Japanese manga has been growing in popularity worldwide, but so has piracy. Research has revealed a marked increase in manga piracy, with the Japan-based anti-piracy group Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ) stating that 100 new sites have appeared in just a month offering pirated copies of manga, TorrentFreak reported. The total number of pirate sites offering manga stands at around 1300. Together, all such sites are estimated to cost the manga industry a loss of around $800 million every month. Things have been terrible in May 2024 when losses were at their highest at $800 million.

“The amount of free reading per month on the top 10 English translation piracy sites alone amounts to 800 million US dollars, which is increasing yearly and requires immediate action,” ABJ stated.

As part of efforts to create awareness against manga piracy, ABJ ran newspaper ads in the US, Italy, Spain, and France. The ads that appeared in publications such as the New York Times, La Repubblica, El Pais, and Le Monde have taken a different approach to tackling piracy. Instead of highlighting the negative aspects of piracy with the hope of luring readers to opt for genuine copies of manga out of fear, the ad thanked those readers who have bought genuine manga copies.

Meanwhile, of the 1,332 sites ABJ said have been offering pirated versions of manga, many are in Japanese, though most cater to English-speaking audiences. Following suit are sites in Spanish, Russian, and Chinese languages. ABJ, however, stated their efforts towards combating piracy have also yielded results, with the segment recording a 25 percent decline in online piracy between 2022 and 2023. This can be attributed to aggressive measures such as lawsuits and arrests pursued by publishers against perpetrators of piracy, something that no doubt will also be followed with even more zeal in the coming days.