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.'"
FYI (Score:5, Informative)
1,500,000 yen is about equal to $16,000 US.
Re:2006? (Score:2, Informative)
The original conviction was in 2006, and it was then taken to the High Court which has only just overturned it.
Re:2006? (Score:5, Informative)
As the article on Slashdot indicates, the 2006 ruling was overturned recently, which is why it's news.
You can google for more info, but many articles fail to convey how incredibly popular this program was in Japan. In 2006, it was reported that 1 in 3 computers had this program installed. Add that to the fact that most folks in Japan had very fast Broadband speeds even in 2006, you can imagine the amount of files that exchanged hands.
I'm glad to see that the correct ruling has been made, finally...
Re:2006? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm somewhat confused. The ruling was in 2006? Why are we hearing about this now?
It seems obvious: the original ruling was in 2006, the appeals-court ruling is recent.
Re:Criminal vs Civil (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Criminal vs Civil (Score:3, Informative)
Here it is [youtube.com] ...there doesn't seem to be a gunshot or a blood splatter though.
...and here's a rough translation. IANFIJ (I am not fluent in Japanese). Furthermore, it seems Slashdot is going to mangle the Japanese transcript. Also, I'm skipping the last screen at the end.
/ /
In a theater, taking pictures of or recording a movie is a crime.
/ /
By law, jail time of up to ten years, fines of up to 10,000,000 yen ($113,050), or both are handed down.
/ / /
If you see suspicious behavior, please notify the theater staff. [We will] report to the police immediately.
NO / MORE /
No more movie piracy.
Re:downloading a file sharing program will be ille (Score:5, Informative)
Just read about it in the newspaper. (Daily Yomiuri [yomiuri.co.jp], for me.)
Unfortunately, the on-line version leaves off a few things.
For instance, Kaneko's lawyer's pointed out that auto manufacturers would not "be punished if speeding became rampant." (Reported in the print news.)
Also, the on-line version doesn't mention that, "A revised Copyright Law that prohibits users from downloading such peer-to-peer file sharing software will come into force in January." (The last line of the print article.)
I think the print version of the Yomiuri may have been slightly off on that point... the sources I have seem to say the law is dealing with copyrighted works, not programs that can be used to download them. Copyright act amended [managingip.com]
Japan Strengthens Copyright Law [billboard.biz] Basically, the new legal ground seems to be that downloading works protected by copyright without permission is now officially a crime, but they have to prove the defendent knew the file was not distributed legally. Up until now, prosecution has been mostly (if not completely?) uploaders. Nothing is being said about downloading the software itself.
If you want it from the original source, and you can read Japanese, this link has the text of the bill itself in PDF format. [mext.go.jp] I have not translated it so I can't verify whether the English news sources are correct in their interpretation or not.
Re:Criminal vs Civil (Score:3, Informative)
This is the criminal case. Anywhere else where there is a P2P related case, they are usually civil, like a record label suing for damages. Only in Japan would the cops take you away in cuffs based on a tip from Sony Records.
It is also interesting to note that, in Japan, the criminal conviction rate is 99.8%. [legalaffairs.org]
Re:1,500,000 yen = zero Dollars (Score:3, Informative)
He probably would not have had to pay anyway. In the Japanese legal system to bring a civial case against someone you have to claim monetary damages. Often plaintiffs specify an amount but have no intention of collecting it, they want some other specific remedy such as having a webpage taken down or to stop the defendant doing something.
thanks for the links (Score:3, Informative)
Read the outline and looked at the other five PDFs. It appears that, in addition to the outline (1251916_1_3), we have a statement of goals (1251916_2_3), a summary of changes (1251916_3_3), a statement of reasoning (1251916_4_3), a side-by-side comparison (1251916_5_3) (in vertical text, hey), and a copy of the affect elements of the current law (1251916_6_1) (not real sure about the last one).
I've read the outline. The rest of this is going to take a little time to digest (80 pages).
The outline, at any rate, doesn't indicate anything that would directly make downloading file sharing software illegal.