Japan Makes Private Copying Illegal

Japan Makes Private Copying Illegal

www.billboard.biz

The Japanese parliament has passed an amendment to the existing Copyright Law that extends further protections to copyright holders and, for the first time, makes it illegal for private users to download copyrighted material that has been uploaded without the rights holders' permission.

The new statute will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2010 but contains several caveats that raise the question of how it will be enforced. The user must be aware that the files were illegally uploaded and the new law does not stipulate any fine or jail term for contravening it.

The music industry, however, wel

(visit the link for the full news article)


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So wait, what's a DVD burner for? Why can't I backup something that I spent a large sum of money on?

I hate the entertainment industry. They're always lobbying for profit and I think this will cause their downfall in Japan. People will spend less money in a tough economic time and this is an additional incentive to force people to save money.

Kei Ishizaka, the CEO of RIAJ commented, "We are thankful to those concerned who supported this statue. Our organization will continue its work to stop all copyright infringement and will make our best effort to inform the public of the changes to the law."

Which middle class person would support this?

www.billboard.biz
(visit the link for the full news article)

From what I understand from the article, it's not stating that creating your personal back up from your *own* cd's is illegal.

They just consider it illegal for *you* to download *my* cd's.

In other words, you should be free to make as many ''private use'' copies of things you bought yourself. You're just not allowed to download stuff through torrents with illegally uploaded material anymore.

edit:

I just read the other article as well and though it states that ''private copying is illegal in japan'', nowhere in the other article does it show that.

the billboard article only speaks of "Downloading copyrighted material that was uploaded without the right-holder's consent."

There's a big difference between backing up your own CD, and *downloading*.

I believe the Techdirt is a bit incomplete as it generalizes ''private copies'', contrary to the billboard article's specific mention of *downloading uploaded material*

[edit on 17/6/09 by -0mega-]

reply to post by die_another_day


That article only relates to illegally downloading or copying material that is protected by the rights of the orginal owner.

How does, "Japan Makes Private Copying Illegal" come into this?

Sensationalism on the part of a few; this law is no different than any other. Somewhere down the chain of blog->article->blog someone decided to add their own interpretation and it's quite wrong.

The user must be aware that the files were illegally uploaded and the new law does not stipulate any fine or jail term for contravening it.

This however, makes it seemingly a useless law.

The entertainment industry is going down because the whole concept has been exhausted. They can try to wriggle out of that, but it is nothing but wriggling