Slashdot Mirror
Japan Makes Linking Illegal Material Illegal
Once&FutureRocketman writes "According to this article, a Japanese court has handed down a decision that make it a crime to link to a page that contains illegal material. I don't think this crowd needs me to elaborate on the potential ramifications of this decision. " Update: 04/21 12:10 by CT : Ooops, this is a duplicate of
an earlier article. I'm leaving it up 'cuz there's already a ton of comments.
Lets say I know a guy named Bob. I've only known Bob as a nice guy, though I don't know him well. I believe that Bob is a capable handy-person. A friend needs a TV antenna installed, so I send them to Bob. Unbeknownst to me, Bob offers to hook up my friend to illegal cable at the same time. My friend accepts, but only tells me that Bob was really helpful. I now send all my reception-challenged friends to Bob. One day, the FCC (or whoever) come down hard on Bob and he's jailed - then I'm similarly charged with aiding and abetting (or whatever), simply because I helped people find Bob. Am I ignorant of Bob's activities? You bet. Am I ignorant of the Law? Hell, no.
So Japan is now holdling people responsible for other's actions based on whether a third party believes that the first knows everything the second is doing. Even describing it is hard! Search engines are the obvious losers, because they now have to prove that the system is totally automated, or whole companies risk going directly to jail. What about the "Submit your link" sites like that FFA crap?
Sure, this instance looks pretty cut and dried, even the journalist is willing to openly agree, but a de-pixelating tool is basically just a very intelligent sharpening tool. Thus Adobe with their Photoshop program are half way to being convicted in Japan - lets hope they don't have a search engine box on their web site...
Just to explain a few things here:
1) The guy was busted not only for linking to pornographic sites, but also for providing software that he had written that allows people to remove the "mosaic" used on the pr0n.
2) Japanese courts are a little different to American courts - for a start, they're not quite so concerned about "setting precendents" for future judgements.
3) In Japan, if you're busted for something, you're convicted. The conviction rate here is around 96%, so if the police take the trouble of arresting you, it generally means the court is gonna find you guilty, no matter what arguments your lawyer makes.
4) It's pretty clear that the guy was aiding and abetting; it just happens that the form of the abetting was links to other HPs. In the States, that would probably get you off; in Japan, it's nothing more than a detail. The judge has not made a judgement regarding linking to other sites; he's made a judgement about this guy's culpability.
BTW: I don't actually support this judgement (for one thing, I've used the guy's software (FL-Mask) and it's pretty cool), but once you get into a Japanese courtroom, not even God can save your ass if the judge thinks you're guilty.
Hmm. The way the decision was worded makes that unclear - strictly speaking the links site _owner_ was committing a crime, but the website itself isn't necessarily illegal. However, the reason the judge gave for convicting makes it likely that any site with external links will be illegal.
The worst part is that the person putting up the link doesn't have to be aware of the illegal nature of the material to be committing a crime. This creates two problems
Expect some changes to this ruling, to address these issues, if the Japanese legal system has any concept of justice or fairness.
Shouldnt they just be going after the publisher? After all, they are the ones that possess and serve up the offending materials in the first place. Cracking down on everyone else is like stomping on ants coming out of the anthill. Sure you wind up with some dead ants, but you never address the real problem. So what if the links make it easier for people to find the offending material? It also makes it easier for the authorities to find the original publisher. Cut off the head and the body dies. Don't waste your time arresting people who have not actually published illegal materials.
The era of governments controlling access to information is over. Look at the US. We have some really nasty drug laws. Enforcement of these laws has been pretty swift and severe, and an increasingly large number of people have been incarcerated. Has this really stopped the drug cartels from muling tons of the stuff northward every day? Hell no! I still have to walk by people selling dope just to get to the 7-11 that gets robbed weekly so people can buy their next fix.
You know what? Information is a lot more slippery than drugs. It has no mass, no odor, and can travel at the speed of light. It can be hidden or disguised to a mathematical near certainty. You only need one server to get the message out, not 300 mules with condoms full of coke in their stomachs. Once it is distributed, it can be replicated endlessly by the end user.
You want to stop this? You think you can? The technical solutions will rise up and cut away at your authority permanently. Your best shot is being as permissive as possible, and then crucifying the publishers when appropriate. Getting all draconian will only drive it to the underground. You know, the underground of MILLIONS ala Napster. The tighter you grip at the information the more it will slip through your fingers. Wake up and start realizing what is going on here. We have the playbook for the 21st century and we can put your ass on the bench.
-BW
Therefore linking to a site that links to a site containing illegal material is also illegal.
And since we all know you can reach anywhere on the web with 9 hops, the whole WWW is now illegal in Japan.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Firstly,
/. The person here was making software that allowed people to view pornographic material. This was done by removing the masking done on web-sites to censor out the explicit part of images.
The personal opinion of this journalist is that the judge has made an extremely appropriate decision.
You gotta love objective journalism.
Anyway, I believe that this is not as bad as it seemed when I read the blurb on
This is clearly software designed against the 'spirit' of the anti-pornography laws Japan seems to have. This person is a citizen of Japan, and is therefore subject to their laws. He is also making money (it was shareware, which means you have to register, at a cost). IANAL, but if I were a judge in this case, I would find him guilty of SOMETHING for so doing things which so clearly violate the spirit of the laws Japan has made. (whether those laws are good or not is a seperate debate...)
I am not saying that this decision, or indeed these laws are not something to get concerned about. This also does set legal precident that most of us would shudder over. However, this was a direct link, to an illegal site, by a person who was doing pseudo-legal activity himself. The various posts of 'now the whole net is illegal!' are extremely over-reactionary in this case.
It's also illegal to sell used video tapes and video games in Japan, so, basically, I think it is more or less the kind of corporate Hell the Multinationals want to turn the US into. We're still ahead of Japan in this area, our corrupt, unethically pro-corporate government still takes baby steps toward destroying our freedom... (See Article) where it seems the Japanese government already thinks freedom is for corporations and the government, not people.
I feel sorry for the citizens of Japan, who produce some of my favorite creative works, that they have to live under such an evil government.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)