ADN

Japanese ISPs To Ban File Sharers

Japan has decided to beat France and the United Kingdom (both who have similar proposals) to become the first country to ban file sharers from the internet.

Oddly the agreement to do so has not come from the Japanese Government, but from Japan’s four internet service provider organizations after pressure (not surprisingly) from the record and movie industries. According to Torrent Freak, the agreement would see copyright holders tracking down file-sharers on the Internet using “special detection software” and then notifying ISPs of alleged infringers. File sharers will initially receive a warning for a first offense, then be disconnected for subsequent offenses, eventually be disconnected from the internet permanently (it wasn’t clear whether the agreement is a three strikes proposal).

The process will formally commence in April and will primarily target users of Winny, the most popular file sharing network in Japan.

Source: TechCrunch

Wow... that must suck. I really hope they don't start to enforce that PLUS time warner charging for internet use. What is the world/net coming to?

I use a P2P to find various MP3s that are hard to find.

IE - A song by a french rockband that I couldn't find on bittorrent, forums, and irc. I use SoulSeek (Mac version: Soulseex) btw.

if they ban this then some other genious will find a way to share.....

They stopped Napster and Kazaa and then Bittorrent and Limewire came out....

I can't remember the last time I used a P2P program...The only think they will do is popularize other means to share files that already exist, like our Hamachi network that will be back up soon, which is pretty much not going to ever be stopped..Sorry Japan, but oh well...