Japan Passes Jail-for-Downloaders Anti-Piracy Law; Wired.com, 6/21/12

Daniel Feit, Wired.com; Japan Passes Jail-for-Downloaders Anti-Piracy Law:

"Japan’s legislature has approved a bill revising the nation’s copyright law to add criminal penalties for downloading copyrighted material or backing up content from a DVD. The penalties will come into effect in October."

Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills; New York Times, 12/14/11

Edward Wyatt, New York Times; Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills:

"A House committee plans to take up one of the bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act, on Thursday...

“Our mistake was allowing this romantic word — piracy — to take hold,” Tom Rothman, the co-chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment, said in an interview last week in Washington.

“It’s really robbery — it’s theft — and that theft is being combined with consumer fraud,” he said."

Tough sentences in China over huge piracy ring: Microsoft, Sydney Morning Herald, 1/1/09

Via Sydney Morning Herald: Tough sentences in China over huge piracy ring: Microsoft:

"The sentences were the "stiffest ever meted out for intellectual property rights violations in China," said a report on the verdicts by the popular Chinese Internet portal Sina.com...

Washington filed a case in April 2007 at the World Trade Organisation over widespread copyright piracy in China, a practice that US companies say deprives them of billions of US dollars in sales each year.

In November, China's assistant commerce minister Chong Quan told US industry and government officials at a gathering in Beijing that Washington must take into account its difficulties as a developing country in tackling copyright breaches.

But China also has recently touted tougher anti-piracy laws as evidence of its resolve to crush such violations."

http://news.smh.com.au/world/tough-sentences-in-china-over-huge-piracy-ring-microsoft-20090101-78dk.html