Distributes a software product, in Japan

Copyright Act, Act No. 48 of 1970, Arts. 21, 23, 112 and 119 · Read the law's page

• Get the author's permission before you reproduce a work, meaning its physical replication through printing, photography, copying, the recording of sound or visuals, or in any other way: the author has the exclusive right to reproduce it (Art. 21; Art. 2(1)(xv)).
• Get the author's permission before you transmit a work to the public, which includes making it available for transmission where it is to be transmitted to the public via automatic public transmission (Art. 23(1)).
• Treat putting data on an automatic public transmission server connected to a public telecommunications network, or connecting to such a network a server that already holds the data, as making a work available for transmission (Art. 2(1)(ix)-5).
• Stop an infringement and avoid acts likely to infringe: the right holder may file a claim for the cessation or prevention of infringement, and may demand the destruction of objects that give rise to or are made through an infringement, machines or tools used solely for an infringement, and other measures necessary to stop or prevent it (Art. 112(1) and (2)).
• Do not make available or present to the public a computer program facilitating the exploitation of an infringing work, meaning one found to be deliberately leading the public to an infringing work when providing a transmitter identification code, or found to be used mainly for the exploitation of an infringing work by the public; a person that merely provided the opportunity to do so on a website that includes a considerable number of other websites or programs is excluded unless it has for a considerable time and without reasonable grounds failed to comply with the copyright owner's requests to delete the infringing transmitter identification codes (Art. 113(2)(ii); Art. 119(2)(v)).
• Do not aid another person's commission of a copyright offence: the Penal Code treats a person who aids the principal offender as an accessory, and applies its general provisions to crimes punished under other laws unless those laws provide otherwise (Penal Code Art. 62(1) and Art. 8).
• Check the limitations of copyrights in Articles 30 through 50 before relying on any use without the author's permission.

Penal Code, Act No. 45 of 1907, Art. 168-2 · Read the law's page

• Do not, without a legitimate reason, create or provide to another person an electronic record that gives an improper command making a computer, when a person uses it, fail to act as that person intends or act contrary to that intent, or a record describing such a command, where the purpose is to have it run on another person's computer.
• Do not, without a legitimate reason, put a record that itself gives such an improper command into a state in which it is executed on another person's computer; an attempt is also an offence.
• Do not, without a legitimate reason, acquire or store such a record for the purpose of having it run on another person's computer.