The government of Japan has approved a new bill aimed at reducing the downloading of pirated content from the Internet. The new law, which is targeted for Jan 1, 2021, will criminalize the downloading of manga, magazines and academic material with prison sentences of up to two years. Operators of pirate linking sites will also face up to five years behind bars.
Since 2012, downloading unlicensed music and movies from the Internet in Japan has been prohibited under the country’s Copyright Act and in theory punishable by up to two years in prison. Limitations of the law meant that downloading manga and other literary works wasn’t covered by the legislation, something which drew the ire of the publishing sector. In response, early last year the Cultural Affairs Agency proposed an expansion of the law to cover all copyrighted content but things didn’t go smoothly. Due to the breadth of the proposals, some feared that even private copying of images, for example, could be rendered illegal and punishable by a potential prison sentence. In an abrupt turnaround, however, the planned copyright amendments were shelved by the government after being rattled by protests over the implications.
torrentfreak.com
