3 arrested for alleged unauthorized Net distribution of manga

Shiba-Kun · 02-14-2006, 01:38 PM

This happened in Japan, but I wonder in the future if it could extend to the net, etc. too. :eek

Tuesday February 14, 1:30 PM

3 arrested for alleged unauthorized Net distribution of manga

(Kyodo) _ An Internet cafe owner in Tokyo and two other people were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of posting popular manga comics on an Internet site without the consent of the authors and publishers, the police said.
The arrests, the first in Japan related to Net distribution of manga, came after the "cyberpatrol" unit of the Fukuoka prefectural police found suspected violations on a website dubbed 464.jp in October last year, according to the police.

Arrested were cafe owner Toratsugu Muramoto, 52, from Tokyo's Ota Ward, Naoto Takei, 43, from Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, and Hiroko Yamauchi, 34, also from Ota Ward. The cafe, Manga Net Kissa Ichigo, in Ota Ward was also raided Tuesday.

The three are suspected of scanning comic books and storing the data in a computer server in the building that houses the cafe to enable viewing on the Internet, in a possible violation of the Copyright Law.

The police said the three have admitted to the allegations.

The website offered an apparent apology Tuesday, saying it "caused inconvenience because this site has not made any copyright contracts."

Nine authors and three publishers have filed complaints about the site.

The copied manga included a police officer story, "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari koen mae hashutsujo," by Osamu Akimoto, and a basketball series, "Slam Dunk," by Takehiko Inoue.

The three started up the manga site last summer, and it has drawn around 3.3 million page views per month, according to the police.

Muramoto and his colleagues were planning to shift to a paid membership service by charging 380 yen per month and had about 1,000 people signed up who had paid 2 million yen in all between Jan. 23 and 25, according to the police.

The police searched other places on Jan. 25 and seized about 17,000 items, including comic books and personal computers. The cafe stopped posting mangas the same day.