Copyright Infringement Kyoto Prefectural Police Conducts Simultaneous Intensive Control of “leech Site”

The Cyber Investigation Division of the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters and the Yamashina Police Station conducted a simultaneous and intensive crackdown on five “leech sites”.

A total of five sites were subject to the crackdown this time, including “Eiga no Muryo Doga de Yumegokochi,” which was one of the largest video leech sites with servers located in Japan. Four males between the ages of 40 and 59 (one operating two sites) were each arrested by May 8, 2023. A “leech site” is a site that directs the public to illegally uploaded infringing content. The men operated leech sites for a variety of content, including Western and Japanese films, theatrical animation, and TV dramas.

Since the copyright law was revised in 2020 to regulate leech sites, CODA is aware of the following cases, including this one.

Day of arrestLaw enforcement authorityMain contentsAnnouncementSubject of arrest
(Age at time of arrest)
This arrest by Kyoto Prefectural Police
1May 8, 2023Kyoto Prefectural PoliceMovieCODA/JVAMale (age 59) ,Kyoto
2–Kyoto Prefectural PoliceTV dramaMale (age 52), Osaka
3–Kyoto Prefectural Police
4–Kyoto Prefectural PolicemovieMale (age 42), Saga
5–Kyoto Prefectural PoliceAnimeMale (age 40), Tokyo
Cases of arrests that CODA is aware of since the leech site regulations were put in place.
1Nov. 19, 2020Kyoto Prefectural Policeadult videoIPPAMale (age 47) ,Osaka
Male (age 44) ,Kyoto
2Jan. 24, 2022Tokyo Metropolitan Police Departmentadult anime Male (age 37) ,Ibaraki
3Feb. 1, 2022Gunma Prefectural PolicemovieCODAMale (age 50), Osaka
4Feb. 3, 2022Tokyo Metropolitan Police DepartmentcomicSHOGAKUKAN Inc.Male (age 34), Saitama
5July 7, 2022Gunma Prefectural PolicemovieCODAMale (age 51), Yamagata
6Sep. 29, 2022Hokkaido Prefectural PoliceAnimeCODAMale (age 57), Tokyo
7Nov. 15, 2022
Nov. 29, 2022		Miyagi Prefectural Policeadult videoIPPAMale (age 50), Tokyo
Company operated by ↑

The two leech sites exposed in this case were linking to the B9GOOD video, which was shut down in March of this year after CODA filed criminal charges in China.

Of the criminally uncovered sites, “Eiga no Muryo Doga de Yumegokochi,” which attracted the largest traffic, had an average of 2 million hits per month from March 2021 to February 2023, according to a Similarweb survey. As far as CODA is aware, “Eiga no Muryo Doga de Yumegokochi” was launched under a different domain around 2011, and after multiple site freezes, the site has been operating under its current domain since around 2015.
As of January 2022, at least 20,000 foreign, Japanese, and theatrical animation videos were presented in large numbers.
The operator of the site is believed to have been profiting from the large number of advertisements, mainly of an adult nature, that were placed on the site.

Top page of “Eiga no Muryo Doga de Yumegokochi” (some images processed)

The operator of the “Eiga no Muryo Doga de Yumegokochi” website, who was arrested on May 8, had uploaded video data including “Kamen Rider Revise” (copyrighted by TOEI COMPANY, LTD. and six other companies) and “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” (copyrighted by TOHO CO., LTD. and four other companies) to an overseas server and provided links to these video data on the “Free Movie Videos” website to induce users to watch them.

Some leech sites claim they are merely providing links, not hosting illegal uploads themselves, and that they are not responsible for content removal requests, advising users to contact the source of the illegal uploads instead. However, it is often difficult for users to access illegal content without these sites, which effectively ‘direct’ them to it. We believe that leech sites that generate advertising revenue by collecting such links are just as malicious as pirate sites.

CODA will continue to work for the proper protection of copyrights and the promotion of sound authorized distribution.

(translated by automatic translation system)

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