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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.
If the data is encrypted, and they don't have the key, you haven't distributed anything to them.
So I rent an apartment, and I store some of my music CDs in there, and then the RIAA sues my landlord for copyright infringement?
If I rent storage space online for my own personal use, I can put anything I want in there, including backup copies of my legally owned music collection.
Anything less, and my fair use rights are being violated.
Online?
Er. Okay. What is "online" - does this mean on a server somewhere on the vast internet which you've purchased? Or would your personal computer - which is "online" - count?
"[..] 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." Uploading music to a central server. So when the user has a networked place to store files, would this qualify? Assuming you were the owner or a business which had one other employee, if you uploaded your music to your server for your business, would this be a violation?
So many questions.. so many loopholes.. such broad legal decisions.
What about online backup services? They're growing in popularity as bandwidth comes down in price. I have 200 gigs of music included in my encrypted remote backup set. Nobody can get at it but me, it is just random data as far as the host is concerned.
I can't imagine a nation as technically literate as Japan would essentially make it illegal for people to do remote backup (since 99.9% of people have SOME music on their hard drive, if only the windows startup sound or whatever other audio files come with your OS and applications).
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
How to build a huge mp3 collection:
1. Launch company that stores users' music online
2. Users send you all their music
3. W00T! check out my huge crappy mp3 collection.
I haven't figured out where to put "Profit" in there. I guess that's because I'm Canadian.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
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.