The Agency for Cultural Affairs, a part of MEXT, announced on March 6, 2022, that the organization has allotted a budget a total of 123 million yen for anti-piracy measures in 2022.

They decided to set up a consultation desk to support small and medium-sized publishers and individual creators to process deletion requests and legal measures against manga and anime copyright infringement by pirated sites.

Since illegal activities have surged notoriously recently, the special body claimed that it will set up the desk as soon as possible, tentatively in summer of this year.

The aim of the consultation desk is to provide specific advice from lawyers and other experts for free during countermeasures procedures against overseas illegal sites; that may seem overwhelming for some SMEs.

The Agency will help the SMEs with requests for deletion, sending warning letters, civil proceedings, criminal proceedings, etc. that require legal knowledge of each country and response in foreign languages.

If necessary, they also aid them with requesting disclosure to the provider to identify the operator in some cases.

In addition to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry(METI) set aside an annual budget of 1.1 billion yen in the fiscal 2022 budget to strengthen measures against piracy and expand content overseas.

In January 2022, CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association) announced to set up an International Anti-Piracy Organization (IAPO) by April 2022. The organization will be dedicated to tackling illegal online distribution of anime, manga, and similar copyrighted content.

Additionally, CODA and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) signed an MOU in February this year, in a bid to strengthen the stand against illegal pirate sites and ensure better content distribution internationally.

Source: Kyodo News