Last year saw a major upgrade in Japan’s anti-piracy legislation in an attempt to shift Internet users away from file-sharing sites and networks and towards the country’s legitimate outlets. But while the change in the law was significant, getting the legal-downloading message to users proved problematic. In response the government and rightsholders are now seeding fake files with anti-piracy messages hidden inside.
After a legal process lasting more than 7 years, the creator of Japan’s most popular P2P file-sharing application has finally been cleared by the country’s Supreme Court. After his initial arrest in 2004 on copyright infringement grounds, the former university researcher has been on a roller coaster ride of convictions, fines, and appeals. Now, barring a dispute on rare technical grounds, his ordeal is over.
A 31-year old Japanese man has admitted to uploading 3 TV-shows and sharing 165 more on BitTorrent after he was arrested by Tokyo Police’s Cyber Crime unit. In his confession the man told the investigators that he used BitTorrent because he believed it was free of viruses and police. He was proven wrong on the latter.
Cyber-crime police have arrested a man who uploaded the movie ‘Wanted’ to a file-sharing network. The man, Kazushi Hirata, was detained after he added custom subtitles to a pirated copy of the movie and uploaded it to the Internet, in advance of its Japanese theatrical release. He faces up to 10 years in jail.
The author of a bizarre virus which threatened to kill file-sharers has been arrested in Japan. Has he been arrested for making death threats? No! For writing the virus? No! This is the 21st century. He’s been arrested for copyright infringement, of course.
In just over a year the number of internet users file-sharing in Japan has increased by a staggering 180%, says the results of an online survey. The average number of files downloaded has more than doubled.
A strange virus which taunts file-sharers and threatens to report them to the police and even kill them, is being distributed on the Winny network.
Even more news...
An anti-piracy system present in all official Blu-ray players since 2012 has received a fresh update...
One of the main reasons why people turn to piracy is the lack of legal alternatives....
Last year an Internet user known as El Nomeo leaked version 3.70 of Sony’s Playstation3 SDK...
Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation is a network mechanism through which many Internet subscribers can share the...
The U.S. Government has taken a significant action against the web’s top Bitcoin exchange by seizing...
Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.
Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.
More than a year ago TorrentFreak took a look at a selection of the web’s VPN...
Continuing a long-standing New Year's tradition, today we present an up-to-date list of the world's most-visited...
Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after...
Privacy is important on the Internet, and BitTorrent users are certainly not excluded. Already, hundreds of...
With the entertainment industries lobbying for increased powers to spy on BitTorrent users, many downloaders are...
BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current...