Recruiting
A man (34) has been sentenced to one and a half years of hard labour for the wicked crime of distributing anime online over dying P2P network Share, in what were the first arrests for Share use. The judge presiding, displaying an admirable understanding of the economics of intangible “property”, admonished him thus “It was like you were distributing bread you’d shoplifted from supermarket shelves”.
It is being reported that three arrests have been made by Kyoto police for unauthorised distribution of copyrighted material (Gundam anime is mentioned) using anonymous P2P network Share, abortive successor to Winny, and these are the first arrests for using this network. Such reports do deserve critical reception, however, as they are inevitably presented such as to further the interests of law enforcement and copyright concerns, so some more careful analysis is required.
Anyone familiar with the file sharing networks peculiar to Japan will know Winny has long formed the mainstay, especially with successor Share having had development abandoned. However, Winny has fallen on hard times lately, and it may not be overstating the case to say that it is finally about to fade into irrelevance.
