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Japan Makes Unauthorized Downloading a Criminal Offense

Japan has approved an amendment to its Copyright Law that allows the authorities to jail Internet users for simply downloading copyright works without permission.

Uploading was already illegal in Japan and carries a potential 10 year sentence, but downloading was previously viewed as a minor offense.

However, experts are now warning that the scope of the amendment has the potential to draw in people who simply watch copyright infringing content on YouTube.

Adding to the outrage among citizens is that the amendment was passed by Japan’s House of Representatives without any deliberations on the criminal element. It has now been passed to the House of Councillors.

According Japanese news reports, the amendment – which takes effect October 1 – allows for serious punishments. Knowingly downloading copyright infringing material can result in a two year jail sentence or a fine of 2 million yen (around $25,000).

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  • Vincent Giannell

    I have a feeling they’re will be a massive protest against this law and it will scare the Japanese government so badly, they will be forced to abandon it.

    • FrostyC

      Your honor I plead innocent to the charge of knowingly downloading unauthorized content and plead guilty to the lesser charge of “drunk-clicking”

    • Buster

       Japan will never have “massive protests”, sir.  It just isn’t how their culture would deal with these things. 

      • Anonymous

        so if all their government parties chose to ban PCs, there would be no riots in the streets? if so, they really didn’t deserve them anyway.

        • Lizard of Oz

           Yes there pathetic they don’t what is right i remember all bully news every victim kill themselves which the only good decision they can come up with

    • rowiko

      You think? I would doubt that very much. This is Japan after all! Besides, this passing of the law hasn’t exactly made the top headlines, has it? At least not as far as I can see.

  • http://twitter.com/tomasradej Tomáš Rad?j

    I’m not really surprised by this since Japan has been very eager to adopt ACTA. It might be the servility to the United States, or it might be the companies like Sony, who are infamous for their stance against customers.

    • Guest

      Keep in mind the media industry in Japan almost mirrors the US’s. Also, people in Japan buy the most CDs (I know, in 2012) per capita. Having said CDs ripped and uploaded online would reduce the fat cat’s profits.

  • Guest

    THis is the kind of stuff that makes me rage….

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqkMsXcHQYg

    • true

      That music pisses me off too. Stupid grandpa controlled , rock studio industry !
      Shame that it takes 40years or so for the control and power of the studios to be taken over by the next generation.

  • Chilly Willy

    I say good luck to the Japanese government on trying to enforce this on its citizens living abroad. Japan has no jurisdiction over an ISP or web site in the United States. 

    And besides, this will just increase VPN usage in Japan, as Japanese YouTube viewers start using VPNs en masse to avoid being detected. 

    Japan will never outlaw VPNs becuase it would stop a lot of foreign businessmen from being able to contact their offices back home. 

  • Chilly Willy

    How long until Anonymous starts attacking networks in Japan. I could imagine what Anonymous will do when they find out about this.

    • The Watcher

      Anonymous knows

      • Lizard of Oz

         even the mighty Anonymous can’t stop the japanese from being japanese it’s hopeless

  • Outsider

     Can someone who knows Japanese go on 2ch and find out what they think about this?

    • Stumpy

       I’m here in Japan at the moment and most of what I’ve seen suggests people are not happy.  It also seems the majority of the public is unaware of what is happening.

      • http://mickstarify.clavid.com/ Michael

         Yeah i find most people (my family included) tend not to care about filesharing rights

      • Anon

         ”It also seems the majority of the public is unaware of what is happening.”

        This is how governments are getting away with most of what they’re getting passed in the name of ‘copyright law’. When the public become aware the result is what is happening to ACTA the problem is most of these governments/companies know this and try to get things passed behind closed doors.

    • kazusige takenaka

      It has been said that this could cause arrest on a charge of convenience
      especially for those who are against JASRAC because they pushed this and now ask ISPs to adopt special device for protecting money,50 thousand yen per month. 
      Some doubt the unconstitutional law
      enforcement of Article 21, the secrecy of?communicatoin, will go to the supreme court later.
      Others in 2ch got rage but regret of doing nothing about direct action like me,HAHA. 

      • Asdf

        fuck JASRAC, doujin music is where it’s at!

  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    QUESTION: How can a sovereign Nation function with >85% of web-enabled under-30 year olds in jail?  Not to mention the rest of the population who is over 30 and also filesharing openly & freely – as is our Human RIGHT!!!

    Japan has really fucked up on this one, and it’s going to be painful for soooooo many people in and out of government, let alone the so-called ‘content industry’ :(
    Goddamned twats.

    • Lucky Joestar

       If only they could get all those people in jail! The Japanese prison system has a maximum capacity of around 90,000 with around 73,000 already in there. That’s room for another 17,000 or so, but illegal downloaders will potentially number into the millions. The prisons will be busting open at the seams.

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  • Mwhahaha

    I think people are missing an important point here: just because a country passes a law it does not mean it will enforce it on every occasion and track down every single person who breaks that law.

    The law (and cells) will be used to combat the people who do lots and lots of downloading. Its there for the worst case offenders rather than anyone who has a copy of something from youtube in their cache.

    I’m sure if you went up to most Japanese policemen with a laptop and told them you’d just downloaded a 3 minute song they’d tell you to fuck off and stop wasting their time. 

    It’s a terrible law and I hope the people of Japan do protest against it, but let’s not over react and say every Japanese internet user will be jailed, that’s either dumb, pedantic or wilfully skewing the story for your own interests (something media groups & govts also do a lot). 

    It annoys me when people here act in the same way as the groups they’re against. 

    • Anonymous

       problems i see are that it wont help the poor sods who do get tracked down

      why, yet again, is a government implementing a law without any consultation with the people or the peoples representatives?

      if there was consultation, why was it ignored?

      why, yet again, are the entertainment industries being allowed to dictate what laws are introduced where that help no one except them?

      Japan is supposed to be a part of the modern world, where people actually have rights. it’s not how it was 100+years ago any more. just because companies like Sony want to carry on treating people like shit, doesn’t mean the friggin government has to help them. there are other companies and Sony is not one of the most popular any more, because of it’s attitude

      • Asdf

        ohhh, yes, Japan is part of the modern world as much as the United States of Anal sex, yes

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/L2FW55JCG4NNVE2CCP5336XJRE Cheese!

          yessss, of yesssss, anal sexxxx

      • guest

        every single person that own a computer did download some copyrighted content without permission at some point

        while it might be a ‘bad behavior’ it is nowhere near to stealing

        it is another law created without any actual reason for it, simply to have some dirt on almost everybody

        • blah

          If every single person that owned a computer did it, it’s not bad behaviour- it’s normal behaviour and for that reason should not be criminalized.

    • Guest

      *looks for TF readers over-reacting and saying every Japanese internet user will be jailed*

      *does not find any*

      *slaps Mwhahaha for troll post*

    • Guest

      Even if 1 person is jailed for violating this law, then it means the government has sold out to the fat cats and have failed their citizens. Its so easy not to care about those 5 to 10 individuals that are going to be put behind bars every year because of this stupid law but that’s exactly what governments and those in power want. History has taught us that divide and conquer is the way these things start and leads to ultimate control.

    • Growabackbone

       do not be so naive. big downloaders have protections put in place already to circumvent this law. but the average user is clueless to what internet privacy is & will be caught due to the “low hanging fruit” tactics put in place by the government & the copyright trolls. so every month or so a judge will have a bad egg for breakfast and come into court with a hard-on & put some stupid old grandma or a dipshit student in jail for 10 years to make an example of them.

      to say…
       ”just because a country passes a law it does not mean it will enforce it
      on every occasion and track down every single person who breaks that
      law.”

      …is a horrible attitude to have when your basic civil rights are being shit upon.

  • Traceloop

    YouTube? Nah, their worry would probably be NicoVid. And I think it’s a bit silly for Japan to implement jail time. A hefty fine, sure… but I just don’t think they have enough prison space for this sort of thing.

    • Vincent Giannell

       I have a feeling this law will never go into effect if there is a massive protest against it.

  • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

    Why, Japan, WHY? D: I’m loosing my faith in Japan. Now I want to go there less than before :(

    • Asdf

       oh, poor you. did you want to be an animator too?

      • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

        Nop, just wanted to see Japan because I like culture. But it seems it would be pretty rough for me if I’d continued running my site there :D

        • Guest

           You know that you can use a VPN to run your site, right?

        • Lizard of Oz

           you like it’s subculture not it’s true culture you like anime not the japanes tradination bullshits

    • Lizard of Oz

       never have faith in japan

  • Guest

    Fascism hits Japan.

    • Chilly Willy

      Yoy got that right. There are things I would like to say about that, but I think the admins at TorrentFreak would probably frown upon it. 

  • Anonymous

    The law? Ridiculous.

    Mwhahaha wrote:
    “The law (and cells) will be used to combat the people who do lots and
    lots of downloading. Its there for the worst case offenders rather than
    anyone who has a copy of something from youtube in their cache.”

    Hahaha. What? Combat. People. Who Do Lots And Lots Of Downloading? The worst of the worst of criminals? I’ve got about a TB of copyrighted content now – am I a worst case offender?

    Fortunately, Japanese police is too busy hunting men daring to wait for a train on the same railway station platform as a group of schoolgirls. I don’t think they’ll have the time to enforce this law.

    On the other hand, I’m worried that this law will actually be passed. Japanese and protest? Not happening.

    • Japan used to be cool

      “1TB” of stolen goods
      1TB = Billions in lost revenue
      1GB = 1 lost job
      1MB = feeds a family of trombonists for a day.

      1 life = no chance of avoiding being a copyright thief ?

      FFS MAN – think of the trombonists !

    • Rekrul

       I’ve got about a TB of copyrighted content now – am I a worst case offender?

      Only a TB? You’re just a beginner. ;)

      • Anonymous

         would have more if not for the damn flood in Thailand which caused HDD prices in my country to triple… they are still very high after… over a year?

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          Which is a big problem considering that everything was back to normal within 3 months after the floods.

        • Western Digital

           Stop asking questions and buy our PRRRRODUCTS!

    • Chilly Willy

      As far as anything from YouTube in your cache, a session with a program like Evidence Eliminator will take care of that.

    • Vincent Giannell

       Wrong. The Japanese citizen will protest against this law no matter what.

      • Lizard of Oz

         nope they can’t

  • Guest33

    Not really surprised. Japan is an Asian country without any deep roots for individual liberty.

    Japan still denies or minimizes its war crimes.  Democracy in Asis is really only democracy in name. At least in the US, Canada and Europe you have strong citizen movements and judicially enforced limits on state action which are unheard of in East and South Asia.

    • Lizard of Oz

       freedom doesn’t exist and their war crimes will never be forgiven

  • Johnny Hooper

    Something I noticed about the Japanese is they all seem to have squinty eyes and buck teeth. I’m sure this explains everything.

  • Chilly Willy

    If you are a Japanese citizen living abroad, and want to avoid the extraterritorial aspects of this new law you can simply use a VPN to hide your activities, so that the Japanese government cannot find out what you are up to. VPNs are still legal in both Brazil and the USA, the countries with the two largest disapora in the world.

    The one problem with a VPN is that depending on what country the server you use is in, you may find some videos blocked for copyright reasons. So its best to have a VPN service with multiple countries, so you can be able to watch the video you want to see.

    If you are going to use a VPN service, I recommend getting a service that includes servers in multiple countries. I find Perfect Privacy to be the best at what it does, and servers in many countries around the world. 

    • Dongs

       And it’s also expensive as shit and slow as hell.

      • Chilly Willy

        Depends on which of their VPN servers you use. Some will be slower than others. Their Cairo, Egypt VPN is slow as hell, yes, but all their other VPN servers are quite fast.

    • Asdf

      I think you’re mistaking people of japanese ascent for japanese citizens.

  • ofProto

    Good for you Japan have fun enforcing this fascism.

    • http://twitter.com/sheepodoom SheepODoom

       Every Freedom Loving Person should go turn themselves in by the millions. Clog the Jails & their courts. Make them go bankrupt AGAIN

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  • Hord Jone

    Japanese Anime One Piece and Bleach tell us not to follow Rules !!

    • Speedyexpress48

       Ironically, 95% of anime copyright-related arrests and lawsuits have something to do with One Piece.

      A anime about pirates…ho ho ho.

  • Vincent Giannell

    I think someone should start a petition against this law at once.

  • Vincent Giannell

    Word has it that hackers called Anonymous has declared war on the Japanese government over illegal downloading.

  • Laughable

    As usual Japan gone to extremes.. I wonder if they caught or could prove 100,000 or 1 million people breaking copyright how long before they bankrupt their own country.. feeding a inmate cost like 100,000 a year each.. more prison buildings more food and taxes to pay for it.. its kinda funny guess next will be like china way to deal with crime… firing squad. funny.. a friend comes over uses yoru net and you end up dead or in jail HAHA anyhow I bet 50 percent of the population download usa tv shows.. most will be using vpns by now.. so they never catch them 

  • JamJulLison

    Talk about something to hurt the anime industry.  Sure a lot of anime does well in japan. The same can’t be said here. Some of the more popular anime here wouldn’t have made it here at all if it wasn’t for people creating and uploading fansubs for us to download.  Naruto and Bleach are prime examples of this. It was due to fansubs that many people in the US became interested in them in first place in them.  Of course once they saw they had fans here in the US, it made it easier to get an english dub released here in the US and helped for better sales for Naruto and Bleach products here.  That said, the english dubs of these 2 shows, while good, suck compared to the original jap.

  • Lizard Of OZ

    japan is sure how to make people suffer more than atomic bomb ever did to them sucks to be them 

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