Stanford Center for Internet and Society

As part of the Intellectual Property Reform that is current going on in Japan, the Copyright Council at the Agency of Cultural Affairs (Japanese equivalent of Copyright Office) has discussed about the possibility of expanding anti-circumvention regulations.

Recently, they came up with a report (sorry, Japanese only), concluding that a further, careful discussion is necessary before the National Diet moves for any amendment.

In the following, I will briefly summarize the discussion.According to the Discussion Report dated July 2005, the reason why they may need legislative change is stated as follows:

In this entry, I will explain anti-device regulations (i.e., regulations that outlaws certain devices that enable circumvention of DRM technologies.)

The reglations are devided into two parts: devices for usage control under copyright law, and devices for access control under unfair competition prevention law.

(1) under Copyright Law

anti-device regulation focuses only on usage control and not access control. The rationale behind is the same as direct circumvention regulations: copyright holders do not have a right to control access under copyright law.

The scope of acts that are regulated is narrower than most of other implementation examples. The key points are: (a) devices are limited to those have a “principal function” for the circumvention of technological protection measure, which is narrower than devices that have “only limited commercially significant purpose for use other than” circumvention in the U.S.; (b) the dissemination is limited to those to the public; and (c) remedies are granted only through criminal procedures.

In this entry, I will explain the basics of direct circumvention regulation (i.e., regulations that prohibits direct circumvention of DRM technologies).

In Japan, the scope of direct circumvention regulation is very limited compared to that of the U.S in two major aspects: (1)the scope of protected technologies and (2) the effect of violation.

In terms of protected technologies, Japanese copyright law protects only usage controls, and not access control, as “technological protection measures.” Article 2 item 20 of the Japanese Copyright Law defines the “technological protection measures” as “measures to prevent or deter such acts as constitute infringements on moral rights or copyright … or neighboring rights.”

In this entry, I would like to give you an overview of anti-circumvention regulations in Japan (Japanese equivalent of DMCA). As you may know, anti-circumvention regulations are the laws that protect DRM (digital rights management) systems, or "technological protection measures."

Japan has amended its copyright law and unfair competition prevention law in 1999 to implement the 1996 WIPO treaties that mandate regulations to protect technological measures. As copyright law does not authorize copyright owners to control users' access to copyrighted works, the Japanese diet decided that copyright law should only protect "usage control" (i.e., technologies that control reproduction, modification, public transmission or other acts regulated under copyright law). As for "access control" (technologies controling people's access to works), they decided to include a limited scope of regulation under unfair competition prevention law.