Toshiba Employee Arrested For Selling Software To Break Copy Limits

JoshuaInNippon writes "A Toshiba employee in western Japan has been arrested on charges of copyright violations for selling software online that breaks copying limits on certain Japanese digital TV recording and playback devices. The software specifically overrides limits on a program called 'dubbing10,' which is used in devices sold by companies such as Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. It is believed that the man generated thousands of dollars worth of earnings for himself by selling to at least 712 people, including one teenager who then resold the software to another 240 people. This is the first disclosed case in Japan of someone being arrested for selling such limit-removal software for digital TV recording. Since it sounds like he has already admitted to selling it (although he denies creating it), and due to the generally high conviction rate of those arrested by Japanese police, his future does not look so bright at the moment."

Comments

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how the police cracked this case.

Re:Hmm

[RDW]

'...including one teenager who then resold the software to another 240 people.'

Sounds the Toshiba guy should have used some sort of 'copy-protection' technology to safeguard his product.

Argument

[headkase]

If there was mutual trust between customers and copyright holders this situation wouldn't exist. People are stealing because they know intuitively in their gut that they are being ripped off, see: The Public Domain. And copyright holders are failing to meet the needs of their customers - nobody wants digital restrictions yet they insist to maximize that little thing called profit. It will come back to bite them in the ass, it already has.

Re:Argument

[realityimpaired]

Most people will pay for something if they feel that the price point matches the perceived value, rather than steal it.

It's just that more often than not, the perceived value is nowhere near as high as the value set by the seller, and when such a cognitive dissonance exists, people will steal it and justify that however they choose. I will, for example, choose Avast over Norton for antivirus on Windows machines, because, ethically, I'd rather have something that's legitimately being given away than steal something that isn't. In a society where people have been conditionned to have a 30s attention span (thank you, commercials!), and to expect instant gratification, that break point where people decide that it's no longer worth paying for something is decreasing. Industry needs to recognize that, and either reexamine their business models (so that they're only selling things that can't be stolen, and no, I don't mean DRM, I mean sell services rather than products), or to adjust their pricing to reflect how people value their wares.

What crime has he committed?

[pla]

IANAL, and certainly not a Japanese one, but I have to wonder what they would actually charge him with.

Arguably, since he denies writing the program, he violated the real author's copyright (though I would think that only the actual author could pursue legal action in that case).

Other than that... The closest US analogy I can think of would involve some variety of "theft of service" (or facilitating the same), somewhat like selling software to uncap your cable modem. But that doesn't really seem to fit, since the software only limits the end user's use of what they already have, not their use of content provided by the OEM companies. I can't even see it as facilitating copyright violation, unless Japanese law explicitly has a fair-use idea of "You can do this ten times before it counts"... Otherwise, what makes ten views okay but eleven a violation?

As the parent poster mentions, however, I don't really suppose any of this matters. Off to the gallows with this scofflaw! Hmm, does "interfering with corporate profitability" count as a capital punishment yet?

Japanese police

[Anonymous Coward]

Japanese police have such high conviction rates because,

  1. they do not follow western style of interrogation.
http://www.debito.org/policeinterrogations.html
There is no Miranda laws, lawyers, etc.

  2. In Japan, if police charges you with something, the society believes that you must have done something. The Japanese culture is closer to "prove your innocence" than "prove your guilt".

  3. The Japanese police historically does not bring up charges for people that they don't have evidence for. This results #2.

Toshiba: guilt by association?

[InakaBoyJoe]

Notice how the article reports that the suspect is a "Toshiba employee" even though his activities have nothing to do with Toshiba (as far as we know). That's how things work in Japan (and Asia in general) -- the company, relatives, etc. share some responsibility for an individual's actions simply by association.