Photo/Illutration Japanese manga books are available for free on this pirate site. (Provided by ABJ)

Pirated Japanese publications available for free on websites worldwide cause an estimated 8.5 trillion yen ($55.2 billion) in damage a year to the domestic industry, a survey showed.

The figure is nearly six times the size of Japan’s publishing market last year, and the majority of the stolen content is manga, ABJ, a general incorporated association that conducted the survey, said.

ABJ, an anti-piracy organization, consists of publishers and organizations, including Shueisha Inc., Kodansha Ltd. and LY Corp.

For the survey, ABJ analyzed data from 913 pirate websites and examined country-specific access numbers and average visit durations for the month of June.

According to the results, the 913 sites were accessed a total of 2.85 billion times from 123 countries and regions, with a combined viewing time of 700 million hours.

Assuming one comic book priced at 500 yen could be read in 30 minutes, ABJ estimated the damage for June alone was 704.8 billion yen, equivalent to 1.4 billion manga books that were not paid for.

This amounts to 8.5 trillion yen a year, nearly six times the 1.5 trillion-yen size of Japan’s publishing market in 2024.

By country, Indonesian viewers caused the most damage in June, at 92.3 billion yen, followed by Japanese at 83.4 billion yen, and those in the United States at 79.1 billion yen.

English was the most commonly used language on these sites, followed by Japanese and Chinese.

“Most of the site operators are based overseas, and we hope to work with the government to pursue criminal investigations abroad,” an ABJ representative said.

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