Since 2004 I've been following the case of Isamu Kaneko as it gradually makes its way through the Japanese court system. He's the developer of Winny, a peer-to-peer file sharing application that's apparently quite popular in Japan. The charge is that by developing this product, he was supposedly infringing copyright because the users of the product use it to infringe copyright. The most recent development is that he's been found guilty in the Kyoto District Court (story from Asahi Shimbun). An appeal is expected. See also coverage from Yomiuru Shimbun, The China Post (AP article), and the Free Kaneko Web site. (14 December 2006)
Today's news is that charges are being filed in the Isamu Kaneko case, but I'm actually more interested in the earlier story that is the main link here - which reports that in about a week, his defense fund had collected 11,678,225 yen. That's about $145,000 Canadian - quite a lot of money. [More on Winny developer arrest] (31 May 2004)
Just the other day someone was telling me about his favourite file-sharing package, a Windows application called Winny which purports to encrypt and anonymize everything in much the same way that Freenet does. Unfortunately, Winny's source code doesn't seem to be available, which may mean that continuing support will be a problem now that its developer, an "assistant researcher" at Tokyo University, has been arrested. I'm not sure what North American rank that actually corresponds to - it sounds like it could be anything from a graduate student "research assistant" like me or even lower-ranked, on up to an Assistant Professor. Story from Mainichi Daily News. [Academic arrested for writing file-sharing program] (10 May 2004)
Edward Felten's blog entry, and readers' comments, give several more links on the arrest of Isamu Kaneko. [More info on Winny author arrest] (10 May 2004)
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