Japanese Publishers To Sue Manga Pirate $3.5 Million???

Since Japanese new copyright law in 2021, they’ve been more aggressive than ever before.

Just before the new manga and anime copyright law, KissAnime shutdown. And many other pirates have vanished and have faced growing pressure.

Funimation even managed to shutdown some pirate apps in relation to intellectual property (IP) relating to various anime.

2022 continues this trend.

$3.5 million in damages?

As pointed out by IB Times:

“Four major Japanese manga publishers said Monday they will sue a US company accused of hosting servers for a piracy site, in the latest offensive against illegal copies of their graphic novels.

The publishing giants will file the lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court this week, a spokesman for Kodansha, one of the publishers involved, told AFP.”

It continues:

“The four leading publishers — Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa — accuse web infrastructure company Cloudflare of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.

They will seek a combined 400 million yen ($3.5 million) in damages, according to a source with knowledge of the suit.”

According to these publishers, the pirates in question have over 4000 manga titles, and over 300-400 million views per month to their websites.

By their own math and calculations, they feel Cloudflare (who hosted these manga pirates) owe them at least $3.5 million in damages. Or 400 million Yen.

The 4 publishers in question:

Kodansha.
Shueisha.
Shogakukan.
Kadokawa.

The battle with piracy

While manga publishers are winning the battle with piracy somewhat in the last 2 years, they’ll never win the war. Because it’s too costly with too many pirates who can set up shop within days.

And it’s not the best use of these publishers time when they should be focusing on a solution to copyright, region blocks, and streaming instead of taking the easy, useless option.

SOURCE: ibtimes.com

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