Anti-Downloading Law Hits Japan, Up To 2 Years in Prison

Hilbert Hagedoorn

A few hours ago Japan introduced new anti-piracy legislation designed to clamp down on illegal file-sharing. The regime is one of the most draconian in the world. In most countries users are only targ...

Anti-Downloading Law Hits Japan, Up To 2 Years in Prison

sverek · 10-02-2012, 08:29 | posts: 1,036 | Location: Japan, Soka

son of a ...

scatman839 · 10-02-2012, 08:58 | posts: 8,739 | Location: Dundee, Scotland

I have seen many places, as well as locals telling me, that they won't be paying attention to streaming of videos though.

PCElite · 10-02-2012, 09:10 | posts: 231

lol and they laugh at China

Mikedogg · 10-02-2012, 09:15 | posts: 2,872 | Location: The Freak Show - Earth.

Clamp down as much as you like, it ain't gonna stop it; barely slow it for that matter.

I'll just leave this here.

kanej2007 · 10-02-2012, 09:55 | posts: 5,700 | Location: Dubai, UAE / London, UK

Quote:

Originally Posted by sverek

son of a ...

Poor old sverek.

XBEAST · 10-02-2012, 09:56 | posts: 1,442 | Location: Unknown

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

Zboe · 10-02-2012, 10:27 | posts: 531 | Location: USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by XBEAST

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

So let make pirating a crime and fill our already over full jails with even more non violent offenders.

Prohibition in the U.S. failed, the war on drugs has been a failure for 40 years now. What makes you think the Government could fight pirates any better? I mean really...When are people like you going to realize that criminalizing BS like this does absolutely nothing and runs up more worthless Government spending in the process. You aren't solving a damn thing with legislation like this, instead your ripping families apart and putting more burden on taxpayers that cannot afford it.

Mikedogg · 10-02-2012, 10:30 | posts: 2,872 | Location: The Freak Show - Earth.

^Spot on. Someone had to say it.

Brasky · 10-02-2012, 11:20 | posts: 1,296 | Location: BBQ Capital of the World

Quote:

Originally Posted by XBEAST

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

/sarcasm?

zaeb · 10-02-2012, 12:34 | posts: 54 | Location: Serbia

how shell i put this. complitely retarded action that cant be more retarded. there r more presing concernes then catching ppl how r downloading pirated stuff like hunger. how many hunger ppl and children r in the world. might focus on that instead of getting the rich richer. ppl need to rise.

GeniusPr0 · 10-02-2012, 12:39 | posts: 317 | Location: Ontario, Canada

Hahaha, Canada makes a tax instead and protects its people

.

thatguy91 · 10-02-2012, 12:48 | posts: 2,758 | Location: Australia

So this is brought on by a decline in sales in the Japanese music industry, which means less money in the local economy, less government taxes etc. I dare say they will prioritise the offenders list, such that only people who have enough funds to pay the fine will be caught, meaning money into government coffers, and not out of them through imprisonment (which also could negatively impact the economy more than that person saving $50 from downloading songs. Some of those that can't pay will also be targetted just to keep the fear level up, so not being able to pay the fine won't be a saviour in itself.

Of course, the real question is, if it is an issue with the local music industry, what about people buying songs legitimately from foreign websites? Will they make only local downloads legal?

bobdude · 10-02-2012, 13:51 | posts: 1,710 | Location: AZ

Quote:

Originally Posted by XBEAST

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

cool and when it does YOU can pay ALL the taxes when there serving time

perosmct · 10-02-2012, 14:43 | posts: 1,072 | Location: unknown

when it will come to eu, with money i escaped from paying terabytes of data, movies, music and games, i will build an armory in my house and then come to arrest me, i'll not be back like terminator, i will be there to kick your @$$...

AbjectBlitz · 10-02-2012, 15:43 | posts: 3,271 | Location: United Kingdom

Quote:

Originally Posted by XBEAST

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

Dude, WTF is wrong with you?

BLEH! · **Memory**: 24GB @ 1600 @ 9-10-9-27

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbjectBlitz

Dude, WTF is wrong with you?

This.

As a musician, as I understand the business currently:
There's no money in traditional record sales any more really, at least not through major labels. Things like Bandcamp are the way forward, as that way, the artist gets 90% of the profits rather than 5% from a record deal. Touring makes artists far more money than record sales, with merch sales being more important than ever.

Japan is definitely going in the wrong direction with this.

sverek · 10-02-2012, 17:51 | posts: 1,036 | Location: Japan, Soka

In Japan, a 14 year old boy got into jail for creating an "exploit" (shutting down pc over local network) and putting on website. Another 15 year old got in jail by putting copyright material on his blog.

I wonder if police or government in Japan have any idea if they putting "right" people in jail.

There people who seeds terabytes of data via torrent and p2p anonymously in Japan, there people who posting exploits, and they doing fine so far as they do it behind encrypted connection.
Its always those poor people, that got caught with obvious proof. However maximum damage they did is no more than 100 downloads.

I just hope this will fail as it did in USA. Getting 1000000+ people into jail cause they downloaded stupid track from youtube... its just stupid and painful to see.
Not to mention its their own tax money being used against them to hunt them down.

Extraordinary · 10-02-2012, 17:58 | posts: 2,763 | Location: At my desk

Quote:

Originally Posted by XBEAST

Hopefully this laws hits US and EU as well.

Get off the internet right now

StewieTech · 10-02-2012, 20:17 | posts: 654 | Location: Portugal

Stupid law!

WindtalkerCS · 10-02-2012, 20:20 | posts: 379 | Location: Upstate NY

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLEH!

This.

As a musician, as I understand the business currently:
There's no money in traditional record sales any more really, at least not through major labels. Things like Bandcamp are the way forward, as that way, the artist gets 90% of the profits rather than 5% from a record deal. Touring makes artists far more money than record sales, with merch sales being more important than ever.

Japan is definitely going in the wrong direction with this.

I don't think it is even a new development. I'd argue that it's been like that for a long long time. Shows have always been the moneymakers.

IcE · 10-02-2012, 20:41 | posts: 6,990 | Location: Toledo, Ohio

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zboe

So let make pirating a crime and fill our already over full jails with even more non violent offenders.

Prohibition in the U.S. failed, the war on drugs has been a failure for 40 years now. What makes you think the Government could fight pirates any better? I mean really...When are people like you going to realize that criminalizing BS like this does absolutely nothing and runs up more worthless Government spending in the process. You aren't solving a damn thing with legislation like this, instead your ripping families apart and putting more burden on taxpayers that cannot afford it.

Well something has to be done. There are economic consequences from copyright theft. Nobody can really quantify exactly how large they are, but they're still there. Jail is a silly punishment though.

PhazeDelta1 · 10-02-2012, 21:01 | posts: 9,317 | Location: 90° N

Quote:

Originally Posted by IcE

Well something has to be done. There are economic consequences from copyright theft. Nobody can really quantify exactly how large they are, but they're still there. Jail is a silly punishment though.

Just think, if SOPA would have passed, pirating copyrighted material would of been classified as economic terrorism.

PinguX · 10-02-2012, 21:53 | posts: 794

How much of Japan's revenue is generated by the music industry ?

Jailing teenagers/students downloading youtube videos is'nt going to help Japan's economy. Whos going to employ them when they come out of prison ? Less employed people means less money for the country.

Redemption80 · 10-02-2012, 22:34 | posts: 13,430 | Location: Glasgow

Don't think anyone other than a few "make an example" cases will actually be thrown in jail.

Likely used as a deterrent, or as a way to get people to pay up when they get caught.

As already mentioned, putting people in jail is a very expensive and only ends up hurting the country more, which is why (here anyway) we have alcoholics and drug addicts on government handouts as its cheaper than jailing them.

That got me thinking though, downloading is probably very addictive for many, would that mean a future world could have government handouts of games/movies/music to stop people "stealing"