Anti-Downloading Law Hits Japan, Up To 2 Years in Prison From Today

That is insane. ISP level spying regime? Suspending all human rights just to try to stop people from being able to watch a movie or listen to a song if they aren't made of money? That would mean that if one tries to send a quick compromising clip to their significant other it will be watched illegally by corporate geek spies, just to try to make huge record companies more money... Most artists have even started to embrace file sharing because they know they succeed better the more fans they get, and the more their work is shared the more fans they get...

man that's crazy. how can they still using internet. I mean those time every body download anything now. What is Unauthorized files? It can be anything they want.

Not good, funny how one government feels compelled to blindly follow another.

I guess I'm not surprised to see so many people who actually make excuses for and sympathize with thieves. Maybe everyone who thinks this is too heavy handed should all just pitch in and work hours and hours to produce something worthwhile and then just turn it over to people who aren't willing to pay for it.

I still believe that copy is not theft despite the lies being repeated over and over again.
There's a big difference with digital products, acting like if it is the same as physical products, as if nothing has changed during your lifetime is being ridiculously blind because not wanting to see.

So, one question, how do you feel about refunds on digital products? You know that the product is not returned, don't you? Only maybe a copy, and mostly nobody even bother for asking a return of a copy. And you still have accepted it. There must be a reason.

The lies is about copying being stealing. But you don't want to understand why, obviously and I'm not going to try, not my problem. But some things have changed with digital era and infinite copy. But that's ok, don't worry about it :-)
Yes, "copy is theft", that's the lies I'm talking about and no matter how many times it is repeated, it won't become true. Just look in a dictionnary about theft and in good faith you won't be able to put copying a digital work inside the definition. There are other ways to describe copying a copyrighted work, but theft doesn't fit. So why not use the other words?

Refunds on digital products is very relevant because there's nobody who will accept to refund a physical product without the product to be returned first, but with digital products (downloaded which is copying) nobody even bother to ask for the copy to be returned, because that makes no sense at all. Maybe you can start to see the difference between digital and physical products and why making a digital copy is not the same as stealing an object.

Stealing other people's material is wrong, but sending someone to prison for 2 years is too strict. You can be sure that such laws are not done to protect small time marketers, but giant corporations.

You can argue this question endlessly -is using someone's work without permission a form of stealing? As I see it, the answer is "Yes, but..." It's not as bad as stealing a physical object. Why? Because if someone steals my car or my watch, I no longer have those items. If someone "steals" one of my articles (which has happened many times, probably more than I'm even aware), it's annoying and may deprive me of some profit. But I haven't lost something tangible, as with physical theft.

Copyright is not a black and white issue. It's extremely complex, and you have everything from the conservative position that ownership of intellectual property should be absolute to the anarchist/hacker position that all information should be free. To be honest, I have a lot of sympathy for the latter position even though it hurts me more than it helps me (I'm a content creator, and I have virtually no skills as a hacker). The best solution is probably somewhere in the middle.

When copyrights are too strictly enforced, it has the potential to stifle creativity. You can end up with corporations or wealthy individuals with slick lawyers owning virtually everything, even common phrases. For example, I heard of a case where a local person with the name McDonald was sued for using his own name on a business sign by the famous toxic waste...I mean fast food chain.

I think when someone blatantly steals another's work that it's wrong and the victimized party is entitled to some restitution. But jail time is not going to help anyone, and it's just another example of governments working on behalf of big business.

turning japanese - i really think not

Great Song.

Well, you're all attacking me as if I am doing illegal copy while I'm only saying that copying is not theft, that's it. Just expressing a fact. You disagree with that fact and then accuse me of engaging in whatever.
That's why I'll let you all speak between yourself, that's better I think so you can all agree. :-)

It's by no means universally accepted that copyright violation = theft. This doesn't make it right or ethical, but whether it's actually "theft" is another question.

Why it’s wrong to call copyright infringement “theft” — Tech News and Analysis

Travlinguy - that's where I am not seeing the sense in people's logic on this. I make a living writing. When people steal my work - they are taking my occupation away from me. Why would someone think that it might be wrong to steal a book I make and publish through, say, a Barns and Nobles store, but if I put it up digitally it's free for the taking? Copying is even worse. You are taking someone else's work to make money on it yourself - and that SHOULD be prosecuted. Maybe fines are good enough for stealing an ebook to read for your own use. Copying that work to make money for yourself, though, is just like kicking someone off their job. It can have a disastrous effect on the person you are stealing from. Maybe cheating someone out of next month's rent isn't a problem for some people - it is for me. You put someone in risk of being on the streets for your own greed and you deserve to be locked away from society because you are, at the very least, a menace - and in a worse case scenario you are actually a danger to anyone that works as a writer.

I once had a very important research paper stolen from me. It kept me from getting a very important position and I've never forgotten it. It was a life changing theft.

My first thought is 2 years.. wow that is steep.

Then i think, jeaz, i get stuff cracked and stolen and handed out of mine
ALL the time. How much more money would i have made, or saved even
if that did not happen.

All of a sudden 2 years doesn't seem so bad... possibly not stiff enough.

What does seem bad is how they will have to go about enforcing it.
they will have to monitor everything.

and that scares me... and sets a dangerous precedence.

This is really unfair. He is not just the one who did that, i know a lot of people and they are in different countries.. i know this kind of law depends on teh area you are in but really?

Most of you who is arguing that sharing is theft does not get the whole point. The point here is not whether copying,sharing are considered theft or not. The point here is that the law is opening a wider room for abuses by authorities, and RIAJ. Just few months back Universal Music, was it? abuse the DMCA and force removal of comments made by fans on a website that they did not like. This has nothing to DO with piracy.

The same thing with Japan, piracy for your information, HAS LONG been illegal since 2010. The issue is not really piracy BUT the abuse that may come with the law. The Japanese Federation of Bar Associations has even issued a statement to the BBC stating that piracy should have remained a civil, not criminal, matter for obvious reasons.

This law, along with the same law in the philippines is more of an abuse towards human rights rather than to help reduce piracy. It even allow ISP spying of 'suspected' individual based merely on suspicion rather facts. How would you feel, if someone from your ISP watch and monitor your internet just because they think you are a criminal? or because they think your face looks like one.

This banter has been around for as long as man himself. It is very eloquently espoused in the speech Gary Cooper gave at the end the movie "The Fountain Head" a story written by Ayn Rand in the 1950's.

Gary Cooper played the part of Howard Roark.The jist of the movie was does mankind have a right to another man's work.
Watch the speech here:
This argument will not be solved here because the dichotomy, left and right will never end. We are faced with a man made dichotomy at every turn; democrats verses republicans or the multitude of religions facing off and even things as simple as man verses women or democracy verse communism.

My grandfather told me a long time ago: Cheatin's Cheatin no matter how you justify it. If you steal another mans work... no matter how you do it... Copy it, take his property under the guise of law, or at the end of a gun... its not yours and if you take it your stealing.

There is a doctrine in law that says you can't do something and say you didn't know it was wrong. It's called "Willful Blindness". If you take something that doesn't belong to you... there are punishments whether you agree or not or whether you knew it was wrong.

I am of Japanese decent. There lucky the law only permits getting 2 years in jail and not loosing a limb on the end of a sword.