Tokyo, August 9, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) is pleased to announce the August 2022 launch of the content anti-piracy service. The new service is designed to provide anti-piracy measures to the manga market, while supporting the distribution of genuine content, and is operated in collaboration with MUSO TNT Ltd (MUSO), a London, UK-based piracy tracking company.

Background

An increasing number of people both in Japan and overseas, are choosing to enjoy their manga experience via web browsers and applications amid the spread of smartphones, and rising demand is being seen from those “nesting,” at home during the Covid-19 pandemic. In line with this development, challenges have emerged, such as the copyright protection of content holders, and the need to strengthen distribution both domestically and overseas for genuine content, in the face of the sharp rise in the number of pirated manga websites.

In order to overcome these challenges, DNP has collaborated with MUSO to provide content holders such as publishers, with support services, including the monitoring of pirated editions and the handling of requests for their deletion. 

In addition, we will provide marketing support, analyzing the browsing status of pirated editions on an area basis, such as country or region, or via the age and gender of users, so as to distribute genuine content to the most suitable readers of each work. Through the content anti-piracy service, we will work to strengthen the soundness of the content market so that profits can be correctly returned to content holders. At the same time, we will promote the manga, and develop an environment where manga fans around the world can enjoy genuine content in an appropriate manner. 

Service Features

1. Anti-Piracy Measures

• The new service will perform discovery of pirated sites, status monitoring, and track results, while also handling requests for deletion of pirated sites and URLs. 
• We conducted a feasibility test of the new service with the cooperation of Shueisha Co., Ltd., a publisher in Japan, and in-house research revealed that the deletion rate of online-browsed, streaming-type pirated content was nearly double the average deletion rate of similar services with measures against pirated content. 
• Administrator-dedicated web pages can be performed from requesting site deletion to confirming the status in a consistent format. Standardization and streamlining of business processes at content holders, such as publishers, will also be carried out. 
• We will also provide various reports when sharing the damage situation with related parties both inside and outside the company, responding to requests for anti-piracy measures by authors, or collaborating with industry groups. 
• We will provide an abundant menu of options that are easy to introduce, regardless of the number and scale of their manga publications.

2, Distribution Support for Genuine Contents 

• We will support publishers, by gaining an understanding of the browsing needs of each manga work, including the browsing status of pirated sites. We will also visualize the potential demand for each content.
• We are planning to build a sales channel and promotion support designed to expand overseas markets. In addition, we will also provide production and manufacturing related services, as detailed below, that are effective when expanding genuine manga content overseas, and will link this to the simultaneous publication of Japanese and overseas manga versions.
    - Producing manga in multiple languages
    - Conversion to, and production of, vertically scrolling manga suitable for smartphone screens
    - Colorization of manga content
    - Supporting the content production process
    - Print on demand capable of responding to a variety of order volumes 

3, Collaboration with MUSO

• MUSO boasts in excess of 1,000 client content holders around the world, including publishers, software, movie, television, and music-related companies, and has developed a track record in copyright protection and anti-piracy measures. By way of example, in 2018, 121,885 pirated magazines published by 334 Italian publishers were successfully deleted, helping to reduce visits to Italian pirated websites to about one-third. 
• Comment from Christopher Elkins, MUSO Co-Founder and Chief Business Development Officer.
  
  “This partnership highlights MUSO's commitment to collaborating with the most innovative thinking companies and developing forward thinking solutions for rights owners to protect their content and reach bigger audiences online. We're excited and inspired to work with DNP and support the Manga industry, as it continues its amazing global growth.” 

Looking Ahead

We will endeavor to prevent the outflow of pirated content and support the distribution of genuine content by expanding the scope of the content anti-piracy service, and building a mechanism to distribute various manga works worldwide in an appropriate environment. In addition, we will push ahead with development to expand the scope of the new service beyond manga to a wide range of content.

*Company and product names listed in this release are the trademarks or registered trademarks of those companies.
*Listed product specifications and service contents are current as of the date of publication. They may be changed at any time without notice.