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looks like craps hitting the fan in japan


Recording industry battles online music trade


Satoshi Toi

Monday, February 11, 2002 at 09:30 JST
TOKYO — A battle between online music-swapping service providers and the music industry in Japan is intensifying, with the industry alleging that free-of-charge sharing of digital copies of music is illegal and vowing to crack down on it.

"Music is being stolen. We will have to take self-defense measures to protect the foundation of the music industry from damage spreading like a pyramiding scheme," said Isamu Tomizuka, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

Last November, MMO Japan Ltd, an operator of an online file-swapping service, put on the domestic market the File Rogue software, enabling subscribers to retrieve songs in Japanese free of charge, shocking the music industry.

The association said music record output in 1998 was valued at 607.4 billion yen but was down to 503 billion yen last year, with the number of compact disk (CD) singles plunging 21% from the previous year.

The Japanese Society for the Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, and a group of 19 record companies asked the Tokyo District Court late last month for an injunction barring MMO Japan from handling music files digitally copied from copyrighted software.

The music industry is also studying selling CDs equipped with a copy-prevention function, something that is already used in parts of North America and Europe. Special signals will be put in CDs to prevent them being copied in personal computers.

Recording of CDs onto cassette tape recorders will be possible, but not digital recording on hard disks and other devices, according to the industry. "We are studying introducing various technologies," said Toshiba-EMI Ltd, a major record label. The new CDs are expected to be on the market by the end of the year.

There are also moves to protect TV images, where various rights of scriptwriters, performers, musicians and others are involved.

To prepare for digitalization of TV signals in the fall of next year, Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) and TV stations belonging to the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan are studying a technology called "copy-once." With this technology, involving special signals in TV waves, recording can be done only once.

The TV stations are already in consultations with electrical appliance manufacturers, and the Information and Communications Council of the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications will draw a conclusion this October.

"Copy-once" is also adopted in digital broadcasting for a fee, but the Department of Legal and Business Affairs of Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc (TBS) said the company, as a free-of-charge broadcaster, "will fully discuss disadvantages for audiences and make them well-known."

The popularization of broadband services, which enable exchange of massive amounts of information on the Internet at high speeds, makes it much easier to copy and share things such as music and video images digitally.

The telecommunications ministry said the number of subscribers to digital subscriber lines (DSL) topped 1.5 million in the last year, backed by the government's "e-Japan priority program" aimed at turning Japan into an information technology superpower.

Following global moves to protect digital content, a law allowing disclosure of information about copyright violators will become effective by this May.

Hisamichi Okamura, a lecturer at Kinki University who is well versed in Net copyrights, said, "Copyright protection is an urgent task, but excessive protection allowing no copying may damage the functioning of society, which grows with impartiality and imitation."

"The development of arts and culture requires a balanced protection of copyright holders and those enjoying their work," Okamura said. (Kyodo News)

they(musiccorpsesbosses)all ways say that!
-miuf