New Anime Data Reveals Industry’s Growing Piracy War in America

Piracy is one of the most controversial issues in the anime industry, and now it appears that America has become the new central battlefront in the war against pirated anime content. A new transparency report released by Google reveals that Google has been asked to remove over 10 billion URLs from its search results by copyright holders. That number alone is pretty remarkable, but things get even more interesting when we look at the anime companies requesting takedowns.

One of the biggest companies requesting removals is VIZ Media, the company responsible for publishing the Shonen Jump manga and many other anime series in North America. VIZ alone is responsible for 304,581,116 URL takedown requests, while the next top four anime-related URL takedown requests come from Toei Animation, Japan Creative Contents Alliance, Funimation, and Aniplex. Tellingly, the top 5 anime companies requesting URL removals are all American except one, (Japan Creative Contents Alliance), as the Toei Animation listed here likely refers to the American branch of the acclaimed producer.

The Top 5 Anime Companies Requesting URL Removal for Copyright Infringement Are Mostly American

America has become the front line in combating anime piracy

With American companies representing four of the top five anime companies requesting removals the most, a clear trend is forming that seems to suggest that piracy is a bigger problem in North America than in Japan. Although this could very well be the case , this may be due much more to population numbers than to piracy being an exclusively American problem. With the United States having a population almost three times that of Japan, it is no wonder that North American companies needed to take many more measures against piracy than their Japanese counterparts.

Despite what these concrete numbers suggest, anime piracy is truly a global problem that is being tackled on several fronts. The owners of a Chinese anime piracy website have become the first people convicted of pirating anime outside of Japan. Additionally, according to the technology website Torrent FreakA California judge also recently issued subpoena requests to Google, Paypal and others for information about the people who run eight major piracy sites.

Publisher Manga & Manhwa is also taking measures to combat piracy

Webtoon and others are taking a stand against piracy

While requests from anime companies have been quite substantial, manga and manhwa companies have had their own share of URL removal requests. Adult manga publisher FAKKU alone requested the removal of 56,762,093 URLs and 5,377 domains, while titan Manhwa Webtoon asked Google to remove 35,770,580 URLs and 5,373 specific domains. Webtoon’s parent company, Naver, also made its share of requests, with 186,606,668 requests. These services are primarily digital, so it makes sense that they would request the removal of pirate sites that host their material illegally.

Despite the hard-line stance against piracy that many American anime and manga publishers are taking, the issue remains controversial in both the industry and fandom. Kodansha editor Akira Kanai recently expressed the importance of reading the mangaregardless of whether the source is legitimate or not (although he has specified that he prefers readers to obtain things legally). While Kanai’s opinions may be unusual or rare in the industry, they represent an interesting perspective that is reflected more in the fandom. Regardless of how people feel, it’s clear that the anime industry as a whole is combating piracy in a way never seen before.