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Japanese Man Arrested for Uploading Liar Game Manga via Share Program
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS) reported last Wednesday that the Chiba Prefectural Police's anti-cybercrime unit arrested a 36-year-old unemployed male suspect in Shinagawa, Tokyo last Tuesday on charges of violating the Copyright Act of Japan.
The suspect allegedly used the file-sharing program Share to upload the 197th chapter of Shinobu Kaitani and Shueisha's Liar Game manga without the copyright holders' permission, allowing a large number of users to download the manga. According to the Chiba Prefectural Police, the suspect allegedly uploaded numerous other unspecified manga and anime.
Scores of people have been arrested in Japan for uploading anime, manga, and games without permission, many of them using either the Share or Perfect Dark file-sharing programs. Arrests for illegal downloading of copyrighted content have been much rarer, if not unprecedented. Japan's Copyright Law prohibits unauthorized uploading of copyrighted content, and was amended by the Japanese parliament in 2009, making it illegal to knowingly download copyrighted content.