chosaq

Indirect liability concept to be introduced in the Japanese copyright law?

I had a look at Japan’s Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters’ Intellectual Property Strategic Program 2006 document and discovered an interesting tidbit in the following section:

• Chapter 4 Efforts to Create Culture with the Use of Content
  • I. Make Japan a World-Class Content Superpower
    • …
    • 2. Making Japan a Content-Creator Superpower
      • …
      • (4) Securing Appropriate Protection having regard to the Balance between Protection and Exploitation
        • 1) Developing domestic systems

—that’s p141 or p142/207 ;-). A quote:

i) The GOJ will consider, based on a comprehensive study, the idea of introducing the provision on indirect infringement under the Copyright Law, as in the case of the Patent Law, so that the act of providing an article that is used exclusively to commit copyright infringement shall also be deemed to be an infringement, or introducing a stricter provision, and will draw a conclusion by the end of FY2007.

(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)

I may be wrong, but the paragraph above sounds a lot like it’s an attempt to regulate P2P software (e.g. Winny). Important of course here is the reach of the word “exclusively.” Curious how this is going to evolve…

It’s worth noting that a similar idea was introduced on p126/209 of the 2005 Program, although the original phrasing was very different. The document cited the importance of “achieving consistency with other intellectual property laws” as one of the reasons for a possible amendment. This argument can of course also be used against the copyright-maximalists, so that’s probably why it was left out in the 2006 version.