Anti-Downloading Law Goes Live in Japan: 2 Years in Prison

[Gundam288]

[citation][nom]digiex[/nom]Due to the territorial dispute with China, Japan has to please the US.[/citation]
If that is true they are doing a poor job at it.

Been waiting on the "Another Century Episode" (A.C.E.) games to be at least sub'ed with the org. music to be put state side. From what I understand, one of the reasons why the US versions of Japanese games get a different soundtrack (at least with anime based games) is partialy because of the RIAJ and licenesing agreements.

A "A.C.E." game is the ONLY game I would buy a new playstation for at this rate. Other than that, I'll be sticking with my PC and passing on current and more than likely "next" gen consoles. Unless Sony desides to make A.C.E. "worthy" of being an English export for the PS4 (I have a better chance of winning $500 Mil than that happening sadly).


P.S. to the people who say you can import it instead. You can, but with the extra cost and if you don't know Japanese, it would be a hassle to spend that kind of cash to get it imported for just a few games and not be able to get the full value out of it. just my 2cents before I see a "Just import it" comment.

 

[nforce4max]

Last thing that people in that country needed was more government control over how one choices to use what is freely uploaded onto the net. I guess that the billions that the industry rakes in every year will never be enough so they must make criminals of people who prefer the free exchange of ideas and materials.

 

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

[citation][nom]ohim[/nom]That awkward moment when you live in a world where stealing a song puts you in jail more time than when you kill a man by accident with your car or when you steal few billion dollars from some banks.[/citation]
It's not even stealing! It's pirating! It's not like there's one fewer copy somewhere else because now you have one.

Pirate a song? Two years in jail. Devastate the world economy? F--kall!

 

[lamorpa]

[citation][nom]Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/nom]...It's pirating! It's not like there's one fewer copy somewhere else because now you have one.[/citation]
Ah, yes. The old "nothing physical was taken" dodge. Where's the "Those fat cat executives make too much money" dodge, or the "Those people wouldn't buy it anyway" dodge, or the "Most of it is crap" dodge? While you're inventing dodges for your stealing, why not list all the common dodges?

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]may1[/nom]It's pretty much ineffective, cyberlockers won't get you caught, and you can easily hide your IP using free public proxy servers on torrents. It's simply a law to stop stupid people (basically the majority of Japanese users) downloading illegal contents.[/citation]

not really, look into japanese law and how it works... this law basically opens the doors for everyone with a computer to be a criminal. they cant get you on the original charges, odds are you have something coppyrighted on your computer, the point of taking it from civil to state crime means that the right holders dont need to front any money, and the state also gets to charge them on an unrelated crime.

also, it has been said that watching a youtube video is "frowned apon" meaning they know the leagle definition is so vauge that anyone can be charged, and i dont know how reliable the translation i read was but it was a "for now" sounding approach to youtube.

[citation][nom]curiosul[/nom]It's not really ineffective. if it makes 10% of people to start buying things they would illegally download otherwise, the RIAJ got their lobby money back with interest. The way I see it, it's not about being right, it's about economics: biggest return (more people buying records) on the smallest investment (lobby a few politicians).[/citation]

take a look at media costs over there before you say that
games commonly cost over 100$
anime can cost up to 100$ for 2 episodes
they are very VERY expensive things over there.

 

[trumpeter1994]

I think some of this stuff is absurd.... a 25 thousand dollar fine for a 99 cent song. 25 Grand can ruin a guy, somehow i doubt though that 99 cents is going to ruin a celebrity that's already probably worth millions.

 

[bustapr]

[citation][nom]spentshells[/nom]Invasion of privacy, Japanese believe in privacy. This won't last long.[/citation]
actually this law was passed in secret a few months ago(ever since SOPA ended and ACTA started) and the japanese people just accepted it. its gone live now, but theyve known about it a long time. there might be some protesting when people start getting arrested, buti dont think itll get anywhere. its sad that this is happening.

 

[svdb]

With all the money we'll fine you, we'll build prisons to put you into. Sound like a business plan.

 

[vidfreek]

I think what most people who "defend" piracy are upset about is that most of the time the maximum fine and jail time is more than other major and sometimes very serious crimes, how is uploading or downloading a song or a movie worth that much time in jail or the fine they charge you? This over assaulting someone, raping someone, molesting someone, there are plenty of things that are extremely wrong but arent on the level of piracy for some reason. What kind of world do we have now that those types of crimes are looked at by the justice system as not as bad as piracy? Now of course you probably wont get the maximum jail sentence or likely any at all, but they will charge you a years salary or more for ONE song? Most people would gladly give you the $.99 or the $15 for the album or the movie, or hell even a couple hundred dollar fine most people would easily pay for doing what they did, but they try to ruin you entirely for "copying" a CD or a movie. To me thats just crazy when you compare to much more serious crimes

 

[bustapr]

[citation][nom]trumpeter1994[/nom]I think some of this stuff is absurd.... a 25 thousand dollar fine for a 99 cent song. 25 Grand can ruin a guy, somehow i doubt though that 99 cents is going to ruin a celebrity that's already probably worth millions.[/citation]
you are off quite a bit. japanese music industry is very different from anywhere else. Typically in Japan what sells most is singles released off album. These singles usually cost more than $20 each. And an album can cost anywhere from $50-$100. an exaggerated example will be, go to amazon and type in X japan Last Live, the first option should be a live CD and youll be amazed at the price.

Im a big fan of japanese metal(anthem, x japan, galneryus, sex machineguns) and its already hard to find their stuff on sale and even harder to find their stuff at a reasonable price. Ive resorted to pirating some albums with intention of buying when my economic situation is better. Now it seems it will be impossible to find music.

Japan also has a huge following of unliscensed anime in the USA. Alot of these people go out of their way to buy anime and music directly from japan. this will undoubtably hurt the music and anime industry in some way because less people from international market(like myself) will find new music. and less people from international market will buy music, and theyll make less money.

 

[lamorpa]

So not there are a whole series of irrelevant comments ranting how the fines are for downloading for personal use, as opposed to the subject here which is downloading and _making_publicly_available_ (read distribution to millions of internet users). If you bother to notice, the RIAA always goes after people who make songs publicly available for distribution (and checks the traffic and shows countless subsequent downloads), not for individual downloaders. It's the same here.

 

[thecolorblue]

[citation][nom]mikenygmail[/nom]Wow, I'm surprised at the amount of ignorance, animosity and jealousy regarding Japanese people.The average Japanese IQ is about 110-120, the highest average IQ in the world.Kenichi Ohmae has an IQ of 216, possibly the highest in the world.[/citation]
'The Mismeasure of Man' / read it
IQ metrics are totally without meaning or merit. The idea that mental capacity can be measured and people can be arranged single-file is ignorant, idiotic, and a complete fabrication originally designed to differentiate between mentally disabled and non-mentally disabled *and it failed miserably at that*

mental testing was then co-opted to attempt to buttress preconceived racist notions and today is has been co-opted by companies and industries whose whole livelihoods are based on administering these so-called 'tests'

PSEUDOSCIENCE
the world is chock full of it and IQ is just one of the most ridiculous of them

 

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]Ah, yes. The old "nothing physical was taken" dodge. Where's the "Those fat cat executives make too much money" dodge, or the "Those people wouldn't buy it anyway" dodge, or the "Most of it is crap" dodge? While you're inventing dodges for your stealing, why not list all the common dodges?[/citation]
I didn't say piracy wasn't a crime. I said piracy isn't stealing. And it's not. But feel free to indulge in your naive, knee-jerk moralizing while the point I was making goes sailing over your head.

 

[kittle]

Im a big fan of japanese metal(anthem, x japan, galneryus, sex machineguns) and its already hard to find their stuff on sale and even harder to find their stuff at a reasonable price. Ive resorted to pirating some albums with intention of buying when my economic situation is better. Now it seems it will be impossible to find music.

This attitude is what causes piracy (stealing) to get started.

Based on the comments here and in past articles, people think that if they want something, and it costs too much, then they have a right to steal it.

Whatever happened to wait until you can afford it?

 

[Gigahertz20]

Nothing a $40 a year VPN can't fix, complete privacy then.

BAM!
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

and the VPN above doesn't keep any logs at all, read link below, good overview of all VPNs privacy policy
http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

 

[teh_chem]

Eh, fine by me, I have yet to see a rational and logical argument for why it's not wrong to distribute protected content.

And if you disagree with what the core of "protected content" stands for, then protest by not supporting the content (i.e., don't buy it AND don't give it value by listening to/watching/reading/using it). But don't try to excuse your greediness and cheapness by saying you're protesting by acquiring something without paying for it. All you're doing is feeding back into the view that the content (and how the content is protected) has intrinsic value.

 

[830hobbes]

With those punishments, it seems better to just steal physical CDs from a record store if you can find one... Seems insane to get 10 years in prison for uploading a song. Not saying stealing is ok. I just think 20 years for rape and 10 for uploading a song is a little out of whack.

 

[john_4]

All your music belong to us.

 

[danielravennest]

Look for portable hard drive sales to go up in Japan. Copying off a USB-connected drive isn't downloading.

 

[okibrian]

"Naoki Kitagawa, who also operates as a chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment Japan."

Ah yes, it's always Sony in the middle of this crap.

 

[Guest]

Where can we pirate download taxes or free politicians?

 

[kinggremlin]

[citation][nom]trumpeter1994[/nom]I think some of this stuff is absurd.... a 25 thousand dollar fine for a 99 cent song. 25 Grand can ruin a guy, somehow i doubt though that 99 cents is going to ruin a celebrity that's already probably worth millions.[/citation]

What's truly absurd is how you think any court is going to go after a guy who downloaded 1 song illegally. It is also extremely rare for any defendant to get the maximum sentence for any crime. You either have to be a multiple offender or gratuitously violated the law to receive the maximum. The article states a fine of up to $25,700 fine. Unfortunately, many of you don't understand what up to means.

You want to know how to avoid getting up to 2 years in jail or up to a $25,700 fine for illegally downloading media files? Don't illegally download media files It's not that hard.

 

[mikenygmail]

[citation][nom]thecolorblue[/nom]'The Mismeasure of Man' / read itIQ metrics are totally without meaning or merit. The idea that mental capacity can be measured and people can be arranged single-file is ignorant, idiotic, and a complete fabrication originally designed to differentiate between mentally disabled and non-mentally disabled *and it failed miserably at that*mental testing was then co-opted to attempt to buttress preconceived racist notions and today is has been co-opted by companies and industries whose whole livelihoods are based on administering these so-called 'tests'PSEUDOSCIENCEthe world is chock full of it and IQ is just one of the most ridiculous of them[/citation]

The validity of the IQ test has been a point of contention since the creation of the test itself. I do not believe that it is broad or deep enough to accurately measure the overall power of a person's brain. After all, science doesn't even fully understand how the brain works. However, it clearly measures *something* and the people who decide the metrics for the test are fully committed to it's integrity.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

The only reason people download illegally is because they cant afford it in the first place. So even if they didn't download it they would still not be able to afford it and wont buy it anyway. So this solves nothing, just gets people put in jail that shouldn't be there.

 

[antilycus]

And yet the most stolen operating system of all time (Microsoft Windows) is used more than anything else, legally.

Look at Adobe Photshop. Stolen more than any other video editing software and yet it sells more copies than anythign remotely close. Even with GIMP on the table (which is open source).

Piracy = free advertising. If people didn't watch the movie for free, people with money wouldn't pay for it. Just look at hot tub time machine.