Four individuals who were arrested in 2023 on suspicion of involvement with B9GOOD, a pirated anime website targeting the Japanese audience, have been found guilty.
As noted by CBR, the Japanese anti-piracy trade group Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) announced on March 4, 2024 that the operators of the Chinese anime website, which had over 95% of its 300 million visitors from Japan, were prosecuted successfully for copyright infringement.
On December 26, 2023, the People’s Court of Taizhou Pharmaceutical High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, Jiangsu Province, sentenced “Male A” to three years in prison, suspended for three years and six months, and fined him 1.8 million yuan ($250,000) for copyright infringement.
Male A admitted being guilty and apologised, leading to a reduced sentence. “Female B”, paid by Male A to upload content without permission, received a one-year suspended sentence, while “Female D” got eight months suspended for the same offence. “Male C”, also involved, was exempted from punishment as stipulated by the Chinese Criminal Law.
Male A ran the piracy site for 15 years, changing its name and domain multiple times. The site hosted 45,880 illegal uploads, and Male A earned 1,777,000 yuan ($246,000) from ads. Chinese authorities arrested Male A in February 2023 and investigated Female B, Female D, and Male C in subsequent weeks. The Public Security Bureau seized a 4 million yuan ($555,000) house bought with site earnings.
In September, CODA sentenced a Japanese man to two years in prison for monetising let’s plays on YouTube featuring the visual novel Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace, as well as creating summary videos of episodes from the Steins;Gate and Spy x Family anime shows.
Got any news tips, or want to discuss a possible story? Email us at ign_india@ign.com
Rayan Sayyed is a staff writer for IGN India with a primary focus on Asian entertainment spanning from anime, manga, games to films and dramas from the East. You can reach out to him at rayan_sayyed@ign.com, or find him on Twitter @rayanaver and Instagram @rayansayyed.
