Oh Crap! "Illegal" Download in Japan Is Now Criminal Offence

Criminalising it seems like a very stupid thing to do. That goes too far, certainly. Getting raped in prison - which is depressingly likely in some countries - is a far greater evil that an individual's software piracy.

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Originally Posted by soldant

Don't know about Japan, but in most places downloading a TV show isn't legal. Most places will allow for you to record a TV program for your own personal use, but distributing that TV show on a torrent network or downloading it still counts as infringement. You don't have the rights to distribute it or really use it for public viewing, only for private use (with some exceptions for educational use usually). Even just downloading (i.e. no uploading at all) is likely a breach because you don't have the rights to watch it per se, particularly if it's only carried by a pay-TV service.

That said, apart from some DMCA takedown requests (mostly for HBO shows like Game of Thrones) I'm not aware of too many massive lawsuits being filed over TV shows - it's mostly music and movies.

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If you could have recorded it from said TV station, you are allowed to download it. That is the last I heard about it, as it went in court and got ruled like that. (in the US)

In austria, noone cares. There are no worthwhile austrian or german TV shows.

Gintama is licensed by crunchyroll, I don't know why you would want a fansub of that? If you're in one of the region blocked countries, just get a VPN client which costs you 5$ per month or so.

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Originally Posted by QuantaCat

If you could have recorded it from said TV station, you are allowed to download it. That is the last I heard about it, as it went in court and got ruled like that. (in the US)

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My understanding was that you could use a DVR in the US since it was treated like a VCR, but downloading from a torrent or bits or a net that is used (for the articles) is still copyright infringement.

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Originally Posted by tomeoftom

Criminalising it seems like a very stupid thing to do. That goes too far, certainly. Getting raped in prison - which is depressingly likely in some countries - is a far greater evil that an individual's software piracy.

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i agree man! now it's better to rape than to download on torrents hahahha

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Originally Posted by BillButNotBen

It's second hand information, but it seems like they've put in some exceptions that seem to help out fansubbers. They also don't seem to include streaming as that doesn't count as downloading.

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I hope so. Considering how little is marketed externally to Japan its one of the few lifelines anything smaller then a KyoAni show can hope for.

Just curious also if you can answer this: Is media still WTFsilly priced in Japan?

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Originally Posted by Scumbag

Just curious also if you can answer this: Is media still WTFsilly priced in Japan?

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You mean DVDs and CDs? Older DVDs have finally dropped to a semi reasonable price with the advent of blueray, but new ones are still stupid expensive. CDs are still stupid expensive. There don't seem to be many viable digital options either - most have DRM (even itunes) and are high priced. Not sure there are any decent DRM free music download options, and there's almost nothing in the way of online TV. Hulu has recently launched in Japan, but there's no free option, it's more expensive than in the US, and it has no shows/movies from the last year or two.

As someone who would like to obtain foreign media legally in japan, there aren't a lot of reasonable options.

although, oddly, they still have all the CD rental shops - the ones that all have big stocks of blank cdrs next to the counter.

That sounds about what I thought it would be. I do find it funny that Japan has long had one of the best Internet setups in the world, yet most companies there don't know what to do with it.
Are a number of Steam products blocked so it does not compete with the high-street? I remember the last I went over places like Yodabashi Camera were selling stuff like Mount & Blade (the original, not any of the expansions or additional parts) for about 4500円 while back in the UK there were deals where you could get all 3 M&B games for about a tenner.