Japanese want to stamp out 'digital shoplifting'

Japanese bookstores are sick and tired of female browsers who snap pictures of magazines with their camera-phones and want to put a stop to it.

A report on BBC News said that the picture-takers tend to be young women looking at fashion magazines - they snap images of the latest hair and clothes styles to send to friends, then put the publication back on the shelf.

The incensed bookstore owners call this "digital shoplifting" and the Japanese Magazine Publishers Association wants it stopped, according to the report.

Posters will be put up on bookstores warning users to be careful of their "magazine manners", said the BBC.

Camera-phones have caused some controversy in countries there they have been launched. In countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, UK and Australia, authorities frown on users bringing them in changing rooms. In Saudi Arabia, such phones are banned from the country altogether.