Cloudflare loses court battle and must pay $3.2M to Japanese publishers over manga piracy sites

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Recent weeks have seen significant internet disruptions. First, a large outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused problems for many online services in October. Then, just a few days ago, Cloudflare experienced its own issues, briefly interrupting platforms like ChatGPT and X before being resolved. Adding to Cloudflare’s challenges, they’ve also been legally required to pay over $3.2 million to Japanese publishers due to their services being used by websites illegally distributing manga.

Tokyo court rules against Cloudflare

Cloudflare is an American company focused on making websites and online services reliable and secure. A key part of what they do is operate a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This means they store website data on servers in various locations globally, allowing visitors to access content quickly from a server near them, rather than relying on the website’s main server.

A Tokyo court has ruled that Cloudflare must pay approximately US$3.2 million (500 million yen) to several large Japanese publishing companies. The court determined that Cloudflare’s services unintentionally supported manga piracy by providing its content delivery network (CDN) to websites illegally distributing manga.

Four major publishing companies – Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Kadokawa – filed a lawsuit after illegal websites began sharing popular manga like One Piece and Attack on Titan without authorization. The Tokyo District Court ruled that using a content delivery network (CDN) helped these sites spread content rapidly, and that Cloudflare failed to adequately verify the identities of the website operators when they registered for services.

Despite being notified about copyright violations, Cloudflare continued to support websites illegally sharing content, which the court determined they should have stopped. Ultimately, the court ruled in favor of three publishers and ordered Cloudflare to pay over 500 million yen in damages. Legal experts believe this is the first instance of a company being held financially responsible solely for providing CDN services to sites engaged in piracy.

Cloudflare explained that CDN companies like themselves can’t remove content they don’t actually store on their servers. They also cautioned that this decision could create a dangerous pattern worldwide, potentially harming internet security and performance. Cloudflare intends to fight the ruling, believing that protecting their legal limits is crucial for maintaining a free and secure internet.

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2025-11-20 13:03