This Japanese news article reports the first “internet cafe” arrest in Japan since the anti-piracy download law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. However, I am fairly certain that this is the first such arrest altogether – somebody please comment if I am wrong.

Toward the end of last year and the first days of the new year, many blogs and statistic sites were reporting on the number of shares on peer-to-peer software available on the internet. Remarkably, most of the numbers did not change a bit. I find this unusual since Japanese go to great lengths to stay compliant with law and keep a squeaky clean record.

A 37-year old internet cafe manager, Yasuharu Ishii, was arrested on February 9, 2010 at the Manga Land internet cafe in Ichikawa City of Chiba Prefecture. From May 2009, Ishii allegedly downloaded about 25,000 movies and songs while using peer-to-peer shares, and made those files available for customer use on personal computers available in private rooms at the internet cafe.

Most interestingly and kind of funny, the article mentions in the very last sentence that “he had all the series of Gandam and other such popular animations.” Kind of like that was the bigger news. Japanese love their manga and animations, that’s for sure.
I have mixed feelings on the subject – understanding that piracy is not fair and should be illegal, but also understanding that the sharing software and networks should not be held responsible. Holding these mediums of distribution responsible also makes it difficult or costly to distribute legitimate media such as podcasts.

Please comment…. 73s