Professor Dr. Makoto IBUSUKI
Seijo University, Japan
presents
There is always some kind of tension between technology and law. This lecture focuses on specific P2P (peer to peer) software and introduces a trial, the so called “Winny case”, of a programmer who created the program. This software was free of charge and it became very popular with the Japanese online community. In 2004, the programmer was indicted as abetting infringement of copyright that was violated by a user, and the trial court found him guilty.
When a programmer develops remarkable software and acquires millions of users and one of them violates law(s) by using it, what legal responsibility, if any, should the programmer have? What factors should the court consider? The legal responsibility of computer programmers is an important issue in any society. This lecture deals with this topic by referring to the recent Japanese Supreme Court decision.
Biography:
Dr. Makoto IBUSUKI is Professor of Criminal Procedure Law with a particular interest in the area of investigative interviewing, criminal discovery, judicial stay of proceeding and miscarriage of justice. He is also one of the leading legal informatics and cyber law experts in Japan. Dr. IBUSUKI has many publications including academic books and journal articles. He has also translated several books, and currently finished to publish the translation supervisory work for “Criminal Procedure, Volume 1” by Professor Joshua Dressler on the Understanding Series from LexisNexis Co. (US) (at May 2014). He was associate professor (1991-1999) and then professor (1999-2002) of Kagoshima University, and was professor of Ritsumeikan Law School before joining to the Faculty of Law in Seijo University in 2009. He was also visiting scholar of John Marshall Law School, Chicago (1997-1998), University of New South Wales (2002), University of Sydney (2013) and University of Hawaii (2014), and visiting fellow at University of New South Wales (2007-2008).
