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

[tydas]

Well, seems like a pretty harsh punishment..obviously something has to be done and who knows...it might come to this in the US one day as well...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Piracy-Illegal-Downloads-Japan,18046.html

 

[SheHateMe]

Ya, okay. Good luck with that, Japan.

 

[tommo123]

soo, what other crimes would give you 2 years in jail in japan? what do they say that downloading a song is equal to?

 

[Jaskalas]

Anti-downloading law...

It'd be nice if an email spammer sent everyone a copyrighted mp3. Imagine the legal hell Japan would go through then, either abandoning the law or arresting everyone.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Shouldn't it be an anti-uploading law? The person making the material available is the one who is the primary source of copyright infringement. I see from the article that uploaders apparently face a punishment 5 times worse, so that's something, I guess... Seems like it would be impossible to enforce though.

 

[Anarchist420]

It's simply a internationally pending treaty that the state of Japan happened to be one of the first to ratify.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Anti-downloading law...

It'd be nice if an email spammer sent everyone a copyrighted mp3. Imagine the legal hell Japan would go through then, either abandoning the law or arresting everyone.

Brilliant loophole. I'm certain Japan would not attempt to simply find the guy that sent the email to everyone.

 

[13Gigatons]

sad.

 

[Jaskalas]

Brilliant loophole. I'm certain Japan would not attempt to simply find the guy that sent the email to everyone.

Not if they want to uphold their law and attack downloaders.

 

[spittledip]

Haven't those who downloaded and listened to the Japanese music endured enough punishment already????

 

[Newbian]

Glad I live where it's free to download all that tentacle porn still... :sneaky:

 

[irishScott]

Not if they want to uphold their law and attack downloaders.

All that would happen is any court with half a brain would add a "willful" interpretation to precedent. It would weaken the law, but not destroy it.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Haven't those who downloaded and listened to the Japanese music endured enough punishment already????

Dunno about the States but their media has been so mediocre lately that even the rest of Sino-Asia has stopped caring.

Oh I'm sure this law will be really popular with a vast majority that has zero confidence on their judicial system.

 

[shira]

Knowingly downloading copyrighted material without paying is similar to knowingly receiving stolen merchandise. It's not quite as bad as shoplifting, but it IS a criminal act.

 

[Yreka]

Ya, okay. Good luck with that, Japan.

Yep...

 

[Jaskalas]

Knowingly downloading copyrighted material without paying is similar to knowingly receiving stolen merchandise. It's not quite as bad as shoplifting, but it IS a criminal act.

It's an arrangement of 1s and 0s. Quite difficult to equate.

 

[irishScott]

Knowingly downloading copyrighted material without paying is similar to knowingly receiving stolen merchandise. It's not quite as bad as shoplifting, but it IS a criminal act.

I'd say it's closer to knowingly receiving counterfeit merchandise. It's copied data, nothing physical was taken from the owner.

 

[shira]

It's an arrangement of 1s and 0s. Quite difficult to equate.

I understand that it doesn't FEEL as bad as stealing a physical object, but it's still depriving the creator of money that would otherwise have been paid for the hundreds or thousands of hours required to create the intellectual property.

And I don't buy this argument that "If it weren't free, I would never pay for it." If there were some method to 100% prevent illegal copying/downloading of intellectual property, people would then be forced to allocate their disposable income among things they currently have no choice but to pay for and things they currently steal.

 

[shira]

I'd say it's closer to knowingly receiving counterfeit merchandise. It's copied data, nothing physical was taken from the owner.

Think of it in terms of the value of what's being stolen. For example, a songwriter spends perhaps 1000 hours creating a music CD. He then essentially says to you, "If you pay me $15, I will allow you to listen to the music on this CD whenever you want."

The $15 the songwriter doesn't receive because you decided to steal a "counterfeit" copy doesn't make the songwriter's loss any less real.

 

[1prophet]

Knowingly downloading copyrighted material without paying is similar to knowingly receiving stolen merchandise. It's not quite as bad as shoplifting, but it IS a criminal act.

Not as bad as the corporations continually buying off congress to keep extending copyright laws ,creating dynastic empires and claiming all music belongs to them regardless if they own it or not,


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/04/24/327063/-Is-the-RIAA-Pulling-a-Scam-on-the-Music-Industry

What is funny is how so called liberals come out in defense of their darling RIAA, MPAA corporate masters no different then the republicans with their corporate masters.

 

[Sephire]

They can get around that easily.

 

[WelshBloke]

..obviously something has to be done...

Why?

 

[shira]

Not as bad as the corporations continually buying off congress to keep extending copyright laws ,creating dynastic empires and claiming all music belongs to them regardless if they own it or not,


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/04/24/327063/-Is-the-RIAA-Pulling-a-Scam-on-the-Music-Industry

What is funny is how so called liberals come out in defense of their darling RIAA, MPAA corporate masters no different then the republicans with their corporate masters.

So you're arguing that downloading is a principled protest against corporate greed? Or is your point that if corporations use their power to get laws favorable to their interests passed, it's okay to steal music, books, movies, and video games?

 

[tommo123]

Think of it in terms of the value of what's being stolen. For example, a songwriter spends perhaps 1000 hours creating a music CD. He then essentially says to you, "If you pay me $15, I will allow you to listen to the music on this CD whenever you want."

The $15 the songwriter doesn't receive because you decided to steal a "counterfeit" copy doesn't make the songwriter's loss any less real.

why bother this argument? you won't/can't win. these threads have existed on various forums for as long as mp3 downloads have been available. probably prior to that.

my take? downloading is easier than getting something legit. it's so easy and quick that a lot of people sometimes go into a frenzy and grab too much stuff. next day they delete it. the content creator hasn't lost anything in that scenario.

just because someone downloads something doesn't mean they were going to buy it legit if they couldn't get it via torrent. on the flip side, some studies say some downloaders buy more legit content than the average person.

who's right? no one. you'll never get either side to agree so it's a pointless task.

 

[woolfe9999]

why bother this argument? you won't/can't win. these threads have existed on various forums for as long as mp3 downloads have been available. probably prior to that.

my take? downloading is easier than getting something legit. it's so easy and quick that a lot of people sometimes go into a frenzy and grab too much stuff. next day they delete it. the content creator hasn't lost anything in that scenario.

just because someone downloads something doesn't mean they were going to buy it legit if they couldn't get it via torrent. on the flip side, some studies say some downloaders buy more legit content than the average person.

who's right? no one. you'll never get either side to agree so it's a pointless task.

Not everyone who downloads copyrighted material would not have paid for it otherwise. Some yes, some no. There is no way around it - piracy harms sales of copyrighted material, and in total it harms it quite a bit.

Not sure why the moral relativism here. Neither side is right? Theft and theft when it's physical property but not when it's IP?