Judge Ogura at Osaka High Court found Isamu Kaneko, a developer of Winny, not guilty today, reversing the guilty ruling of 1.5 million yen fine made by the lower court.
Winny is a popular P2P file sharing software in Japan. Kaneko developed Winny and released it on notorious 2channel forum on May 6th, 2002.
In 2004, the developer was arrested for abetting copyright infringement. Prosecutor’s office said that Kaneko has created Winny to proliferate copyright infringement to overthrow copyright system in Japan.
However, Osaka High Court concluded that the accused didn’t have a clear intent to proliferate copyright violation. Also the judge decided that he can’t condemn Kaneko for just knowing that copyright piracy is rampant in Winny network.
Disclosure: Shunichi Arai is a vocal supporter of Isamu Kaneko.
Shunichi Arai