Winny developer convicted

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Date: December 14, 2006 7:43:01 AM JST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Winny developer convicted
Reply-To: rdv () tera ics keio ac jp

Dave, for IP, if you wish...

Isamu Kaneko, the guy who wrote Winny, one of the most popular
peer-to-peer file sharing programs here in Japan, has been convicted
of enabling users to violate the Copyright Law act.  The Kyoto
District Court fined him 1.5 million yen (about $13K).  He plans to
appeal.

Winny was released in May 2002, while Kaneko was a research assistant
at Todai (University of Tokyo), and Kaneko was arrested and indicted
in May 2004.  Two men who used his software to distribute copyrighted
movies have already been convicted and given suspended jail sentences
of a year.

Apparently the case hinged on some comments Kaneko made indicating
that he knew his software was being used for illegal purposes.

One estimate is that Winny users still violate copyright at a rate
that represents 10 billion yen (almost $100M) every six hours.  There
are also malware programs out there that leak information from PCs
onto Winny, which has been the source of some of the serious data
privacy breaches in the last few years.

One thing that seems remarkable about this case to me is that Japan
has often seemed to have a rather laissez faire attitude toward
copyright violation.  American music afficianados know that imported
Japanese CDs often sell for $30, and assume that someone is making a
killing doing the importing, but in fact, that's the common sale price
here.  In response, sales are actually low; CD rental shops are more
common than sales.  Sales of blank minidiscs are correspondingly high
-- guess what happens when that rented CD goes to someone's home?
Copy-protected CDs are becoming more common here as a result.

Trademarks, especially of foreign companies, likewise are erratically
protected.  Fake goods are common, and near-imitations of trademarks
that probably wouldn't past muster in the U.S. abound.  Recently a
very popular series of "one coin" 500 yen DVDs has appeared,
containing bad transfers of bad prints of old movies (I admit, I watch
them).  The movies are all 50 years old or older, which is the
copyright limit here, so they're technically not illegal, but I
suspect in the U.S. the original studio would still attempt to make
the DVD producers' lives difficult.

Until they pull them down, the Daily Yomiuri's articles on this are at
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20061214TDY01004.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20061214TDY02009.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20061214TDY04005.htm
(the editorial is titled, "Winny ruling spotlights engineers' moral
duties").

                --Rod




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