of the alleged facts is in such status relationship as friends or colleagues, rendered contradictory judgments. However, as the Supreme Court precedents determined after taking into account the overall circumstances such as the background leading up to the conversation, details of the facts alleged, how and where the facts were revealed, etc., not determining the standard for determining the propagation possibility solely based on status relationships such as friends or colleagues, criticizing the Supreme Court precedents by merely citing one of them is unreasonable. 3) The Dissenting Opinion viewed that the theory of propagation possibility is a bar to coherent interpretation regarding publicity as referred to in the distribution, etc. of obscene pictures, public indecency, etc. However, as the risk of infringement on good sexual morals, benefit and protection of the law in the distribution, etc. of obscene pictures and public indecency is caused by conditions or actions, not words, it has no option but to differ in dimension from criminal defamation, which requires the occurrence of a risk of defaming another’s reputation due to the propagation of libelous facts as a constituent element. Thus, publicity in the above crimes can be variably interpreted from that as referred to in criminal defamation. This is the same as construing the meaning and extent of each violence and intimidation in crimes concerning rape, robbery, and extortion differently. C. For the Dissenting Opinion to advocate complete abolition of the precedents on the grounds of the principle of legality is not appropriate. Furthermore, even from the perspective of the Dissenting Opinion, establishing an objective evaluation criterion for publicity or clearly determining whether publicity exists it cannot be seen to be possible. 1) The theory of propagation possibility is merely related to the interpretation of publicity and does not relate to the principle of legality. This is because one or another legal principle on interpretation cannot be drawn from the great principle of legality and the meaning that many and unspecified person ought to recognize “directly” cannot be deduced from a literal interpretation of “publicly.” The meaning of publicity is also construed in various ways in foreign legislation cases requiring publicity as a constituent element with respect to criminal defamation and may change with the times. For instance, the precedents of the Supreme Court of Japan, which construed publicity as referred to in criminal defamation as “a state that many and unspecified persons can recognize,” changed its interpretation to “a state