Police make arrests in connection to uploading “obscene” videos

Police are cracking down on “obscene” video sites.

Asiajin reports that at the end of April, Kyoto and other police forces arrested the president of Home Page System, which is meant to be a PR company acting for Japanese web service FC2.

FC2 is the fourth most popular Japanese web service, after Yahoo! Japan, Google Japan and Amazon Japan.

FC2 is well known by claiming to be an American company based in Las Vegas, therefore the contents are not restricted by Japanese law. The Las Vegas address is a rental address and it has been suspected years that the Home Page System is the substantive owner of the site. Until recently, the trick seemed to work and most of illegal content uploaders had been gathering to FC2, and selling micro contents (even they do not own copyright) to vast Japanese visitors.

Apparently, Home Page System was raided by Kyoto cops again last September because a user had broadcast a live porn show. The link between Home Page System and FC2 is not completely clear.

It comes at a time when police are chasing revenge porn perpetrators following the first recorded arrest making headlines in February.

A new “revenge porn” law took effect last November. By April more than 100 people had contacted police to report themselves as victims.

In 18 of the 110 cases the sexually explicit images were made available to third parties.

The new law carries a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of up to ¥500,000 ($4,170).

The issue has also been in the public eye since an 18-year-old high school girl in Mitaka, west Tokyo, was brutally murdered in 2013 by a former boyfriend, and who uploaded explicit naked images of her, including footage of her performing fellatio on him. An online search for her picture was for a time dominated by the pornographic images.

All this police and media attention is bad news for kinky teenagers in Japan, who as we know, like to upload pictures of their coupling for all the world to see… even their parents.

So be careful with those naked selfies, folks!