In recent months, due to collaborative efforts between anti-piracy organizations from various countries and government organizations, several anime piracy websites based in Brazil and Vietnam were shut down. In addition, a website based in the U.S. that allegedly hosts pirated Japanese adult content is also being sued for copyright infringement.

CODA Works with Brazil to Shut Down 16 Anime Piracy Websites Through “Operation Anime”

Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an organization that aims to reduce worldwide piracy and actively promote the international distribution of Japanese content, revealed on August 26 that through a criminal complaint filed by a CODA member company, several Japanese anime piracy websites in Brazil were exposed in April and subsequently shut down. These sites had subtitled anime in Portuguese, and had region-locked Japanese IP addresses from accessing the websites, ostensibly to keep the Japanese rights holders from discovering the sites.

Brazil had launched an “Operation 404” public-private initiative in 2019 to combat piracy. As part of the initiative, it carried out an “Operation Anime,” with “Phase 2” of that operation starting around September 2023.

As part of the “Phase 2,” Toei Animation, TOHO, and Bandai Namco Filmworks filed criminal complaints through CODA against several piracy websites in Brazil. Three sites were shut down as a result. Investigations also led to three other websites (the report named these sites as animeshouse.net, animesbr.cc, and meuanime.io) and 10 related sites being shut down. CODA stated the 16 sites had an average monthly traffic of about 21 million visits for the three months between November 2023 and January 2024. 11 of those 16 sites have voluntarily transferred domains to authorities and now display a message from CODA about being shut down.

As part of the “Phase 2” operations, CODA also collaborated with the Copyright Overseas promotion Association (COA) of South Korea. Together the organizations targeted eight websites: three sites were exposed through a CODA member company and five websites were exposed that had pirated webtoons.

Phase 1 of the operation was conducted from February to March 2023, which CODA stated resulted in the shutdown of 36 anime piracy websites.

Shut Down of Fmovies, Aniwave, AnimeSuge

The news website Torrent Freak reported on August 27 that several non-anime piracy websites such as Fmovies and anime piracy sites such as AnimeSuge and Aniwave (formerly 9anime) had shut down. Aniwave had posted on Reddit in late August that it had shut down its website. Reddit users similarly noted in late August that the AnimeSuge site had been shut down. ANN can confirm that several anime piracy domains with URLs that have AnimeSuge or Aniwave in them have surfaced since the two websites shut down and are still accessible as of press time.

Torrent Freak noted the original Aniwave had roughly 170 million visits a month before it was shut down.

A few days after Torrent Freak’s reporting, the American-based Motion Picture Association’s Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) anti-piracy group stated it worked with the Hanoi police in Vietnam to shut down Fmovies and “numerous other notorious piracy sites.” ACE stated the Hanoi-based operation that ran Fmovies had associated pirate sites that included Aniwave. ACE claimed that Fmovies, Aniwave, and other associated piracy sites that were involved in the operation had nearly 374 million combined monthly visits and more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024.

PRC Distributing Sues nHentai for Copyright Infringement

The California-based company PCR Distributing filed a lawsuit on August 30 for copyright infringement against the adult site nHentai. PCR Distributing states that it operates under DBA JAST USA, and claimed in the lawsuit that nHentai distributes “thousands” of pirated works, including five registered works owned by PCR Distributing. PCR Distributing stated nHentai has not attempted to comply with previous DMCA takedown notices, and noted in the lawsuit that nHentai does not rely on user-generated or user-uploaded content. The lawsuit claimed nHentai averaged around 79.38 million monthly visitors in July 2024, with visitors from the United States and Japan making up the largest market.

The lawsuit is seeking compensation for damages, and is also seeking to block access to the website from users in the U.S., among other requests that would effectively shut down the website and transfer the domain to PCR Distributing.

The case is ongoing and a hearing is scheduled for October 30.

Sources: CODA (link 2), PACER, ACE, Torrent Freak (link 2, Ernesto Van der Sar)