The Tokyo District Court - according to information available from open sources - has found Cloudflare, one of the world’s leading Content Delivery Network (CDN) service providers, liable for aiding and abetting copyright infringement in manga works enjoying extensive international circulation, including One Piece and Attack on Titan. The action was brought by the so-called “Big Four” of Japanese publishing: Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan.
The proceedings stemmed from the activities of two major pirate websites that unlawfully distributed more than 4,000 manga titles, collectively attracting in excess of 300 million visits per month. These websites made use of Cloudflare’s CDN services, which enabled the rapid and cost-efficient dissemination of content while simultaneously concealing the identity of the origin servers.
According to the Court, Cloudflare’s liability does not lie in the mere provision of CDN technology per se, but rather in the manner in which the service was offered - specifically, the absence of adequate Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and the failure to respond effectively to repeated notifications of copyright infringement.
The Court reportedly held that the decision to simplify access to services by dispensing with meaningful customer identity verification afforded the operators of pirate sites a high degree of anonymity, thereby rendering ordinary enforcement actions by rightsholders largely ineffective.
On this basis, the Court denied the applicability of the “safe harbour” protections under Japanese law, namely the Information Distribution Platform Safety Act, finding that Cloudflare was aware of the unlawful nature of the facilitated activities and technically capable of discontinuing the service. Consequently, Cloudflare was ordered to pay approximately 500 million yen by way of damages.
The ruling forms part of a broader international debate on the liability of digital intermediaries and displays clear points of convergence with the European regulatory framework. Within the European Union, the Digital Services Act and the Copyright Directive likewise strengthen platforms’ duties of diligence and cooperation, curtailing access to liability exemptions where the intermediary plays more than a purely passive role or fails to act in the face of manifest infringements.
In Italy, moreover, AGCOM has recently imposed on Cloudflare an administrative fine exceeding €14 million for breach of the national anti-piracy legislation (Law No. 93/2023), due to the company’s failure to comply with the Authority’s order to disable access to unlawful content reported by rightsholders through the Piracy Shield platform or, in any event, to adopt the technological and organizational measures necessary to render such unlawfully disseminated content inaccessible to end users. The measure confirms that, under Italian law as well, an intermediary’s failure to act in the face of clear and timely orders may result in direct liability for the continued dissemination of pirated content.
Attorney-at-Law Maria Eleonora Nardocci and Dr. Emanuela Laganà
