Study Benchmarking and Tracking
Online Film & TV Piracy in Japan

September 2019
Photonic System Solutions Inc. (PSS)Contents

Chapter 1: Purpose of the survey ................................................................... 3
Chapter 2: Survey Overview .......................................................................... 4
2.1 Overview of piracy sites and apps ...................................................................... 4
2.2 Outline of piracy sites ..................................................................................... 5
2.3 Outline of piracy app survey ............................................................................. 8

Chapter 3: Investigation method and results ................................................. 10
3.1 Quantitative analysis of a piracy site and the application ..................................... 10
3.1.1 Investigation method of the piracy site ....................................................................... 10

3.1.1.1 Classification of the piracy site ............................................................................ 10
3.1.1.2 Listing method of piracy sites .............................................................................. 14
3.1.1.3 How to select piracy sites for investigation ........................................................... 15
3.1.2 Findings about the piracy site ................................................................................... 19

3.1.2.1 Listing of piracy sites in Japan............................................................................. 19
3.1.2.2 A type and contents of piracy sites ...................................................................... 21
3.1.2.3 Server setting country of piracy sites ................................................................... 22
3.1.3 Investigation method about the piracy application ....................................................... 23
3.1.4 Investigation result of piracy applications ................................................................... 24

3.1.4.1 List of piracy applications in Japan....................................................................... 24
3.1.4.2 Types and contents of piracy applications............................................................. 25
3.1.4.3 Number of downloads of piracy apps..................................................................... 26

3.2 Time-series analysis of piracy sites.................................................................. 27
3.2.1 Method ................................................................................................................... 27
3.2.2 Survey results .......................................................................................................... 29

3.2.2.1 Monthly visits to 624 piracy sites ........................................................................ 29
3.2.2.2 Total time spent on piracy sites........................................................................... 33
3.2.2.3 Number of unique users on piracy sites ................................................................ 36

3.3 Content viewing situation survey results for students ......................................... 41
3.3.1 Survey Overview ...................................................................................................... 41
3.3.2 Type of a device and for the viewing of video contents ................................................ 41
3.3.3 Video content replay from a PC................................................................................. 421

3.3.4 Viewing video content from mobile device .................................................................. 43
3.3.5 Recognition of the origin of delivery of contents ......................................................... 43

3.4 Summary of Chapter 3 ................................................................................... 44
3.4.1 Quantitative analysis of a piracy site and application in Japan ...................................... 44
3.4.2 Trends over time in piracy sites ................................................................................ 45
3.4.3 Content viewing situation survey results for students .................................................. 45

Chapter 4: Analysis of Survey Results ........................................................... 47
4.1 Features of piracy sites in Japan ..................................................................... 47
4.1.1 Scale of piracy sites as seen from comparison with regular sites ................................... 47
4.1.2 Trends by type of piracy sites ................................................................................... 48

4.2 Features of piracy apps in Japan...................................................................... 49
4.3 Anti-piracy measures by the Japanese government in April 2018 .......................... 49
4.4 The piracy use situation in CDN ..................................................................... 52
4.5 About the function to support the creation of piracy sites ................................... 53
4.5.1 Example of building a P2P site................................................................................... 53
4.5.2 Example of building an Online Reading site................................................................. 54

4.6 Countermeasures for future piracy sites ........................................................... 55
4.7 Summary of Chapter 4 ................................................................................... 55

Chapter 5: Survey Summary ........................................................................ 57
References .................................................................................................. 59

2

Chapter 1: Purpose of the survey
Viewing movies, animations, TV programs, and manga via the Internet isincreasingly expanding due to the high speed and large capacity of communication lines
and the spread of mobile information terminals. In this situation, pirated content
illegally copied without the permission of the rights holder is frequently uploaded andreleased on the Internet. In addition, piracy distribution forms, such as a Leech sites,
which provides only links to content files, P2P services, which directly exchanges files
between terminals, and smartphone apps that have these functions are becoming more
and more advanced.
In particular, in 2018, a piracy comic site that could be visited casually by many
general users emerged, but was closed as it became a as a social issue. These sites arecharacterized by the fact that it is difficult to identify the operation manager and evento request the removal of infringing contents, so that it is difficult to counter withconventional piracy countermeasures. As an emergency countermeasure against suchmalicious piracy sites, the study of site blocking by ISPs has started at the Intellectual
Property Headquarters of the Cabinet Office, but the discussions have not been
finalized and legislation has not been achieved.
Therefore, even today, only a small amount of pirated content is actually deleted
following the individual claims of the right holder. For this reason, it has not yet beenpossible to fundamentally stop the loss of profits due to viewing by an unspecified
number of end users. On the other hand, stricter penalties have been strengthened ona limited basis, such as criminal punishment for end users that download content whileknowing it is a pirated version. However, in reality, this only a general awarenesscampaign.
Based on this situation, the purpose of this report is to:① Measure the landscape of the most frequently accessed piracy sites / apps inJapan, with movies, TV, anime, manga (comic) content② Provide analysis on trends in the use of these sites/apps in Japan over last twoyears
To support discussion about the best policies for reducing online piracy in Japan.
This report has been prepared by Photonic System Solutions Inc. for the Motion
Picture Association (MPA) - Asia Pacific and the Japan and International Motion
Picture Copyright Association, Inc. (JIMCA). We hope that this report will be useful infuture inquiries and discussions with the government, copyright holders, and the press.

3Chapter 2: Survey Overview
As outlined in the objectives, we listed piracy sites and apps that are often used inJapan, and quantified their characteristics and investigated and analyzed their usage
trends.

2.1 Overview of piracy sites and apps
The outline of piracy sites and apps we reviewed is as follows.
[Research period]
This research was conducted during the following period.
From April 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019
[Content to be surveyed]
We surveyed sites and apps that contain one or more of the following four types ofpiracy contents, whether it was domestic or international content.
Table 2-1 Content Type Definition
Content typeFilm
TV program (TV)Definition
Movies screened in movie theaters, including Western andJapanese films. Includes animated movies.
TV programs such as dramas and variety. Does not include
movies and anime. Includes overseas dramas and variety show

Anime

Animation other than movies

Manga

Comics and comic magazines[How to get site and app features]
Features such as the number of visits to sites and apps were acquired from
SimilarWeb, a website traffic measurement company [1].
[Survey period]
In order to investigate trends in piracy sites and apps, the survey was conducted4

for the following two years using the above-mentioned SimilarWeb service.
July 1, 2017-July 31, 2019

2.2 Outline of piracy sites
The outline of the piracy sites is as follows.
[Survey sites]
The survey was conducted by classifying the piracy sites where the surveyed video
contents were posted or stored without permission into the following five types.
Table 2-2 Definition of piracy site types
Site typeDefinition

P2P site (P2P)

Sites that provide torrent files for downloading
piracy content using the peer-to-peer method.

Streaming site

Sites that have the ability to play pirated video
content within the site, and content files often
exist on other sites.

Online Reading site

Sites with the ability to browse pirated manga on
the site, and content files often exist on othersites.

Leech (link) site

Sites that do not have content files on their own
sites and that lead to other piracy sites or
download files from other sites.

Host (storage) site

Sites where files can be stored online and used
as place to store pirated content which isaccessed by leech sites and streaming sites.

The above classification is in accordance with the following survey classification.
In 2013, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's “FY2013 Intellectual
Property Rights Working Group Infringement Countermeasures Improvement
Project (Contents Piracy Countermeasures Survey) (Roland Berger
Implementation)”[2] conducted the actual situation of intellectual property rights
infringement on websites. In the METI survey, piracy sites were classified into thefollowing five types, with the site names of the piracy sites and the number of visitors
to according to SimilarWeb [1] listed. Table 2-3 shows the site types and features of5the METI survey. This survey was conducted as the position of planning and draftingof the Manga / Anime Piracy Countermeasure Project (MAGP), and then MAGP has
been carried out continuously.
Table 2-3 Site Type Characteristics and Number of Sites
in Content Piracy Countermeasures Survey (2013) (Created based on [2])Site type

Site features

Number of sites

Manga Online Reading

Reading Scan data published30

UGC site

Play in streaming format

65

Online storage

Select a URL on the reach siteand download the file to DL

24

Torrent site

Torrent file DL

33

Leech site

Guide to contents storage

59

In the 2013 survey, UGC sites were targeted, but this survey excludes UGC sites,
expect that sites that only handle pirated content or sites that have a category
where only pirated content is aggregated are included as streaming sites.
Streaming sites and Online Reading sites often do not have content files on theirsites, and are classified as Leech sites if classified broadly. In this survey, according
to the classification in the 2013 survey, the classification shown in the above table
was used to better understand the characteristics of piracy contents. Leech sites inthis survey were limited to sites that do not have content files on their own sites andthat do not have Streaming and Online Reading functions.
[Investigation procedure]
For the piracy site, the necessary data was collected and analyzed according to
the following procedures (1) to (5).
(1) List of piracy sites
Piracy site candidates were extracted by the following seven methods.
① Listing with the system database currently in operation by PSS② Past survey report data
③ Lumen database④ Google Transparency Report⑤ Site list by summary sites⑥ Use of SimilarWeb to find similar sites⑦ Result from search engines

6

(2) Narrow down piracy sites
The site extracted in (1) was confirmed, two types of search criteria
were performed, and survey target sites were determined.
Criteria work ①: Exclude sites that have been closed or not classified
as piracy sites
Criteria work ②: Use the number of monthly visits obtained from
SimilarWeb to narrow down to more than 100,000 monthly visits from
July 2017 to June 2019 in order to conduct the survey efficiently.
(3) Collection of basic data on piracy sites
Collected by accessing and confirming the basic data of the piracy sites
targeted for investigation narrowed down in (2).
① Site name
② URL
③ Site type
④ Main content types⑤ Site status(4) Collection of server country information on piracy sites
Information on the country of server installation of the piracy sites underinvestigation was collected by “Netcraft” [3].
(5) Collection of features during the survey period of piracy sites
The following feature values for each month of the survey period (July2017 to July 2019) were collected from SimilarWeb for the piracy sites thatwere the subject of the survey.
① Monthly visits② Average visit duration③ Monthly unique visitors④ Number of pages viewed per visit[Detailed survey procedure]
In June 2019, we picked up frequently visited piracy sites from the surveyed piracy
sites and conducted a detailed review.
(1) Collect detailed data with SimilarWeb

7(2) Collect data with “Alexa”(3) Collect data with “Netcraft”(4) Site feature report creation(5) Collect information on each site by FReCs List
(6) Obtain a list of popular URLs from SimilarWeb and create a list of popular
publications by matching the information in (5).
Detailed survey results are shown in Appendix 3.

2.3 Outline of piracy app survey
The outline of the piracy app survey is as follows.
[Survey application]
As with piracy sites, surveys were conducted by classifying piracy apps thatpublish surveyed content without permission.
Table 2-4 Piracy apps type definitions
App type
P2P App

Definition
An app that provides torrent files for downloading
piracy contents using the peer-to-peer method.

Streaming App

Apps with the ability to play piracy video contents

Online Reading App

Apps with the ability to browse piracy manga.

Leech App

Apps with functions to direct users to piracy sites anddownload content files.

[Investigation procedure]
For piracy apps, the necessary data was collected and analyzed according to thefollowing procedures (1) to (3). The following is described for Android OS, but thesame is true for iOS.
(1) List of piracy apps
Piracy apps candidates were extracted by the following five methods.
① Candidates are extracted by keyword search in the official store(Google Play)② Search YouTube for videos related to piracy apps and extract
candidates③ Extract candidates with Google search8

④ Extract candidates by keyword search in unofficial stores (Apksites, etc.)⑤ Search related apps on piracy sites on SimilarWeb and extract
candidates(2) These apps extracted in (1) were actually installed and videos were checked
to determine if there were a piracy app. The following basic data wascollected for apps judged to be piracy apps.
① App name
② App ID
③ App type
④ Main content types⑤ App status(3) Collecting feature values during the survey period of piracy apps
Regarding the piracy apps to be surveyed, the following feature values
for each month of the survey period (July 2017 to July 2019) werecollected from SimilarWeb.
① Number of monthly downloads② Number of service users per day per month③ Number of activations per user per month④ Monthly app usage rate

9

Chapter 3: Investigation method and results
In this chapter, we explain the investigation method and results of the actual
situation of a piracy site in Japan and the application. The analysis of the findings is
placed in the following chapter.

3.1 Quantitative analysis of a piracy site and the application
3.1.1 Investigation method of the piracy site
In this study, we conducted a quantitative investigation into the usage of piracy sites
from July 2017 to July 2019 (2 years). In this section, we explain the investigation
method.
3.1.1.1 Classification of the piracy site

We classified piracy sites in following five kinds and investigated it.
(1) P2P(2) Streaming(3) Online reading(4) Leech(5) Host
The methods for storing pirated files can be broadly classified. Sites (2) to (4) do notstore files in their own sites. For this reason, these are sometimes collectively called
reach sites.
This classification was based on the 2013 Intellectual Property Rights Working
Group Infringement Measures Strengthening Project (Contents Piracy
Countermeasures Survey) report.
In the following, the definition and mechanism of these sites in this study will be
described together in the configuration diagram.
(1) P2P:P2P offers pirated contents to the user using a peer to peer method
communicating without a server between multiple terminals, and they arecalled “tracker sites”. The constitution example is shown in Figure 3-1.
When we access the P2P site and require a pirated file, we can download the“location information file” of the contents file called the torrent file. Basedon the information of the torrent file, the target file is received in pieces

10from other users' terminals that own the content file, and is constructed
into a pirated file for watching. It is torrent client software that control
these a series of movement. Torrent client software is legal but is a problem
when P2P site manage the torrent file. The pirated content includes many
animations, films, TV programs, wide variety of sites also list comics.
Step1: Retrieve torrent files
2. P2P site has
file location list

1. Access P2P sitewith browser

torrent://

3. File owners register
thier locations
torrent://

User
File owner
P2P site
torrent://

File location info

Step2: Retrieve piracy content files
4. Merge fragments and playcontent on user’s device

User
File ownertorrent://

1. Select file location
using torrent application

Torrent
application

torrent://

2. Retrieve data fragment
referring to location list

File location info
Data fragment

3. Download files fromfile owner’s device

Figure 3-1 Constitution of the P2P piracy site11

(2) Streaming:
A site with a function to play back the pirated video contents such asanimations, films, and TV programs from their site. The example is shown in
Figure 3-2. There are not pirated files on the streaming site itself, theactual files are often stored on host site (5). The user can watch content
regardless of whether files exists on a site.
In this investigation, video sharing sites (user generated content (UGC)
sites) were excluded, though piracy contents are often contributed by thegeneral audience. Once the category consisting only of piracy sites in the
UGC sites was confirmed, we classified them as a streaming site and added
it to the subject of survey.

Figure 3-2 Constitution of the Streaming site(3) Online Reading:
A site with a function to read the pirated edition contents such as comics
on the site. We show an example in Figure 3-3. Like a streaming site, thepirated files do not exist on the online reading site. The actual files are often
stored in the host site. Therefore, although it is structurally close to a
streaming site, it is classified as another category in that the target content
is a still image.

12

1. Access online reading sitewith browser

2. Access content filereferring to location list

User

3. User can read e-books withstill images embedded on thesite

File location list
Content file
Online reading site

Host

Figure 3-3 Constitution of the Online reading site(4) Leech:
A site to direct to the piracy site without having contents file its own site.
In this investigation, we define the site that does not have a streaming
function or an online reading function, as a leech site. The example of theserver is shown in Figure 3-4. When a user visits leech site, the link toanother site to watch pirated content is displayed. When a user clicks thelink, another site is opened and the user can watch contents and candownload the file.
2. Leech site tells user
hyperlink to file

3. User plays or downloads
contents stored in related
servers using browser

1. Access leech site
http://

Streaming site

http://

http://

Online reading site

Hyperlink to fileContent file
Leech site

Host

Figure 3-4 Figure of constitution of the Leech site13

(5) Host:
This is a storage site that can store files via the Internet. In this survey,
the storage site (Host) is the site used to store the pirated files of thestreaming and Leech sites mentioned above. (See Figures 3-2, 3-3, 3-4)
In addition, we classified the contents types of each pirated file in four kinds liketable 3-1.
Table 3-1 Definition of the contents typeContent typeDefinition

Film

Movies screened in movie theaters, including Westernand Japanese films. Includes animated movies.

TV program (TV)TV programs such as dramas and variety. Does notinclude movies and anime. Includes overseas dramas andvariety show

Anime

Animation works other than movies

Manga

Comics and comic magazines

Sites or apps where the content type could not be confirmed due to access issues
were identified as unidentified or unknown.
3.1.1.2 Listing method of piracy sites

We collected piracy sites with the seven following methods to list piracy sites.
① Listing by the system database that PSS is applying:
PSS develops FReCs© and software and, since the establishment of thebusiness in 2008, detects for illegally uploaded animation on the video
sharing site. We extract the target site using the database which this
FReCs© system manages.
② Past working papers data:
We extract it from MAGP (Manga-Anime Guardians Project) reports by
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
③ Lumen database:
Lumen (https://www.lumendatabase.org/) is the site that reportcontents of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) save it, and is14

shown. Therefore, we can extract piracy sites because the informationthat is listed as DMCA is collected in Lumen Database.
④ Google transparency report:
The transparency report of Google shows the data when thegovernment or a company are excluded from search results on Google
through the request from a user or a copyright holder. The information ofpiracy sites is included there.
⑤ Site list by the summary website:
A summary website or a bulletin board to search for piracy sites appear
when we search keywords such as “comics for free” or “raw movie”. We
investigate a site introduced in that.
⑥ Similar sites feature in SimilarWeb:
The candidate of similar sites are displayed when we search about aknown piracy site in SimilarWeb. These similar sites, are very likely to bea piracy site. We extract these. In addition, information on the inflow
source site or the outflow destination site was also referenced.
⑦ Results from search engines：
We investigated using search engines such as Google.
As a result of sites that we collected with the seven methods mentioned above, andhaving removed overlap, we created listing of the candidates of piracy sites of morethan 2,600.
3.1.1.3 How to select piracy sites for investigation

In the listing of 3.1.1.2, more than 2,600 cases were extracted even after duplicate
sites were deleted. However, some of these sites were not valid for this survey,
including sites that were already closed and sites that did not infringe copyright.
Therefore, narrowing was performed in two stages as shown in Figure. 3-5.

15

Primary listing based on the following sources:
1. PSS databases
5. Lists on roundup blogs (”matome sites”)
2. Past survey report data
6. SimilarWeb
3. Lumen database
7. Results from search engines
4. Transparency reports

over 2600 sites
1447 sites
Firstrefining

Secondrefining

This time we focused on

624 sites

Exclude the following sites:• Sites on porn, music or game
• Non-pirate sites• Sites without enough information

Exclude the following site:• With less than 100,000 monthly visits
in the past two years(According to stats by SimilarWeb)

Figure 3-5 Method of selecting piracy sites to be surveyed
Refinement ①: Excluding an inappropriate site, we made a piracy site list
* We excluded sites where copyright infringements are not obvious*We excluded sites handling only content that is not the subjects of thesurvey, including music / games*We excluded sites where piracy and other types are mixed, such as UGC
sites*We excluded porn sites*We excluded sites that were not suitable for an investigation; for example,
sites without concrete URLs.
Through the refinement work mentioned above, we reduced the site list from2,600 cases to 1,447.
Refinement ②: We extracted piracy sites with larger proportion of access fromJapan.
*Using SimilarWeb, we obtained monthly access from 1,447 piracy sites inJapan over the past two years (from July 2017 to July 2019), and selectedsites that exceeded 100,000 visits per month even once.

16

Of the 1,447 piracy sites, 624 were selected for this survey. The list of thesesubjects of survey piracy sites is shown in Appendix 1. We investigated items toshow in table 3-2 about these piracy sites that we extracted by the method
mentioned above and analyzed the result.
Table 3-2 Investigation items and investigation method of the piracy sites
Survey category

Survey method

Notes

Appendix 1 posted

Site name

Directly Checked〇

Site URL

Directly Checked〇

Site type

Directly Checked

P2P, Streaming,〇

Online Reading,
Leech, Host
Type of infringing

Directly Checked

Film, TV, Anime,

contents
Site status

〇

Manga
Directly Checked

active, not〇accessible, etc.
Number of monthly

SimilarWeb

visitors
Netblock Owner

Netcraft〇

Hosting Company

Netcraft〇

Country

NetcraftIf the Hosting〇

Company is unknown,
it was set to unknown
Monthly unique

SimilarWeb

visitors
how to access

SimilarWeb

Duration

SimilarWeb

Number of page views

SimilarWeb

Desktop, Mobile

per visit
Content list

FReCs©Listfor 14 piracy sites

Popular Page

SimilarWeb

for 14 piracy sites

details

for 14 piracy sites

When we acquired data of the use situation of piracy sites in Japan in Refinement 2,
we used a Similarweb paid account. We can investigate the items in the above table
including the number of access according to a country using Similarweb.
In addition, regarding the illegal content list in the last item, we selected 14 piracy
17

sites that have a particularly large number of visits, and investigated the number ofpublished works, the composition of the sites, and the procedures for viewing thecontent. Furthermore, in order to list the pirated material, a part of the PSS system
FReCs©List was used to develop an information collection program to collectinformation from the piracy site.

18

3.1.2 Findings about the piracy site
3.1.2.1 Listing of piracy sites in Japan

1,447 piracy sites were detected at the time of an investigation of June, 2019 inJapan. Their monthly visits total number was approximately 340 million visits(342,013,201). Among them, we had 624 sites piracy sites which has over 100,000
monthly visits in two years from July 2017 to June 2019. Appendix 1 is the list whichshowed these piracy sites (624). In addition, the above list is arranged in descendingorder of the total number of visits in the three months from April 2019 to June 2019.
The top 50 sites list of piracy sites from Appendix 1, is shown in table 3-3.
Figure 3-6 shows the ratio of the number of visits to piracy sites in June 2019 to thetotal number of piracy sites with a large number of visits (1,447). The horizontal axis
shows the number of top visited sites, and the results up to the Top 100 site are shown.
Also, the color coding of each bar graph represents the ratio of piracy sites by site
type.
The top 10 account for approximately 50% of visits for the whole 1,447, and the top
100 account for over 90%. By focusing on the top 100, we will cover 90% of piracy sites.

P2P

Share in number of visit

100%

Streaming

Online Reading

Leech

Host

90

100

90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Number of top most visited sites

Figure 3-6 The ratio of the high-ranking piracy site for the number of the total visits
to piracy sites

19

Table 3-3 Piracy sites list (extract of Appendix 1)

Confidential20

3.1.2.2 A type and contents of piracy sites

Figure 3-7 shows the number of piracy sites in Japan classified by site type for theabove piracy sites list (624). Streaming sites have the larger percentage, with P2P sites,
Leech sites, and host at the same level. The number of online reading sites was as low
as 4%.

Host

P2P

18%

21%

Leech
19%
Online Reading

Streaming

4%38%

Figure 3-7 Classification (Total 624 site) of piracy sites
Figure 3-8 shows the breakdown of the number of sites by major content posted oneach piracy site. However, because there are many host sites whose contents are
unknown, 508 sites were targeted. There are many contents in descending order offilms, anime, and comics. Each site has multiple types of content, but in thisclassification, content with a large number of publications is the main content.
“Unidentified” indicates that the site could not be confirmed as it was already closed
or could not be accessed.
Unidentified
13%
Manga

Film

13%

38%
Anime

TV

24%

12%

Figure 3-8 Main contents (the situation of 508 sites except Host) in each piracy site21

3.1.2.3 Server setting country of piracy sites

We showed the result that investigated where the server is hosted in Figure 3-9 for
624 piracy sites for this investigation in a graph. The United States 9%, followed by
Japan 6%, and Netherlands 5%. 39% of host countries were identified in contrast 61%
were unidentified. Furthermore, 86% of piracy sites were listed as unidentified using
CDN (Content Delivery Network) service of CloudFlare. This result is shown in figure
3-10.
U n i te d Sta te s Ja p a n
9%6%

N e th e r l a n d s
5%Germ a n y
4%

u n i d e n ti fi e d

Ca n a d a

R u ssi a

6 1%

1%

2%

(381 piracy sites)
See Figure3-10

Ch i n a
Oth e r s 1%

Fr a n ce

1% R o m a n i a

9%1%

Figure 3-9 The country where server of piracy sites (624) are installed in



 


 
  

Figure 3-10 The ratio of the CDN in piracy sites (381)
where servers setting countries unidentified
As described above, piracy sites make it difficult to take measures against copyright
infringement because there are many sites whose host server location is unknown. We

22also found that most of these sites use CDN services. CDN is described in detail in
Chapter 4.

3.1.3 Investigation method about the piracy application
With the spread of mobile devices (smartphone, tablet), application allowing theviewing and listening of pirated contents is more common. In this section, we explain
the investigation method for quantification of piracy applications.
The mobile OS includes iOS and Android, the type of applications and how to obtainthem vary depending on the OS.
In this investigation, we prepared a smartphone and a tablet of each OS and we
installed piracy application confirmed operation.
The investigation methods according to the OS are as follows.
(1) iOSFor iOS, only apps that have received Apple's pre-approval will be
distributed on the App Store, so there are fewer piracy apps than the
Android series described below. However, piracy apps can be obtained fromunauthorized app stores. Therefore, apps obtained from these stores werealso surveyed.
*Official store (App Store)
Searched for keywords such as Free “movie” (anime, film, manga)in the search window of App store, Apple's official store, and installed
and investigated piracy app candidates.
*Unofficial store① In YouTube, we searched for keywords such as “app to watch“movie” (anime, film) on iPhone” and “app to read manga on
iPhone”, then extracted and investigated these apps.
② We searched for keywords such as ““Piracy App name” movie app”
(anime, manga) in Google and investigated it.
③ We installed a piracy application candidate from “Piracy App”,
which is one of the unapproved application stores and investigatedthem.
(2) Android
Google Play is preinstalled to most of devices of Android. We defined
Google Play which was a representative application store as official store inthis investigation and investigated it.

23More piracy applications are available in Google Play than App Store foriOS.
In addition, we can obtain applications from other application stores(Amazon application stores) and apk delivery sites with the Android device.
Therefore, we did as follow and pushed forward the investigation.
*Official store (Google play)
Searched for keywords such as “movie free”, “anime free”, “mangafree”, “cinema HD”, “film HD”, “anime”, “manga”, “TV Japan” in
the Play Store, and extracted piracy application candidates andinvestigated them.
*Unofficial store (Apk sites)① We searched for it with keywords such as “free movie android”(anime, manga) in Google and extracted piracy application
candidates and investigated them. We searched application
deleted in Google Play store with a keyword of “application
excellent apk” in Google and we extracted piracy application
candidates from the unofficial store and investigated them.
② Among the piracy sites listed using SimilarWeb this time, we
researched related apps on Streaming sites and Online Readingsites and listed them as piracy apps.
We performed listing of piracy applications with the above-mentioned
method and evaluated the actual use situation based on the number ofdownloaded of applications.
Specifically, we used the SimilarWeb API to obtain the monthly downloads
for each app for a two-year period from July 2017 to June 2019, andcalculated and evaluated the total number of downloads.

3.1.4 Investigation result of piracy applications
3.1.4.1 List of piracy applications in JapanAs a result of investigating piracy apps in Japan, 111 piracy apps were extracted.
The list is shown in Appendix 2. Most of the piracy applications in the list are forAndroid. Applications for iOS and applications for Android with the same functionality
exist. Therefore, we pushed forward with an investigation in the Android system during
this investigation mainly.
The top 10 apps list of piracy apps from Appendix 2, is shown in table 3-4.

24

Table 3-4 List of piracy applications (extract of Appendix 2)

Confidential
3.1.4.2 Types and contents of piracy applications

Figure 3-11 shows a breakdown by type of piracy applications listed. In 111
applications, 68% were streaming. Figure 3-12 shows the results of a survey of themain content provided by piracy applications. The most common with 49% was films,
while the ratio of comics, anime and TV was almost the same at 15%.

Others
Leech
3%

4%

P2P
Online9%

Reading16%

Streaming
68%

Figure 3-11 Breakdown of by type of piracy applications (111)25














Figure 3-12 Breakdown of main contents in piracy applications (111)3.1.4.3 Number of downloads of piracy apps

We obtained the number of monthly downloads for each app over two years from July
2017 to June 2019 using the SimilarWeb API, and calculated and evaluated the total
number of downloads. As a result, the total number of downloads of the 111 piracy
apps extracted in this survey in Japan over the two years was about 1 million.
In order to evaluate the number of downloads, the following survey was further
conducted. We picked up regular video apps and manga apps, investigated the number ofdownloads over the past two years, and compared it with the number of downloads of piracy apps.

Figure 3-13 shows the ratio of pirated sites in descending order of the number ofdownloads in Japan over two years. Japan's top share was for watching anime ,accounting for 64% of all downloads.
Piracy App8
2%

Piracy App 7

Other

2%

10%
PiracyApp6
3%
Piracy App 5
3%

Piracy App 1
64%

Piracy App 2
12%

Piracy App 3
4%

Figure 3-13 Pirated apps with many downloads in Japan(Total number of downloads: about 1 million)26

We picked up three representative regular-version video apps and book apps in
Table 3-5, examined the number of downloads over two years, and compared them withpiracy apps.
As a result, the total of 3 regular video applications was 27.1 million and the total of
3 regular book all was 14.7 million, for a total of 42 million downloads.
In fact, there are many regular apps other than those selected this time, therefore
the total number of piracy apps is estimated to be only 2% or less of three regular apps.
From this fact, it was found that in Japan there are many users who enjoy videos andbooks with the official apps, and piracy apps are not used frequently.
Table 3-5 List of regular apps used for comparison survey
Video applications
No.
1

App nameAbemaTV -      

2 Amazon Prime Video
3 TVerApp ID
tv.abema

Main Content
TV/Anime

JAPANTotal
Downloads(2017/7-2019/6)-

com.amazon.avod.thirdpartycl
Film/Anime
ientjp.hamitv.hamiand1
TV

Total

27.1million

Book applications
No.
1 Amazon Kindle

App name

App IDcom.amazon.kindle

LINE  -   
jp.naver.linemanga.android  
3  -!
 jp.co.comic.mangaone
2

Main Content

JAPANTotal
Downloads(2017/7-2019/6)

Manga

-

Manga

-

Manga
Total

14.7million

3.2 Time-series analysis of piracy sites
In this chapter, we report the result that we investigated the change and use
situation of the piracy sites in chronological order

3.2.1 Method
We used the 624 piracy sites that we extracted in Chapter 2 for Japan and analyzed
the change over two years and one month. (from July 2017 to July 2019)
We acquired the following item data from the 624 sites and, using the API of
SimilarWeb, performed count and analysis.

27

The items which we acquired using SimilarWeb API are as follows.
Area: Only in Japan
Period: We acquired the monthly data of from July 2017 to July 2019
Items:
Monthly visit number (Total / desktop / mobile)
Average visit duration (Total / desktop / mobile)
Monthly unique visit number (desktop / mobile)
The number of pages reading per visit (Total)
Breakdowns in the parenthesis behind the investigation items are the total and by
device (desktop / mobile) provided by a function of SimilarWeb.

28

3.2.2 Survey results
3.2.2.1 Monthly visits to 624 piracy sites

Figure 3-14 shows the two years trend (from July 2017 to July 2019) of the total
number of monthly visits to the 624 piracy sites from Japan.
The graph shows the following facts:① Until March, 2018, the total number of visits to piracy sites gradually increased
to around 640 million.
② The number of the total visits decreased sharply in April 2018 and decreased toapproximately 320 million in June.
③ As of June 2019, there is an estimated 340 million total visits, and a gradualincrease is observed. The scales of the copyright infringement are still large.

million700
340 million visitors per monthstill continue to access pirate
sites after April 2018.

500
400
300

500-600 million visits permonth until March 2018200

Jul-19Jun-19

May-19Apr-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18Oct-18

Nov-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18Mar-18Jan-18

Feb-18Dec-17Oct-17

Nov-170

Jul-17100

Sep-17In April 2018, total visits to pirate sites rapidly decreased.
It seems to be due to the effect of anti-piracy
countermeasures by the Japanese government.
Aug-17Monthly total visits

600

Figure 3-14 Changes in the total number of visits to piracy sites (Jul-17 to Jul-19)29

In order to confirm the situation in Figure 3-14 in detail, the number of monthly
visits by site type was examined. The result is shown in Figure 3-15.
Figure 3-15 shows the following:④ The total number of online reading site visits during the two years has changed
significantly. It increased rapidly in October 2017 and decreased sharply in April
2018. Since then, the total number of visits has fallen below 10 million, but has
increased again since May 2019.
⑤ The total number of visits to sites other than Online Reading decreased in April
2018.
⑥ Since 2019, Host sites have been on a slightly increasing trend, Leech sites havebeen flat, Streaming sites and P2P sites have been on a decreasing trend.

millionStreaming

180

Online Reading

Host

P2P

Leech

160
140
120
100
80
60
40

“Manga Mura”, launched in 2016, gained
massive amount of visitors suddenly around in
October 2017.

Jul-19Jun-19Apr-19

May-19Feb-19Mar-19Jan-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18

Feb-18Mar-18Jan-18Dec-17

Nov-17Oct-17

Sep-170

Aug-1720
Jul-17Monthly total visits by type of site

200

Number of visitors to a replicating site Manga
Mura, have increased recently.

Figure 3-15 Trends in the number of piracy sites visits by site type
(Jul-17 to Jul-19)
Piracy countermeasures were discussed in April 2018 by the Japanese Government,
and “Manga Mura” problem was widely covered in the media and developed into asocial issue. The action of the government on April 2018, which will be covered indetail in Chapter 4, greatly decreased the access to piracy sites.

30

About, ④ in particular, the change in the number of the total visits to Online
Reading sites until April 2018 closely reflects the increase of visitors to the “Manga
Mura” site. After “Manga Mura” take down in April 2018, Online Reading sites
dropped to a low level, but with the appearance of a “Piracy Site” in May 2019 which
has the same function to “Manga Mura”, and the number of the visits increased again.
In April 2018, the government tried to take countermeasures against “Manga Mura”,“Anitube”, and “MioMio”, this also greatly affected the number of visits to otherpiracy sites, and overall visits decreased.
Figure 3-16 shows the total number of monthly visits to the 624 piracy sites bydevice.
Figure 3-16 shows the following:⑦ The number of visits to piracy sites using desktops decreases a little until March
2018, and a roughly flat state continues after the sharp decrease in April.
⑧ The number of visits to piracy sites using mobiles as of July 2017 was half that ofdesktops, but suddenly increased afterwards. It became almost equal to desktops
in March 2018.
⑨ The number of visits from mobile decreases sharply in April 2018 and becomes
lower than the number of visits from desktops. It increases slightly from aroundFebruary 2019.
millionDesktop

Mobile300

200

Figure 3-16 Trends of the total number of visits to piracy sites shown by device

31

Jul-19Jun-19Apr-19

May-19Feb-19Mar-19Jan-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18Mar-18

Feb-18Jan-18Dec-17Oct-17

Nov-17

Sep-170

The total visits of desktop users to piracy sites have slowly declined until April
2018 then plummeted dropped. After that, the number has remained steady.
In contrast, mobile users continued to increase until April 2018, and dropped
sharply. The number started to grow again in February 2019, remaining low
through 2018.
Jul-17100

Aug-17Monthly total visits by device

400The number of visits by device and by site type is shown in Figure 3-17. There were
big differences for every site type, and the following trends were seen.
⑩ The biggest change observed was visits to Online Reading sites from mobile.
⑪ P2P and host sites have many visits from desktop.
This result suggests the tendency that Online Reading sites are used for from mobile
casually.
millionJul-19Mar-19

May-19Jan-19Sep-18

Nov-18

Jul-18Mar-18

Jul-19Mar-19

May-19

MobileJan-19Sep-18

Nov-18

Jul-18

DesktopMar-18

Jul-19

May-19Sep-17Jan-190

Mar-190

Nov-1825
Jul-1825
Sep-1850

May-1850

Jan-1875

Mar-1875

Nov-17

100

Jul-17100

millionMay-18125

MobileMay-18

Desktop

MobileLeech Desktop vs Mobile

Jan-18125

millionJan-18

Jul-19

May-19Jan-19Online Reading Desktop vs Mobile

Sep-17

millionMar-190

Nov-180

Jul-1825

Sep-1825

May-1850

Jan-1850

Mar-1875

Nov-1775

Jul-17100

Sep-17

100

DesktopSep-17

MobileNov-17

Desktop

Streaming Desktop vs Mobile125

Jul-17125

Nov-17

P2P Desktop vs Mobile

Jul-17

millionHost Desktop vs Mobile

125

Desktop

Mobile1007550Jul-19

May-19Mar-19Jan-19

Nov-18

Jul-18

Sep-18Mar-18May-18Jan-18

Sep-17

Nov-170

Jul-1725

Figure 3-17 The total visits number (2017/7 - 2019/7) according to the device andsite type32

3.2.2.2 Total time spent on piracy sites

In order to know the actual viewing of piracy sites in Japan, we confirmed the trendof total monthly visits. Visitors may be watching piracy contents for a long time with
one access, or they may be checking the site watching any piracy contents.
Therefore, we checked the viewing time of piracy sites for each user every month toclarify the actual situation of the piracy site.
Specifically, we calculated a monthly total viewing time using data as follows for the
average time on site for each site and we added these up and visualized it.
Monthly viewing time of each site=Duration x Monthly visits
Figure 3-18 shows the trend of the monthly total viewing time of the piracy 624
sites.
This graph shows the following facts:① The total monthly viewing time was approximately 50 million hours in July 2017.
It suddenly increased, and it was approximately 110 million hours in March 2018.
② It decreased sharply in April 2018, and remained around 40 million hours.
③ The viewing time increases slightly from around April 2019.

million hours

100
80
60
40

Figure 3-18 Total viewing time trend of piracy sites
33

Jul-19Jun-19

May-19Apr-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18

Jul-18Aug-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18Mar-18Jan-18

Feb-18Dec-17

Nov-17Oct-17

Sep-170

Jul-1720

Aug-17

Total viewing time of piracy sites

120

Figure 3-19 shows the trend of the monthly total viewing time according to the site
type.
This graph shows the following facts:

Million hours

60
50
40
30
20

Jul-19Jun-19Apr-19

May-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18

Jul-18Aug-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18Mar-18Jan-18

Feb-18Dec-17

Nov-17Oct-17

Sep-170

Jul-1710

Aug-17

Total viewing time of pirate sites by type of site

④ Like the number of the total visits, the trend of the total viewing time of Online
Reading sites over two years is remarkable. At a peak point of March 2018, it wasover 50 million hours, but decreased sharply in April 2018.
⑤ Although the total viewing time for other site types decreased in April 2018,
there is still a certain amount of viewing time and that users continue to use
piracy sites.
⑥ Particularly, the total viewing time for streaming site keeps a high level throughan investigation period.

Figure 3-19 Total viewing time trend according to the site type of piracy sites

34

Figure 3-20 shows the trend of the monthly total viewing time according to thedevice.
The graph shows the following facts:⑦ The viewing time of piracy sites using desktops was about 30 million to 40 million
hours until March 2018, but since April 2018, it has been unchanged at 20 million
hours.
⑧ As of July 2017, mobile viewing time was almost half that of desktop viewing time,
but it increased rapidly, reaching about 70 million in March 2018, about twice aslong as the desktop.
⑨ In April 2018, the viewing time of piracy sites that used mobile has drasticallydecreased, but it has remained at about 20 million hours, almost the same as thedesktop viewing time. It has increased slightly from around April 2019.

million hours

Desktop70

Mobile

60
50
40
30
20

Figure 3-20 Total viewing time trend
according to the device used to access piracy sites

35

Jul-19Jun-19Apr-19

May-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18Oct-18

Nov-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18May-18Apr-18

Feb-18Mar-18Jan-18Dec-17

Nov-17Oct-17

Sep-170

Jul-1710
Aug-17

Total viewing time of piracy sites

803.2.2.3 Number of unique users on piracy sites

Up to this point, we have shown the results of the survey of the total number ofvisits and total viewing time during the month, in order to know the actual viewing
situation of piracy sites.
In addition, this section attempts to estimate the number of users using piracy sites.
As of June 2018, the population of Japan is about 126.5 million, the Internet usage
rate in 2018 is 79.8%, and the number of people using the Internet in Japan is about
100 million.
With the API function of SimilarWeb, it is possible to get the number of unique users
per month for each site. Here, the number of unique users is a value obtained by
identifying a user who visits a piracy site by an IP address, and excluding the same userfrom the count when visiting the same piracy site again.
Table 3-6 shows the number of sites with a large number of unique users each monthand the number of users for each site type.
The results are as follows.
① The largest number of monthly unique users in the past two years was “Anitube”(anitube.se) (streaming site) in August 2017, with about 7.73 million.
② With regards to streaming sites, “Anitube” was targeted in the anti-piracy
countermeasures of the government in April 2018, and it was forced to close.
Currently, highest number of users is another piracy site.
③ As for Online Reading sites, “Manga Mura” (mangamura.org: from October 2017
to April 2018) was closed and then no large user sites appearing. Until June 2019,
when the number of visits to a piracy site that looked like “Manga Mura”, has
increased.
④ For the P2P site, one specific site has the top number of users for two years, andmore than 2 million users are constantly using it.
It turned out that there were times when more than 7 million people were using asingle piracy site. This is a staggering Figure, with over 7% of Japanese Internet users
accessing this site.
The most distinctive is the P2P site, one specific site, this has the largest number ofusers and remains the top P2P site by a large margin.

36

Table 3-6 Trend of monthly Unique User Maximum Sites of Users by Site Type

Confidential

37

The goal is to know how many users are using piracy sites in Japan. However, thenumber of unique users for each site cannot be summed to estimate the total number of
unique users across all sites.
This is because if a user visits multiple piracy sites, it will be counted multiple times.
Therefore, in this survey, the weighted average of the number of unique users wascalculated to represent the scale per site for the month.
The weighted average in this survey is an average calculated by weighting thenumber of visits for each individual site so that the values of sites with a large numberof visits, are accountably reflected in the results.
The specific calculation method is as follows.
If 𝑈"#$ is the weighted average number of unique users, 𝑈% is the number of
unique users of the kth site. 𝑉% is the number of visits. 𝑈"#$ is calculated by thefollowing formula.

𝑈"#$ =∑,-.
%/0{𝑈% × 𝑉% }∑,-.
%/0{𝑉% }Hereinafter, the weighted average of the number of unique users is referred to as thenumber of mean unique users.

38

The count result according to the site type, using the calculation method mentioned
above is shown in Figure 3-21.
This graph shows the following facts:

7
6
5
4
3
2

Jul-19Jun-19

May-19Apr-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18Oct-18

Nov-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18Apr-18May-18

Feb-18Mar-18Jan-18Dec-17Oct-17

Nov-170

Sep-171

Aug-17

millionJul-17

Number of unique users (weighted average)① In January, 2018 Online Reading sites had the greatest number of the mean uniqueusers across all piracy sites. This number was approximately 6,500,000 people.
② It surpassed the 4 million people for streaming sites in July 2017. That was thenthe greatest number of the mean unique users. This decreased year by year andwas lower than P2P sites in 2019.
③ The number of mean unique users for sites other than Online Reading andStreaming did not change significantly. In particular, there was no decrease in P2P
due to the government's countermeasures against piracy sites in April 2018.

Figure 3-21 The number of the mean unique users by site type
Using the number of the above-mentioned mean unique users, we calculated themean viewing time per user by site type and showed it in Figure 3-21 and Figure 3-22.
The expressions that we used for calculation are as follows.
Assuming that the number of unique users of the kth site is 𝑈% . the number of visits
is 𝑉% . and the average viewing time per visit is 𝑉𝑇% . the monthly viewing time 𝑉𝑇𝑈%
per user for the kth site is calculated by the following formula.

39

How to calculate monthly viewing time per user for the kth site
𝑉𝑇𝑈% =𝑉% × 𝑉𝑇% /𝑈%
Therefore, the weighted average 𝑉𝑇𝑈"#$ of monthly viewing time per user was
calculated by the following formula.
Monthly viewing time per user (weighted average)

𝑉𝑇𝑈"#$ =∑624
𝑘=1{𝑉𝑇𝑈% × 𝑉% 𝑉𝑘}∑624
𝑘=1{𝑉% }

8
7
6
5
4
3
2

Jul-19Jun-19

May-19Apr-19Mar-19Jan-19Feb-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18

Jul-18Aug-18Jun-18Apr-18May-18

Feb-18Mar-18Jan-18Dec-17Oct-17

Nov-17

Sep-170

Aug-171
Jul-17Monthly Viewing Time / Unique User(h)In addition, Figure 3-23 excludes Online Reading of Figure 3-22.
User spend over 7 hours on Online Reading sites. Whereas for all other sites they
spend a maximum of 1.5 hours on that site.
Figure 3-23 shows that the viewing time per user becomes gradually longer.

Figure 3-22 Trend of the mean viewing time per unique user according to the site type

40

P2P

Streaming

Leech

Host

1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4

Jul-19Jun-19

May-19Apr-19Feb-19Mar-19Jan-19Dec-18

Nov-18Oct-18

Sep-18Aug-18

Jul-18Jun-18Apr-18May-18Mar-18Jan-18

Feb-18Dec-17Oct-17

Nov-17

Sep-170

Aug-170.2
Jul-17Monthly Viewing Time / Unique User(h)1.6Figure 3-23 Trend of the mean viewing time per unique user by site type(excludes Online Reading sites)

3.3 Content viewing situation survey results for students
We surveyed university students and graduate students on how they watched video
contents on the Internet in parallel to this investigation. We will cover part of theresult. We are going to publish this survey result in the Intellectual Property
Association of Japan.

3.3.1 Survey Overview
In July 2019, we surveyed 383 Japanese university and graduate students about theviewing of video content such as TV shows, movies, music and PV uploaded on theInternet. In addition, a similar survey was conducted with 605 people in 2013, and thechanges over these 6 years are also mentioned.

3.3.2 Type of a device and for the viewing of video contents
370 (96.6%) responded that they watched video content, and most respondents

41

watch video content on the Internet. Table 3-7 shows the devices used for watching
video content. Over the past six years, mobile terminal users have increased.
Table 3-7 Seeing and hearing method of the video contents
This time (n=370)

2013 (n=529)

With a PC

69.7% (258)

81.2% (430)With a mobile device

89.5% (331)

52.9% (280)

Table 3-8 shows the usage rate of the content type for each device. Over the past
six years, the proportion of users of anime and movies has increased, and usage trends
have changed.

Table 3-8 Classification of the video contents
Classification

This timePC(n=258)2013

Mobile device(n=331)PC(n=430)

Mobile device(n=280)

Animation

158 (61.2%)

187 (56.5%)

165 (38.4%)

75 (26.8%)

Music PV148 (57.4%)

187 (56.5%)

329 (76.5%)

218 (77.9%)

Movie

106 (41.1%)

128 (38.7%)

112 (26.0%)

40 (14.3%)

Concert video

69 (26.7%)

81 (24.5%)

173 (40.2%)

97 (34.6%)

Domestic
drama

54 (20.9%)

83 (25.1%)

108 (25.1%)

53 (13.5%)

Variety54 (20.9%)85 (25.7%)

104 (24.2%)

54 (19.3%)

Overseasdrama

46 (17.8%)

59 (17.8%)

74 (17.2%)

38 (13.6%)

Music channel

25 (9.7%)

53 (16.0%)

71 (16.5%)

50 (17.9%)

3.3.3 Video content replay from a PC
When we access video contents from a PC, 87.2% of users use video sharing sites
such as YouTube 56.2% search it on paid video-on-demand sites such as Amazon
Prime Video or Hulu. In addition, 26.0% (67 persons) stored video content to watch ona PC. As shown in Figure 3-25, the number of authorized users who download paid
content is increasing.

42





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'&#!











/452")/4 

'&#$"1-'&#/452")/4  









  

   !     !

'&#"1-'&#



 


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$%52$"1   !
 

6  +*.0
(,.0"    " 

Figure 3-24 Preservation method to a PC of the video contents

3.3.4 Viewing video content from mobile device
When we access video contents from mobile device, 82.8% look for it using video
sharing sites such as YouTube, and 51.4% on a paid video-on-demand site. On theother hand, the ratio using the application of Leech site types was only 1.5%. In
addition, among audiences with mobile device, 28.7% stored video contents. In addition,
62.1% of those downloads paid contents. Similar to that of PCs, the number of users of
paid contents, increases in comparison with six years ago.

3.3.5 Recognition of the origin of delivery of contents
A survey was conducted on the status of recognition as to whether the content
distribution source is an official site or a piracy site, and the results are shown in Table
3-9. As in the previous survey, the percentage of users who use both official site andpiracy site is high. In addition, the ratio that replied saying “unknown” largely
decreases from approximately 30% to approximately 10%. About an origin of delivery of
the video contents, their recognition deepened. In the future, the distribution of more
content from official websites will reduce the percentage of end users accessing piracy
sites.

43

Table 3-9 The recognition situation of the origin of delivery of contents
Classification

This timePC(n=258)2013

Mobile device(n=331)PC(n=430)

Mobile device(n=280)

Only official

94 (36.4%)

112 (33.8%)

84 (19.5%)

65 (23.2%)

Only unofficial

2 (0.8%)3 (0.9%)3 (0.7%)3 (1.1%)Both

136 (52.7%)

173 (52.3%)

209 (48.6%)

127 (45.4%)

Unknown

26 (10.1%)

35 (10.6%)

134 (31.2%)

85 (30.4%)

The above-mentioned result are clarified in the following points. For video content
consumption device type has switches from PC to mobile. In addition, they shifted topaid contents using the services of paid video-on-demand sites such as Amazon Prime
Video or Hulu, Netflix.

3.4 Summary of Chapter 3
3.4.1 Quantitative analysis of a piracy site and application in Japan
We investigated piracy sites in Japan from July 2017 to June 2019 and applications
and clarified the following points.
① We extracted a list of 1,447 piracy sites in Japan. Among them, there were 624
sites with monthly access exceeding 100,000 visits at least once in the past two
years.
② The number of visits to Top 10 piracy sites was approximately 50% of total visits,
and Top 100 amount to over 90% of all visits.
③ Streaming sites covered for 40% of all piracy sites.
④ We could not find the host country of 61% of piracy sites, because most used thesame CDN service. (See Chapter 4 in detail)⑤ We extracted piracy applications in Japan and extracted a list of 111 application.
⑥ Streaming is the most common piracy application, accounting for up to 68%.
⑦ Downloads of piracy applications is low relative to the use of piracy sites. The
spread of regular version application advances, and piracy applications do notreach 2% of regular versions.
⑧ In a questionnaire result about the video contents seeing and hearing from themobile device which we showed in 3.3.4, respondents more than 50% use a paid
44

video-on-demand site.

3.4.2 Trends over time in piracy sites
Following the trends over time from July 2017 to July 2019, the following points wererevealed for 624 piracy sites.
① The total number of visits to 624 piracy sites in Japan was approximately 500
million per month at the beginning of July 2007, and increased to 640 million in
March 2018. However, in June 2018, it decreased sharply to 320 million.
② As of June 2019, there are 340 million visits, and there is a slight increase.
③ The number of visits to piracy sites increased rapidly until March 2018 anddropped sharply in April. This is thought to have been partly caused by greatly
influenced by the anti-piracy site countermeasures taken by the Japanese
government at the time, and can be said to have had a significant effect. (Details
are described in Chapter 4)④ At the time of July 2017, half of the access from mobiles to piracy sites camefrom a desktop. Access from mobiles grew and almost equal desktops now.
⑤ More access to Online Reading sites comes from mobile devices. More access to
P2P and host comes from desktop. Online Reading sites are used for from mobile
casually.
⑥ As of June 2019, the total monthly time spend on piracy sites are approximately 40 million
hours. In particular, the time spend on streaming site remained high throughout the wholeinvestigation period.

⑦ Online Reading sites have the greatest number of the mean unique users ofpiracy sites. Used by about 6,500,000 users in January 2018. P2P has a stable
number of users throughout this period. One particular site has been the top
ranked for two years. In spite of piracy site measures by the government in April
2018, the number of the P2P users has not decreased.
⑧ The mean viewing time per user is becoming longer.

3.4.3 Content viewing situation survey results for students
We investigated the viewing of the video contents on the Internet for several
hundred university students and graduate students and covered the questionnaire
result.
① In comparison with six years ago, the use in the mobile device has increased andexceeded the total number viewing on PC during this time.

45

② The number of users watching animation on the Internet has increased.
Particularly, the ratio of user who watch animations such as an animated cartoon
or movie has doubled.
③ The number of users of paid contents has increased.
④ The awareness of whether the content distribution source are official sites orpiracy sites have improved, but it has become clear that the content is being
viewed while knowing whether it is pirated contents.

46

Chapter 4: Analysis of Survey Results
4.1 Features of piracy sites in Japan
As mentioned in Chapter 3, there were 1,447 piracy sites in Japan over the past two
years, with total monthly visits of about 340 million. The total number of monthly visits
for the top 100 sites out of 1,447 was over 90% of the total.
When the number of unique users was confirmed for the top sites visited by site type,
it became clear that each of them were over about 2 million.
In this chapter, we will evaluate this number by comparing them with the official
distribution site, and describe the characteristics of each site type as seen from thetime line of the site.

4.1.1 Scale of piracy sites as seen from comparison with regular sites
We picked up regular distribution sites that seem to be frequently used in Japan,
investigated the number of visits using SimilarWeb, and compared them with piracy
sites.
Table 4-1 shows the top 3 websites for monthly video access sites in June 2019 for
official video and comic distribution sites.
Table 4-1 List of official distribution sites used for comparison surveys
Video distribution sites
No.

Site name
1 Abema TV
2 NETFLIX
3 GYAO!

Site URL
abema.tv
netflix.com
gyao.yahoo.co.jp

Japan Total Visits
in Jun-2019
TV
Movie/TV/Anime
TV/Movie/Anime
Total
72 million
Main Content

Manga distribution site
No.

Site name

Site URL

1   cmoa.jpManga
2 Comic Walker
comic-walker.com Manga
3 
Manga tonarinoyj.jp

47

Japan Total Visits
in Jun-2019
Total
70 million

Main Content

The total number of visits for these six sites is about 142 million, which is far below
340 million for piracy sites. In addition, we picked up the official version of other sites
and totaled the number of visits across 50 official sites. This Figure 290 million evenafter collecting 50 sites, it was found that the number of visits of piracy sites exceededthis.
As for the number of users, "Comic Seymour", the top comic distribution site, wasused by about 10 million people. Abema TV, the top video distribution site, was usedby about 5 million people. It can be seen that the number of users on most official sites
is equal to or less than the number of users on the top piracy sites, and the scale effectof piracy sites can be seen.

4.1.2 Trends by type of piracy sites
According to this survey, it has become clear that piracy sites have very different
trends in features depending on type.
Over the last two years, we found that the features of Online Reading sites havechanged dramatically compared to other types of sites. According to this survey,
Online Reading sites are the smallest in number, and when a user-friendly site appears,
it can be seen that users are accessing it regularly out of habit. In April 2018, when thechanges were most dramatic, measures against piracy by the government werediscussed, and they were very effective. The countermeasures for piracy in April 2018
will be described in detail in the next section.
On the other hand, the most stable type over the two years was P2P sites, where the
top site did not change and the number of users was stable. From these things, it canbe seen that a particular type of user continues to use it. In order to use P2P sites, itis necessary to install torrent client software and there are some hurdles for generalusers, so there will be no explosive increase of users. The fact that it exists on such ascale indicates that it is at a level where it cannot be left unchecked, especially whencompared with the official version sites in the previous section.
The sites most frequently listed in this survey were streaming sites. Although thenumber of visits, which peaked two years ago, is declining, the total time on site is still
high, indicating that users spend more time on streaming sites. In addition, because
there are many piracy sites that could replace the streaming sites that were closed, atthe time of the country's countermeasures in April 2018, there was no decline.
Common to all site types, the average time spend on site per user is increasing, and
it is estimated that more users will spend more time on piracy sites.

48

4.2 Features of piracy apps in Japan
In this survey, 111 piracy apps used in Japan were listed. A survey of the number ofdownloads of these apps over the past two years revealed a total of about 42 million.
As mentioned in Chapter 3, this number is about 2% or less compared to the official
apps. In addition, in the questionnaire to students, more than 50% of respondents use
paid video distribution sites, and the rate of using Leech type apps is as low as 1.5%.
Users are increasingly using mobile devices to view piracy contents, but they canuse a browser to access the site rather than using apps.

4.3 Anti-piracy measures by the Japanese government in April
2018
As shown in Chapter 3, it was found that the investigation of “site blocking” by thegovernment and related organizations in April 2018 had a great influence on the trendsof piracy sites and users. Therefore, in this chapter, specific cases of malicious sites
such as “Manga Mura” are used as examples to verify in the time line what happened
during the “Site Blocking” policy.
In Japan, “Manga Mura” has been cited as an incident involving piracy sites thathave had the greatest impact so far. A comic pirate site, named as a malicious site
along with two other video sites (“Anitube” and “Miomio”) at the conference “Urgent
Measures against Piracy Sites on the Internet” at the Intellectual Property Strategy
Headquarters in the country [4]. And it became a discussion about measures against
piracy sites.
“Manga Mura” could not be viewed from any special application and was only able toaccess it from the browser of a PC or mobile terminal. A large number of comics works
were uploaded on the site without the permission of the copyright holder, allowing anunspecified number of end users to browse freely. “Manga Mura” was established in
January 2016, and users increased rapidly by word of mouth from about 2017. Afterinvestigating the number of monthly unique users as of March 2018 by SimilarWeb, wasestimated at 6.6 million people, and 95.86% of hits were using from Japan. The sites
ranking in Japan was 23rd place (Table 4-2) [1]. Using the publications circulation, theamount of damage was estimated to be about ¥ 300 billion, but problem was that thesite was causing significant economic losses.

49

Table 4-2 The access situation (the July 2019 investigation)of these 3 piracy site in March, 2018 [1]Name of site

Type ofcontent

Sessions(million)

Monthly unique

Access share

Rank inusers (million)

from Japan

Japan

Manga Mura

Comics

61.9

6.6

95.66%

23

AnitubeAnimation

248.1

5.4

98.68%

85

MiomioAnimation

70.1

3.6

79.17%

591

In addition, the monthly unique user number of “Anitube” over the same period hit
5.4 million people using a similar method, with 98.68% of access from Japan. “Miomio”
monthly unique user number touched 3.6 million people, with 79.17% of access fromJapan.
The history of subsequent claims from copyright holders, movements of investigative
authorities, discussions in the Diet and the public-private sector, etc. can besummarized as shown in Figure 4-1.
What attracts attention here is that way a powerful measure against piracy sites, due
to complaints raised from the concerned parties, to introduce “Site blocking'', which
disables browsing of the site itself. Concrete discussions for legislation started at thispoint, but as of August 2019, site blocking has not yet been becoming law. It is in thestage of being reviewed and along with other considerations at the review meeting (taskforce) of the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters.

50

Year

Pirate sites
January

2016

Manga Mura opened

2017

Users of Manga Mura
rapidly increased

April 11 to 17

2018- Manga Mura closed- Anitube closed- Miomio deleted
most of movies

Government andauthorities

Content industries

Continuous
measures

Repeated requests
on deletion
Publishers accused
Manga Mura

February
Diet discussed pirate
web sites

February

April 13

April 23

Government requested
ISPs to block pirate sites

Artists and companies
issued statement

NTT Group accepted
request from government

from April
Companies freezed ads
on pirate sites

September

2019

Police arrested manager
of Manga Mura

discussion on plansincluding site blocking

Figure 4-1 Movement (2016 through 2019) from the establishmentof the piracy sites to shutdown [5] [6]Parallel to enforcement of “Site blocking” based on the law, a request to the carrier
voluntarily block to these sites were carried out as an urgent measure. It is notable
point that some companies decided to enforcement this. On April 23, 2018, four NTT
groups (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, NTT communications Co., Ltd.,NTT DOCOMO Co., Ltd., NTT Plala Inc.) announced the enforcement of the site
blocking for 3 sites.
In parallel with the movement of the government and related organizations, “Manga
Mura” and “Anitube” became inaccessible the 11th and 16th respectively. and Video
playback screen was deleted from “Miomio” on 17th. Both sites appear to havevoluntarily closed before eventually been blocked by the carrier. In fact, as shown in
Chapter 3, the number of visits to piracy sites has plummeted. The distribution ofadvertisements was stopped, the funding source was turned off investigations beganand several publishers field criminal changes again these piracy sites for alleged
violations of copyright law during 2017. Although other factors may have had an impact,51

it is believing that the strong attitude to “Implement site blocking” was good. The
piracy sites were closed down voluntarily, with access dropping from approximately
650 million piracy sites to approximately 340 million access according to Figure 3-15
of Chapter 3. The effect, as of May, 2018, and decrease of around 300 million access
was confirmed.

4.4 The piracy use situation in CDN(1) Summary of the CDN
As a result of having checked the actual situation of piracy sites this time, theserver setting location for 381 sites equal to 61% in the subjects of survey 624
site, is unidentified. Among them with 86% is Cloudflare [7] (Cloudflare is a CDN
company with head office in CA). (cf. Chapter 3 Figure 3-10)

End user
Origin server
Cache server
RequestCopying contents
Distribution

Figure 4-2 CDN system diagrammatical view

The CDN is comprised of an origin server and multiple cache servers (called
the edge location server.) when an end user visits an origin server, the system
can send the content from a closer cache server (Figure 4-2). The CDN
company places datacenters around the world, in based on the distance to an
end user, the load situation of the system, and the network situation, amount of52

using. The Web site can process mass requests by using CDN, and can offer ofstable service.
(2) Difficulty of the locating of the piracy sites in the CDN
When a piracy site is built on CDN, it becomes difficult to pinpoint thelocation of the cache server which delivers contents to an end user.
For piracy sites, the same IP address was obtained from many of the VPN
servers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and Germany.
However, confirm it is difficult to the IP addresses of piracy sites built on
Cloudflare via VPN services that can actually switch the country of the Internet
connection (using the host command on the terminal prompt screen). CDNs are
no different from general Web servers for end users, in that the same DNS
record can be obtained when accessing the Internet from anywhere in the world.
(3) Opinions and actual situation of CDN side regarding piracy sites deletion request
In response to an inquiry from the Task Force on the anti-piracy measures on
the Internet regarding the anti-piracy measures of CDN, Cloudflare submitted
the view that it was not in a position to delete the content because it was not a
web hosting company. However, it responded to requests for disclosure of
information about publishers, which led to the identification of “Manga Mura”
operators. [8] In the future, a relationship of trust and liaison system will be
required so that information can be provided by CDN more smoothly. However,the cases identification are rare, and the actual situation of piracy sites has not
yet been discovered. More detailed investigation is required.

4.5 About the function to support the creation of piracy sites
When one piracy site is closed, multiple new piracy site repeatedly appears anddisappear, making it more difficult to eradicate piracy sites. This time, we surveyed
support functions that helped build two types of piracy sites.

4.5.1 Example of building a P2P site
We will report in detail about “One specific site”, which was the top for P2P site fortwo years with the highest number of visitors and unique users. “One specific site” is a
repository that can post and display the table of contents of files used when exchanging

53

material with P2P. It is a repository that can reproduce the model that manages thelayout, request controller, etc. to create a new “One specific site”. You can get it on“github”. (Figure 4-3) The development language is Python.
This repository has 250 fork (copied) as of September 2019. In addition, theREADME on “github” details how to run it, if you have a programming background you
can immediately install it, and it is possible to reproduce a site similar to “One specificP2P site”.

Confidential
Figure 4-3 Capture image of “One specific site” source code repository

4.5.2 Example of building an Online Reading site
In this section, we report an example of building an online reading site. Figure 4-4
shows a demo site with the theme “Theme 1” from “Wordpress”.

Confidential
Figure 4-4 Captured image of “Theme 1” demo site
“Wordpress” is a PHP-based application that can manage blog sites. In addition,“Wordpress” has a feature called “Theme” that allows a customized layout based on
PHP, and the above-mentioned “Theme 1” is included in this theme. These themes
can be introduced with a single click.
“Theme 1” is clearly suggested to be a theme with the function of “Uploading
comics”, “Updating which comics have been uploaded, and Reading online”. You can't
actually read comics on the demo site, but there are pages that are supposed to beread. In addition, it functions as a streaming site.
One of the sites using “Theme 1” is “One Online Reading site similar to Manga
Mura”.

54

4.6 Countermeasures for future piracy sites
A number of countermeasures and investigations have been conducted on piracy
sites viewed from Japan. Still, there are piracy sites that are more popular than theofficial version and continue to be visited daily.
In this survey, it was confirmed that the anti-piracy countermeasures by the country
on April 2018 caused 3 sites to close and also changed end-users piracy awareness,
resulting in a drastic decrease in the number of visits to the all piracy sites. At thattime, the country took a strong stance against piracy sites. It is expected that piracy
site countermeasures will be further promoted by deepening discussions in the future.
However, although some users have become aware of copyright infringement, somealso use piracy sites while knowing that it was illegal.
Furthermore, it is considered that one of the important future issues is how to deal
with P2P sites.

4.7 Summary of Chapter 4(1) There were 1,447 piracy sites in Japan over the past two years, and the total
number of monthly visits was about 340 million. The total number of monthly
visits for the top 100 sites out of 1,447 was over 90% of the total. The total
number of monthly visits to the 6 major official distribution sites was 140 million,
which was lower than piracy sites.
(2) Checking the number of unique users for the top piracy sites visited by site type,it was found that there were about 2 million people each. For the official sites,
about 10 million comic distribution sites and about 5 million video distribution
sites were used for the top sites. The rests were equal to or less than the numberof piracy site users. This shows how much influence the piracy site has.
(3) The changes in number of uses of Online Reading sites over time were very large,
but P2P sites were relatively stable. In particular, Online Reading sites weregreatly influenced by the government's anti-piracy countermeasures in April
2018. On the other hand, the P2P site continued with the top site being
unchanged for two years, indicating that there were 2 million specific users.
(4) The usage of piracy apps in Japan is less than 2% compared to official apps,
indicating that they are not as popular as piracy sites.
(5) The number of visits to piracy sites exceeded 650 million in March 2018.
However, anti-piracy countermeasures by the Japanese government were55

discussed, and the Japanese government took a strong stance against piracy
sites, which had a great impact on society as a whole. As a result of thesecountermeasures, sites such as “Manga Mura” were closed and the number ofvisits to the all piracy sites dropped sharply. Therefore, it is considered thatthese discussions were effective in countering piracy sites.
(6) A survey of the countries where piracy sites were established revealed that 381
server countries, 61% of the 624 sites surveyed, were unknown, of which 86%
were built on the CDN provided by Cloudflare. When a piracy site is built on the
CDN, it is difficult to identify the location of the cache server that distributes thecontent to the end user, and it tends to become a hotbed of piracy site. However,
Cloudflare tends to respond to requests for information disclosure related to site
operators, and a cooperative system will be required in the future.
(7) There were functions that helped build piracy sites. As an example, we
introduced the “A” repository that enables the same construction as the “Onespecific P2P site” site and the “Theme 1” theme of “Wordpress” that enables
users to build a site similar to “One specific Online Reading site”.

56

Chapter 5: Survey Summary
In this survey, we identified piracy sites and apps for movies, TV programs, anime,
and manga in Japan, and investigated changes over time in their use in the two years
from July 2017 to July 2019 using SimilarWeb data. The purpose is to informdiscussions about the best policies for reducing online piracy in Japan. And clarified
the actual situation.
(1) As a result of investigating piracy sites in Japan, we were able to extract 1,447
sites. Among these, 624 sites with over 100,000 visits per month weresurveyed for a two years period.
(2) The total number of monthly visits to piracy sites in June 2019 exceeded 340
million. The top 10 sites count for approximately 50% of the total number ofvisits, and the top 100 sites total exceeds 90%. Therefore, for piracy sites
countermeasures, it is only necessary to concentrate on high sites with.
(3) There were 340 million monthly visits to piracy sites, while the total number ofvisits to 50 official sites was 290 million.
(4) As a result of the investigating 381 server’s country identifier, 61% of thesurveyed 624 sites, were unknown, and 86% of them were built on the CDN
provided by Cloudflare.
(5) The usage of piracy apps in Japan is about one-hundredth of that in the UnitedStates, less than 2% of the usage of official apps and not as much as piracy
sites.
In addition, the following has become clear about the trends in the situation ofpiracy sites in Japan over the past two years.
(6) Monthly visits to Japanese piracy sites were about 500 million at the beginningof July 2017, and peaked at over 600 million in March 2018. The main ones are
Online Reading Site such as “Manga Mura”. It was a rapid increase. However,
the target site was closed as a result of piracy countermeasures by theJapanese government, and due to the heightened awareness of copyright
infringement by users, it can be seen that it suddenly decreased to 320 million
in June 2018.
(7) As of June 2019, there were 340 million visits, showing a slight increase, andthe scale of copyright infringement is still large.
(8) As for the trends by site type, the time line for Online Reading sites were very
volatile, while P2P sites were relatively stable. In particular, Online Reading57

sites were greatly influenced by the government's anti-piracy countermeasuresin April 2018. On the other hand, the P2P site continued without the top site
unchanged for two years, indicating that there were 2 million core users.
In this survey, the most distinctive impact was the drastic drop in visits to all piracy
sites in April 2018. Countermeasures against piracy by the Japanese government werediscussed, and the response that the government took on piracy sites, pushed piracy
sites to close. At the same time, it brings a change in the awareness of using pirated
contents for end users, and as a result, has proved very effective as a countermeasureagainst piracy sites.
On the other hand, since April 2018, the number of visits to piracy sites continues to
exceed 300 million per month. For this reason, it is necessary for content providers toprovide attractive distribution services that are more convenient than piracy sites. As
well as to deepen discussions on more effective and sustainable piracy
countermeasures.

58

References[1] SimilarWeb
https://www.similarweb.com/[2] “ FY2013 Intellectual Property Rights Working Group Infringement Countermeasures
Improvement

Project(Contents

PiracyCountermeasures

Survey)(RolandBerger

Implementation)”(31 Mar. 31,2014)
https://www.meti.go.jp/information/publicoffer/kobo/2019/downloadfiles/k190201002_01.pdf[3] Netcraft
https://www.netcraft.com/[4] “Urgent Measures against Piracy Sites on the Internet” at the Intellectual Property Strategy
Headquarters in the country (Apr 2018)https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/titeki2/kettei/honpen.pdf[5] “How to proceed with anti-piracy measures on the Internet”(Crime Control Ministerial Meeting, Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Apr. 13,2018)https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/titeki2/kettei/susumekata.pdf[6] About blocking against pirated sites on the Internet
NTT Press Releases (The latest and archived news about NTT, Apr. 23,2018)https://www.ntt.co.jp/news2018/1804/180423a.html[7] Cloudflare
https://www.cloudflare.com[8] Study meeting on anti-piracy measures on the Internet (Task Force) (9th)Document 4 (Verification, Evaluation and Planning Committee, Intellectual Property Strategy
Headquarters, Oct. 15,2018)https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/titeki2/tyousakai/kensho_hyoka_kikaku/2018/kaizoku/dai9/gij
isidai.html

59