Japan: Police Arrest Journalists For Selling DVD-Backup Tools

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Japan: Police Arrest Journalists For Selling DVD-Backup Tools

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 22, 2012 @12:29AM from the selective-enforcement dept.

Modellismo writes "Last week four journalists from Sansai Books were arrested for selling, through the company website, a copy of a magazine published last year (with a free cover mounted disc) focused on how to backup/rip DVDs. They violated Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Law that recently has been revised to make illegal the sale of any DRM circumvention device or software. It's interesting to note that Japanese cyber police could arrest the Amazon Japan CEO, too, as the online giant is selling a lot of magazines, books and software packages for DVD copy and ripping: exactly what put Sansai Books' staff in trouble."

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libdvdcss ilegal? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-22 00:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

wonder how many enbedded devices produced in japan have this little piece of code in them...
1. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-22 00:45 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It's interesting to note that Japanese cyber police could arrest the Amazon Japan CEO, too
  Eh... if they can slap steel handcuffs on you and drag you to a brick-and-mortar jail, they aren't cyber police. They're real meatspace police.
2. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by totalg33k · 2012-07-22 02:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Except that cyborg is short for "cybernetic organism". So yes, Robo-cop was very much a cyber cop.
3. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by tragedy · 2012-07-22 03:09 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  And if you click on the word "cyber" at the top of the article you linked, it takes you to wiktionary where it says:
  
  Etymology
  From cybernetic.
  Cybernetic comes from Greek meaning "steer" or rudder. It basically means the study of feedback control loops.
4. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by aaaaaaargh! · 2012-07-22 04:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Cyber" is a short form for "cybernetics", a former science that has been surpassed/replaced by control theory and dynamics system theory.
  Just because a few thousands clueless politicians use the term the wrong way doesn't mean that they successfully have redefined its meaning.
5. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by russotto · 2012-07-22 04:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That is, unless the US start requiring that people that post such things be extradicted there.
  
  It is not illegal in the US to post instructions for installing libdvdcss, as long as one does not include an actual hyperlink to the software. You can include the web address, but not the actual <a href=... Ridiculous? Enormously so.
6. Re:libdvdcss ilegal? by hairyfeet · 2012-07-22 07:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  But once it becomes part of common language frankly your arguments become grammar nazi crap. Take virus, I'm so damned tired of listening to the geeks have a royal shitfit over whether something is a virus, a rootkit, or a trojan because for all intents and purposes the common word for ALL computer bugs is virus. That is what the public has chosen, that is what works, and you can't change the language of the entire damned planet because you don't like what they use to describe computer bugs.
  Language changes, it morphs and grows and mutates constantly, and there is simply nothing you can do about it. The word car came from carriage...do they LOOK like a carriage to you? No and in fact i doubt most of the public even knows that word came from the era of the horse and buggy, nor do they care. Accept it and move on folks.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Japan: by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-22 00:43 · Score: 5, Interesting

The only country who bows lower to corporations than the US of A.
1. Re:Japan: by fnj · 2012-07-22 00:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Parent would be correct, or at the very least it's a tie. Mod'ing someone down for telling the truth only shows what a sack of shit the moderator is.
2. Re:Japan: by jrumney · 2012-07-22 01:23 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Parent would be correct, or at the very least it's a tie.
  It's not a tie. While a few very high profile sites like Pandora and NetFlix geoblock consumers from outside the US, most internet radio from the US is available worldwide. But try finding a Japanese internet radio station that plays music and is not blocked from outside Japan. Also, if you ever get the chance to watch the news on NHK Worldwide, witness how the entire sports segment of the news has the video replaced by a graphic stating "Due to rights issues, the video for this item is not available outside Japan", even though most of the sports being shown are local Japanese events that do not have rights holders outside of Japan to complain, and any other news channel is fine with showing short snippets of non-live sport, under fair use news reporting exceptions to whatever exclusive broadcast rights are in place for the sport.
3. Re:Japan: by MightyYar · 2012-07-22 01:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's like you believe Korea does not even exist!
  Corporations are an extension of government - it should not surprise anyone when they work together.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
4. Re:Japan: by AmiMoJo · 2012-07-22 02:24 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Have you actually read one of these magazines? I have a few of them here and they are quite incredible from a westerner's point of view.
  I have a couple that are all about downloading, one focused on BitTorrent and the other on Share and Winny. They have huge lists of web sites that index warez, films, TV shows and porn, each one rated for you. They explain how to download and set up emulators, how to burn Playstation 2 games to DVD and chip your console, how to use a Nintendo DS flash card and so forth. On the first page there is a tiny warning about not breaking copyright laws, then 90 pages of how to break copyright laws.
  That is the real story here. The fact that the police picked this particular bit of software as their way of prosecuting these guys is just an aside. Personally I love those mags but I can understand why the police were under pressure to find a way of taking action.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Journalists? by tomhath · 2012-07-22 00:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Two warnings were issued to Sansai Books by three industry organizations, including the Japan Video Software Association, protesting the sale of the guidebook, but the publisher continued to offer the product.
There are ways to dispute a law you disagree with. Disobeying it is usually not a good way.
1. Re:Journalists? by AngryDeuce · 2012-07-22 01:30 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  There are ways to dispute a law you disagree with. Disobeying it is usually not a good way.
  I disagree. Civil disobedience, historically speaking, is a very effective method to bring about political change. The founding of the U.S. itself is steeped in civil disobedience.
  The simple fact is, most people don't give a shit about injustice until it effects them personally. Civil disobedience brings it to their doorstep and forces them to acknowledge it. It took people occupying segregated lunch counters in the South before civil rights were really addressed 50 years ago, just as it took people occupying lower Manhattan to get wealth inequality really addressed today. Whether you agree with the protesters or not is irrelevant (and I'm really not interested in a bunch of ranting responses about the Occupy movement one way or the other, honestly); it forced those issues into the limelight. Mission: Accomplished.
2. Re:Journalists? by circletimessquare · 2012-07-22 02:31 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  the point is, those without money should still get quality education, healthcare, and a chance at advancing themselves
  but current tax laws in the USA and American social policies advanced by the right are stratifying society, permanently
  meaning, if you are poor or middle class, you get inferior education, healthcare, and no chance to advance socioeconomically
  the point of life should be to better yourself. not to slave your entire life for someone who already has a lot of money, always will have a lot of money, never suffers for their crimes in the same way as the poor, and lives in a system rigged so that they, their children, and their grandchildren, can never possibly be poor. while those are poor, their children, and their grandchildren, are in such a rigged system they can never possibly be rich
  that's wealth inequality. a class society. that's where the USA is headed with the right wing republican political agenda
  the USA should be a MERITOCRACY. this is not what we have. what we have are country club boys complaining that the poor don't understand hard work, while they get a cushy job where they hardly exert any effort, just for chumming with the dad of their friend. meanwhile, the poor and middle class bust their ass, sometimes in two jobs, and live paycheck to paycheck, where the smallest of accidents or healthcare emergencies can ruin their entire lives
  THAT'S wealth inequality, and it is not a free society
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
3. Re:Journalists? by AmiMoJo · 2012-07-22 02:31 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The simple fact is, most people don't give a shit about injustice until it effects them personally.
  Not true. 2 million people protested against invading Iraq in the UK. The problem is that they are powerless. We invaded Iraq anyway. Come election time when we could have thrown the government out we also had to consider things like the economy and the fact that the other lot were tossers and would probably have done the same.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
4. Re:Journalists? by Cwix · 2012-07-22 02:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, people shouldn't be allowed to have many, many orders of magnitude more then the average person.
  When the CEO makes 200 million and the employees make minimum wage, then something is wrong. When someone can watch people who live on the streets suffer from menatl and physical ailments and they feel nothing, then something is wrong. When someone makes more money the the GDP for some small countries, then something is very very wrong. Then when you grant personhood to a corp, something is so wrong its not even comical anymore.
  Just having more does not make wealth inequality except in the strictest of definitions. Its when you have more money then a very large swath of the population put together that you get wealth inequality.
  
  --
  You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
5. Re:Journalists? by circletimessquare · 2012-07-22 04:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  yes, i agree with everything you said, and i celebrate these facts
  now: what is the republican agenda in regards to what you have cited?
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Interesting by ausrob · 2012-07-22 00:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's a wonder that the publishing company (Sansai Books) weren't issued some kind of ceast and desist letter first, considering the company did not break the law when the magazine was published *last year* (presumably well before the law was ammended). It sounds like they were probably selling back issues and may not have fully appreciated the situation.
Two things come to mind by Dunbal · 2012-07-22 00:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Unfair Competition Prevention Law
Most people would think that this law is designed to prevent unfair competition. What it really means is it's an unfair law to prevent competition.
Also, getting governments to step on other people for you is apparently NOT unfair competition...

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Obey. by neoshroom · 2012-07-22 01:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

There are ways to dispute a law you disagree with. Disobeying it is usually not a good way.
The bus driver said to Rosa Parks.

--
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
1. Re:Obey. by 91degrees · 2012-07-22 03:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  She didn't just disobey it. She flagrantly disobeyed it, in full knowledge that the NAACP branch she was secretary of would support her. This is one of those exceptions where disobeying is a good idea.
  
  If these guys have decided to disobey the law in order to challenge it in the courts then that's cool, and I look forward to seeing their well prepared legal battle.
not in the USA by circletimessquare · 2012-07-22 02:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

in the USA, government is an extension of Corporations

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Re:not in the USA by Lisias · 2012-07-22 03:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  someone: what's the term for this insane level of assimilation between political, corporate, and aristocratic power?
  Idiocracy.
  
  --
  Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org