Monday, May 10, 2004
Japan jails academic for writing P2P app (from the Boing)
A Japanese academic who wrote an anonymous P2P app has been arrested for "abetting infringement." This is the kind of perversion of justice we're accustomed to seeing in the US and Norway -- disappointing that the Japanese have so thoroughly bridged the copyright hysteria gap. The programmer faces three years in prison for writing code that allows for anonymous file-transfers. We can only hope that the team that led Microsoft's operating-system effort will be next, followed by the AppleShare team and the pesky authors of ftp.
Mr Isamu Kaneko, a 33-year-old assistant professor at the prestigious University of Tokyo, was arrested on suspicion of developing and offering free downloads on his Web site file-sharing software called Winny, Kyoto Prefectural (state) police said on condition of anonymity.
He is also accused of helping two Japanese men arrested in November on charges of disseminating movies and games on the Internet with Winny, police said.
A Japanese academic who wrote an anonymous P2P app has been arrested for "abetting infringement." This is the kind of perversion of justice we're accustomed to seeing in the US and Norway -- disappointing that the Japanese have so thoroughly bridged the copyright hysteria gap. The programmer faces three years in prison for writing code that allows for anonymous file-transfers. We can only hope that the team that led Microsoft's operating-system effort will be next, followed by the AppleShare team and the pesky authors of ftp.
Mr Isamu Kaneko, a 33-year-old assistant professor at the prestigious University of Tokyo, was arrested on suspicion of developing and offering free downloads on his Web site file-sharing software called Winny, Kyoto Prefectural (state) police said on condition of anonymity.
He is also accused of helping two Japanese men arrested in November on charges of disseminating movies and games on the Internet with Winny, police said.
