate Human Rights
Falkvinge on Infopolicy | 2013/Feb/07
The European Court of Human Rights has declared that the copyright monopoly stands in direct conflict with fundamental Human Rights, as defined in the European Union and elsewhere. This means that as of today, nobody sharing culture in the EU may be convicted just for breaking the copyright monopoly law; the bar for convicting was raised considerably. This can be expected to have far-reaching implications, not just judicially, but in confirming that the copyright monopoly stands at odds with human rights.…
…The summary of The European Court in English…
More…
March 1st, 2013 at 7:18 am
Can you keep us up to date with this?
I.E. it will be interesting to see how they handle VPN users…
Thankx
March 1st, 2013 at 8:04 am
Japan had a big crackdown last weekend. See my update:
Arrests of illegal downloaders under Japan’s new Jail-time-for-downloading Law
3Yen / 2013-02-26
Also refer to…
April 12th, 2013 at 9:50 am
Man Arrested for Downloading Anime, Games, Manga in Japan
animenewsnetwork.com / 2013-04-11
Police in Chikushino City in Fukuoka Prefecture filed an arrest against a 39-year-old unemployed male Kasuga City resident on Thursday for allegedly using file-sharing software to download anime, games, and manga. According to the police, the suspect used the file-sharing software Share and Perfect Dark…
…The authorities said that the suspect has been using file-sharing software for 10 years, and that he turned himself in to the police in December after seeing arrest reports appear on the 2channel forum. The suspect allegedly explained that he downloaded for his own personal viewing, and police said that his personal computer had more than 10,000 downloaded files of copyrighted materials…
…According to NHK, no cases were filed for illegal downloading in the first three months since these penalities went into effect.
More…
May 21st, 2013 at 11:53 pm
LDP to propose that Japanese ISPs must save the Internet access records of their users
yomiuri.co.jp | 2013 May 20 (goofy Google Translate)
The Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Liberal Democratic Party proposed an Action Plan on Internet security measures that the government should take before the end of the year…
…ISPs will be required to save of web access records of their users to assure a way of tracking them and to identify suspects of cyber crime… it was also proposed establishment of an organization to perform analysis and information gathering…more...
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Original Japanese — Yomiuri Shimbun 20 May 2013
yomiuri.co.jp/politics/news/20130520-OYT1T01056.htm
December 12th, 2013 at 8:03 pm
C’est bіzarre je comρtais rédiger un petit article similaire
au tiens
July 17th, 2014 at 4:28 pm
http://news.3yen.com/2014-07-17/j-crat-japans-new-geek-police/
Japan has a new cyber police unit called “J-CRAT” (Cyber Rescue and Advice Team against targeted attack of Japan) that has a logo that looks like a pigeon pooping on Japan.
July 29th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Good-luck-with-that Department…
JAPAN TO CRACK DOWN ON ANIME AND MANGA PIRACY
torrentfreak.com | July 28, 2014
The Japanese government alongside 15 leading producers and distributors of anime and manga are set to begin a huge anti-piracy campaign against 580 sites. To complement the initiative the group will also launch a brand new portal directing pirates to official content being targeted by the scheme.
nIn an effort to crackdown on Internet piracy, during October 2012 the Japanese government introduced new legislation targeted at file-sharers…
… knowingly downloading copyright-infringing material became an offense carrying a potential two years in jail. While it was hoped that these measures would encourage consumers to do the right thing, today the problems persist.
As a result, this week the Japanese government will act in order to preserve what it sees as one of its greatest cultural exports.
Anime and manga are now consumed in countries right around the world and Japan sees this interest in Japanese culture as useful to its relationships abroad. However, with that popularity comes piracy, much of it facilitated by unlicensed overseas sites.
In the hope of remedying the situation overseas, this Friday will see the launch of a massive anti-piracy campaign aimed at making a huge dent in anime and manga piracy.
The government and 15 leading producers and distributors will begin contacting an estimated 580 “overseas pirate sites” with demands that they mass-delete infringing content. The sites are located in various regions, but there will be a particular focus on China.
More…