| Summary: | Japan's abortive efforts to revise computer software copyrights highlight a number of conflicts between the country's technological past and future. The first is the tension between hardware producers and users, who want software easily imitated, and software developers, who want to preserve their unique designs. A second conflict is between those in government and industry who are concentrating on catching up with U.S. software firms and a few successful Japanese companies who are fighting the efforts of others to catch up with them. These conflicting interests, however, did not have an important role in Japanese public discussion of the 1993 revision attempt, which was dwarfed by the vociferous intervention by the U.S. government and computer industry that finally stalled the proposal in 1994. The inconclusive ending to this revision effort suggests that Japan is far from resolving the key economic and political issues inherent in its shift to an information economy.
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