Japanese Court Okays Unrestricted Sale of Used Software

hph writes: "Kyodo News reports: The Tokyo High Court upheld a 1999 lower court ruling Tuesday that allowed a company to sell secondhand video game software without being restricted by the manufacturer's demand for copyright protection. Presiding judge Kazuaki Yamashita said in the ruling that the Tokyo-based game developer, Enix Corp., has no right to stop Josho Co. from selling its products freely, upholding a May 27 1999 ruling of the Tokyo District Court." The news article has already scrolled off that page, but if you go back a bit you'll find it. It's good to see that the First Sale doctrine is alive and well in Japan.

Comments

Re:Is there

[notsoanonymouscoward]

"Good luck getting it through customs"

Hahhahahahah

You obviously haven't gotten out much have you? Here is some advice from a total stranger:
Get the hell out of the US! Look around. And then on your way back in, you'll notice how much of a joke customs can be.

Japanese

[milgram]

I wanna be Japanese

Re:Japanese

[dagoalieman]

Hrmm.. Finally something to do with all of those gateway2k windows CDs that you never planned on using....

Re:Is there

[billcopc]

Actually there is... can't read a thing though (it's japanese of course).

Re:Is there

[ksheff]

No kidding. When I went through customs last year after a trip to Europe, they didn't even look at me or my luggage. The guy just took the customs claim form and shoved it in a box. No one from customs asked me a damn thing. And I was worried that I might have been over the limit of alcohol one could bring into the country.

My my aren't you the little bigot...

[A nonymous Coward]

What state are you in (other than paranoia or confusion)? Perhaps you would prefer to only get YRO info for that particular state. Or to help you even further, maybe just the county or city or block, or, let's face it, what you really want, and need, your very own little room, forget evrything outside it.

Me, last time I checked, I'm a human, not a bigot robot like yourself. I appreciate news from around the world.

--

Is there

[Rupert]

an ebay.co.jp?

--

Re:Is there

[JCCyC]

Well if there is and you want to buy used software and you live in the US, good luck getting it through customs. Or maybe I am completely wrong and you can do that with no problem. But I doubt it. Can anyone with customs experience shed some light on the subject?

BTW, I see a market for eBay translating its .jp page into English. :)

And, /. editors, this was deserving of front page. I mean, how often copyright-related good news shows up?

Yeah, but what of the user's rights?

[psicic]

I came across this article (URL is http://www.dailyradar.com/news/game_news_7270.html for those of you in terror of links on /.). Basically DC software that will register and only work on one console, kinda like the read-once CD tracks and all the other 'innovations' in anti-piracy that will limit software to one machine/user.

So here's my question, the company may sell the second-hand programs, but will the user be able to use them if they employ such piracy protection?
If they can't, wouldn't that probably be considered interfering with the company's right to sell second-hand software, i.e. by limiting the functionality of second-user software. If so, then any company implementing such 'protection' would have to have a pretty accessible back-door. And, as we all know, hacker's can never find those back-doors(sarcasim).
In short, that implies that this case is pretty landmark(from what I gather - the link won't load on my machine).

8)

Does this force MIcrosoft?

[Technician]

Does this force Microsoft to abide by the law of Japan? It would be sweet if it forced them to permit the 4th & 5th instalation & registration of used Office 2000 software to properly work! Will they be able to get past this by claiming the software is a subscription, like cable TV? Will the Software box be then free like the AOL disks? Software will only work when registered^h^h^h^h subscribed? Will games follow suit?

Re:My Rights Online?

[xDe]

What the hell does this have to do with my rights online?

Right. Open source initiative founded and gains popularity as a reaction against the restrictive licences of proprietary software. Microsoft regularly criticised for shrinkwrap licenses which restrict software buyers' legitimate rights. Government of a major industrial nation rules that at least one of the typical terms of software licenses is not valid. Yes, you're quite right, I can't see why that would be of any interest to slashdot readers.