Japan's New Anti-Piracy Laws

Davy Jones

In cooperation with 15 major anime production companies and manga publishers, the Japanese government will next month start a huge extermination operation against foreign sites which have illegally uploaded anime and manga contents on the web without the copyright holders' permission, NHK reported on July 28th. While the government has started supporting the genre as one of their important cultural exports, there appears to be no end of illegal uploading of anime and manga via pirate sites, mainly operated by Chinese. The Cultural Affairs Agency estimates the loss caused by the Chinese pirate sites last year was amounted to at least 560 billion yen (about US$ 5.5 billion).

On August 1st, the government will start simultaneously sending requests to delete illegal anime and manga contents to the operators of the 580 foreign pirate sites which they have found. In addition, the operation will launch a new site to guide the fans to a legitimate site offering some 250 titles including the latest ones at a cost of several hundred yen.

Official Manga-Anime Guardians site: http://manga-anime-here.com/

Source: NHK News

News submitted by BydeFinition

Update July 30
METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) has published a press release stating 500 manga works and 80 anime works are being targeted, not websites. The press release includes a PowerPoint that contains an actual list of websites they are targeting. Included are scanlation sites (slides 11-12), fansub upload websites (slides 13-15), direct download websites (slide 16), torrent sites (slides 17-18), and redistribution websites (slides 19-20).

Source: METI press release

Modified by Naruleach, 07-30-14, 5:56 AM

Read more at http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1235745&show=0#ilPd1AzeLmSC4trb.99

Should we as fans be worried about this?

GJardim

Well, batoto is targeted, so I guess, yes.

Cyborg009

is mangastream in the list?

edit: i just checked. it is…we're doomed.

RuNa

Crunchyroll an example of a good "legit" site…L O L

I guess charging people for illegal content is ok as long as you can blackmail the actual companies to allow it to become a "legitimate" business.

Outerspec

Should we be worried? Yeah, I guess. Is it the end? Not really. There will always be ways and if we really are fans there should be nothing stopping us from eventually shelving out some money to get the actual product legally with a little extra patience to add.

A few years ago this would have really had me worried, but now? Eh.

Nekketsu

History has proved more than once you can't win against a new technology. This will fail, and worse for the companies, it will backfire on them.

@Outerspec:

A few years ago this would have really had me worried, but now? Eh.

Now is the neverending game of whack-a-mole.

wolfwood

This seems like it'd be about as effective as banning file sharing was.

Not that i care that much really, it's been ages since i was really following the manga/anime scene.

SpeedoCentaur

I wish there were a legitimate site that gave us a wide selection of free manga at the price of advertisements. This would be better for a lot of broke people and also make it more accessible while still supporting the company and the original mangaka.

Green_vs_Red

@SpeedoCentaur:

This would be better for a lot of broke people

I hope you don't actually think that everyone reading manga online on various sites do so because of being "financially challenged".

Satsuki

Damn, this will put a big hitch in our britches, to coin a phrase.

However, this being the internet, it's like a Hydra. For every head you cut off, two more grow in it's place. They list all the places we usually read our manga, but I'm not sure how much they are concentrating on Chinese pirate sites vs. English sites. Either way, weekly chapters might be longer in coming.

luffyet

They already tried shutting, we pirates, down with the movies. They failed. They will fail here too.

Cyan D. Funk

Mangapanda getting destroyed is entirely worth it.

Twelveman

I think Oda can appreciate the irony of One Piece being pirated.

Also they really should stop with those press releases before taking action. Just do it, stop talking about how you're planning on defeating the internet.

I like the Hydra reference, that is exactly how it works XD

Hail Internet !

Satsuki

@Cyan:

Mangapanda getting destroyed is entirely worth it.

I'm more concerned about mangahere and mangastream.

Aaronrules380

@RuNa:

Crunchyroll an example of a good "legit" site…L O L

I guess charging people for illegal content is ok as long as you can blackmail the actual companies to allow it to become a "legitimate" business.

Regardless of the origins, Crunchyroll isn't doing anything illegally anymore to my knowledge. It isn't even owned by the same people anymore

Purple Hermit

@Satsuki:

I'm more concerned about mangahere and mangastream.

Mangahere as a hosting site? sure.
Mangastream as a general anything? Would be more than happy to see it rid of.

MetaMario

@Purple:

Mangastream as a general anything? Would be more than happy to see it rid of.

Wasn't there a time when they didn't post as much ridiculous fanart as mangapanda?

Devil G.

Meh, even if they succeed, people will take countermeasures as it's always been. At least we could be saying goodbye to manga panda, I guess.

BobHorts

Governments should've learnt by now (from iTunes and Steam). The solution to piracy is just to make things really cheap and easy to get hold of. These bans just don't work in the long run. The internet fundamentally can't be controlled by governments and as soon as they shut down one avenue, another will just open up.

Ordinary

For those who haven't seen the manga section equivalent of this thread, you're missing out on Tyrano's new comic.
@Tyrano:

! http://i.imgur.com/9L2GOTE.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/0RuLpGt.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/kHi0M9Q.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/scLxzzR.jpg

@Tyrano:

Here's another lol.

! http://i.imgur.com/v4j6gYA.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/PinOx8T.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/7gZpPDj.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/07LfYLm.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/TMfxaju.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/gEM05Sk.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/rUmnuuy.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/a4b8jeM.jpg

@Tyrano:

Hahaha, thank you guys. I didn't think it would be this much well-received.
Here's my (probably?) last one.

I was planning on doing Whitebeard, but I just ended up with this

! http://i.imgur.com/rOdsOvo.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/GDhSU1e.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/9TAdADu.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/mGaBwO5.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/Lom15wn.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/0KPnkKN.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/dtkr2jO.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/pOabBFg.jpg
! http://i.imgur.com/LMcKUDv.jpg

Satsuki

@Purple:

Mangastream as a general anything? Would be more than happy to see it rid of.

What do you have against Mangastream?

Penultimate

So long as piracy provides a better service than legit sources, this issue isn't going to be solved. A lot of those legitimate websites don't stream for all countries. Say someone wants to watch anime, but is told they can't because it's region locked. Their only option is piracy. Instead of working to give readers and viewers legit content, this act is looking to punish them.

Also, until Shonen Jump and other magazines can get their acts together about manga leaks, that issue won't go away either. It's ludicrous to assume people will pay to wait based on moral principle when they can get the same quality of manga on Wednesday, rather than the next Monday. I'm not sure how they would even begin to solve that problem though.

Purple Hermit

@Satsuki:

What do you have against Mangastream?

While they do provide higher quality scans than Mangapanda, they still fall under the spectrum of extremely quick, extremely shoddy translations whose defining feature is a considerable amount of vulgarity or "slang" thrown into their translations to make them feel more "hip" and "cool" with their readers. Some things with ad revenue and the general featurettes of a lot of fan art before and after the chapter, but basically their translations, while often having a bit better grammar than mangapanda at times, are still not accurate, and at their worst they can pretty much completely mask the original intent of the explanation.

So while sometimes you get some stuff that's… readable like Bleach, more word heavy stuff, especially Hunter x Hunter, comparing a legitimate translation to the speed trans is basically night and day (and in some cases, even mangapanda has better typesetting and translations for HxH). And while you can say, sure, you can't blame them for providing a free service and that no translation is perfect, the service is actually pretty detrimental in a lot of ways when it comes to actually enjoying the material with the intent. The only benefit mangapanda/mangastream give otherwise is that fans outside of North America can have access to it where Weekly Shonen Jump online isn't available, but mangastream is deceptive in terms of its quality due to the alluring higher quality of images they provide.

This post is deleted!

Ubiq

Back when Jaco was coming out, mangastream left most of the ads alone but deleted any that mentioned the series also being available in English from Shonen Jump Alpha.

Purple Hermit

Ah, yes. I knew I was forgetting some big thing in the laundry list of things to mention concerning mangaslang