September 8, 2009
Government strengthens the countermeasures against cell phone music piracy
| The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications along with the telecom and music industries have recently unveiled a joint plan to introduce a system that will prevent distribution of illegally downloaded music files from cell phones via the internet. Listening to music via cell phones has become increasingly more popular, especially among the younger generation, but this has caused a rise in Internet music piracy problems. The Recording Industry Association of Japan, Telecommunications Carriers Association and others will establish a council on September 16, 2009, to begin investigating the problem and coming up with solutions. In addition to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, companies and organizations affected by piracy will also participate in the project. The reason for the new anti-piracy campaign is that the illegal downloading of music affects the growth of the market. The files are uploaded after being copied from an original data source. The users download music for free from Internet bulletin boards. There are approximately 400 million songs each year illegally downloaded in Japan, compared to 70 million songs that are legitimately downloaded. Legitimately downloaded songs cost about 300 yen ($3.18 US per track). One solution being discussed is as users download music files to their cell phones, the song's ID information will be sent from the cell phone to a computer server. The computer server will check it and judge whether the music file was distributed legitimately. If the file was copied illegally, a warning message will be sent to the user's cell phone. Users who continuously download music illegally will lose the ability to download automatically and their phone will be incapable of playing the illegal music after it has been downloaded. The council will also discuss the placement of the computer servers, the operation cost, and development of cell phones compatible to the anti-piracy system. |
