Notorious Hentai Sharing Platform asserts Approval from Publisher for Exposing Nudity
The initial stages of a hentai piracy dispute became intriguing this month when unveiled court papers indicated that the wronged publisher had sent emails acknowledging that piracy cannot be halted utterly. In a sequence of correspondence between the publisher and the piracy site, the publisher also endeavored to procure banner advertisements on the site and provided a roster of particular pages where they desired the ads to be positioned.
Tech publication TorrentFreak has been monitoring the bizarre incident involving nHentai and PCR Distributing. nHentai is a prominent website offering free hentai scans originating from major publishers. It garnered 80 million visitors in June. PCR Distributing is a firm that published numerous of the material that surfaces on nHentai.
Over the summer, PCR commenced legal proceedings against nHentai. It commenced with a DMCA takedown request and has escalated into a full-blown lawsuit. In documents lodged on October 14, PCR petitioned the court for early discovery in the case. The administrators behind nHentai remain anonymous and listed as “John Doe.” PCR is seeking Cloudflare and other services to disclose their identity.
nHentai’s legal team contested PCR, asserting in its own documents that PCR was demanding an excessive disclosure and did not wish to expose any user data. In an astonishing turn, the documents revealed multiple alleged emails between PCR staff and nHentai, as per nHentai, where the publisher granted the site implicit approval to distribute its content.
An email allegedly from a PCR employee to nHentai offered a persuasive justification about the constraints of copyright claims in the digital sphere in 2020. “I want to stress this is not a takedown request or a DMCA,” the email stated. “I’ve spent enough time sailing the high seas myself to know that they’re fruitless and nobody adheres to them anyway.”
“We are aware that people do not always have the funds to acquire official releases, or simply do not wish to pay for them,” the email proceeded. “We acknowledge that the only reason any market for anime or manga exists in the West is due to piracy, so we are not interested in attempting to fight any sites about this matter.”
Then the employee extended an offer. They desired to place banner advertisements on nHentai that would permit users to effortlessly purchase the content they were enjoying at no cost, should they opt for it. “The banners aren’t intended to be invasive, they don’t jitter, they don’t attempt to embarrass or make you feel guilty,” the email mentioned. “They’re merely there so that enthusiasts who want to possess physical, uncensored, English-language versions of the doujinshi they cherish so much can acquire them.”
The court document shared additional emails between nHentai and diverse employees from PCR. In one, the publisher shared a spreadsheet that contained a list of pages where they desired to host their banner advertisements. In another, PCR repeated the claim that it did not wish for nHentai to remove any of its images and then inquired about the cost to purchase ad space on the site.
“We’re organizing a sale here soon,” the email said. “So I was wondering about shorter-term ad space in general areas of the site, and how much that would cost. It’d likely last for about a month or so.”
PCR rebutted nHentai in court documents filed on October 21. It underscored that the current legal dispute was about early discovery and not about the case, in total. “To substantiate its claim of ‘permission’ Defendant cites an unauthenticated email that could be fabricated entirely,” PCR’s lawyers stated in the court documents. “Even when considered true, it does not establish a license or consent to utilize Plaintiff’s copyright protected content.” It also asserted that it had sent DMCA takedown notices past 2020 that nHentai disregarded.
The court has yet to rule on the request for early discovery and it is highly probable that this legal spat over pirated hentai will persist for some time yet.
The tech industry is closely watching this legal battle, as it could set a precedent for future negotiations between publishers and piracy sites. In a recent development, PCR's lawyers argued that the alleged emails from their employee do not establish a license or consent to use their copyright-protected content, even if they are considered true.
