Japanese Supreme Court Says Developer Of File Sharing Software Not Guilty Of Infringement Done By Users
from the that-took-years dept
More than five years ago, we wrote about a Japanese court finding the developer of the popular (in Japan) Winny file sharing program guilty of infringement done with the software. We noted how absurd this seemed, and thankfully three years later a higher court overturned the lower court's ruling. Fast forward another two years and (finally!), the country's Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal and noted that the software's designer shouldn't be liable for the software, which has non-infringing uses. It does appear that the court left open the possibility of an "inducement"-like standard, whereby he could have been guilty if he designed the software for the purpose of infringing copyrights, but it appears that wasn't the intention at all.Either way, that's many years of this guy's life tied up in the judicial system. Already, editorials in Japan are calling the situation "absurd," and noting:
The police and public prosecutors should realize the negative psychological effect that their actions must have had on people trying to develop new computer technology.Indeed. If you're dragging the developers of new technologies to court for more than five years just because some users of the software may break the law, you're creating a massive chilling effect on developers. Who's going to develop anything that might be used to infringe -- even if it has mainly productive non-infringing uses -- if it may lead to such a horrible and drawn out process?
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Filed Under: file sharing, japan, liability, secondary liability, winny
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All common sense goes out the window with IP
Note, I am not for holding the other 2 liable either as I am totally against 3rd party liability for anything.
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Re: All common sense goes out the window with IP
Rather than using technology to create greater opportunities for serving their customers, they want to use it to increase profits. Despite having virtually no reproduction costs, ebooks are sometimes more expensive than their paper counterparts and it took effort to allow for some ebooks to be lendable despite the paper versions having that capability right off the shelf.
The entertainment companies have an ownership complex with culture. They think they can own culture and exact a rental fee for every use. They just haven't figured out how to charge you for getting a song stuck in your head.
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Re: All common sense goes out the window with IP
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illegal uses?
Fancy shutting down a competitor who is doing something different to you? Find a crime which used one of their products and accuse them of aiding.
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What About Violent Movies?
So if a label produces a digital product that glories rape, and some deranged person listens to the music and commits the crime, why would we not hold the label selling the product to the same standard? Their own standard is to consider the producer of the digital product liable for the inducement
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Japan has no Jury system, opting for panels of lay judges and one professional judge in most cases.
Pay very close attention to the conviction rate:
In the matter relating to Japanese prosecutors being extremely cautious, the paper found ample evidence for it. In Japan, 99.7% of all the cases brought to court resulted in conviction, while in the U.S. the figure is 88%. According to a cited research, in the U.S. the accused contest guilt in 22% of federal cases and 11% of state cases, while in Japan, the ratio is modestly less. The paper attributes this difference to greater predictability of the outcome in Japanese cases. This is due to two reasons. One is that it is the judge rather than the jury who determines the verdict. As judges "have seen it all before" and the lawyers on both sides "have seen them seeing it", as they can read the judge's previous ruling (which includes written reasoning for the previous verdict), the way that the judge thinks and argues is very predictable.
Secondly, Japanese trials before the institution of the current lay judge system, were discontinuous. The defense and the prosecutor would first gather in front of the judges and present the issue. Then, the court would enter recess and both sides would go back to prepare their case. As they reconvened on different dates, they would then present each case which the judges examined, the court would be put in recess again and each side would go back to gather further evidence. Some complex trials took years or even a decade to conclude which is impossible under jury system. During the questioning of evidence, judges were explicit about their opinions by the way they questioned the evidence, which gave greater predictability about the final verdict.
For this reason, the prosecutor is far more likely to bring in the case where conviction is assured and the accused is far more likely to settle.
Best way to learn the Judicial game of Japan? Phoenix Wright answers the questions best. It's a parody of the judicial system and how it criminalizes people in the worst way. Phoenix Wright is a fun game, no doubt. But understand what it shows as the problems of finding justice in the system. Wealthy prosecutors, judges who don't care, and an impossible turn around. Hell, another problem is how a defense attorney is unable to effectively cross examine the police. Whatever the police say is a gospel truth. Does that sound familiar?
The other problems are that Japan still hasn't come to terms with sexual crimes, which are heavily biased against women:
Furthermore, in the context of the division of women into sexualised and non-sexualised groups, a victim of sexual assault must be from the group of non-sexualised women to be perceived as a true victim; rape of sexualised women is commonly trivialised (Burns, 2005: 31). Paradoxically, however, by admitting to the rape, women are admitting to sexual contact and therefore placing themselves within the devalued group of sexualised women (Burns, 2005: 19). If a woman has been the target for a sexual assault, she is assumed to be part of the group sacrificed for the protection of more deserving women, and therefore less deserving of protection.
So there are a lot of problems in Japan and its judicial system. The fact is, it's a joke. It's not about justice when you have such a high bar to prove your innocence.
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The major media companies are in thrall to their shareholders. Since they are terrified of shareholder lawsuits and downward price pressure, they do absolutely everything in their power to provide guaranteed results. They had a system where they could somewhat reliably predict profit and loss.
With the Internet turning most of that stuff on it's head, the predictions have gone out the window. All the attempts to "go back to the way it was" is merely efforts to return to a point where they can guarantee results and guarantee their shareholders a return on their investment.
At least, that's my current take on the driving force behind all of this. They don't really care about the IP itself - they just care about being able to guarantee the income and in turn, profit and loss.
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You are an investor. You should be investing disposable income/funds. By buying stock, you are accepting risk, and that risk includes the management doing something extremely stupid. You don't like it? Sell the stock.
The market should be correcting itself at this level, not the government.
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Re: Re: Re:You Almost got it right
The real shareholders are the executives.They hold millions of shares!
The real issue here is the distribution channel monopoly.
They cannot control the internet and its taking over.
politicians fear the internet for the same reason.
Soon the internet will completely dominate the election process...no more business as usual...unless they
can get all those laws passed so they can control it.
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Film at eleven.
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Re: [Hello, world!]
Your comment prompted me to pull out my copy of K&R I �(�1978 by Bell Telephone Laboratories). But then I thought about the history a little bit, and resorted to Wikipedia:
Anyhow, I think we are going to hold Professor Kernighan responsible.
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The cost of litigation is a burden, but rewards are low, they don't have 6 figures awards there, you get at best the value of the supposed infringement and you must show it to the court in a convincing way or you get nothing.
http://norisugi.com/forms/ci.html#8
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Insane...
There is no end to this IP lunacy.
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Where are the shills?
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Re: Where are the shills?
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re
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