Shueisha, one of the biggest publishers in Japan has requested a Spanish advertising company to take down ads from 27 manga piracy websites.

The move was praised by Japanese news channel NHK and is first of its kind by a Japanese publisher.

Shueisha, Deputy General Manager, Editorial & General Affairs department & Anti-Piracy department, Atsushi Ito was the person who asked the Spanish company. While speaking to NHK he said, “Many pirated sites, including super-huge sites, were using the services of this company and were gaining a considerable number of accesses. Many pirated sites are operated for the purpose of advertising revenue, and I think that stopping advertisements will be one of the major measures against pirates.”

He further added, “there is a possibility that operators of pirated sites will immediately find other ad distribution companies and switch. There is also, and it is expected that it will be difficult to take countermeasures, but I would like to do everything I can.“

Earlier in 2018, publishers in Japan targeted a manga piracy site called ‘Mangamura’ as well.

Japanese manga publishers Shogakukan, Shueisha and Kadokawa revealed in a press conference on July 28, 2022, that they have jointly filed a lawsuit against Mangamura, seeking a total of over 1.9 billion yen (USD 14.3 million) in damages.

The amount these publishers are seeking represent the estimated damages they suffered due to Mangamura illegally pirating 17 titles owned by the three publishers.

Of the 1.9 billion yen, Kadokawa is claiming over 450 million yen in damages as Mangamura illegally uploaded Overlord, Mushoku Tensei, Hinamatsuri, Rising of the Shield Hero and other works.

Another manga piracy site ‘Manga Village’ had a traffic of 100 million users per month during its peak was also taken down.

The operator of pirated manga website, Manga Bank, was reportedly arrested in China and slapped with administrative punishment by authorities.

On June 15, Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress issued an administrative penalty of confiscation of criminal proceeds worth over 330,000 yen (approximately USD 2374) against the operator of Manga Bank and a fine of over 600,000 yen (approximately USD 4317) for violation of the Ordinance on the Protection of Information Network Transmission Right.

This was the first time that an overseas punishment was meted out against an operator of a pirated manga website for the Japanese market.

The Chongqing City resident, whose identity is not revealed, was charged with operating multiple piracy sites including Manga Bank and distributing works without the the permission of the right holders.

According to Authorized Books Of Japan (ABJ), the losses garnered by manga industry due to pirated sites last year was estimated to be at 1.19 trillion yen. This too just from top 10 widely used pirated sites. This too is an upward growth of 4.8 times since last two years.

The total views the top 10 piracy sites received in 2021 was 3.76 billion, an increase of 2.5 times over the last two years.

Shueisha files approximately 10 criminal complaints a year and issue over 120,000 monthly requests to websites, server operators and other related companies and parties to delete works that infringe their copyright policies.

Source: NHK