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Manga industry loses $3 billion in Piracy

Wataru Adachi, a 37-year-old man was arrested on August 10th 2019 for allegedly running an illegal manga-viewing website that hosted copies of “One Piece.” He was suspected of uploading unauthorized digital versions of this popular manga in May 2017 on a site called Mangamura which allowed internet surfers to read these pirated manga. Adachi withheld from saying anything.

Mangamura, was a website which saw unauthorized uploadings of many other popular manga titles including “Attack on Titan”. In April 2018 the Japanese government took steps and labeled three websites including Mangamura as inappropriate and urged internet service providers to block access and use of them based on piracy issues.

Mangamura was created in April 2017. According to the Tokyo-based Content Overseas Distribution Association, the website boasted 620 million visitors between September of that year and February 2018. The site is now closed. The same association estimated that these figures meant that the manga industry lost circa ¥319.2 billion (2.72 billion Euros/$3 billion)!

The head of the website’s operations, Romi Hoshino, 27, was also detained in the Philippines last month and Japanese police were set to arrest him on suspicion of copyright infringement for running the website as soon as he was deported to Japan.

Police believe that  Adachi  was a man who contacted them earlier this month, indicating he wanted to admit his crime and turn himself in. Adachi was arrested when he arrived at Fukuoka airport from the Philippines via Taiwan.

Piracy is a crime. Besides stealing from authors and artists, thousands of other workers & their families depend on the printing and distribution of these popular stories.

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