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Japanese publishers team up for a 'Stop! Pirated manga' online campaign

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By Krista Rogers, SoraNews24

Weekly Shonen Jump and other staples of the manga industry have had enough with online pirating. Citing rapid growth in the illegal distribution of comics and manga anthologies since last year, Japan’s Shuppan Koho Center (“Publications PR Center”) is spearheading an effort to bring together several mainstay publishers such as Shogakukan (Weekly Shonen Sunday), Shueisha (Weekly Shonen Jump), Kodansha (Weekly Shonen Magazine), and Kadokawa (Young Ace) and promote awareness of the issue with the general public.

Above is one of the campaign ads that the editorial team of globally popular Weekly Shonen Jump (the home of "Dragon Ball," "One Piece," "Naruto") shared last week. It is accompanied by text saying: “Let’s stop looking at illegal sites of pirated manga! This is a notice for the ‘STOP! Pirated versions’ campaign that many publishing companies are participating in. It’s connected to empowering and protecting manga authors so that they can continue producing new content. We ask for your cooperation.”

▼ An expanded version of the image

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The site explains that the illegal industry often collect high profits from ad revenue and website membership fees. For those who are unconvinced about the actual monetary losses on the side of the publishing companies, the following data are backed by several official reports on the subject:

Estimated damage within Japan: 50 billion yen

Estimated damage within the U.S.: 1.3 trillion yen 

Estimated damage from Haruka Yume no Ato, the largest manga pirating ring in Japan: 73.1 billion yen

Estimated damage from pirate site Manga Mura: 320 billion yen

The campaign website also describes in a paneled comic strip how the illegal distribution of manga affects the manga creation process, along with six of the most typical methods of illegal distribution that readers should be on the lookout for. 

Six typical methods of illegal distribution with brief descriptions:

Online reading sites–There are actually fewer Japanese sites of this nature and more unauthorized English and other translated versions. Internet users can easily access and read manga on their phones, tablets, or computers (Manga Mura is an example). Sites can also be dangerous for the reader because of easily transmitted viruses, automated redirecting to harmful sites, and other scams.

  • Leech sites–The main type of site found in Japan. They house virtually no ads and most of their revenue is generated through affiliated cyberlockers (storage services). The legality here is a bit of a grey area so efforts are being made to made to address them at the moment.
  • Video submission sites–More common in Japan than overseas. Manga chapters are copied into video-sharing services such as YouTube to create a kind of electronic slideshow of pages. It’s harder to detect and prevent pirated manga through this type of distribution than pirated anime.
  • Spoiler sites–These sites often get their hands on new manga chapters before they’re even published in the official magazines, so they tend to attract the type of reader who wants to keep up with stories as soon as possible. Luckily, illegal distributions via this method have relatively leveled off since a large bust back in February 2017.
  • P2P–Stands for “Peer to Peer,” or files shared directly by users/computers in a connected network. Examples in Japan include Winny, Share, PerfectDark, and Cabos; examples overseas include BitTorrent.
  • Swindling sites–A classic credit card scam. These sites advertise free-to-read manga, but then readers still can’t read anything unless they register their credit card. After a time, they’ll probably notice they’ve been unwillingly charged.

In the words of the Shuppan Koho Center, “Manga is a part of Japanese culture that we are proud to share with the world. It’s a symbol of ‘Cool Japan.'” For the sake of fans around the world, let’s support the artists and ensure their beloved stories can continue well into the future.

Source: Twitter/@jump_henshubu

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Do you enjoy pirated anime and manga? If so, this “thank you” is not for you

-- Manga artist says she’s found the reason why men won’t read comics written for women

-- One Piece manga creator’s work schedule is absolutely insane

© SoraNews24

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

2 Comments
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Amazon used to have an all you can read manga service for their Kindle and it was shut down by the publishers almost instantly due to too much demand, instead them put it as part of Kindle unlimited with a very reduced selection of titles to be almost useless if you want to read a whole series.

Clearly there is a demand for people to pay for a Netflix-style system, and the success of legal streaming video greatly reducing the interest in video piracy would be a good case study. If you don't provide a service that people want, then they'll find alternative measures. It's not so much money that is lost for people who would normally buy a book, but more like money that people are willing to pay and that the publishers are leaving on the table.

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