Isamu Kaneko, author of Winny, the Japanese P2P software with encrypted networking capability, similar to Freenet, has been officially arrested on copyright-related charges. The charge of violating copyright laws carries up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 3 million yen ($27,000).

Kaneko started the development of Winny in May 2002 and occasionally appeared on the web forum 2ch with his anonymous codename '47', but today turned out to be an associate professor at the most prestigious university in Japan, Tokyo University. Police said Kaneko was arrested because Winny allowed a 41-year-old man from Takasaki and 19-year-old from Matsuyama to illegally download pirated games and movies from the Internet.

The file-swapping software Winny has become a focus of concern for authorities in Japan this year after investigation records from a Kyoto Prefecture Police officer's computer and military files from Japan's Self-Defence Force were made available across the Winny P2P network. Winny has become a headache for movie and software makers here, and the industry has been lobbying police to rein in suspected copyright infringement for months.

The University of Tokyo denied responsibility for the software's development. In a statement, it said Winny was something Kaneko created personally, and that other professors did not work on it. The university set up a team of six professors to carry out an internal investigation, it said. >from various mainstream media *Creator of file-swapping Winny software arrested. Police hope to prove the developer helped others to violate the Copyright Law*. The Asahi Shimbun, May 11, 2004

related context
> getting a handle on p2p
> grokster and morpheus survive: 21st-century technology ban fails. may 5, 2003
> the free network project: freedom of communication. november 5, 2002
> jon johansen indicted: decss case. january 17, 2002
> sklyarov's case: programmer allowed to return home to russia. december 18, 2001

imago
> respect for isamu kaneko

Winny is a Japanese peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program which was made as a poor imitation of Freenet network and which claimed to keep user identities untraceable not for freedom of speech but for hiding crime. The developer of Winny had never said about freedom of speech.

The software takes its name from WinMX, where the M and the X are raised one letter in the Latin alphabet, to N and Y. As of September 2003, there were 250,000 users of the program according to the Tokyo-based Association of Copyright for Computer Software. According to P2Pnet, it is the most popular file-sharing program in Japan, with eDonkey and WinMX in second and third place respectively.

The software was developed by Isamu Kaneko, who is a research assistant in graduate course of computer engineering at the University of Tokyo in Japan. Kaneko originally anonymously announced his intent of developing the software on the popular 2ch Japanese bulletin board site, but this board named 'Download Software BBS' was filled with many copyright violation criminal users. As one of 2ch's cultures include referring to anonymous posters by their post number, Kaneko became to be known as "Mr. 47" ("47-Shi", or 47氏 in Japanese), or just "47".

On November 28, 2003, two Japanese users of Winny, Katsuhiko Kimoto, a 41 year-old self-employed businessman from Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and an unemployed 19-year-old from Matsuyama, were arrested. They were accused of sharing copyrighted material via Winny and admitted to their crimes. The police tracked the users via Winny's transfer,since the cipher for anonymity was decoded.

The police searched home of Kaneko and his university, because he had also developed and experimented about Winny at university. On May 10, 2004, Kaneko was arrested for aiding and abetting copyright law violation for arrested two Japanese users of Winny of many copyright violation criminal users in 'Download Software BBS' by the High-tech Crime taskforce of the Kyoto Prefectural Police.

His developing of Winny at the criminal board is main reason for having be regarded as aiding and abetting copyright law violation. This police act doesn't mean general developer's crisis. The developers of other P2P of Japan aren't accused by any crime. They released their P2P software on general website, but Kaneko released Winny at the criminal board of copyright law violation.