All online file storage services illegal in Japan
Recently on the 25th, the Tokyo High Court had ruled against company Image City that their service MYUTA was guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA was a service which allowed users to use CDs that they own to upload their music onto an online server and then download the music into their cellphones for personal use.
The thing about this is that the court ruled it was an infringement of copyright even though the users cannot download the music into any cellphone other than their own. The reasoning behind the ruling was that by uploading the files onto a central server, the users were distributing the music files to the company that owns the server, even if the users were the only ones that would be able to access the files.
Gigazine has taken a close look at what this actually means and has concluded that all online file storage services such as Yahoo! Briefcase and Apple’s .mac were all illegal, since users use them for online storage.
And we only have JASRAC and their music copyright whoring to thank for all this.
…Somebody needs to save Japan’s internet.
