Kazuhiro Shiozawa (“Kaz”) joined CIS in August 2005 as a Non-Residencial Fellow. Kaz is on a two-year-sabbatical from Seikei University in Tokyo, where he is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law. He is also an associate professor at RCAST (Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology) at the University of Tokyo, and a visiting professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). At these schools, Kaz teaches civil and copyright law, and has taught at other institutions such as Japan’s Ministry of Finance.
Currently, Kaz is focusing on reforms to the Japanese copyright system and is working on a book about the purpose of the copyright law system. In connection with his research, Kaz writes essays for journals in Japan, as well as a monthly article entitled “IT world seen by a law professor” for Monthly ASCII, the most widely circulated information technology (“IT”) journal in Japan, covering IT, intellectual property (“IP”) and law. Additionally, he writes a serial article entitled “Creating Reed, Creative Mass,” about creativity and the IP system for Japan’s Monthly MacPeople. These articles often compare the United States and Japanese copyright systems, a topic of particular interest.
In addition to being a scholar, Kaz is a musician, photographer, artist, podcaster, and blogger. He composes music and plays the violin, piano, flute, recorder and guitar. As for photography, some of his photographs can be found on his blog located at www.shiology.com, where he also writes about education, photography, Apple computers, music, art, and IP. His photos of Apple's Steve Jobs sometimes appear on several magazines in Japan and Korea.