Digital shoplifters armed only with cellphone cameras hit Japanese bookstores
July 01, 2003 Edition -1
Tokyo: Japanese publishers said yesterday they will launch a campaign this week to stop digital shoplifters - people who visit bookstores to photograph magazine pages with their
cellphones rather than make a purchase.
Digital shoplifting is becoming a big problem as camera-equipped mobile handsets are spreading fast and their quality is improving greatly, said Kenji Takahashi, an official at the Japan Magazine Publishers Association.
Starting today, bookstores across the nation will put up posters urging magazine readers to "refrain from recording information with camera-mounted cellphones and other devices".
The association has printed 30 000 posters for the campaign, which will last until August 20 in co-operation with bookstores and the Telecommunications Carriers Association.
There are 20 000 bookstores in Japan. Small operators are already hit hard by conventional theft and hundreds of them close down every year due to financial difficulties, Takahashi said.
"Given the enormous speed of business closures, we cannot overlook this information-lifting with cellphones," he said.
He said it was unclear if digital shoplifting is tantamount to a crime as the copyright law only covers use of information for commercial purposes.
A major operator of a national chain of bookstores has spotted the practice but found it difficult to prevent, officials said.
"The problem is it is hard for floor staff to tell if customers are just making phone calls or taking pictures," a management planning official said.
People with picture-snapping phones are common-place in Japan, which leads the world in this area of technology.
Yuriko Yamakawa, a 29-year-old employee at a beauty salon, said she had never digital shoplifted with her camera phone "because it would be a nuisance to bookstores".
"But I have taken pictures of a hair-style catalogue to show to a hairdresser as the whole catalogue book was heavy," she said while walking through Tokyo's prime shopping district of Ginza.
"I also photograph clothes to consult friends about what to buy ... or to tell them: 'This is the dress I'm planning to wear for the wedding party,'" she admitted.
Kazuo Uehara, a 19-year-old student, said digital shoplifting was wrong but "those who do it think very lightly of it".
The Telecommunications Carriers Association also "recognises the need to improve people's mobile phone manners", an official said, as handsets become more advanced with new functions ranging from internet access to sending and receiving e-mails and taking pictures. - Sapa-AFP
