A businessman has been sentenced to one year in
jail in Japan for making a pirated film available on the internet.
Yoshihiro Inoue, 42, was arrested in 2003 for distributing the Oscar-winning
film A Beautiful Mind via an internet peer-to-peer network.
However, the Kyoto District Court also suspended his sentence for three
years.
Mike Ellis of the Motion Picture Association
of America said the ruling represented "a judicial milestone not only in
Japan, but globally"."It sends a message that illegally distributing
copyrighted material via the internet is not only illegal, but also that
those doing so are not anonymous and will be caught.
"People need to understand that they are breaking the law and face serious
consequences if they illegally swap movies online."
The move came as the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) leads a worldwide campaign against online
piracy.
Last month the Hollywood studio lobby group took its first legal action
against US internet users who trade pirated movies online.
Actor Carmine Caridi was recently fined $300,000 (£160,000) after copies of
new films he was sent as an Oscars voter ended up on the internet after he
gave copies to another man, Russell Sprague, whom he claims said he was a
film buff.
The films, The Last Samurai and Mystic River, were uploaded
to the internet by Russell Sprague, 51, of Illinois. He is still awaiting
sentencing.
The MPAA and the film industry maintain theft of copyrighted movies costs
the industry up to $3bn (£1.5bn) each year and that piracy threatens the
survival of cinema.
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