U.S. Takes The Top Spot For Manga Piracy Worldwide
Japanese comics, better called “manga”, have seen a surge in global popularity over the past few years, with fans across the world eagerly consuming content from a wide range of genres. However, this growing demand has also created a breeding ground for piracy, and the U.S. remains at the forefront of this illegal distribution chain.
A recent report from UK-based piracy tracking company MUSO has shed light on the extent of manga piracy in the world. The data shows that the United States of America is the leading contributor to manga piracy, responsible for generating over 13% of the total piracy traffic worldwide.
With this, America is now the world’s biggest offender when it comes to manga piracy. The report also reveals that the global phenomenon of manga has driven publishing piracy to new heights, producing more pirate site visits than film piracy in recent years.
While traditional book publishers have been very active on the anti-piracy front, more than two-thirds of all publishing pirates (69.2%) are drawn to manga sites. According to the available data on MUSO’s website, illegal manga piracy websites have received over 43 billion visits in the past couple of years.
MUSO’s report also highlights the most pirated TV shows of 2023, with eight out of the 10 top-ranked titles belonging to anime. Needless to say, piracy continued to rise globally in 2023 across all content categories and sharing of manga titles continues to thrive online as well.
Despite the growing availability of legal options, online piracy remains rampant. Hence, distributors of all media are taking different avenues to combat digital piracy, including legal actions against piracy websites to officially releasing free weekly chapters, all in the hopes of driving consumers toward licensed channels.
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Via: MUSO, TorrentFreak
