Japanese ISPs to Cut Off File Sharers

The four major Japanese ISP associations, under considerable pressure by movie, music and software industries, have agreed to take action against file sharers.

Copyright holders, using special software, would use provide the IP addresses of file sharers to ISPs. The ISPs would then send warning emails to the users. If the users did not stop their file sharing, ISPs would suspend their accounts. Repeated offenses would result in termination of their accounts.

The ISP associations include the Telecom Services Association and the Telecommunications Carrier Association and are made up of around 1,000 ISPs, a majority of the Japanese telecommunications market. A panel is planned in April, in conjunction with the copyright holders, to decide exactly how the system should operate.

A six-hour test by a copyright organization using the aforementioned software found about 3.55 million examples of illegally copied gaming software and 610,000 illegally copied music files.

In 2006, a Japanese ISP planned to track users' activities and disconnect file sharers. The plan was halted when the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry stepped in and said that such monitoring might have privacy implications.

No such warning this time?

You will remember that I previously wrote that the UK is considering a "three strikes" downloading law, and France has a similar law which should pass by the summer. How long before we see such a plan in the U.S.? You have to believe the RIAA and MPAA would love it.