The Tokyo District Court on Monday ruled that writings posted on the Internet under fictitious names are literary property, and ordered a Tokyo publisher and a Web site operator to suspend publication of a paperback that reprinted comments posted by 11 people on the site without their consent.
The court also ordered the publisher, Kobunsha Publishing Co., and the Web site operator to pay roughly 1.2 million yen in royalties for copies already sold.
According to legal experts, it is the first time Japanese courts have ruled on whether opinions placed on the Internet carry copyrights. Monday's ruling could affect the secondary use of information from the Internet in the future, they said.