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NEWS: Tokyo Man Found Guilty of Anime File-Sharing


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dewlwieldthedarpachief



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:31 am Reply with quote
Jail? You go to JAIL for uploading ones and zeros?

EDIT: Just so I'm on the same page, this is also the home of murderers, rapists, drug peddlers, and any or more of the above is it not?

And now they want to do that with "unauthorized" downloading?
There's an accident waiting to happen...
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:50 am Reply with quote
"Well, holy geez, stealing Intellectual Property is wrong?"

People go to jail for a lot of things, all of which are wrong/bad things to do- evading taxes, organized crime, counterfieting, and all kinds of variations of lying/stealing/cheating. Bootlegging is just one of many of varying degress of violence/poor morality. Some are less violent then others, but still cause other people harm. So, hence the Jail/Serious Repercussions.

I think laws are catching up to technology now, and this sort of thing will be more common. Many people have been profitting illegally from other people's work on a larger scale, and many individual "fans" have been doing nothing but stealing as well. Eventually, it will catch up to fandom, especially in Japan, where anime producers have an easier time enforcing their copyrights since it's domestic.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:26 am Reply with quote
dewlwieldthedarpachief wrote:
Jail? You go to JAIL for uploading ones and zeros?

EDIT: Just so I'm on the same page, this is also the home of murderers, rapists, drug peddlers, and any or more of the above is it not?

And now they want to do that with "unauthorized" downloading?
There's an accident waiting to happen...
When those ones, and zeros, are peoples bread and butter with a bit of meat on table, and uploading takes those things out of their mouths, then yes, you go to jail, and rightly so. It's going to be a lonely Christmas for them this year. So sad.
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JINROH



Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 56
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:27 am Reply with quote
Paploo wrote:
"Well, holy geez, stealing Intellectual Property is wrong?"

People go to jail for a lot of things, all of which are wrong/bad things to do- evading taxes, organized crime, counterfieting, and all kinds of variations of lying/stealing/cheating. Bootlegging is just one of many of varying degress of violence/poor morality. Some are less violent then others, but still cause other people harm. So, hence the Jail/Serious Repercussions.

I think laws are catching up to technology now, and this sort of thing will be more common. Many people have been profitting illegally from other people's work on a larger scale, and many individual "fans" have been doing nothing but stealing as well. Eventually, it will catch up to fandom, especially in Japan, where anime producers have an easier time enforcing their copyrights since it's domestic.




Agreed,and they still have a long ways to go,to completely catch
up.This is a good start though,and I hope they throw more people behind bars for this.With the US and Japan starting to cooperate more behind the scenes,we may see more of this in the not so distant future.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:10 am Reply with quote
Quote:
...were the first in Japan to be arrested for allegedly using Share, a program that had promised high anonymity for its users. (Ever since security researchers found flaws in Share in 2006, other successor applications have been developed.)

Therein lies their problem. That's a 'told you so' kind of situation, like a college kids getting arrested for downloading stuff off of limewire through on their college's network. I'm not promoting piracy or anything, but if you're going to do something illegal, be smart about it. Cool

Quote:

EDIT: Just so I'm on the same page, this is also the home of murderers, rapists, drug peddlers, and any or more of the above is it not?

I don't know much about Japan's legal system other than what Phoenix Wright taught me, but in America people who commit white collar crimes and other non deadly crimes are generally not sent to the same prison as the murderers and rapists. They get a pretty cushy living space comparatively and are put in with people that committed similar crimes. I think it's safe to assume conditions are pretty similar in Japan.

So yes, it's still "prison" by name but it's a completely different place than the people that committed dangerous crimes go.

Quote:
And now they want to do that with "unauthorized" downloading?
There's an accident waiting to happen...

There's no reason to put "unauthorized" in quotes like that. In the case at hand, what this man did was absolutely illegal. It's not really a big deal to me whether or not people download anime (or movies or music) off of the internet, but it annoys me a bit to see people trying to make justifications for themselves about it, or even to honestly try to argue that this sort of thing should be legal.

It's sort of like shoplifting. It's a minor crime, few people (outside of the store you're stealing from) will care that you did it, and you probably won't get caught. But if you do get caught, it's not going to work to try to convince anyone that it's OK to shoplift.
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Daimao Raki



Joined: 03 Jul 2008
Posts: 593
Location: Dark Side of the Moon
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:14 am Reply with quote
I expect to see more people locked up in Japan over this. The anime companies have quite a big influence, so I know they will be asking for tough sentences.
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melonbread



Joined: 09 Jan 2008
Posts: 317
Location: UK (London)
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:16 am Reply with quote
Well it's his fault for not using the latest Perfect Dark file sharing system instead of Share that had been exploited...

But, I think making him spend 18 months in jail along with rapists/murderers etc is way too harsh...
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Rehabilitator



Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:36 am Reply with quote
inmate: "So what you in for?"

Guy: "sharing manga"

...
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CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 2707
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:01 am Reply with quote
Rehabilitator wrote:
inmate: "So what you in for?"

Guy: "sharing manga"

...


That was an ad here for some time--bunch of tough, scary guy standing around inside a cell bragging about what they're in for finally asking this little mousy guy what he was in for-"stealing cable" & the thugs all "Stealing cable?" & bust up laughing.

And I have had people on my caseload for stealing electricity, cable, shoplifting (shoplift might be minor, but shoplift with a prior is a felony)
And yeah, they can get jail time
Understand local lock up (jail) is different from state or federal prisons. There are the minimum security prisons, paraded in the media as country clubs where white collar criminals with good lawyers are sent for their sentances, & the stuff you see on tv of hard time prison lock-ups.
And that's prison.
Jail/local lockup is not the same.
Murderers are likely in a higher level prison than someone stealing cable. We even have a system here wher people can work their job all day & return to jail at night (Work Furlough). Don't see prisons using a program like that. They usually deal with more severe cases. My guys get sent to prison if they screw up one too many times & usually after all their local time (usually no more than 365 days) is exhausted.

I saw a teen on juvenile supervision sent back to Juvenile Hall for violating her court order by stealing a $2 hair item (barrettes) from a drug store.

The guy knew it was illegal to upload in Japan & did it anyway. If you dance, you have to pay the piper.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:02 am Reply with quote
Rehabilitator wrote:
inmate: "So what you in for?"

Guy: "sharing manga"

...
Other inmate: Say, do you mind picking up the soap please? Wink
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dewlwieldthedarpachief



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:34 am Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:

When those ones, and zeros, are peoples bread and butter with a bit of meat on table, and uploading takes those things out of their mouths, then yes, you go to jail, and rightly so. It's going to be a lonely Christmas for them this year. So sad.

Paploo wrote:
"Well, holy geez, stealing Intellectual Property is wrong?"People go to jail for a lot of things, all of which are wrong/bad things to do- evading taxes, organized crime, counterfieting, and all kinds of variations of lying/stealing/cheating. Bootlegging is just one of many of varying degress of violence/poor morality. Some are less violent then others, but still cause other people harm. So, hence the Jail/Serious Repercussions.


Point taken, I'm not arguing that what he did was proper. However I wonder if what he stole from the victimized party deserves this kind of punishment. He pays on an individual level for much more than he took imho.

rizuchan wrote:

There's no reason to put "unauthorized" in quotes like that. In the case at hand, what this man did was absolutely illegal. It's not really a big deal to me whether or not people download anime (or movies or music) off of the internet, but it annoys me a bit to see people trying to make justifications for themselves about it, or even to honestly try to argue that this sort of thing should be legal.

It's sort of like shoplifting. It's a minor crime, few people (outside of the store you're stealing from) will care that you did it, and you probably won't get caught. But if you do get caught, it's not going to work to try to convince anyone that it's OK to shoplift.


Sorry I didn't make myself more clear: when I quoted unauthorized I meant to say that the task of determining what is and is not authorized could become a serious issue for people who are NOT doing anything wrong; you wouldn't think that a governing body could be so incompetent that it would criminalize innocent people after all.
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2228
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:42 am Reply with quote
Unfortunately this is the only thing that matters:

As of today, every single piece of animation aired in Japan on television or satellite is still available for download on the internet either through Share (still), Winny (still), or the new program which, due to this prosecution has seen a massive increase in usership.
Since these guys were arrested there has been almost no drop off in availability of raws of any shows that I can tell.

And I might remind people that _downloading_ shows is still LEGAL in Japan. (It's illegal in the US, but not in Japan, despite new laws pending that will change that). If they thought this action will end up deterring raws from being uploaded to the internet one bit they're fooling themselves.
When the creator of winny was jailed, that gave rise to Share, and the number of people downloading increased.
When people sharing manga using winny were arrested, that just helped increase the number of people still using winny to move to Share and made it much EASIER to download files.
When share was revealed to be compromised someone wrote perfect dark. Now that these people have been arrested and sentenced, that'll just encourage more people to move to perfect dark.
It's also had the side effect of making certain large fansub groups to set up their own private raw-capping setups in Japan using remote controlled digital television transport stream capture devises which get around BCAS encryption and bypass the Japanese P2P networks altogether.
In fact, I would bet that if the Japanese government somehow managed to shut down Share and Winny and PD completely tomorrow, most of the biggest shows would still get fansubbed because the large groups now have their own personal raw capping devices.

Did these guys break the law? Heck yeah. But don't fool yourselves into thinking that this prosecution will make one iota of difference to the overall problem.


Last edited by samuelp on Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:43 am; edited 1 time in total
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Fear Ghoul



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:42 am Reply with quote
Quote:
And now they want to do that with "unauthorized" downloading?


""Unauthorized""...classic. Part of me laughed when I read that, the other part died.

1.5 years in prison is perfectly acceptable. He could have gotten far worse, at least he could have if he lived in Britain. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he got caught. Now he should pay the full price like everyone else and we should all get on with our lives.
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:57 am Reply with quote
Now see, maybe if we were to start doing that over here we wouldn't be having the problems that we're having, maybe. The thing is, Japan is really tough on their laws. So, don't break any of them while you're over there, who knows what you may be in for.
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Tomibiki



Joined: 08 Jul 2007
Posts: 834
PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:21 pm Reply with quote
Good to see you can still get away with murder in Japan but file-sharing'll get you murphed out.
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