Thread: Police Arrest 18 Alleged Movie, Music and Software Uploaders

Police Arrest 18 Alleged Movie, Music and Software Uploaders

This week, Japanese police have been carrying out raids all over the country against individuals alleged to have uploaded copyright works to the Internet. In total, 18 people were arrested for sharing movies, anime, music, games and software.

For the last few weeks Japan’s Anti-Counterfeiting Association (ACA) has been busy monitoring the country’s file-sharers looking for copyright infringers. After handing over their findings to the authorities, this week the police took action.

In an operation starting Tuesday this week and ending Friday, police targeted 50 locations around Japan and ultimately arrested a total of 18 individuals.



The ACA, an organization made up of various trade groups including the Recording Industry Association of Japan, International Motion Picture Copyright Association and various other film, music and software entities, said the raids followed a similar but smaller operation in November last year. In that action, 11 people were arrested and according to ACA, all have been convicted.

As appears to be customary in these cases, the RIAJ – the Japanese equivalent of the RIAA – has taken the step of publishing a list of the ages, sex, locations, occupations and copyright works said to have been shared by the 18 individuals.

They range from a 25 year-old taxi driver from Tokyo sharing Cross Game, Dragon Ball Kai, Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Gundam 00 Second Season, to a 58 year-old construction worker sharing IBM Homepage Builder 12 and input method editor ATOK 2010.

What is striking about the arrests is that none of the accused appear to be heavy uploaders – the ‘worst’ pair appear to have uploaded 6 games, 2 comics and 4 music tracks between them.

While downloading in Japan was previously permitted for personal use, both up and downloading of copyright works are now expressly illegal.

Source : Police Arrest 18 Alleged Movie, Music and Software Uploaders | TorrentFreak

I hope that's not happening to other many uploaders

i just lost the respect i had for Japan...

Its amazing that they think they can make an effect on file sharing by wiping out a few uploaders among millions. Naive at best.

really scary to think that the Government can do that to you

In order to deter other users, they have to frequently arrest more people; until that happens, most of us will not even flinch.

i don't get why they arrest them! they jave uploaded less than most of us download in a day. to bad for them.

As with all of the other "big time" busts on uploaders and whatnot, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt for the less knowledgeable fraction of society.

Those that know better know that these arrests aren't going to help anything, even in the short run. Sure, there may be some small-time uploaders (similar to the ones arrested) that decide to back off, but I guarantee you none of the real heavy hitters so to speak are even going to flinch.

The reason only 18 out of 50 were arrested was because the Japanese pick their cases wisely and will only prosecute a case they know they can win. Everyone in Japan knows about their 98% conviction rate, and everyone knows the police are a bunch of tools. Even the police know it, it's just a job.

Anyway, they were using software called Share 仮称 which is like Perfect Dark and Winny. I don't user their networks or their clients and I don't know how they got caught. I just know I'm happy getting my files from trackers.