Storing Personal Music Online Is Illegal In Japan

An anonymous reader writes "A decision in Tokyo District Court could have implications in Japan for online services that let users store files, if any music files are involved. The court case pitted JASRAC, the Japanese organization that collects fees for public music performances, against Image City, whose MYUTA service lets users employ a central server to store songs from their own CDs, to play on their own phones. The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling declaring Image City guilty of copyright infringement (Google translation). Despite the music being stored strictly for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase and Apple's .Mac, which could mean these companies are guilty of copyright infringement if any of their users in Japan store music in their accounts for personal use. Here are some additional details on JASRAC's activities and methods." Neither article talks about possible appeals, or about how strong a precedent this case sets in the Japanese legal system.

Which is why encryption should be used

[by Anonymous Coward]

If the data is encrypted, and they don't have the key, you haven't distributed anything to them.

Re:Which is why encryption should be used

[vakuona (788200)]

Thank you for the heads up. We shall cover this in an addendum.

RIAARUS

Encryption is irrelevant

[Nymz (905908)]

If the data is encrypted, and they don't have the key, you haven't distributed anything to them.

Encryption is simply a container, it may be locked but when you tranfer the container, you also transfer the contents.

Re:Encryption is irrelevant

[by Anonymous Coward]

The analogy of encryption with a locked container is problematic in this case. If you encrypt something with a properly constructed one-time pad, for example, the ciphertext will be indistinguishable from a random set of bits. Is the plaintext "inside" the ciphertext somehow? Only if you say that all messages of the same length are inside the ciphertext.

Re:

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

Honestly, this is rediculous. Where do you draw the line? Where does it become just random data? The fact that I can construct a program to extract Hansons_mmbop.mp3 from your kernel32.dll, does distributing this file mean I am a badguy, even though the data isn't actually there?

[Yes, I have done this. Akin to 'if (CurrentPos == 2 || CurrentPos == 7 || ...) { fseek(ArbitraryDictFile, ...); fread(ArbitraryDictFile,...); fwrite(NewlyCreatedFile, ...); } else if...']

Re: Hansons_mmbop.mp3

[Nymz (905908)]

...I can construct a program to extract Hansons_mmbop.mp3 from your kernel32.dll, does distributing this file mean I am a badguy

Yes, anyone involved in distributing a song so awful that it makes your ears bleed would be a badguy. :-)

Re:Encryption is irrelevant

[Firehed (942385)]

I hate that logic. If I give you a safe without telling you its contents or combination, just the instruction to hold on to it until I ask for it back, should you be held accountable for its contents? I'd say no, although I'm sure some idiot in a courtroom would say otherwise. Either way, an encrypted file is even stronger cause for plausible denyability, as its designed to actively prevent anyone but authorized parties to access its contents.

Re:Encryption is irrelevant

[Carewolf (581105)]

That (lack of) logic would completely destroy the business of safety deposit boxes.

Re:

[BigDogCH (760290)]

"If you don't bother to find out what's inside before looking after it and it turns out to be full of counterfeit money, should you really be unaccountable because you just held on to the safe?"

Yes, you should be unaccountable. It isn't your safe, it isn't your contents. This is just like renting a storage shed. Should the owner be liable because someone was storing counterfeit money in their shed?

"accepting locked containers without asking the contents makes you at least partly liable for the cont

Re:

[PoliTech (998983)]

You can take it a step further ... Drive encryption with a decoy OS to which you provide officer friendly the password, once logged in an auto overwrite process begins and the "Real" OS hidden in the FAT table of the Decoy OS is destroyed as all of the "Free Space" on the drive is overwritten with ones and zeros a time or ten.

http://www.securstar.com/products_drivecryptpp.php [securstar.com]

That software is not open source however. but for the really paranoid a hundred and twenty five bucks is a small price to pay.

Re:Which is why encryption should be used

[Atlantis-Rising (857278)]

Presumably, given that they didn't have the encryption key in the first instance, having an encryption key in the second that begins deletion is irrelevant. It's still illegal to destroy evidence. Instead of being thrown in jail for what they thought you did originally, they'll just throw you in for contempt and destruction of evidence.

Re:

[PoliTech (998983)]

How would anyone ever know there was any evidence? The "Decoy" OS is the "real McCoy" ( a fully functioning OS) and no one but the owner of the data even knows about the obfuscated OS. You Gave them the encryption key to the computer OS. You Cooperated. Officer friendly found nothing, you go on your way. Really, it's not that difficult, and it's what the corporations are doing right now to limit liability. If you have sensitive or compromising data, you should pursue an encryption plan today.

Re:

[trewornan (608722)]

Since that's pretty much what's happening at Guantanamo then I guess we have a lot more to worry about than a few MP3s on our hard disks.

Re:

[Applekid (993327)]

One lovely feature of TrueCrypt is the ability to house data in separate drives both referred to by one bitstream. They call it "plausable deniability". You can put some sensitive-looking information in there with one password, which you would surrender if forced to. In the meantime you put the REAL sensitive stuff in there with a completely different password that the bad guys cannot even know exists.

No partition has to know about the other one it coexists with. The whole thing still looks like a random sm

Those wacky japanese

[QuantumG (50515)]

Shifting copyright works? bad.
Animated tentical rape? ok.

Re:Those wacky japanese

[ag0ny (59629)]

Now, seriously, hentai aside. we're talking about a conutry in which selling used CDs is illegal. I am not making this up.

That's not true. Selling useD CDs or DVDs in Japan is completely legal. You can find LOTS in most DVD rental shops, and in second hand stores like Book Off [bookoff.co.jp] (Books, CDs, DVDs, console games...)

This is fubar

[by Anonymous Coward]

So I rent an apartment, and I store some of my music CDs in there, and then the RIAA sues my landlord for copyright infringement?

If I rent storage space online for my own personal use, I can put anything I want in there, including backup copies of my legally owned music collection.

Anything less, and my fair use rights are being violated.

Re:

[QuantumG (50515)]

store some of my music CDs in there

Yep, cause that's just like copying them. Exactly the same thing.

Anything less, and my fair use rights are being violated.

Maybe the Japanese don't have fair use.. Australia doesn't. It's interesting how fair use law says you're allowed to make one copy for "backup" purposes.. then doesn't really define what that term means. In IT, a backup kept on the same site as the original is hardly a backup at all.

Re:

[cpt kangarooski (3773)]

It's interesting how fair use law says you're allowed to make one copy for "backup" purposes.. then doesn't really define what that term means. In IT, a backup kept on the same site as the original is hardly a backup at all.

In the US, at least, fair use says nothing of the kind. Fair use is an exception for anything that is fair. Sometimes backups are fair, sometimes they aren't. It depends on the specific circumstances involved.

Re:

[good soldier svejk (571730)]

In IT, a backup kept on the same site as the original is hardly a backup at all.

This statement assumes you rely on backups for disaster recover. That in turn assumes you have very lax recovery point and recovery time objectives. Backup could never meet my DR RTO and RPO; I rely on replication for DR. I use backups to restore deleted files and programmer errors. Offsiteing my backups gains me nothing but decreased security and a long restore time. That said backup probably has plenty good enough RTO/RPO fo

Re:This is fubar

[QuantumG (50515)]

Ha! I believe copying whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.. and copyright is the law that takes that right away from us - apparently for the betterment of society. I don't think it is the choice, but even if it was, I'd rather have more freedom than have more creative works, if that's the choice to be made.

Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "pirate".

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

apparently for the betterment of society

Huh? Are corporations already considered "society"? Do you know something I don't know yet?

Unfortunately, every time I get on the soap box, a vocal minority comes and calls me names like "pirate".

My parents always said I shouldn't give too much about what other kids call me.

Re:

[Endo13 (1000782)]

First, are you out of your mind? Speaking of bad logic... even comparing actual Theft (let alone copyright infringement) with murder and rape is outrageous. Murder and rape take something that can NEVER be restored.

Second, Theft actually deprives you of your personal belongings. That means you're going to have to spend more money to buy it again. Copyright infringement deprives you of potential earnings. This loss (though it is a real problem, and could ruin a person financially) is completely impossible to

Re:

[tepples (727027)]

Hobbyist video games in no way, shape, or form approach the quality of professional games. [...] The same could be said of movies.

Headcase88 mentioned music. You did not. Besides, is the prospect of a larger variety of professionally made movies and video games worth restricting the freedom of people to use computing machinery? And why are video games subject to copyright for 95 years?

Re:This is fubar (safety deposit box)

[Nymz (905908)]

if someone stored documents in a safety deposit box, is it the fault of the bank if these documents were copyrighted or illegal?

The bank, by storing the documents, are not infringing on the copyrights. But if they were to transfer or copy them without permission, then they would be infringing.

"Online"?

[ScytheBlade1 (772156)]

Online?

Er. Okay. What is "online" - does this mean on a server somewhere on the vast internet which you've purchased? Or would your personal computer - which is "online" - count?

"[..] the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company." Uploading music to a central server. So when the user has a networked place to store files, would this qualify? Assuming you were the owner or a business which had one other employee, if you uploaded your music to your server for your business, would this be a violation?

So many questions.. so many loopholes.. such broad legal decisions.

Re:Online? Irrelevant, it's the possession

[Nymz (905908)]

I know the two sources are confusing, but the key point is that the 3rd party, whom is considered to be in possession of music licensed to you, commits infringement when they transfer the music back to you. Only you, the licensee has permission to do transfers, copying, etc.

Re:

[MidnightBrewer (97195)]

This is Japan. This ruling is totally useless. First of all, the market for people who want to save their music online to listen to on their cell phones is very small indeed; "full browsing" internet time costs 300 yen (US $2.50) just to initiate, and cellphone-centric browsing is pretty pricey as well. There are all-you-can-eat plans for about 5000 yen a month, but since they make several cell phone models that are designed to be music players and offer multiple gigabytes of internal storage, not to ment

Good to know

[pavera (320634)]

That the US isn't the only country with a totally screwed legal system and idiots for judges!

Re:

[bursch-X (458146)]

I think the legal system is one weak point the bigger problem are the fucking lobbies and their incredible power.

Storing is illegal?

[Cancer_Cures (1000619)]

So, if I have illegal documents in a safety deposit box, is the bank or holder responsible for what is stored?

Re:

[QuantumG (50515)]

If the bank hangs a sign outside which says "make unlawful copies of your documents and store them here for easy retreival!" then yes, yes they are responsible.

I'd mention some examples from history of when banks have been found responsible for storing things of value which were aquired in dubious ways.. but I don't want to give you reason to invoke Godwin's law.

There has to be more to this

[NMerriam (15122)]

What about online backup services? They're growing in popularity as bandwidth comes down in price. I have 200 gigs of music included in my encrypted remote backup set. Nobody can get at it but me, it is just random data as far as the host is concerned.

I can't imagine a nation as technically literate as Japan would essentially make it illegal for people to do remote backup (since 99.9% of people have SOME music on their hard drive, if only the windows startup sound or whatever other audio files come with your OS and applications).

Re:

[Isao (153092)]

I have 200 gigs of music included in my encrypted remote backup set.

Where are you storing 200GB of data at reasonable rates? From the US that would be over $100/month.

Bad, but not as bad as it looks at first glance

[Whuffo (1043790)]

The court's decision is pretty narrowly defined - if the server is owned by someone else, then uploading music to it is considered distributing.

So if you upload it to your own server this decision wouldn't necessarily apply. This brings up some interesting ideas; suppose a server farm was operated as a co-op where all the users own shares of the server farm. Now, if they upload music to this server farm are they distributing it to someone else?

How about if someone you don't know downloads a copy of a song from your server while you're not watching - is this distribution?

The record companies are setting legal precedents right and left these days - but I wonder if they realize what kind of corner they're painting themselves into. The basic idea of the copyright owner being the one who decides who gets copies of his work for a limited time is sound. I don't think even a hardened pirate can honestly argue against this. But this simple idea has been blown up and perverted far beyond what it was intended to be by greedy businessmen. The push-back from the general public is getting stronger by the day and it's just a matter of time before these companies find themselves holding the short end of the stick.

Want to hasten that day? Inform others of what's going on, and defund the crooks by refusing to purchase their products. Take the money out and they'll fold up very quickly.

Re:

[QuantumG (50515)]

The basic idea of the copyright owner being the one who decides who gets copies of his work for a limited time is sound. I don't think even a hardened pirate can honestly argue against this.

Way to equate people who value freedom over "more creative works" as pirates.

You didn't even get the concept of copyright correct. It's not "who gets copies", it's "who gets to make the copies".

Big difference.

How about the GPL?

[myowntrueself (607117)]

The court's decision is pretty narrowly defined - if the server is owned by someone else, then uploading music to it is considered distributing.

How about this;

Do Microsoft have servers (eg hotmail) in Japan to which users can upload files?

If so, were a user to upload, say, the Linux *kernel* to such a server is Microsoft now *distributing* the Linux kernel? And then the GPL would swing into effect...

It probably won't hold up in a higher court

[SplatMan_DK (1035528)]

There have been several similar rulings in lower courts in Europe, and all have been changed in higher courts. It is typical for a lower court to totally miss the deeper and more technical implications of cases such as this one.

The company has been providing a service to the consumer, but has not used the implicated files or distributed them to other users. As such, the company itself is not guilty of anything - let alone copyright violations. If they were, we would soon see virtually every MP3 device manuf

Re:

[mangu (126918)]

It is rulings such as this one that shows there is a reason for having multiple levels in the court system. And also why the judges in the higher courts are paid better ...

...and why judges should be held responsible for their decisions. In too many places they have the concept that, for the sake of "judicial independence", judges cannot be prosecuted based on the decisions they make at the bench. I think that's bullshit. If a decision a judge makes causes some side-effect, the judge should be held respon

My huge mp3 collection

[billcopc (196330)]

How to build a huge mp3 collection:

1. Launch company that stores users' music online
2. Users send you all their music
3. W00T! check out my huge crappy mp3 collection.

I haven't figured out where to put "Profit" in there. I guess that's because I'm Canadian.

Summary doesn't go far enough

[xigxag (167441)]

which could mean these companies are guilty of copyright infringement if any of their users in Japan store music in their accounts for personal use.

It goes beyond that, at least, according to Gigazine. What the Gigazine [google.com] article is alleging is that the court decision implies that any use of online storage for copyrighted materials, ANY copyrighted materials, is a violation. Storing photos, movie clips or articles would run afoul of the decision as well. You'd have to wonder if even email could survive u

Like a safe deposit box?

[Kjella (173770)]

(...) the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company.

Sounds a lot like a safe deposit box to me. I entrust the company with my possessions in a central location (the bank vault), but the ownership doesn't change hands. I've in no way distributed the music to the bank just because I put it in my safe deposit box, that's ridiculous. Also, that notion of "distribution" would be completely ridiculous for a company. Shared hosting? Co-lo? Rented terminal services? All of those involve uploading data to a central server owned by a different company. By no means is that distribution to whomever is doing the hosting. Also think of things like Google apps, are you distributing things to Google now whenever you use their tools? I hope the actual ruling made more sense than that sentence.

Music on cell phones

[HalfFlat (121672)]

Music on your keitai is big business: the cell phone providers have their own music download services, and on most phones, you do not have the ability to upload mp3s or the like yourself (there are certainly some exceptions, and I believe Vodaphone phones generally did allow you much more freedom in this regard. Vodaphone were very much the minor player in the market though.)

Services like MYUTA threaten to undermine a very lucrative source of revenue, and the music industry is a very, very powerful lobby: Sony for example were able to have the law rewritten such that importing CDs of Japanese music that Japanese publishers had licensed to overseas companies for distribution would be illegal ... as a copyright violation. With progressively higher-level manufacturing moving to China, there is strong support from the government to encourage industry to develop and invest in IP, with correspondingly strong IP laws.

Copying MP3.com

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

That is exactly the same BS ruling that killed MP3.com back in 1999 when the original Diamond Rio Flash/MP3 mobile player changed the world. What gives the government the right to tell you what you can do with the data you bought for the express purpose of playing it yourself?

Hell, in the US, even CDs have been allowed to be loaned to friends, played at parties, like analog records always were. These copyright exceptions to outlawed monopolies and free speech are only rationalized by protecting some return

Go figure.

[i_like_spam (874080)]

Wow, I will never figure out Japan.

In Japan, it's acceptable and perfectly legal to walk into Tsutaya [tsutaya.co.jp] (i.e. the Japanese "Blockbuster"), rent an armful of CDs, rip to your heart's desire, and then return them the next day.

This reminds me of the time last year when, in the name of safety, the Japanese government tried to make it illegal to sell used electronic items [akihabaranews.com].

Not much of a "precedent", per se

[achurch (201270)]

This is still just a district court ruling, so it doesn't set any "precedent" in the sense of binding other courts. It may influence how other district courts consider similar cases, but then again it may not; my impression is courts at the same level generally act rather independently. (There was a pair of high-profile cases late last year on privacy rights vs. government databases, where two separate high courts came to completely opposite conclusions for essentially the same circumstances.)

IANAL, of course. I just live here.

For the curious, the decision itself (PDF, in Japanese) can be found here [courts.go.jp].

Re:

[QuantumG (50515)]

They'll invade your country and enslave your people.

Oh wait, they already did that.

The Japanese I mean, not the US.. although......

Re:A little snag...

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Will they try to prosecute across borders like the States does?

No, they'll send giant robots after us.

Re:

[cerberusss (660701)]

Hehheh, reminds me of something nerdy...

During lunchtime, two developers and a bunch of electronics guys take a stroll around the building. On the way back, one asks, where are we going? Straight through, the other says. Dev 1 doesn't see the hall through the building and asks "Straight through the building?" The other says: "No, unless you brought your mech." Developers laugh out loud.

Electronics guys look totally puzzled. "A what? A mekk?"

New extradition treaty in works

[Nymz (905908)]

...I'm actually Chinese. So what do they do about non-Japanese people using Japanese services for this sort of thing? Will they try to prosecute across borders like the States does?

Just your luck, China and Japan are in new extradition [japantimes.co.jp] talks.