📰 New article from TorrentFreak
Rampant U.S. Piracy is a Multibillion-Dollar Concern for Japanese Manga Publishers
Let’s be real: if your favorite manga site is free, someone’s losing big—$55 billion big.
Japan’s got a dream: turn Naruto and Demon Slayer into the next Toyota. By 2033, they want $133 billion in global sales from anime and manga. But there’s a glitch: the U.S., where 317 million monthly visits go to pirate manga sites. That’s not just fans being lazy—it’s a full-blown revenue hemorrhage.
Here’s the kicker: a report claims U.S. piracy cost publishers $4.5 billion last month. How? By assuming every hour spent on pirate sites = two paid manga volumes. Yeah, it’s a stretch. Real fans might’ve never bought those anyway. But when your government’s comparing manga to car exports, you don’t need perfect math—you need a scary number. And $55 billion? That’s a bullhorn.
Even weirder: Cloudflare, Google, and Namecheap are now in the crosshairs. A Japanese court just ruled Cloudflare liable for not doing enough to stop pirate sites. The company cried foul—calling it a threat to the internet’s backbone. Publishers? They’re shrugging. “If your CDN helps pirates, you’re part of the problem.”
The takeaway? In Japan’s Cool Japan saga, piracy isn’t just a tech issue—it’s a national security-level export threat. And the U.S.? We’re not just reading manga… we’re funding it with free clicks.