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Minor Pokemon leak somehow justifies jail time photo

And now for more news on Japan's police being totally hardcore. The Chikusei Police were on "cyber patrol," and - hold on, let's stop right there. Claiming you were on "cyber patrol" conjures up images of cruising around the bad neighborhoods of the Internet, looking for someone to try out your good cop/bad cop routine on while wearing digital mustaches. Please, police of the world, find some other way to refer to "surfing the web" that doesn't make me think of a cyberpunk version of Cops. Anyway.

The Chikusei Police saw six images from the new Pokemon game that, posted online from a mobile phone on September 1, that weren't supposed to be available before Shogakukan's Monthly CoroCoro Comic magazine released them on September 15. So, using their magical cyber powers, they tracked the source to Makoto Sekiguchi, a 27-year-old part time employee from Yokohama.

Apparently Sekiguchi uploaded the pictures, which depicted as-of-yet unannounced Pokemon, because he thought he "would show everyone the characters that haven't been made public yet." How selfless of him. I'm sure he was very excited to buy the just-released Pokemon Black and White. But Shogakukan didn't like this once the Chikusei Police pointed it out to the company, so he got picked up in the paddy wagon. 

This is sadder than that one episode of Pokemon where Ash released Butterfree into the wild, or when we thought Pikachu was going to leave. (There may have been tears, but I'll never admit to them.) This is major overkill. I could see a fine or some lawsuit, but an arrest is excessive.

[via Anime News Network]



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Legacy Comments

Huh... Just shows all this time I was right! People should be jailed for liking Pokemon.
I'm sure there's an intellectual property law that backs this.
You are most likely right, but please, my dream, don't squash it :(
ARREST THE SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!! if you actually agreed, you're an ass. :P
Wait, just what law did this violate? And this would only be outdone if the Butterfree Ash released was then shot as it flew towards the sun.
Now if that happened I actually would watch Pokemon....

In all seriousness I feel bad for the guy.
He has no one to blame but himself. If he obtained copyrighted material that was not to be released before a set date, he should know better than to broadcast that to the world.
Again true... and that's is why I feel a bit sorry for him. Was he doing it just to get attention...? well he got it... A lot of people that do this type of shit to me are just looking for attention in the end. He had to have known the if found out there would be some kind of reproduction. And if so then well... what can you say, people do stupid stuff for all kind's of lame reasons.
I am reminded of the incident where Apple unleashed a swat team on a Gizmodo journalist for holding an iPhone that had yet to be released.

"In Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938), Chief Justice Hughes defined the press as, “every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.”

But this is Japan. And the US already belongs to the corporations. So even if you stumble upon really cool information which you are not obliged to hide - shut up and enjoy the spoils yourself.
@Rewarp
Unfortunately, the people that leak such information aren't journalists and don't benefit from the shield laws available to them in order to be able to post such information.

Being a tech journalist, I deal with and get my hands on internal documentation, but Gizmodo was a special case as Gawker Media paid for the iPhone 4 prototype which is a violation of California's penal code regarding the reception of stolen property.

Gizmodo may get press access to major events but Gawker Media really isn't in the business of practicing journalism on the level of a newspaper which is why they're open to such liability.
@HSaabedra
So technically, as long as the information is relayed to a certified journalist for free, the source of the information would be protected by the rights of journalists, and the news can be published, right?
But not sadder than when Ash died and Pikachu cried in the first movie.
@Rewarp
Pretty much on the money, except journalists aren't certified. Checkbook journalism is such a can of worms that many just stay away from it as a matter of ethics.

It's pretty simple: Get info from source, analyze info, scrub identifiable info, then post with analysis. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Everyone should know by now that Pokemon is serious business.
Serious business and the face of true evil. Pikachu = devil.


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