Japanese Ruling Against Winny Dev Overturned On Appeal 82
Joren writes "In Japan, in a case that has been five years running, the Osaka High Court on Thursday overturned a lower court ruling that had convicted and fined the developer of controversial file-sharing software Winny of assisting violations of the Copyright Law. Originally charged in 2004, Isamu Kaneko, 39, a former research assistant at the University of Tokyo, was declared not guilty, and will not be required to pay a 1.5 million yen fine levied by a December 2006 Kyoto District Court ruling. 'Merely being aware of the possibility that the software could be abused does not constitute a crime of aiding violations of the law, and the court cannot accept that the defendant supplied the software solely to be used for copyright violations,' presiding judge Masazo Ogura said. Furthermore, in siding with the defense, the appeal ruling stated that 'Anonymity is not something to be looked on as illegal, and it is not something that applies specifically to copyright violations. The technical value of the software is neutral.'"
Re:FYI (Score:2, Funny)
Whiney Winny Dev (Score:3, Funny)
I first read this as "Japanese Ruling Against Whiny Dev Overturned On Appeal" and immediately thought "well no wonder they ruled against him. Damn I hate whiny people!
Re:Criminal vs Civil (Score:5, Funny)
Well then the pirates should add a counter ads to their pirated copies, mocking the original (like they already do with the MPAA ads in some torrents in the West). I see it something like this: The camera guy starts shooting, the cops bust in with guns drawn, the camera guy's lens flips up and a rocket launcher engages the cops, who back out, return with a tank, at which point the camera guy extends an antena and calls Gojira, the cops call Mothra, Tokyo gets flattened ... you get the idea ...
In fact, who needs the movie they were pirating?