You grow up and you calm down, and you’re working for the clampdown!
Earlier today, Japanese internet provider NTT announced that they will block access to three sites dedicated to piracy. The company declined to name the specific sites that will be blocked in the press release, though business newspaper Nikkei notes that they will focus on anime and manga piracy. NTT did note that they will uphold the ban as a “short-term emergency measure” as soon as preparations are complete. The blockade will be upheld until updated legislation regarding the practice is passed through the Japanese government.
The full text is below:
NTT Group has made efforts to provide safe and secure Internet usage environment. Based on requests from content provider organizations and “On how to deal with anti-piracy measures on the Internet” determined at the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters / Crime Measures Ministerial Meeting held on April 13, 2018, NTT Communications shares The company, NTT DoCoMo, Inc., NTT Plala, Inc., will decide to block for 3 sites of piracy as a short-term emergency measure until the legal system on site blocking is upgraded, as soon as preparation is completed We will carry out.
In addition, we would like the government to improve the legal system as soon as possible.
The news comes shortly after last week’s shutdown of piracy hub Mangamura, and the recent inaccessibility of anime piracy site AniTube.
On April 17, Mangamura was taken offline. The Asahi Shimbun reported at the time that the shutdown was brought about by the administrators, and that both the main server and the external image server (which hosted scans and other images) were taken offline.
A day later, pirated anime site AniTube was rendered inaccessible. Attempts to connect to the site are met with a Cloudflare error, which notes that the host site is inaccessible due to a Bad Gateway.
Both sites were named by the Japanese government as one of three sites that should be blocked by internet providers for their heavy involvement in distributing pirated materials. MioMio was the other site named. The naming came about on April 13, when the government put out the formal request to block illegal distributors. Though the request is informal as of press time, the Diet plans to introduce a bill in 2019, which will expand on a site-blocking law aimed at child pornography distributors.
