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Winny is Japanese peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program which claims to be loosely inspired by the design principles behind the Freenet network and which also claimed to keep user identities untraceable. It was developed by a person calling himself "Mr. 47" ("47-Shi", or 47氏 in Japanese). The software takes it's name from WinMX, where the M and the X are raised one letter in the Latin Alphabet to N abd Y. As of September, 2003, there were 250,000 users of the program according to the Tokyo-based Association of Copyright for Computer Software. According to P2pnet, it is the most popular file-sharing program in Japan, with eDonkey and WinMX in seconds and third place respectively.
On November 28, 2003, two Japanese users of Winny, Katsuhiko Kimoto, a 41 year-old self-employed businessman from Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and an unemployed 19-year-old from Matsuyama, were arrested. They were accused of sharing copyrighted material via Winny.
The devloper had his home searched by police and that two users , althought the method the police used to track down the users is not known. The two users admitted to the crimes.
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