Two men arrested for illegally distributing tunes for mobile phones

Written by Writer on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Two men arrested for illegally distributing tunes for mobile phones

(Mainichi Japan) October 23, 2008

KYOTO — Two men who released unauthorized tunes on Japan’s largest illegal mobile phone music distribution site have been arrested on suspicion of violating the Copyright Law, it has been learned.

According to the high-tech crime division of Kyoto Prefectural Police, Keishi Fujimoto, the 28-year-old operator of “Dai San Sekai,” an illegal music distribution site with around 1 million members, and Takashi Matsuoka, a 53-year-old company employee, allegedly made full-length versions of about 20,000 tunes downloadable on the site and earned 120 million yen from advertising revenue over two years.

It is the first time in the nation that an operator of a mobile phone music distribution site that allows users to download full-length versions of tunes has been arrested. Fujimoto of Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture and Matsuoka of Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture, have admitted to the allegations.

Fujimoto and Matsuoka are suspected of saving four hit tunes by popular artists including pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki and violinist Taro Hakase on the hard disks of their computers in October 2006 and from May to June this year, and made them downloadable for free for users who subscribed to e-mail newsletters from the site. The two apparently obtained the sound sources from CDs and through the Internet.

According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, sales of music distribution services on mobile phones exceeded about 68 billion yen in 2007, surpassing the single CD market. The sale of the full-length versions accounted for half of the total, at about 34.4 billion yen. At the same time, however, illegal activities concerning music distribution have increased. About 400 million music files are likely to be illegally downloaded a year, the association says.