From: <ji2016@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:02:39 -0400

RE: Re: "broadcast flag" in Japan

Dear Prof. Moglen,

Thank you for your quick comment.

I was surprised at your one-week stay in Tokyo. What a coincidence.
If you would not mind, I would like to ask you what kind of
activities you did during your stay in Tokyo. If those were private
meetings, I suppose you may not want to tell me about them. I just
like to know your opinions or standpoints on Japanese legislations
or current situations about digitization and what part of Japanese
people (individual, company, or organization) would share your
perspectives in Japan, regardless of supporters or opponents.

To tell the truth, one of the most important findings I learned in
CU was that the US legal systems are composed of three governmental
branches, legislation, execution, and jurisdiction, all of which
give citizens chances for the legal protests. Since Japan has
adopted parliament system, legislation is the almost 100% of source
of law while, virtually, drafts of laws are prepared by bureaucrats,
who belong to the executive branch and have no democratic
representability due to their lack of election process. Actually,
thanks to the lack of the understanding of those US legal system,
Japanese media has reported the DC Circuit’s decision as the final
decision toward “broadcast flag” regulation, though, in my sense,
this is the first step of the legal combat.

I am not a public sector guy, rather I had worked for the incumbent
media industry prior to coming to CU. At the same time, I had
originally ME in communication engineering and have trust in the
dynamism of innovation. So even to me, the incumbent argument for
stronger protection of digital rights gave me a suspicion that we
might exhaust current cultural resources of creation and cause the
down-spiral of creative dynamism.

In my sense, Japanese culture is now embracing just “capitalism”
aspects so much so that lots of weird things (which may be viewed
as just “commercialization” phenomenon to the Westerners, I guess)
were emerging though they do not embrace cultural “diversity.” Just
having come back from NY, those seemingly-commercialized but
monopolized phenomenons seem, even to me, to cause a complicated
feeling that those may come from the lack of taming power, say some
democratic process, towards “consumer” capitalism, though I am not
sure I am making myself clear to you.

Anyway, I want to make commitments on those things in Japan and I
would appreciate your attention.

Jun




Quoting Eben Moglen <moglen@columbia.edu>:

>
> Having just returned this afternoon from a week in Tokyo,
> including a
> discussion at the MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and
> Telecomms) in
> which this came up, I would second Jun's sense of its importance.
>
> E
>
>
> On Saturday, 11 June 2005, ji2016@columbia.edu wrote:
>
>
>   Dear Eben's classmates,
>
>   After graduating SIPA this May, I am now going back to Tokyo.
>
>   During my two-year absence here, Japanese Government has
> already
>   introduced the same digital rights protection like "broadcast
>   flag," for digital broadcasting.
>
>   Surprisingly enough, the contents distributed via digital
>   broadcasting (regardless of terrestrial, sateliite, or cable)
> are
>   protected by encryption for just recording "once." Plus, those
>   copied contents (mostly in DVD-RAM or staff like that) could
> not be
>   shared with peers. Incredible.
>
>   I thought I understood the basic legal difference between Japan
> and
>   the US. Still I must say I was really surprised that, with
> almost
>   few public debate, such a important legislation has been
> introduced
>   almost only within the discussion among governement authorities
> (in
>   this case, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) and
> the
>   incumbent content industry. What a shame!
>
>   Hence, for Japanese who have interests in digital copying
>   legislation, the decivion on broadcast flag by DC Circuit this
> May
>   moved them as the US democratic conscience protecting the First
>   Amendment value. I heard lots of Japanese here admiring the
>   decision.
>
>   I am not sure how many people would have interests in Japan's
> case,
>   but I would like to report them as much as possbile, in order
> to
>   share the issues and figure out what is the underlying,
> essential
>   problems regardless of nationality.
>
>   Thank you for your attention.
>
>   Best regards,
>
>   Jun
>
>   ****************************
>   Junichi IKEDA
>   MPA, class of 2005
>   School of International and Public Affairs
>   COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
>
>
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