摘要

Recently the Japanese government revised its copyright law, and one of the major changes in it is that illegal downloaders in Japan now face up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of (sic)2 million (approximately US$19,265), or a combination of the two for downloading certain kinds of copyrighted content. These momentous changes have triggered backlashes around the country from below, as might be expected. Interestingly, the industrial practices of Japanese content industries have developed certain domestic and foreign copyright-related strategies that tolerate some alleged copyright-infringing fan activities. This paper argues that, although some of these strategies are incompatible with the curr