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Tokyo Court Hits Cloudflare with $500M Copyright Ruling

11/22/2025

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Summary

Story summary

The Tokyo District Court ordered Cloudflare Inc. to pay about 500 million yen for facilitating copyright violations by pirated manga websites.
Major publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan argued that Cloudflare's content delivery network enabled illegal distribution of their works, including "Attack on Titan" and "One Piece."
The court found that Cloudflare's services led to significant losses from illegal views, estimated at 70 million to 2 billion chapters monthly.
This ruling is the first in Japan holding a CDN operator accountable for distributing pirated content.

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Story summary

The Tokyo District Court ordered Cloudflare Inc. to pay about 500 million yen for facilitating copyright violations by pirated manga websites.
Major publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan argued that Cloudflare's content delivery network enabled illegal distribution of their works, including "Attack on Titan" and "One Piece."
The court found that Cloudflare's services led to significant losses from illegal views, estimated at 70 million to 2 billion chapters monthly.
This ruling is the first in Japan holding a CDN operator accountable for distributing pirated content.