Piracy is one of the most contentious issues in the anime industry, and it appears now as though America has become the new central battlefront in the war on pirated anime content. A newtransparency report released by Googlereveals thatGoogle has been asked to delist over 10 billion URLs from its search resultsby copyright holders. This number in and of itself is quite remarkable, but things get even more interesting when looking at the anime companies requesting takedowns.
One of the largest businesses requesting takedowns is VIZ Media, the company responsible for publishing Shonen Jump manga and many other anime series in North America. VIZ alone is responsible for 304,581,116 URL removal requests, while the next four top requests for URL takedowns related to anime come from Toei Animation, Japan Creative Contents Alliance, Funimation, and Aniplex. What’s telling is that the 5 anime companies requesting the most URL takedowns are all American save for one, (Japan Creative Contents Alliance) as the Toei Animation listed here most likely refers to the acclaimed producer’s American branch.
The 5 Biggest Anime Companies Requesting URL Takedowns For Copyright Infringement Are Mostly American
America Has Become the Front Line For Combating Anime Piracy
With American companies accounting for four out of the top five anime companies requesting the most takedowns, a clear trend is forming that appears to suggest that piracy is more of a problem in North America than it is in Japan. Though this may very well be the case, this could come down much more to population numbers than piracy being a uniquely American problem. With the United States having a population almost three times as large as Japan’s, it’s no wonder U.S. companies would need to take much more action on piracy than their Japanese counterparts.
1
304,581,116
2
80,606,399
3
48,078,051
4
36,709,993
5
Aniplex of America Inc
9,796,125
Despite what these hard numbers suggest, Anime piracy truly is a global problem that is being tackled on several fronts. Theowners of a Chinese anime piracy site became the first people convicted for pirating animeoutside of Japan. Additionally, according to tech websiteTorrent Freak, a California judge also recently issued subpoena requests to Google, Paypal, and others for information on the people running eight large piracy sites.
Manga & Manhwa Publisher Are Also Taking Action to Combat Piracy
Webtoon & Others Are Taking a Stand Against Piracy
Though requests from anime companies were fairly substantial, manga and manhwa companies had their own share of URL removal requests. Adult manga publisher FAKKU alone requested 56,762,093 URLs and 5,377 domains be taken down, while Manhwa titan Webtoon asked Google to remove 35,770,580 URLs and 5,373 specific domains. Webtoon’s parent company, Naver, also made its share of requests, with 186,606,668 requests. These services are primarily digital, so it makes sense that they’d request the removal of pirate sites hosting their material illegally.
Though it’s not quite piracy, aJapanese site posting anime spoilershas also been hit with a lawsuit.
Despite the hardline stance against piracy many American publishers of anime and manga are taking, the issue remains contentious both in the industry and the fandom. Kodansha editor Akira Kanai recently voiced the importance of manga being read, regardless of whether the source is legitimate or not (though he did specify he’d prefer readers obtain things legally). Though Kanai’s opinions might be uncommon or rare in the industry, they represent an interesting perspective that is more reflected in the fandom. Regardless of how individuals feel though, it’s clear the anime industry as a whole is tackling piracy in a way never seen before.
