sidz used our news submit to tell us that the Japanese legal system is as tough on swappping films as the US, as far as tolerance goes. It seems the sentencing phase goes a little bit lighter than the US. An individual using the popular P2P program "Winny" was popped for the sharing of just two films. We have seen already that the MPAA, at least in the US has a zero tolerance level for file sharing, remember the Hulk? Unlike the RIAA which has been targeting users that share at least 1,000 music files.
Winny is a Japanese peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program, possibly the most popular one of all over there right now. It gets it's name from WinMX, where the M and the X are raised one letter in the alphabet, to N and Y. Kind of like HAL the wayward computer from 2001 a Space Odyssey, who's name was derived by shifting each letter down from IBM. Oddly, Winny has a claim to fame for being able to hide a users identity, but in this case it obviously didn't work. So we best take that cloaking feature with a grain of salt
"This is a wicked crime which makes nothing of the efforts of film makers," Judge Yasuhide Narazaki said. The sentence was suspended for three years. |
Whew, that was a close one. But at any rate folks, just be aware that trading these movie files is not too swift an activity. Maybe in some countries, but not in the US and now even Japan.
If you would like to read more about Winny, which has a very interesting
history, please visit
the Wikipedia page here.
Source: News.com Australia
