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Winny P2P Software Creator Arrested
News for nerds writes "The author of Winny, the Japanese P2P software with encrypted networking capability, similar to Freenet, has been today officially arrested for abetment of copyright violation, after the raid in the last December. He started its development in May 2002 and occasionally appeared on the web forum 2ch with his anonymous codename "47", but today turned out to be an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Tokyo in his 30s. Winny was so efficient and popular that it generated problems even at the Japanese police and the GSDF.
As the Japanese police is the most advanced among the world in pulling P2P into criminal cases, outcry of users in Japan is expected."
This guy is screwed! Japan has a conviction rate of over 90%. Why? I dunno, check this: (http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eprints/le/papers/9907/9 907001.abs)
It's named WinNY to mark it as successor of WinMX.
Talk about being up-to-date, the Wikipedia-Article already mentions the arrest.
I have a friend here who uses lawyers in Japan on a weekly basis for reviewing contracts etc, and his comment was that this will take years to even get to court, since Japan is one of the few countries in the world that actually has a lawyer shortage. If you needed any more reasons to move here ....
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
Reading the words of the Japanese law, or the procedures, will leave you very misinformed. Although it is often the case even in the U.S. that the police will twist the perception of the law, or just blatantly ignore it, this is a much more frequent case in Japan.
The sad thing is that the Japanese people don't seem to mind it, as long as the media seems to report it as "the right thing to do", and it is a well known fact that the major media outlets do a lot of ass kissing.
There are exceptions of course, people that understand the severity of the issue, people that lobby against the blatant miuse of legal forces, and the occasional newspaper article that isn't worried about pissing off the gov't. Unfortunately, it's a pretty rare exception.
The only difference is this time, even the media's first announcements of the incident included some opinion on how this could be a very sticky situation. They specifically mention how the producer of fruit knives aren't arrested just because some dork decides to stab someone with it. The police have compared this to the production of a gun, which they say has only one use: harming people. Personally, I would say it is used for hunting, self defense, and thus has legitimate uses. All that said, the news papers have mentioned that even Winny has positive uses, and although it can and most often is used for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, it is merely a tool.
The assistant professor that created this piece has written in 2ch that he made it in order to challenge the way current copyrights work, and the business models behind them. I think his heart was in the right spot, but method was wrong. However, I STILL think he produced a very good package, and whether or not he is willing to believe his own story or not, there ARE positive uses.
I am actually currently trying to get ahold of his attorney (more specifically, I'm trying to figure out who is attorney is) because I want to stand in court and testify for him. I am a member of a group that has ideas that are contrary to current laws. Our group is civil, we don't break any laws, and we are politically active in voicing our opinion. However, we are also very underfunded, and a majority of the members are scared to speak out in public or offer internet bandwidth for the transmission of materials, especially videos of our public events, because the Japanese police are notorious at using all the tricks in the books to supress free speech. The method we've taken? Winny.
I would like to stress again that our political movements are NOT ILLEGAL, we do not participate in any illegal activities, and are strictly voicing our opinion. However, there is reason to be scared. I am one that has little to lose over going public, and have actually done so multiple times during various events. And I would like to stand in court and testify because the arrest of the Winny author is in direct contrast to our best interests, and we are an obvious case of legitimate use of the software.
Many of you may laugh at how "backwards" Japan and it's legal system is. Watch out though, the situation is worsening every day in the U.S., and you may be seeing similar headlines "coming soon".
This Police mentioned in your story is the same Kyoto Police that WENT TO TOKYO to arrest Winny's author, a Tokyo resident.
Think different states in the US. It is like hearing Chicago Police going to New York to arrest a New York resident. Something must have motivated them so much...