It turned out that a major Japanese publisher filed a petition to disclose information to Google etc. in the United States about the name and address of the operator of the pirated cartoon site known as the largest in the country, and the local court issued a disclosure order. ..



The site was closed this month, but publishers are planning to file criminal accusations with the operator for infringing copyright.

This site is the largest manga pirated site "Manga BANK" for the domestic market.



Four major publishers, such as Shueisha, have been identifying the operators as manga BANK infringes copyright, such as publishing all pages of comic books and magazines without permission.



Last month, Shueisha filed a petition with an American court requesting that information such as the publisher's name, address, phone number, and IP address be disclosed to major IT companies such as Google.



As a result, the court granted the complaint on the 12th and issued a disclosure order to Google and others.



The pirated manga site has been a problem for about four years, and the operator of the largest "Manga Village" was caught and sentenced to three years in prison for violating the copyright law in June. received.



Manga BANK is known as an alternative to Manga Village, and the number of accesses was about 81 million per month, which was about 80% of Manga Village.



It is said that Manga BANK was closed earlier this month while legal proceedings were being taken, but four major publishers such as Shueisha are based on the information disclosed, and the law such as criminal accusation of the operator and claim for damages The policy is to take appropriate measures.



Atsushi Ito, Deputy General Manager of the Editorial and General Affairs Department of Shueisha, said, "It is the role of the publisher to protect the work that the author puts his heart and soul into and deliver it to the reader in an appropriate form. ".

Number of visits to pirated sites has increased sharply since last year

The number of accesses to manga pirated sites has increased sharply since last year, and it is believed that the background is that the time spent at home has increased due to the influence of the new coronavirus.



According to the general incorporated association "ABJ", which is created by publishers and related organizations to prevent pirated copies, the total number of monthly accesses to the top 10 sites including "Manga BANK" was about 61 million in January last year. Last month it was 398 million, more than six times higher.



The estimated damage amount based on the number of accesses and staying time is 782.7 billion yen from January to last month.

Hiroyuki Nakajima, a lawyer who is familiar with copyright and is one of the advisory lawyers of four major publishers such as Shueisha, said, "Even if a pirated site via an overseas server takes legal procedures, it is possible to identify the operator. I would like to take this case to the criminal procedure to deter a series of pirated sites. "