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2015 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

10. Winny Criminal Case: How Have Controversial Science, Technology, and Society Problems Been Solved While Avoiding Conflicts?

verfasst von : Masahi Shirabe

Erschienen in: Lessons From Fukushima

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter analyses how the Winny criminal case developed and how people as well as the copyright protecting body defined the issues and situations surrounding it and solved the issues. Winny, pure peer-to-peer file sharing software as an application of advanced software technology components might lead to software innovations, while it has been a tool to facilitate illegal file sharing. Therefore, since the developer of Winny was arrested for being in charge of aiding and abetting copyright infringement, although the Supreme Court acquitted him seven years later, he had attracted praise from the software engineering community, law specialists, and citizens as well as censure in the process. In response to his arrest, the following interlinked problems had brought to citizens, courts and the copyright protecting body respectively: (1) building social consensus on acceptable software development, (2) establishing a landmark precedence on aiding and abetting copyright infringement, (3) revising the Copyrights Act to cope with online piracy. However, the link between the problems bridged by Winny were broken into pieces as the key decision makers closed themselves off from other problem areas and our society gradually shifted its attention away from the case. As a result, the problems as a whole went by the wayside although each problem obtained its local optimum. Therefore, our society did not have any clues about what socially acceptable software development is, but it returned to a stable condition.

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Vorheriges Kapitel AIDS Patients Due to Transfusion of HIV Infected, Non-heat-treated Blood Products

“This program aims to discover and develop outstanding human resources called Super Creators. Specifically, these are persons possessing creative ideas and skills for achieving software innovation and who can put these ideas and skills to use.” (Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.ipa.go.jp/english/humandev/third.html).

http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20130707/489582/ (Retrieved August 5, 2014).

The arrest of two users who uploaded copyrighted files apparently directly triggered his arrest.

Supreme court decision (Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.courts.go.jp/hanrei/pdf/20111221102925.pdf).

According to the survey by the Contents Overseas Distribution Association (Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.meti.go.jp/meti_lib/report/2010fy01/E001204.pdf), the percentage of people (over 15) using file-sharing software declined from 9.1 to 5.8 % in 2010. Moreover, middle and high school students who ceased to use such software cited the revision of the Copyright Act as its number two reason (21.9 %). In addition, it can be presumed that rapid diffusions of digital distribution and smartphones as well as price reduction of digital content has decreased the percentage even lower in the last few years.

Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/archive/2002/07/31/7922885.Think_through_the_appliance_of_science/.

For example, although Skype is not P2P file sharing software, it used P2P technology.

Dr. Kaneko and his lawyer claimed that his release of Winny was a social verification experiment of a secured communication system like Freenet, and the court acknowledged it. But, as the encryption technology used in Winny was an established one, it was not very easy to justify its use in a verification experiment.

Such an ID function must not be implemented in an alternative system of Freenet. Even if it were implemented in the system for a verification experiment, it would not have caused substantial problems.

Retrieved July 1, 2005, from http://Winny.info/2ch/2ch_log1.html (dead link).

The chronology is based on the summary retrieved July 1, 2005, from http://www.nan.sakura.ne.jp/Winny/page/lib/history.htm (dead link).

This episode strongly suggested that Dr. Kaneko recognized his software would be frequently used for illegal file sharing.

They were later convicted for copyright infringements.

There could be observed another famous arrest of a software engineer in Okazaki “Librahack” case (http://astand.asahi.com/magazine/wrnational/special/2011012800004.html), where the engineer was arrested on suspicion of unlawful access to a library’s server (DoS attack) was put under investigation for weeks. As the result of the prosecution’s ignorance about technology, he was only suspended of prosecution, even though the case should have been just dropped because of insufficient evidence. Actually, he only used his software to access the server as frequently as once in a second for only a limited time, but these accesses “crashed” the server due to errors in the server program. As this case might represent, Japanese software engineering community was clearly skeptical about technical understandings of law enforcements.

Sankei group is a representative conservative media group.

Retrieved July 1, 2005, from http://www.zakzak.co.jp/top/2004_05/t2004051119.html (dead link).

Legal experts pointed out this central issue in a suit just after he had been arrested (cf. Sonoda, Asahi Newspaper, 14/05/2004).

Retrieved July 1, 2005, from http://www.hirokiazuma.com/blog (dead link).

One of the most repugnant cases is the distribution of child pornography materials. In addition, there were known to be numerous disastrous incidents of private photographs being leaked.

There might indeed been something wrong with the fact that he only stood trial in a criminal court over aiding and abetting of copyright infringements. However, there was no way for him to go to court without victims’ accusations. It was natural for victims of private photographic outflows not to bring about action for damages considering the possibility of secondary or tertiary harm. Nevertheless, these outflows posed a serious social problem.

Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.jiten.com/dicmi/docs/n/8079.htm.

Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://ifpi.org/news/music-subscription-revenues-help-drive-growth-in-most-major-markets.

For example, Ootani (2004b) discussed Winny from the viewpoint of “privacy”. While, Lessig, who detailed privacy problems of the Internet in a chapter of his milestone book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Basic Books, New York (1999), pointed out that “Many people had understood privacy problems on the Internet.” [Retrieved July 1, 2005, from http://www.asahi.com/tech/lessig/02.html (dead link)].

Contributory infringement involves liability to promote infringement.

The following quotations concerning courts’ rulings are translated from the decisions of the Supreme Court and the High Court, which also contain the summaries of the decisions of the District Court.

Japan Fair Trade Commission (2004), a material distributed in its working group meeting.

Digital distributions are excluded from the system. Movie and computer software are also excluded from the system.

There is a “bunko” (Japanese style of paperbacks) system in Japan, where (mainly popular) books are published as paperbacks at very low prices years after they have been published in hard cover. Thus, we cannot say that the prices of books are higher than those in developed countries. However, although movie content (typically DVDs) is not exempt from antitrust laws, its prices, against expectations, are 20–50 % higher than those in other developed countries.

One of the most tragic outcomes would be Thomas-Rasset versus Capitol Records, 12-715 (Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/12-715.htm).

See the memorial address at the beginning. It only focused on how society should treat software, software engineers, and innovations.

There are currently exceptions like “circumventions of technical protection” in many countries.

Nonaka (2014) described this situation as an externally powerful parliament that has become a dead letter.

Only parliamentary members can theoretically make and reform laws by statute. However, there are open loopholes.

It could be the case that they would become a real political agenda at the local government level. For example, there is a well-known case where a power company conceded plans to build nuclear plants in “Maki Machi” (Maki Town).

Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lessig, L. (1999). CODE and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.

Nonaka, N. (2014). Toppagata-seiji ni Morosa (Pitfall of “break through” politics), Nikkei Newspaper (July 28, 2013).

Ootani, T. (2004a). Winny kaihatsusha no taiho ha nani wo imisurunoka (What does the arrest of Winny developer mean?). Kagaku, 74(8), 935–938.

Ootani, T. (2004b). P2P to joho-rinri (P2P and information ethics). In: Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies (pp. 19–22).

Pinch, T., & Bijker, W. (1984). The social construction of facts and artefacts: Or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. Social Studies of Science, 14, 399–441.CrossRef

Shirabe, M. (2005). Sai-sentan gijyutu to hou: Winny jiken kara (Advanced technology and law; the case of Winny). In Y. Fujigaki (Ed.), Kagaku-gijyutu-shakai-ron no gihou (Case analysis and theoretical concepts for science and technology studies). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

Tanahashi, H. (1997). Computer network ni-okeru horitsu-mondai to genjyo-deno taisaku (Legal problems and measures concerning computer networks) (1)–(7). NBL No. 615–625.

The High Court of Osaka Japan. (2009). Chosaku-ken-hou ihan houjo hikoku jiken (Case of aiding and abetting of copyright infringements). Dated October 8, 2009. Its copy was retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://danblog.cocolog-nifty.com/index/2009/12/winny-5bc6.html.

The Supreme Court of Japan. (2011). Chosaku-ken-hou ihan houjo hikoku jiken (Case of aiding and abetting of copyright infringements). Dated December 19, 2011. Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/846/081846_hanrei.pdf.

Yamamoto, T. (2004). America chosaku-ken-hou no kiso-chishiki (Basic Knowledge about Copyright law in the US). Tokyo: Ota Publishing.

Titel: Winny Criminal Case: How Have Controversial Science, Technology, and Society Problems Been Solved While Avoiding Conflicts?
verfasst von: Masahi Shirabe
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Lessons From Fukushima
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15352-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-15353-7

Copyright-Jahr: 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15353-7_10