Surely all manga and anime enthusiasts know how important this industry is in Japan. Not for nothing is it one of the highest revenue earners in the eastern country. But evidently, due to its magnitude and the money it moves, it is one of the main targets for some criminal groups, especially for the crime of piracy. This time the Japanese authorities have sentenced and have given a hard blow to one of the largest and most important sites dedicated to distribute this content illegally over the Internet.
Mangamura ordered to pay millions in compensation for copyright infringement in Japan
Today it was announced that the person behind “Mangamura” has been sentenced to pay an amount equivalent to 11 million US dollars (approximately 1.7 billion yen) for the crime of copyright infringement on several very important Manga works. The judgment was issued by the Tokyo District Court in Japan and has become a landmark judgment, as it is the largest amount of damages to be paid for piracy in the country. Shogakukan, Shueisha and Kadokawa are the main publishers whose revenues were affected.
This litigation began in 2021, when derived from an investigation initiated in 2019, the Fukuoka District Court of Justice sentenced Romi Hoshino in charge of managing the page to a sentence of 3 years in prison and a payment of 10 million yen (91 thousand dollars) for illicit profits from advertising through the page. In addition, in 2022, the three Japanese publishers mentioned above filed a joint lawsuit against the piracy site in which they claimed that the site had wrongfully infringed on works such as “One Piece”, “Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation”, “The Rising of the Shield Hero”, etc.
This lawsuit demanded the payment of the amount of 1.9 million yen that were calculated on estimates of economic damage caused through the illegal distribution of 441 volumes of approximately 17 works on the website. According to the report by the Japanese authorities, “Mangamura” launched its illegal operations in 2016, but it was not until May 2018 that the site began to raise suspicions due to leaks of upcoming chapters.
Undoubtedly this is a big blow from the authorities of the Japanese country to one of the activities that most affects the industry recently. Let’s remember that not long ago a man was also arrested for leaking chapters of works such as Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia and One Piece, among others. So in the future it is very likely that we will continue to see more news like this from the Japanese authorities, since the main affected is one of the most representative industries of the nation at a worldwide cultural level.
