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The INDUCE act and its relevance for Japan

Yesterday, I already furled (?) Ernest Miller’s Obsessively Annotated Introduction to the INDUCE Act, which is a must read on the topic. Today, the EFF joins in with a fake complaint against Apple over its iPod music player, thereby showing what the INDUCE act is capable of when accepted.

Technology companies will avoid being innovative, and investors will avoid supporting new technologies for fear of being sued out of existence based on the possible conduct of their customers. If this bill had been law in 1984, there would be no VCR. If this bill had been law in 1995, there would be no CD burners. If this bill had been law in 2000, there would be no iPod. If this bill becomes law in 2004, we may lose those devices and many more that we haven’t even begun to imagine.

So, what does all this have to do with Japan?

First of all, as Joi Ito points out, Japan always [often?] gets hand-me-downs of ugly US bills, so one might expect the Japanese copyright law to “catch up” with this bill (if ever passed) anytime soon.

Secondly, the thinking behind the INDUCE act is very similar to the arguments for the arrestment of Isamu Kaneko, the creator of Winny: The key point is intent, if the developer intended to help others violate copyright law (Hisashi Sonoda in Asahi.com). This boils down to the question whether just developing P2P software counts as sufficient intent, or else whether other actions (such as promoting copyright infringements with Winny on bulletin boards) are required to count as such. In case Japan had an INDUCE act there was no question about Winny’s status – it would be illegal. As for now, we don’t know (yet).