The man who created the Winny peer-to-peer file-sharing program has pleaded not guilty to charges that he created the program knowing it would abet swapping of illegally copied files.
"The development and release of Winny was a technological experiment," Isamu Kaneko was quoted as telling Kyoto District Court, "and I had no intention of abetting copyright violations. I will fight to win an acquittal." He is believed to be the first person in Japan to face a trial for creating P2P software.
Kaneko is accused of saying on an Internet bulletin board, a month before he introduced Winny in May 2002, that he'd create a program to let users swap files anonymously and make it harder for authorities to hunt them.
In tones similar to the American music and film industries' battles with such P2P programs like KaZaA, Grokster, Morpheus, and others, software makers and copyright protection groups say Winny is nothing but a tool to reproduce and redistribute pirated software and other files. Prosecutors say two computer users used Winny to provide copyright materials including films and games for free upload online last fall.
Japanese media reports Kaneko is also accused of using Winny himself to reproduce a large volume of copyrighted material and keep them on his computer, saying they have an e-mail Kaneko is believed to have sent his family after releasing Winny in which he claimed the program could be used for "wrongful use." But Kaneko's attorneys counter that punishing Kaneko would infringe freedom of expression.
