What You Need to Know:
- As of August 15th, 2020, pirate sharing sites KissAnime and KissManga have been shut down.
- This officially happened after an announcement on KissAnime's Discord warned its members that their beta servers had been taken down and that it may lead to the closing of the site. Just 4 hours later, a new message confirmed the shutdown announcing all files had been taken down by copyright holders and that the website would sut down forever, thanking users for years of support.
- KissAnime and KissManga had been making available official and unofficial subs and scanalations for almost 10 years and they surely will not be the last pirate site to be taken down.
- This comes as Japan passed an amendmet to their copyright laws, making them much much stricter by enacting a revised copyright law that will now expand to "punish those who knowingly download illegally uploaded or pirated manga, magazines, and academic works."
- The law also regulates “leech websites” which direct users to torrent links and other P2P sharing. The revised law for donloads goes into effect on January 1, 2021 , while restrictions on leech sites go into effect October 1st. Penalties for repeat offenders of illegal downloads will be up to two years in prison and/or a 2 million yen fine. Penalties for illegal sites include up to five years in prison and/or a 5 million yen fine.
- Interestingly, Crunchyroll was an illegal fansub site much like KissAnime until 2008 when they became legit. It is expected that many other pirate sites will soon follow. We will keep you updated as info becomes available!
That is a BIG fine! You all better behave!
It will be good for anime as a whole in the end!
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