This document summarizes recent copyright activism efforts in Japan led by Tomoaki Watanabe and other organizations. It describes campaigns around copyright term extension, fair use limitations, criminalization of unauthorized downloading, opposition to ACTA, and support for open data. The strategies involved public symposiums, online surveys, testimony to government committees, and informal engagement with policymakers. The outcomes were mixed, with both wins and partial wins for copyright reform opponents depending on the issue. Lessons highlighted include the importance of building evidence-based cases and engaging different stakeholders like politicians, bureaucrats, and newer activist groups.

1. Recent copyright activism in
Japan
Tomoaki Watanabe
- Associate Prof./ Sen. Research Fellow, GLOCOM, International U. of Japan
- Executive Director, Creative Commons Japan
- Founding Member, Open Knowledge Foundation Japan Group
Dec 1-2, 2012, NZ Digital Rights Camp, Auckland U. Law School, Auckland
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2. My affiliations, etc.
GLOCOM: Research institute specialized in social side of ICTs; a part of
private non-profit university (7 full-time, 100+ fellows worldwide)
CC Japan: Copyright license NPO; strong in arts& culture (70+
volunteers)
OKF Japan Group: A group for the promotion of open data in Japan.
(20+ volunteers)
Also: a not-so-active Wikipedian
My day job: GLOCOM - academic
Pass time: volunteer at all others
* Copyright advocacy/ activism is not the primary mission of any of
those entities.
* All the views and opinions are mine, not these organizations’.
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3. Participants from Japan
Masayuki Hatta:
- a hacker (Debian, Free Software Foundation, Slashdot Japan)
- academic (economics, business, hacktivism, privacy)
- MIAU (board member)
- GLOCOM (visiting res. fellow), OKFJG (member)
- on about.me/hatta
Keisuke Katsuki:
- MIAU Director of Operations
- Internet policy issues (privacy, electioneering, content-filtering, etc.)
- knows about lobbying
- on Twitter, Facebook, via email
Reirui Ri:
- Copyright lead, Google Japan
- Management consulting background
- Key Focus Areas: Fair use, Intermediary liability, related rights for publishers and performers
- on Twitter, Facebook, via email
Tomoaki Watanabe
- academic (ICT policies, information society issues) at GLOCOM, a research institute of a universeity
- license-related work at CC Japan
- founding member of Open Knowledge Foundation Japan Group
- on LinkedIn, Facebook, via email
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4. Overview of Activities
1. Copyright Term Extension (ThinkC/ Think TPP
IP)
2. Fair Use (CCJP, MIAU)
3. Criminalization of unauthorized downloading
(MIAU)
4. Anti-ACTA activism (MIAU, some CCJP)
5. Open Data (GLOCOM, OKFJG)
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5. Copyright Term Extension
Basic Issue: Life +50 years -> Life +70 years
Round 1: 2006-2009
“Think Copyright” Forum intervened effectively.
(http://thinkcopyright.org/ )
Context: Government committee discussing the
copyright amendment
Strategy: Hold open discussions outside the
committee, with key figures (ThinkC). CCJP helped
ThinkC& testified before the committee.
Result: Decision was postponed. (opponent won)
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6. Copyright Term Extension
Round 2: 2011-
Basic Issue:TPP brings term extension, statutory
damages, and others.
Context: Secret international negotiation
Strategy: ThinkC, MIAU, CCJP, and others held
online video symposiums.
Founded http://thinktppip.jp/?lang=en
Result: (not yet clear)
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7. Fair Use
Basic Issue: Introduce general limitation to copyright to
foster innovation (National Intellectual Property
Headquarters, 2009)
Context: Government Committee discussing copyright
amendment
Strategy: CCJP: online survey; public symposiums; public
comment; expert testimony
Result: no fair use; three narrowly defined copyright
limitations introduced (2012).
“General” limitation turned out to be very difficult to
gain support. Amendment needs “specific” problems.
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8. Unauthorized Downloading
Round one: Criminalization, 2008-10
Basic Issue: Some rights holders wanted to
criminalize unauthorized downloading; it had
been okay b/c as long as it is for “private use”.
Context: Gov’t committee discussion
Strategy: MIAU was formed to address this
threat.
Result: limited in scope (video and audio); no
penalty. (partial win for opponent)
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9. Unauthorized Downloading
Round two: Introduction of Penalties, 2011-12
Context: (not an ordinary routed to copyright
amendment)
- Lobbying to diet members using a celebrity;
- Last-minute amendment to the bill in the Diet;
- Backdoor negotiation among political parties involving
multiple policy agendas
Strategy: Counter-lobbying to politicians
- public symposiums (online and off) to raise public
awareness
Result: proponents won
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10. Unauthorized Downloading
Round three?: 2012-
Context: Right holders pursuing expansion?
- Publishers seeking to gain a neighboring right,
by introducing a bill
- Other potential moves
Strategy: MIAU, CCJP held public symposiums
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11. ACTA
Basic Issue: Illegalization of access control circumvention;
other provisions were not new to Japanese law
Context: Secret negotiation, not open to public input
Strategy: Contacted government agencies (MIAU);
Attended informal NGO-negotiator meeting in Tokyo
Round (CCJP, others);
Translated leaked draft agreement
Results: Not effective; Thanks to global uproar, digital
chapter became weakened enough by JP standard.
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12. An interesting evolution of Japanese
popular activism
Anti-nuclear power: mistrust to gov’t&
mainstream media; trust to the Internet
Anti-ACTA: opposing restrictions on Internet’s
free flow of information (a bit misguided, not
effective)
Anti-TPP: IP-awareness led to concerns on
TPP’s IP chapter; esp. critical of seed-patent
(anti-Monsanto)
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13. Open Data
Basic Issue: To release data sets held by the
government under an open license for reuse.
Context: Government committees and agencies
discussing strategies, policies, guidelines, etc.
Strategy: Help government through informal and
formal channels (CCJP, GLOCOM, OKFJG or their
members as individuals); Hosted hack-a-thons
and other networking& awareness-raising events
(GLOCOM; OKFJG)
Result: National Open Data Strategy set July, 2012.
(our contributions were somewhat influential)
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14. General Tips/ Lessons
Building a case
- Collect examples showing your cause
(why fair use is needed; how wonderful the effect of the open data could be; etc.)
- If you can quantify damages/ benefits, do.
- Come up with a good copy (phrase)
Different players
- Politics : public attention and buzz counts; not highly literate about the Internet
- Bureaucracy : reasoning and expertise counts
- Non-expert activism: not familiar to us yet. (MIAU is ahead of others)
Current Challenges
- Non-expert activists not well-connected to the decision-makers
- Swift action, but not necessarily well-informed
- Conspiracy theories having greater influence among them
- Younger generations may not be interested in policy/ activism?
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15. URLs
CC Japan: creativecommons.jp
@cc_jp
GLOCOM: www.glocom.ac.jp (don’t omit www)
@iuj_glocom
MIAU: miau.jp
@miautan
ThinkTPP-IP: thinktppip.jp
@thinktppip.jp
Think Copyright: thinkcopyright.org
OKFJG: okfn.jp
@okfj
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16. Thank You!
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17. License for this Work
Title of the Work: Recent copyright activism in Japan
Author’s name: Tomoaki Watanabe
Notice Referring to the License: These slides are under
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ )
Copyright notice: none
Notice referring to warranty disclaimer: none
URL specified to be associated with the work: none
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