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Storing Personal Music Online Is Illegal In Japan
An anonymous reader writes "A decision in Tokyo District Court could have implications in Japan for online services that let users store files, if any music files are involved. The court case pitted JASRAC, the Japanese organization that collects fees for public music performances, against Image City, whose MYUTA service lets users employ a central server to store songs from their own CDs, to play on their own phones. The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling declaring Image City guilty of copyright infringement (Google translation). Despite the music being stored strictly for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase and Apple's .Mac, which could mean these companies are guilty of copyright infringement if any of their users in Japan store music in their accounts for personal use. Here are some additional details on JASRAC's activities and methods." Neither article talks about possible appeals, or about how strong a precedent this case sets in the Japanese legal system.
So, if I have illegal documents in a safety deposit box, is the bank or holder responsible for what is stored?
There have been several similar rulings in lower courts in Europe, and all have been changed in higher courts. It is typical for a lower court to totally miss the deeper and more technical implications of cases such as this one.
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The company has been providing a service to the consumer, but has not used the implicated files or distributed them to other users. As such, the company itself is not guilty of anything - let alone copyright violations. If they were, we would soon see virtually every MP3 device manufacturer being sued for copyright violations.
What is next - Suing Smith & Wesson for murder? Suing Ford for driving too fast? Suing every phone company on the planet for terrorist activities and every ISP for hacking and industrial espionage?
It is rulings such as this one that shows there is a reason for having multiple levels in the court system. And also why the judges in the higher courts are paid better
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
I hate that logic. If I give you a safe without telling you its contents or combination, just the instruction to hold on to it until I ask for it back, should you be held accountable for its contents? I'd say no, although I'm sure some idiot in a courtroom would say otherwise. Either way, an encrypted file is even stronger cause for plausible denyability, as its designed to actively prevent anyone but authorized parties to access its contents.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
This is still just a district court ruling, so it doesn't set any "precedent" in the sense of binding other courts. It may influence how other district courts consider similar cases, but then again it may not; my impression is courts at the same level generally act rather independently. (There was a pair of high-profile cases late last year on privacy rights vs. government databases, where two separate high courts came to completely opposite conclusions for essentially the same circumstances.)
IANAL, of course. I just live here.
For the curious, the decision itself (PDF, in Japanese) can be found here.
The court's decision is pretty narrowly defined - if the server is owned by someone else, then uploading music to it is considered distributing.
How about this;
Do Microsoft have servers (eg hotmail) in Japan to which users can upload files?
If so, were a user to upload, say, the Linux *kernel* to such a server is Microsoft now *distributing* the Linux kernel? And then the GPL would swing into effect...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
How would anyone ever know there was any evidence? The "Decoy" OS is the "real McCoy" ( a fully functioning OS) and no one but the owner of the data even knows about the obfuscated OS. You Gave them the encryption key to the computer OS. You Cooperated. Officer friendly found nothing, you go on your way. Really, it's not that difficult, and it's what the corporations are doing right now to limit liability. If you have sensitive or compromising data, you should pursue an encryption plan today.
Headcase88 mentioned music. You did not. Besides, is the prospect of a larger variety of professionally made movies and video games worth restricting the freedom of people to use computing machinery? And why are video games subject to copyright for 95 years?