Photo/Illutration Manga books involved in the lawsuit against the former operator of the now-closed piracy site Mangamura (Kenro Kuroda)

Three major Japanese publishers sued the former operator of the now-closed manga piracy website Mangamura on July 28, claiming it infringed on their rights by publishing popular manga online without their permission.

Kadokawa Corp., Shueisha Inc. and Shogakukan Inc. filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court, seeking 1.9 billion yen ($14 million) in damages. The amount is the largest ever sought in a lawsuit against piracy sites, according to the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs held a news conference in Tokyo the same day, and said their lawsuit aims to hold operators accountable and cast a chill on manga piracy.

“We hope that the lawsuit will be conveyed to operators around the world and will deter them (from pirating),” said Atsushi Ito, who works at Shueisha and serves as the head of the public relations department at the antipiracy organization Authorized Books of Japan.

The lawsuit focuses on 17 works that have numerous volumes, including “One Piece” and “Kingdom.”

Publishers said if they add up each time their manga comics were illegally accessed through the site, their losses total around 1.9 billion yen, based on sales prices of the time when the piracy site was operated.

Mangamura has been around since at least February 2016, according to complaints and plaintiffs’ lawyer.

But the former operator was found guilty of violating copyright law and other charges, and the website was closed in 2018.

Approximately 73,000 volumes of 8,200 titles of popular manga and magazines were illegally posted on the website before it was shut down. 

The site was accessed up to 100 million times a month in those days. The total damages are estimated at around 320 billion yen.

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