Marking a first, an unemployed 31-year old has been arrested in Japan this week for sharing unauthorized TV shows via BitTorrent.
The arrest is the first ever in Japan for torrent use.
Shuichiro Tanaka of Saitama Prefecture was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s cyber crimes division for allegedly uploading and sharing TV shows.
The authorities said that from June 4th to 9th, Tanaka captured the programs using his computer then uploaded them via BitTorrent.
Over the course of the year, Tanaka allegedly uploaded 165 episodes of different shows such as “Waratte Iitomo” and “Genius! Shimura Zoo.”
When asked why he uploaded the shows, Tanaka plainly said: “I did it for people who missed the programs. Because there is a potential for viruses on Winny [another popular Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing program] and others, I used BitTorrent, which I heard police weren’t investigating.”
Result for: file sharing program
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has suffered another legal setback after a judge denied a ruling in a music piracy case this week. The judge ruled that “the sole act of making a music file available in a “shared folder” does not violate copyright laws.”
In the case Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA asserted that a “sound recording” that is legally ripped to a PC and then stored in any type of shared folder is unauthorized and illegal. The assertion was not really clear however, as a shared folder is a very broad category.
The RIAA saw some backlash for its assertion when the rumor was spread around the Internet that the RIAA believed that ripping CD music was illegal. The group cleared up the situation by saying that it doesn’t consider ripping illegal but that adding music recordings to a shared folder that can be accessed by others in a P2P file sharing program is illegal and should be stopped.
The ruling this week has shut those theories down however. U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake tossed out all the RIAA’s motions including the “making available” and “offer to distribute” theories that pertained to “shared folders.”
The judgment could have long lasting effects in all of the RIAA’s music piracy cases as it is now harder for the group to prove that “a copyrighted file actually changed hands given the anonymous nature of file-sharing programs and the lack of cooperation from Internet service providers with these lawsuits.”
Result for: file sharing program
BT, the largest broadband service provider in the UK, has begun threatening “pirates” with disconnection from the Internet if they are found to be sharing copyrighted music over file sharing networks.
An anonymous broadband user forwarded one such email to TheRegister and the letter indeed showed that the woman was being threatened with disconnection for the unauthorized sharing of “Biology” by Girls Aloud. The sharing occurred using the file sharing program Ares in May and she received the letter this week.
Geoff Taylor, the chief of UK record industry trade body the BPI said in a statement, “Establishing partnerships with ISPs is the number one issue for the BPI, and we are beginning to form positive working relationships with BT, Virgin Media and most of the other major ISPs.”
It was still unclear whether BT has signed on to the so-called “three strikes” procedure agreed upon by the record industry and the government. Accused users will get two warnings for infringing music copyright and the third strike will be disconnection from the Internet.
Taylor added, “Everyone agrees on where we need to be, and we are working closely with our colleagues across the music community, the more progressive ISPs, and government to get us there.”
BT did not comment but did say if the BPI provides evidence against BT broadband customers, those customers can expect similar threatening letters.
You can read the full BT letter here.
