A Tokyo court has ordered US-based Cloudflare to pay $3.2 million to major Japanese publishers for hosting servers linked to large-scale manga piracy sites.
Tokyo: A Tokyo district court has ordered Cloudflare to pay 500 million yen (about 3.2 million US dollars) in damages to four major Japanese publishing houses after finding the US company liable for hosting servers used by manga piracy platforms. The judgment follows years of concern within Japan’s publishing industry over the financial impact of pirated manga circulating online.
The case was filed in 2022 by Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa, which argued that Cloudflare provided support to platforms distributing unauthorised copies of more than 4,000 manga titles. The publishers said these sites drew roughly 300 million views each month, leading to substantial revenue losses.
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In a joint statement, the publishers said the court’s decision was significant. Industry groups have long maintained that piracy sites offering free access to widely read titles such as One Piece and Attack on Titan weaken both domestic sales and international licensing markets.
They also noted that Cloudflare had previously reached a settlement with them in 2019, after they asked the company to stop providing services to one piracy site. However, they said Cloudflare continued offering server support to other unauthorised platforms.
Japanese media reported that Cloudflare plans to appeal the ruling. The decision forms part of broader global efforts by publishers and rights holders to combat online piracy through legal and technological measures.
Published: 19 Nov 2025, 06:01 pm IST
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