Every mobile phone in Japan may be installed with software to block illegally copied music if the world's first such system is approved by talks that start in Tokyo next week.
The talks between the Recording Industry Association of Japan , mobile phone companies and music download sites aim to agree on new anti-piracy measures by the end of the year, according to several participants. A system could be in place by 2011.
Building anti-piracy software into the main device on which young Japanese people listen to music could make Japan the first country in the world to find an effective answer to illegal downloads.
Under the system proposed by the RIAJ, whenever a user tried to play a song, software in their mobile phone would ask a security server whether it is covered by copyright. If so, and the phone did not have a code to indicate it was bought legally, the song would not play.
Japan's love affair with high-tech mobile phones extends to music piracy - with songs swapped between users via message boards - rather than the computer file sharing common in the rest of the world. Mobile phones made up almost 90 per cent of the Y90.5bn ($1bn) market for legal music downloads in Japan last year.
The proposed system is possible because Japanese mobile operators control all the software in their handsets, said Yoichiro Hata, technical director of the RIAJ and a member of the working group.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc727f48-9f34-11de-8013-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
