The developer of the formerly popular Japanese P2P application known as Winny has been of previous charges levied against him by an Osaka court in 2006, with the Osaka High Court overturning the copyright infringement charge and $15,000 fine.
The prosecution previously sought a year in prison in addition to the fine for being an accomplice to the copyright infringement activities that users participated in.
Isamu Kaneko, the developer of Winny appealed the initial verdict and the presiding judge in the appeal case ruled that merely being aware of the possible infringing uses does not constitute abetting the crimes of its users.
As is typical of such cases, the prosecution initially alleged using specious reasoning that Kaneko was completely aware of the activities of the program’s userbase and even went as far as to accuse him of developing the program specifically to engage in filesharing and other activities, with the judge in the first trial ruling in a similar fashion.
The ruling is expected to set a precedent in Japan regarding P2P application development and usage, as so-called observers and pundits were convinced that Kaneko would have been proven guilty after the appeal.
[via (18+)]
||Short Link| Print
|
RSS
| |
RSS
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.