Defendent from Kawasaki City receives 1.5 years in prison, suspended for 3 years

On July 24, the Kyoto District Court sentenced 34-year-old company employee Kasuhiro Maki from Kawasaki City to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years, for unauthorized uploading of Gundam and other popular anime with the Share file-sharing program. Three men were arrested for unauthorized anime file-sharing in Japan on May 9, and Maki is the second of those three to be sentenced.

Moriyoshi Inoha, a 41-year-old company employee from Tokyo, also received a 18-month sentence, suspended for three years, on July 14. Maki, Inoha, and Takahiro Ōtomo from Hiroshima Prefecture were arrested on the same day by the Kyoto Prefectural Police's High-Tech Crime Task Force. They were the first to be arrested for using Share to allegedly share files without permission. Prosecutors had requested 18-month sentences for both Maki and Inoha. Judge Hiroyuki Satō of the Kyoto District Court compared anime file-sharing to "distributing bread that was shoplifted from a supermarket," which drew an out-of-court critique from Maki's defense counsel about the appropriateness of the comparison.

Share's developers had promised high anonymity for its users, but ever since security researchers found flaws in Share in 2006, other successor applications have been developed. Japan's Copyright Law prohibits unauthorized uploaders but expressly allows people to download for private use. The Japanese government is pushing for a ban on unauthorized downloads as well, despite receiving thousands of messages from citizens opposing the ban.

Source: Kyoto Shimbun

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