The Tokyo District Court recently ruled that US CDN provider Cloudflare is partially liable for copyright damages caused by illegal manga websites using the service. We summarize.
Publishers receive compensation
Back in February 2022, the Japanese publishing houses Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan and KADOKAWA filed a lawsuit against Cloudflare. They accused the CDN provider of making the content of various illegal manga websites accessible to users and supporting the anonymity of the operators.
Some Japanese media also reported that Cloudflare had entered into agreements with major illegal manga websites to make their content available in Japan. The affected platforms are said to offer around 4,000 works and receive more than 300 million views per month.
Almost four years later, the Tokyo District Court concluded that Cloudflare was actually liable for the damage caused.
As a result, the four publishers were awarded total damages of 3.6 billion yen (around 20 million euros). However, since only part of this was demonstrably attributable to Cloudflare, the court ultimately set the damages payment at 500 million yen (around 2.8 million euros).
In a joint statement, the four publishers expressed satisfaction with the verdict and emphasized that this was an important step in curbing the misuse of CDN services. At the same time, they emphasized that such services are certainly valuable – provided they serve the purpose »Reliable and efficient delivery of legitimate content to users«.
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Via Comic Natalie
© 2010 Rei Hiroe, Shogakukan / BLACK LAGOON Production Committee
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