Manga piracy website operator ordered to pay ¥1.7 billion to publishers The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered the operator of a now-defunct manga piracy website to pay ¥1.7 billion in compensation to three major Japanese publishers. Presiding Judge Masaki Sugiura recognized that the site operator and his associates had uploaded the manga for people to read for free, without approval from the publishers, thereby inflicting financial damage. The plaintiffs — Kadokawa, Shueisha and Shogakukan — said the ¥1.7 billion sum was most likely the highest ever granted by the court among other similar cases, and they hoped the lawsuit would help deter other manga piracy site operators from uploading content illegally. They originally sought ¥1.9 billion from piracy website Manga-Mura, which was shut down in 2018 after a criminal investigation for violating copyright law. The damages were calculated by multiplying the average number of views by the sales price of the claimed work. Shueisha executive Atsushi Ito welcomed the ruling. “We will continue to take every possible measure to protect (authors') works by enforcing their rights not only in Japan but also in other countries where serious damage is still occurring,” he said. Ito added that eradicating piracy remains difficult. One issue is domain-hopping, where operators can change domain names every two weeks or a month, to avoid anti-piracy measures in place for specific domains, he said. Eliminating piracy sites where the operators are based overseas is another challenge. “It’s quite challenging for foreign authorities to act in the interest of Japanese companies,” he said. In addition, many works are translated into English, with the Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), which monitors illegal digital publications, identifying 1,207 such piracy sites. According to the ABJ, 10 major English-language manga piracy sites have been accessed around 500 million times. He also said that the creative works are being translated into other languages. Translations into Vietnamese makes up the largest share of pirated content after English. Seventeen titles, including “One Piece,” “Kingdom,” and “Sergeant Keroro” were illegally uploaded to the website, which was accessed around 100 million times a month, the publishers said. From June 2017 to April 2018, Manga-Mura is estimated to have been accessed around 538 million times, with up to around 73,000 comic books made available, they added. Manga-Mura’s former operator argued that they were only involved in the development of the site’s system and were not administrators, saying that some of their actions were not problematic under the copyright law at the time. According to the complaint filed by the plaintiffs, the financial damages inflicted by Manga-Mura — considered the largest manga piracy site in Japan — is estimated to be around ¥320 billion. In 2021, the Fukuoka District Court sentenced Romi Hoshino, the operator of the site, to three years in prison. He was also ordered to pay a fine totaling ¥72.57 million. After the site shut down in 2018, Hoshino fled Japan. But he was arrested in 2019 after being detained and deported by Philippine authorities in Manila. Three other accomplices were also sentenced to one to two years in prison, suspended for three years, and ordered to pay a fine of ¥300,000 to ¥1 million. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/04/18/japan/crime-legal/manga-mura-copyright-ruling/ *** *** *** I wonder if the authors will receive a share of the fines. Is it morally wrong to pirate One Piece? I personally do not pirate manga (and very rarely read manga anyway), but outside of Japan (and Korea & China perhaps), manga is prohibitively expensive ($10-15 per volume, which is more expensive than an average paperback), and the mainstream public of manga is not especially wealthy, so it is foolish to expect that the average reader (who might consume dozens of chapters in a single day) will buy all the manga he reads. How about online subscriptions? Are there services like Crunchyroll that would help curve piracy? NB. ¥1.7 billion is about $11 million USD. |
| this pirated manga site is only for japan i heard so they cannot do a similar thing with pirated manga sites outside of japan |
Meusnier said: $10-15 per volume It doesn't seem that expensive until you realize that (at least here in Greece) you can buy the collected edition of Mark Millar's Civil War for 15 euros and that's a full color book with more pages and a larger page format. Also I hear that the Japanese can buy manga 10 times cheaper than us in some cases. |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
Theo1899 said: Meusnier said: $10-15 per volume It doesn't seem that expensive until you realize that (at least here in Greece) you can buy the collected edition of Mark Millar's Civil War for 15 euros and that's a full color book with more pages and a larger page format. Also I hear that the Japanese can buy manga 10 times cheaper than us in some cases. Indeed, especially when you have to buy 20-30 volumes for a single series, it immediately becomes prohibitively expensive (ten manga volumes would be equivalent to a luxury two-volume edition of a famous writer in France in the Pléiade edition). Not 10 times cheaper, but close: a volume of Claymore is worth ¥390~$2.5, which means that manga are four times cheaper in Japan. I suspect that they are cheap in Korea and China too. |
| I believe that it should be not morally wrong to pirate anything. In fact, I believe that piracy should be encouraged. Imagine if studios weren't getting any profit off their works sold to the general public. Instead, they could be commissioned by rich audiences to produce content that would satisfy their classy tastes, and then publish it to let everyone watch it for free. Educated and rich people would not want to commission something outright horrendous from talentless directors, so, the general quality of the works produced for their donations will certainly be high. These works would also satisfy less educated and rich audiences because everyone would want to watch stuff that is enjoyed by cool rich kids. And since nobody would collect these affordable couple of $ from each Crunchyroll stream and blue-ray release, nobody would ever be able to earn something off the general public that would simply consume everything, because the general public would not need and would not want to pay to watch something it would like. In fact, this is how movie soundtracks are produced. Instead of being paid for by the general public through Spotify and disk sales, they are directly commissioned by studios. Movie soundtracks are among the most artistically and technically complex music ever created, even if we consider hacks like Hans Zimmer. This model is also utilized by research institutions - they pay their researchers, the researchers publish their research, and other researchers can access it; these institutions are either funded with tax dollars or subsidized by their parent companies, and they usually don't earn much through selling access to articles, because Sci-Hub won. Nobody prohibits studios from earning with other means, though - by selling merchandise and exclusive physical copies of their works with content targeted at the most extreme fans, for example. Now we just have to set up a collective fund to forfeit all our mortal possessions to Akiyuki Shinbo, Shinobu Yashioka and Hiroyuki Imaishi to let them create even more quality arthouse than ever, and also probably set up a free and easy-to-use website with pirated content in some 3rd world jurisdiction to outcompete Crunchyroll, and we will have 99% less shounenshit cancer and 999% more arthouse with Hollywood-grade action scenes, which would definitely make this world a better place to live in. |
PostMahouShoujoApr 19, 2:26 AM
Black★Rock Shooter (TV) is beyond its time arthouse fantasy/psychological drama/psychological horror/action. Should you watch it? See my review.  ⁺  ⁺  ⁺  ⁼  |
| Good I guess? Pirate websites owners should share some of their profits with the creators, maybe that way piracy could become more acceptable. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Reply to Zarutaku
Good I guess? Pirate websites owners should share some of their profits with the creators, maybe that way piracy could become more acceptable.
| @Zarutaku Good I guess? Pirate websites owners should share some of their profits with the creators No. It is called "streaming" and it is among the reasons why the general quality of mass media content declines. It is easier than ever now to create garbage content and sell it to undemanding general public just for a couple of $ per month. |
Black★Rock Shooter (TV) is beyond its time arthouse fantasy/psychological drama/psychological horror/action. Should you watch it? See my review. ⁺ ⁺ ⁺ ⁼ |
| If this keeps up, all illicit activities and websites will eventually have to move from the clearnet to the dark webs. Just saying. |
| I think that if you make art and expect people to pay for it as a matter of principle (and not just an extension of our economic reality, in which case any abstract business/bureaucratic institution does next to nothing for you) then perhaps you shouldn't be making anything at all. People who think otherwise have little experience in the arts and don't understand that any individual with anything worthwhile to make will do so of their own volition, assuming they have the spare time and energy. If the only thing keeping your 300+ chapter mess alive is the bag then stop wasting everyone's time and call it quits. |
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| Pay for your manga on Amazon lol. Simple as that. Those piracy sites have alot of sketchy ads on it. Btw, how the hell will someone pay back 17 million USD? Who can afford that lol? |
| Manga Mura didn't upload manga probably, and had served links to other manga piracy websites. Manga Mura users didn't need to see ads. |
Reply to GinIonSui
Manga Mura didn't upload manga probably, and had served links to other manga piracy websites. Manga Mura users didn't need to see ads.
| @GinIonSui so how did he fund the site without ads? |
Reply to DesuMaiden
@GinIonSui so how did he fund the site without ads?
| @DesuMaiden Manga Mura prepared a dummy website, and showed ads on it. |
| I buy the manga I read, so i could care less if a junk site goes down. also, you can read the last 3 chapters of One Piece completely for free on VIZ's website, or pay $3 a month to access their entire manga catalog. |
| You can buy lossless digital music from your favorite Japanese artists on https://ototoy.jp/. The songs are all DRM-free and you can re-download your purchased albums as you wish. Show your support to your favorite artist if you can! ps. if you are looking for Japanese albums, you have to search it in Japanese (not romaji). Just copy and paste the name. For those who want to learn Japanese through anime Resources for learning the language |
Reply to DreamingBeats
I buy the manga I read, so i could care less if a junk site goes down.
also, you can read the last 3 chapters of One Piece completely for free on VIZ's website, or pay $3 a month to access their entire manga catalog.
also, you can read the last 3 chapters of One Piece completely for free on VIZ's website, or pay $3 a month to access their entire manga catalog.
| @DreamingBeats probably because you don't live in a Third World country. |
| Thing is they can't actually prove they actually lost any profits whatsoever since people reading manga pirated might later purchase it or they might tell others about the manga who may purchase it and they also might be buying merch or giving money to the mangaka for art commissions. It's not really different from just borrowing manga from a friend, reading manga in a manga café or buying manga second hand. |
| @traed you make a valid point. Thanks for pointing that out. |
| What a joke. It's clearly just trying to set a precedent while extracting money from others. It's not going to stop the thousands of other sites from cropping up and replacing them. Like it or not, piracy is competition. Companies need to learn that this is indeed the case, and make products and services that are worth buying, instead of using the force of the state to weed out desired services. |
DreamWindowApr 21, 8:00 PM
 This ground is soiled by those before me and their lies. I dare not look up for on me I feel their eyes |
| And why does this matter to us? Just wondering. |
| manga is really cheap anyways. anywhere you live. But sometimes i like to read new publishing work that's not available or just trash titles and i am not keen on buying trash titles and stuffing my storage with it lol. Oh well, piracy is a hydra that just keeps coming back |
 If you are a friend. Visit my profile to recommend me something to watch ( ^▽^)ψ__ |
| Manga typically isn't worth buying imo. It is just low-quality media...just like American comic books. |
Reply to DreamWindow
What a joke. It's clearly just trying to set a precedent while extracting money from others. It's not going to stop the thousands of other sites from cropping up and replacing them. Like it or not, piracy is competition. Companies need to learn that this is indeed the case, and make products and services that are worth buying, instead of using the force of the state to weed out desired services.
| @DreamWindow But how will poor mega corporations survive without artificial scarcity everywhere? |
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| And nobody cares because manga was/is never good to begin with. |
Reply to JaniSIr
@DreamWindow But how will poor mega corporations survive without artificial scarcity everywhere?
| @JaniSIr By providing goods and services that people want to buy. Capitalism, ho! |
This ground is soiled by those before me and their lies. I dare not look up for on me I feel their eyes |
| All I know is that manga--- needs my help |
 |
Reply to DreamWindow
@JaniSIr By providing goods and services that people want to buy. Capitalism, ho!
| @DreamWindow That's clearly too much effort, not enough profit margin, companies need to use the most underhanded methods to make money, otherwise shareholders won't be happy. |
|
Reply to DesuMaiden
And nobody cares because manga was/is never good to begin with.
| @DesuMaiden It depends. In manga, most of the pictures are black and white rather than in color, much like old fashioned comics. If people wanted virtual copies to color themselves, then I would understand why they would look to a piracy website. I'm sure most manga can be downloaded and streamed legally now of days. |
 |
| That sounds like a fucking insane payout. |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
| idk if i have a super strong opinion. if you make manga accessible enough in the west it'll just be more convenient to legally access it than pirate it, like with music nowadays i do think it is more convenient just to pirate movies than deal with the thirty streaming platforms on offer nowadays so it isn't just about having broad availability tho idc about the morals of it much, and trying to force people in that way won't really do much. i think it was mentioned earlier in the thread but the cost of legally purchasing one piece issues or volumes in like the states is honestly prohibitive. |
| I notice a ton of manga rely on fansubbers to ever get translated in English through unofficial means. |
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| Yen value dropped. It's now equal to $10,741,834.10 lol |
I buy manga I like: When I go to pirate sites, I don't feel guilty because they aren't losing any sales. I read stuff that I either cannot or would not purchase anyway. tsukareru said: manga is really cheap anyways. anywhere you live. In a unit by unit basis, yes. But when you buy the whole series it isn't very cheap anymore. Especially when one volume can be read in just a couple hours. |
Reply to Strahan
I buy manga I like:
When I go to pirate sites, I don't feel guilty because they aren't losing any sales. I read stuff that I either cannot or would not purchase anyway.
In a unit by unit basis, yes. But when you buy the whole series it isn't very cheap anymore. Especially when one volume can be read in just a couple hours.
When I go to pirate sites, I don't feel guilty because they aren't losing any sales. I read stuff that I either cannot or would not purchase anyway.
tsukareru said:
manga is really cheap anyways. anywhere you live.
manga is really cheap anyways. anywhere you live.
In a unit by unit basis, yes. But when you buy the whole series it isn't very cheap anymore. Especially when one volume can be read in just a couple hours.
| @Strahan Well ye a whole set can get expensive. It's cheaper if you buy volumes one by one. But that's up to you. Sometimes the box sets are upcharge a bit more i think, not sure i haven't bought one yet. The only manga book i ever got is Junji Ito's Uzumaki 3-in-1 vol., i think i got it for around 10 usd. Pretty cheap imo |
If you are a friend. Visit my profile to recommend me something to watch ( ^▽^)ψ__ |
| I hardly even read manga. That manga stuff is for childish people. |
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