Winny author should be jailed
p2p news / p2pnet: Isamu Kaneko, who wrote Winny, Japan’s most popular p2p file sharing application, should be jailed, say Japanese prosecutors in a court case initiated by Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), Warner Music (US), EMI (UK) and Vivendi Universal (France), the Big Four Organized Music labels.
"He promoted copyrights violations, and (the program development) had grave social impact with similar cases following it," they said, according to TMCNet, which goes on:
"The Winny software developed by Isamu Kaneko, 35, caused serious damage, such as violations of copyrights, the prosecutors said in their closing argument.
"Kaneko, a former assistant researcher at the University of Tokyo, has pleaded not guilty, saying during court hearings he developed the software for the purpose of technological analysis, and that he had no intention of assisting people’s copyrights law violations."
The hearing isn’t expected to be conclude until September, "following closing argument by his defense counsel," says the story.
Meanwhile, the prosecution is demanding that Kaneko be imprisoned for a year.
Go here for more on Winny, as well as a download, which we’ve also mirrored here.
(Thanks, Michael L.)
Also See:
most popular – Winny useage increases, June 21, 2006
TMCNet – 1-yr imprisonment demanded for creator of Winny software, July 3, 2006
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July 4th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
the real Japanese file sharers use Share Winny is way old .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(P2P)
Share is based on the concepts of Winny without the security holes .
July 4th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Sounds like the venomous verbage the the prosecutor is using against this guy is scripted by the big record industries. If someone uses his program for illegal purposes, then go after the one that did wrong. Let’s check his finances and see if he has extra money tucked away somewhere.
Also I wonder what would happen in a murder trail if the defendant said the music told me to do it. Well the music companies put out a lot of pathetic hate and racial trash nowadays. And they would just say the person is crazy and our music didn’t do anything to inspire him to do what he did. Does that make them any less guilty?
July 4th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Funny you should mention this senario. Because it happened in the 80’s where some right wingers christians sued the band Iron Maiden when their kids killed themselves. They claimed the music brainwashed their kids. They lost this case of course.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Damn right he should be jailed.
Making it easy to undermine the intellectual rights of Americans. Evil, evil evil.
He should be put in the same jail as the Xerox people, Mr. Dick (of pre-Xerox AB fame), Dr. Land – so he’s dead, dig him up and punish him – George Eastman, too. While we’re at it, that bloody German Gutenburg started it all – damn him as well.
Then we’re on to Sony – just because Beta lost the war doesn’t make it a clean product. Rampant copyright violations from that one, and the bloody WALKMAN!! What were we supposed to put in it? Our 45’s?!?
Jail ‘em all. Send ‘em to Gitmo!! That’ll teach ‘em to mess with the moneyed and powerful.
While we’re at it, if your mother made potato stamps, or taught you about tracing or carbon paper (let’s get the Weyerhausers and Carter’s ink boys, too!) she should be dragged from the nursing home and shut away.
Imagine making it possible to share.
Yahoo!
July 5th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Yeah I think Nirvana’s “I swear I dont have a gun” was linked to thirty odd teenage suicides but again no redress (not sure dont sue me for defamation or copyright infringement – I have a child)… anyway the point is they should also then jail the makers of the photocopier, the internet, the cd writer, the scanner, digital cameras, blank CDs, MP3 players… need I go on ?
July 5th, 2006 at 9:45 am
I know squat about Japanese law – can anyone give an estimate of how likely this is to succeed? eg any relevant Japanese case law? Are Japanese judges likely to see the bigger picture?