Winny user’s 3-year sentence
p2pnet.net News:- A man accused of using Japan’s Winny p2p file sharing application to release movies online has received a suspended sentence in Japan.
Winny caught the world media’s collective eye last year because the first people the Big Four record label cartel targeted in Japan were using it, together with the facts that it includes Freenet code and has an anonymous file-sharing feature.
Winny was developed mainly for research and its author, Isamu Kaneko, a well-known software engineer and a Tokyo University research associate, awaits trial for “allowing his software program to assist other people in downloading and sharing copyrighted movies, music and game files”.
Now, Yoshihiro Inoue, 42, accused of violating Japan’s copyright law, has been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for three years, says Mainichi Interactive.
“In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Yasuhide Narazaki made the unusual move of criticizing Inoue’s lawyers,” says the report.
“They carried out inappropriate defense activities, presenting false claims to the court and requesting evidence,” Narazaki said.
In Canada, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) was similarly criticized for presenting “deficient” evidence in a case where it was trying to force five Canadian ISPs to hand over the identifies of 29 customers.
A 19-year-old youth has also been tried and convicted on the same charges, and faced the same penalty of a suspended one-year prison sentence, adds Mainichi Interactive.
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See:-
Isamu Kaneko – $100K raised for Winny author, p2pnet, June 4, 2004
three years – ‘Winny’ file-sharing user gets suspended prison sentence, November 30, 2004
“deficient” evidence – Keep on swapping! Cdn file sharers told, p2pnet, March 21, 2004
November 30th, 2004 at 9:31 pm
Was Yoshihiro Inoue a Winny developer, contributor or distributor (in other words – someone at the software’s supply end) or just an ordinary file sharer using Winny? Since in Japan, P2P software itself is illegal, and the police are prosecuting both the P2P software developers as well as the users. So the victim’s role really needs to be pointed out. (something most news stories failed to do)
So I searched Google news and found this:
“Inoue used the Winny program at his home in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, on September 24 and 25 last year and enabled general computer users to download the Hollywood film “A Beautiful Mind” and another movie on the Internet, the ruling said.”
Since Winny is supposed to be an anonymous P2P network, exactly how was this guy caught sharing files? Also, was he sharing more than just the 2 movies listed? Did the police raid his home and snatch his computer? I know this is not the first time something like this has happened.
It might appear that Japan is the most P2P-hostile country in the world. I have to wonder what has been going on there? The situation seems far different from that in the USA, where software developers and users routinely get sued, but not arrested. Unfortunately, I don’t understand Japanese, but I think the P2P situation in Japan really deserves some investigating. Could this be the trend of the future in other countries?