Japanese publishers fight back against manga pirate sites!
A California District Court recently approved the application to disclose evidence by Japanese publisher Shueisha to identify and prosecute another party for copyright-related violations. Aside from Shueisha, three other Japanese publishers are filing a criminal complaint against the owners and developers of the Japanese-language manga pirate site named Manga Bank. Last week, November 12, 2021, the court approved the application and requested Google and related internet firms to disclose information.
As of this writing, the Manga Bank website can no longer be accessed beginning in early November.
Shueisha and a law firm based in San Francisco filed an application to permit the discovery of information to California District Court last October 27. They requested the following info like operator name, phone number, address, IP address, etc. Before proceeding to this, Shueisha ordered the company Cloudflare to disclose information using a Digital Millenium Copyright Act subpoena. Cloudflare provided the domains that Manga Bank used. Cloudflare identified that the Manga Bank was using a host provided by Hurricane Electric and uses services operated by Google, such as AdSense. The IP addresses lead to China.
The growth and visits of manga pirated sites have risen massively since the pandemic. NHK said that the website visits went from 61 million visits per month to 398 million per month. Pirate sites like Manga Bank have caused Japanese publishers to lose millions of dollars in sales. NHK noted that the financial damages to Japanese publishers from January to October 2021 due to these pirated manga sites are estimated at US $6.9 billion.
Shueisha’s popular magazine like Weekly Shonen Jump or Shonen Jump is no stranger to manga fans as the magazine released popular series like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. The popularity of these manga titles has paved the way for anime adaptations and other media forms.
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