China Cracks Down on Pirated Japanese Content

BEIJING, Mar 04 (News On Japan) - A Chinese court has delivered guilty verdicts to three individuals, two men and a woman in their thirties, for operating what is considered the largest piracy site for Japanese anime based in China.

The court in Jiangsu Province handed down suspended prison sentences in December last year, which became final on March 3rd. According to the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an industry group with Japanese anime companies as members, the site known as 'B9GOOD' offered a vast array of Japanese anime, movies, and dramas for free viewing. The site, which was shut down last year, had garnered over 300 million accesses during its two years of operation.

The main perpetrator had been running the site for profit since 2008, utilizing servers in China, Canada, and Japan for about 15 years. The court found that the site had distributed over 45,000 videos without permission, earning approximately 37 million yen in advertising revenue. As piracy sites increasingly shift their bases overseas, this case marks the first instance where criminal penalties have been imposed abroad as a result of Japan's intervention. CODA played a pivotal role by providing information on the operators to Chinese authorities, leading to the crackdown. CODA asserts that it will continue to take strict measures against the illicit use of Japanese content.

Source: NHK

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