TPP 12 nations sign the agreement, and Japan is going to revise the copyright law

12 nations including U.S. and Japan, which participated in negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP), reached a final agreement and signed the agreement this February.
 
In accordance with the agreement, the Japanese government is planning to revise the Japan Copyright Law this summer.
 
In the coming revision of the Japan Copyright Law, the term of protection will be extended from 50 years to 70 years (after death of author(s) or disclosure of a work).
 
In addition, regarding infringement cases where suspects can be prosecuted without accusation by owners of copyright, the prosecution officer become able to charge suspects only in the case of pirated copy, which utilizes the whole of a work of books, music, movies and the like.
 
As a result, considering common concern about possible repression of creating derivative work such as remakes, parodies and the like, only the suspect in infringement case is going to be prosecuted without accusation, in which the original copy of a work is utilized without any revision, and the suspect unreasonably gains benefits, which should be attributed to the owner of the copyright.

(Reported by Koji WATANABE, Japanese Patent Attorney)