Major Japanese publishers Kodansha, KADOKAWA, Shueisha, and Shogakukan have won a copyright infringement lawsuit against the US IT company Cloudflare. The Tokyo District Court ruled on November 19 that Cloudflare bears liability for damages after continuing to provide infrastructure to large‐scale manga piracy websites.

This ruling on Cloudflare, a CDN service provider, marks a significant development in the fight against manga piracy.

The lawsuit centered on two massive piracy sites that hosted more than 4000 unauthorized manga titles and recorded around 300 million monthly visits. Despite repeated notices from the four publishers calling for action, Cloudflare continued offering its CDN service to the sites. Even after receiving a disclosure order from a US court, the company did not stop supporting the distribution of the infringing content.

Filed in February 2022 and examined by the Tokyo District Court’s Intellectual Property Division, the case concluded that Cloudflare’s failure to act after receiving takedown notices constituted assistance in copyright infringement. The court also pointed out that its service enabled the operators to run the piracy websites under “strongly anonymized conditions,” which contributed substantially to the damages.

The lawsuit was filed with each publisher claiming damages for one specific work, totaling approximately 36 billion yen (about 231.0 million USD). The ruling orders Cloudflare to pay around 500 million yen (about 3.2 million USD) in damages.

In a joint statement, the four publishers acknowledged the usefulness of CDN services but stressed that when such technology is misused by piracy sites, illegal content can be distributed efficiently and on a massive scale. They emphasized that while many service providers already take measures such as identity verification or removing illegal content, Cloudflare’s responses were insufficient.

The publishers added that the ruling represents an important judicial decision addressing the reality that copyright infringement can be repeated on a large scale by exploiting the anonymity enabled by CDN services. They also expressed hope that the judgment will become a meaningful step toward preventing misuse and improving the proper distribution of legitimate content.

They concluded by reaffirming their commitment to protecting the rights of creators and expanding access to authorized works.

Source : Kodansha Official