Oct 30, 2024 12:00:00

Shueisha requests information disclosure from Google, PayPal, and VISA to expose eight pirate sites

By

Nina

Shueisha, the publisher of Weekly Shonen Jump, has filed a legal action in a US court demanding that Google, PayPal, and VISA disclose information about pirate sites that allow unauthorized downloads of manga.

Shueisha Hunts Manga Pirates But Needs Google, PayPal & VISA to Assist * TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/shueisha-hunts-manga-pirates-but-needs-google-paypal-visa-to-assist-241029/

28 US Code § 1782 provides that a party overseas seeking to bring a lawsuit may request disclosure of evidence from a third party, such as a US company; such a procedure is known as ' discovery .'

Shueisha has previously used the discovery system to ask Google for information in order to sue the pirate site Manga BANK.

Shueisha requests Google to disclose information to sue pirate site 'Manga BANK' - GIGAZINE

Prior to this request for disclosure of information, Shueisha had filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint with Cloudflare in April 2024 to obtain information about the operators of pirate sites that were illegally distributing Shueisha's manga.

According to TorrentFreak, a news site that deals with information on digital copyrights, privacy, file sharing, etc., pirate sites typically operate their sites through Cloudflare's services.

As a result of Shueisha's appeal being accepted, Cloudflare provided a large amount of information about 24 domains that were distributing the manga 'One Piece' and other works without permission, including several domains that reportedly received tens of millions of monthly hits.

The information disclosed by Cloudflare included seven Gmail addresses associated with the following eight copyright infringing domains, the transaction histories of four PayPal accounts and four VISA cards used to make payments to Cloudflare, and four Google AdSense accounts.

“mangakoma01.net,” “mangarawjp.asia,” “mangaraw.onl,” “mangarawjp.onl,” “spoilerplus.net,” “rawkuma.com,” “truyenqqvn.com,” and “mangaspoiler.net.”

TorrentFreak said the information 'appears to indicate a connection between the operator and other domains,' suggesting that a single operator was likely running multiple copyright infringing sites.

Shueisha plans to file a lawsuit in Japan seeking damages once it has obtained anonymous personally identifiable information (PII) related to the identities of the operators of the pirate sites through the current discovery procedures against Google, PayPal, and VISA.

In documents submitted to the court, Shueisha said, 'The applicant plans to file a civil lawsuit against the anonymous individual in Japan seeking damages for copyright infringement under Article 709 of the Civil Code, an injunction under Article 112, Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Act, and damages and an injunction under Article 3, Paragraphs 1 and 4 of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.'