Attack on Titan & Naruto Publishers Win Copyright Case Against Cloudflare

In a landmark decision shaking the Japanese manga industry, the Tokyo District Court has ruled that Cloudflare must pay over ¥500 million (approximately 103 million THB) in damages to four major manga publishers. Shueisha, Kadokawa, Kodansha, and Shogakukan filed the lawsuit in 2022, claiming that Cloudflare “facilitated” access to pirated content for popular manga titles such as Attack on Titan, Naruto, One Piece, and others, which were illegally read between 70 million and 2 billion times per month during 2020–2021.

Although Cloudflare argued that it merely provided content delivery services without directly publishing the material, the court concluded that caching and distributing pirated content to users in Japan, despite repeated takedown notices, constituted an unfair impact on copyright holders. This ruling underscores that digital infrastructure providers may bear responsibility if they enable copyright infringement, even indirectly.

The decision is not only a major victory for the manga publishers but also sets a precedent in Japan’s digital copyright law. It raises critical questions about the responsibilities of internet service providers in distinguishing between neutral service provision and actively facilitating copyright violations in the digital age.

Source: automaton