Cloudflare and the $3.3 Million Manga Piracy Claim: What Really Happened
Tokyo District Court orders Cloudflare to pay 500 million yen—about $3.3 million—to Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa for aiding two major manga piracy sites despite repeated infringement notices.
A Tokyo judge just handed Japan’s biggest manga publishers a win against Cloudflare, and it’s a shot across the bow for anyone running internet plumbing and pretending they’re not involved.
What happened
On November 19, 2025, the Tokyo District Court ruled that Cloudflare helped two major manga piracy sites keep operating, even after repeated copyright complaints. The court ordered Cloudflare to pay 500 million yen (roughly $3.2-$3.3 million) to Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan, and Kadokawa.
How Cloudflare ended up on the hook
The publishers argued the two sites were not small-time: together they listed more than 4,000 manga titles without permission and were pulling in over 300 million visits every month. According to their filings, Cloudflare kept providing services despite multiple takedown notices and even kept going after a U.S. court asked for information tied to copyright violations.
The court focused on how a CDN can be more than just a neutral cache. By sitting between users and origin servers, Cloudflare made it harder to trace who was actually running the piracy sites or where those servers lived. The judge said Cloudflare should have verified who it was doing business with and been willing to cut service when the red flags piled up. Not doing that crossed a line.
The court characterized Cloudflare’s inaction after clear warnings as 'assisting in copyright infringement'.
Why this is a big deal
This is the first time in Japan a CDN has been found liable for aiding piracy. Translation: infrastructure companies can’t shrug off copyright complaints and hide behind the 'we just move bits' argument. If they ignore credible notices, they could end up writing checks too.
Worth noting: the publishers aren’t anti-CDN. They actually point out that CDNs are essential for legit distribution of books, movies, and everything else on the internet. The complaint is about how those same tools get weaponized when customer vetting is weak and response times are slow.
What the court expected Cloudflare to do
- Verify who the customers were behind the piracy sites instead of letting them stay anonymous
- Suspend services when obvious infringement was reported multiple times
- Respond meaningfully to rights-holder notices and related court requests, including the one out of the U.S.
What changes now
If this precedent holds, expect CDNs and other backbone services to take a harder look at customers who trigger copyright complaints. For piracy operators, staying hidden gets tougher and potentially more expensive if providers start cutting off help faster.
Short version: this ruling doesn’t kill manga piracy outright, but it makes the playing field a lot less friendly for the biggest sites—and it gives rights holders a clearer path to pressure the infrastructure that keeps those sites alive.