JPHiP Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: JFC on October 10, 2014, 06:34:14 AM
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Posting this here as a separate thread since it could potentially have ramifications for those of us foreign fans (either directly or as a prelude to similar incidents with other uploaders in the future). For example, if anyone here has heard of an uploader named landzou, he has, within the last 24 hours, stated (unless my Google translator really fucked it up) that he will close/shut down his Ameba blog (http://ameblo.jp/land-aud/entry-11936180406.html), which is where he has been posting the many idol-related videos (mostly related to the *48 Groups) that he has either UL'ed himself or that he has found UL'ed by other people.
- http://ameblo.jp/land-aud/entry-11936180406.html (http://ameblo.jp/land-aud/entry-11936180406.html)
Now granted, we've had scares like this in the past, where we've heard stories of and/or proclamations by Japanese police stating that they were doing investigations or what not. However this is the first, or at least one of the first times that they've actually made an arrest (at least to my limited knowledge) of someone who has been this much of an active video UL'er.
Man arrested in Japan for uploading television shows on Dailymotion
On October 7, unemployed 52 year old Fujimura Hideaki of Hofu, Yamaguchi Prefecture was arrested on charges of violating Japanese copyright law. He had been uploading Japanese television shows onto the video streaming site Dailymotion. His uploaded content included music shows, dramas, and variety programs. The uploaded videos included content from various channels including Fuji TV, TBS, TV Asahi, and WOWOW. He had uploaded over 2600 videos using various usernames. His various Dailymotion channels had around 3 million views in total. Fukushima Prefecture’s cyber crimes unit discovered the illegally uploaded content during a cyber crimes investigation. This could have a ripple effect on international consumers of Japanese media and overseas Japanese.
News footage on the arrest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVKNVV1yaE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVKNVV1yaE)
Hideaki’s channels have been the main source the music programs posted on AramaJapan (this being said we’re looking for alternative sources). He was very quick to upload and reliable. He uploaded in good quality and included a variety of programs. There have been complaints in the past among users of this site about videos being taken down and this arrest is the culmination of those efforts to stop his various channels.
There is a fear among many international consumers of Japanese media that this is but the first in perhaps a larger series of arrests of illegal uploaders. This arrest may also serve as a warning to other illegal uploaders, stopping them in their tracks. This all results in less content for us to consume. Without these people, we wouldn’t have what content we do have.
This all comes down to Japan’s stringent copyright laws. They are dead set on protecting their content as much as possible. However, this somewhat flies in the face of their efforts to revive the Cool Japan campaign. Cool Japan is being revived as a means of competing against the enormous growth in recent years of South Korea’s Hallyu. Hallyu strives in part because of South Korea’s very lax copyright laws. South Korean media is very easily accessed online by people from around the world. This enables it to grow. Japan, on the other hand, is trying to keep as much of their content offline as possible. How are people overseas, the people who Cool Japan is supposed to be trying to reach, supposed to get content? It’s not as if TV Asahi is uploading Music Station on YouTube in HD like various Korean channels do with their music shows. This leads us to turn to less than legal alternatives. If those alternatives are stopped, then what? This brings to mind the Manga-Anime Guardians project from a few months ago. That program wants to shut down sites that pirate manga and anime. A number of those sites are the only sites where non-Japanese speakers can find subbed content. If those sites are shut down, then what? Are the content makers going to start subbing their content on their own. Unlikely.
Japan says that it wants to expand its media overseas but then they do things like this, which pushes the remaining international fans further away. It’s like they’re pushing fans that already exist away, in an effort to get new fans who may or may not materialize.
FULL ARTICLE LINK - http://aramajapan.com/news/man-arrested-in-japan-for-uploading-television-shows-on-dailymotion/11220/ (http://aramajapan.com/news/man-arrested-in-japan-for-uploading-television-shows-on-dailymotion/11220/)
News footage on the arrest:
著作権法違反容疑で逮捕の男、2,600件余りの動画を無断掲載か(福島14/10/07) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVKNVV1yaE#ws)
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what? you can get arrested for uploading a video?
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wow, that's terrifying
we should be more alert and cautious when uploading video :P
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I'm not surprised at all. There's so many laws that can be bet to your will but you just either don't know, want to bother or care. People want to earn their money the easiest of ways, no matter what country they live in, the mentality is always the same. He stole, he was arrested. Pretty clear to me.
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I wonder if this is an isolated incident or a start of a wider crackdown. There's a TON of anime / drama sites which are presumably illegally hosting Japanese content.
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I think uploading is seen as more serious than downloading.
I mentioned this on Twitter, but all the arrests so far in Japan regarding the likes of torrenting and streaming have been uploaders. And since 2012, if I'm not mistaken, only a small handful have been arrested.
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First time I hear they arrest someone for this in Japan. I know they're strict in USA.
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Wow that's horrifying. I wonder what would happen if all of the countries would be so strict. Guess they would shut down more than half of the interent sites there are. Including allthe best porn sites and gay porn sites like ManHub, mygaysites (http://mygaysites.com/) or SeanCody.
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ww luckily my country is not that strict.