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▼ Japanese Court Orders Cloudflare To Pay ¥500 Million Over Manga Piracy
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The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday ordered Cloudflare to pay ¥500 million ($3.2 million) to major Japanese publishers after the U.S. firm was accused of hosting servers for manga piracy sites.
Piracy is a long-running problem for Japan's internationally renowned manga industry, with publishers saying they lose millions in revenue as a result.
Four major publishing firms — Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa — accused Cloudflare of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.
The companies filed a suit in Tokyo in 2022, seeking damages totaling ¥560 million.
“The court ruling orders (Cloudflare) to pay a total of ¥500 million,” they said in a joint statement, calling the decision “significant.”
Cloudflare provided a server for “two massive manga piracy sites that distribute over 4,000 manga titles without permission and rack up 300 million views a month,” the publishers said.
At issue in the lawsuit was whether Cloudflare was the main entity in charge of pirated manga distribution.
Presiding Judge Aya Takahashi said that Cloudflare was not the main entity, noting that pirated manga website operators uploaded illegal content onto the U.S. company’s servers.
Still, the company’s services helped such website operators distribute large amounts of data efficiently, Takahashi said, adding that the distributed content could be easily recognized as pirated data and that Cloudflare could have recognized the copyright infringements.
Piracy sites, where copies of graphic novels are distributed for free, have long tormented publishers of manga epics such as “One Piece” and “Attack on Titan,” with losses estimated at millions of dollars in Japan alone.
The four publishers have requested Cloudflare to stop providing its services for a piracy site before, and they reached a settlement in 2019.
But the U.S. firm continued to provide servers for piracy sites, they said.
Cloudflare said that the ruling was regrettable and that it would file an appeal.
Piracy is a long-running problem for Japan's internationally renowned manga industry, with publishers saying they lose millions in revenue as a result.
Four major publishing firms — Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa — accused Cloudflare of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.
The companies filed a suit in Tokyo in 2022, seeking damages totaling ¥560 million.
“The court ruling orders (Cloudflare) to pay a total of ¥500 million,” they said in a joint statement, calling the decision “significant.”
Cloudflare provided a server for “two massive manga piracy sites that distribute over 4,000 manga titles without permission and rack up 300 million views a month,” the publishers said.
At issue in the lawsuit was whether Cloudflare was the main entity in charge of pirated manga distribution.
Presiding Judge Aya Takahashi said that Cloudflare was not the main entity, noting that pirated manga website operators uploaded illegal content onto the U.S. company’s servers.
Still, the company’s services helped such website operators distribute large amounts of data efficiently, Takahashi said, adding that the distributed content could be easily recognized as pirated data and that Cloudflare could have recognized the copyright infringements.
Piracy sites, where copies of graphic novels are distributed for free, have long tormented publishers of manga epics such as “One Piece” and “Attack on Titan,” with losses estimated at millions of dollars in Japan alone.
The four publishers have requested Cloudflare to stop providing its services for a piracy site before, and they reached a settlement in 2019.
But the U.S. firm continued to provide servers for piracy sites, they said.
Cloudflare said that the ruling was regrettable and that it would file an appeal.
- November 20, 2024
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