The fight against manga piracy continues to look endless, and this time the Shueisha publishing house has achieved an important victory. A tokyo court imposed a fine of 500,000 yen (more than $ 3000) To a man who was convicted of translating without permission sleeves of the Weekly Shonen Jump to English before his official launch.
According to the report of the Copyright Association for Computer Software (ACCS), The defendant got the manga chapters before his official publication and translated them into English without authorization, which facilitates that they filter into social networks and piracy sites. The publishing house held this decision of the court, since this type of leak can cause the content to spread without control.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In 2023, the Niigata and Kumamoto police departments arrested a group of subjects for illegally uploading photographs of the full pages of Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly Shonen Magazine's magazine before its official bookstores. Two of the defendants received suspended sentences, which means that they will go to jail if they commit any other crime in the next three years (yes, even pass a red light).
Manga piracy is a huge problem for the industry, and the cause is evident. Japanese stores receive magazines before their publication date to prepare them for sale (that is, if they leave on Mondays, they receive the new edition on Saturday or Sunday). However, some stores take advantage of this to scan the pages and upload them to the Internet. Then these versions are translated and end up being shared without control.
While Japan continues to fight against this interim, publishers such as Shueisha, Kodansha and Shagakukan have brought their fight abroad. Since December 2024, Shueisha got a California court to force Cloudflare to reveal the identity of the administrators of 19 piracy sites that total more than 560 million visits. In addition, they also presented citations against Twitter to discover who the people behind the Twitter accounts that distribute these leaks are.
Fountain: The Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS)
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