Lost revenue from illegal online viewing of Japanese manga and other publications worldwide was estimated at around ¥8.5 trillion (US$5.5bil/RM230bil) a year, highlighting the extent of damage caused to rights holders by piracy websites.
Kyodo news reported that anti-piracy group ABJ examined access numbers and viewing times for 913 websites for the month of June and found that the sites offering unauthorised access to Japanese comics, novels and photo books received about 2.8 billion visits during the period from users in 123 countries and regions, with total viewing time reaching around 700 million hours.
Losses for rights holders were estimated at ¥704.8bil (RM21bil), calculated based on the assumption that users finish reading a 500-yen (RM13.60) book in 30 minutes.
This would translate to roughly ¥8.5 trillion a year, according to the group formed by members from the publishing, e-book distribution and related sectors.
The issue of piracy websites has long been a major headache for Japanese publishers, artists and authors as new sites continue to emerge, with many often changing their domains to evade detection.
By country, Indonesia recorded the largest share of total viewing time of illegal manga at 12.8%, followed by Japan at 12.4% and the United States at 11.2%, the study showed. — Bernama
