Shueisha is finally taking action against internet piracy. The Japanese company, along with three other manga publishers, have filed a massive lawsuit against American CDN provider Cloudflare citing piracy concerns for their publications.
Shueisha recently issued a statement that shares more details about the lawsuit. It is confirmed that Shueisha has filed the lawsuit along with manga publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, and Shagakukan in the Tokyo District Court in early February. The publishers have filed the case against the San Francisco-based Cloudflare and are reportedly "seeking an injunction against the public transmission and reproduction of piracy contents and compensation for damages."
Interestingly, the statement confirms that the plaintiffs have already reached out to Cloudflare concerning nine specific piracy sites which clearly infringe copyrights of their publications. Although Cloudflare eventually responded to the manga publishers, the company allegedly "refused to provide any specific explanation as to which sites they had taken what measures."
"Above all, it is difficult to believe that the company has taken effective measures when the sites in question continue to operate at the same communication speed as before. Furthermore, technical verification by experts shows that there is a high probability that the piracy sites are still using the company's services and caching are still utilized," the statement reads.
Cloudflare is known for hosting several piracy sites which extend beyond manga but is mostly used for sharing translated versions of recent releases.
Piracy has always been a huge problem, especially for manga publishers. Although it is possible to close down a single piracy site, they could easily be replaced by a new website because of the demand for readily-available (and translated) content. For now, Cloudflare has not responded or issued a statement regarding the lawsuit. Stay tuned for more updates on this story.
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