China shuts down biggest anime piracy site, arrests 4 suspects
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The website, called b9good, was the biggest piracy platform for anime catering to Japan’s voracious audience.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIAXABAY
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TOKYO – A major website for pirated Japanese anime has been shut down after the Chinese authorities arrested four people suspected of being involved in it, according to a Tokyo-based lobby group that hailed the move as “ground-breaking”.
The website, called b9good, was the biggest piracy platform for anime catering to Japan’s voracious audience, according to the Content Overseas Distribution Association (Coda), an anti-piracy industry group.
The platform was named in a 2018 US Motion Picture Association report on “notoriously infringing” piracy sites. Coda said the site had racked up more than 300 million views over the past two years.
“It is ground-breaking that a full-fledged crackdown was conducted based on criminal proceedings in China,” Coda said in a statement on Tuesday.
It was the first time Chinese law enforcement responded to calls from Coda for the arrest of people involved in piracy, the group added.
Illegal distribution is a long-running problem for Japan’s internationally renowned manga and anime industries, with comic book publishers claiming massive losses in revenue as a result.
The Japanese government and the industry have ratcheted up efforts to crack down on piracy in recent years.
In 2022, four major Japanese manga publishers said they would sue a United States company accused of hosting servers for a piracy site.
In 2019, a man who ran an illegal online manga comic library visited by about 100 million people a month was arrested in Manila.
The website made about 60,000 manga – Japanese graphic novels or comics – available to the public free immediately after publication. REUTERS
