Police Launch Probe into Pirate Manga Site

May 14, 2018

Fukuoka- The police have started investigating pirate manga website Mangamura for suspected breach of copyright, informed sources said Monday.

The probe chiefly by the Fukuoka prefectural police in southwestern Japan comes at a time when pirate sites enabling users to enjoy animes and manga for free have emerged as a social problem.

According to the Content Overseas Distribution Association, Mangamura attracted some 620 million accesses in the six months from September 2017. That would translate into some 320 billion yen in loss for publishers, based on the assumption that a comic book is sold for 515 yen.

Publishers including Kodansha Ltd. last year filed criminal charges against pirate sites for violating their copyright, industry people said.

In April this year, the government called on Internet services providers to voluntarily block access to Mangamura and two other pirate sites, which the government saw as particularly malicious.

In response, NTT Communications Corp. and other providers cut off access to the sites.

Meanwhile, a lawyer filed a lawsuit against NTT Communications' access blockage, claiming that the action ran counter to a constitutional clause guaranteeing the "secrecy of any means of communication." Jiji Press