Man sentenced over movie downloads

What a situation.

A Japanese court has sentenced a self-employed man to a one year suspended jail term for allowing free downloads of two popular Hollywood films - "A Beautiful Mind" and "Unbreakable - through a popular file-sharing software program.

We are not knowledgeable about the copyright rules in Japan, but clearly, in the US it is not that you offend copyright when you download music but when you upload the material. A small but important issue that is often overlooked. However it seems that in Asia, it is seen differently, as Singapore also recently proposed to punish those who download music. Wouldn't it be time to look for better ways to ascertain a business model - a new business model - instead of penalising those that actually distribute and promote your material?

(By Asia Business Consulting)