Japanese ISPs form Alliance Against Internet Piracy

Major Japanese ISPs have agreed to ban users who flagrantly steal video games off the internet.

The word is out in the Daily Yomiuri, and other news sources, reporting that as of Friday Telecom Service Association and the Telecommunications Carriers Association, as well as others, have jointly agreed to outline procedures on how to deal with copyright violaters using their services in April.

The agreement is the first of its kind among ISPs and is poised to set a precedent around the globe. According to the report; “about 1,000 major and smaller domestic providers belong to the four associations, which means the measure would become the first countermeasure against Winny-using rights-violators used by the whole provider industry,”

Piracy is wide spread in Japan with Winny being the file-sharing service of choice.

What measures will be taken against pirates is yet to be defined. Most likely it will be a warning followed with a ban for a period of time. What’s unclear is if violaters will be “blacklisted” across all the participating ISPs, or whether the user would be free to enter a contract with a different provider. The other somewhat alarming detail is the lack of parameters on how the companies will determine who is pirating software.

I’m sure that their will be many people from gamers and the games industry following developments on this new alliance to see what April brings. If measures are successful, I believe many countries will try similar strategies.

via ExtremeTech