Japan’s Sony Music Entertainment and anime producer and record label owner Bandai Namco Music Live are trying to uncover the identity of the man behind anime music piracy website Hikari-no-Akari.
The two companies filed a subpoena request with the U.S. Federal Court on June 29, asking the court clerk to order the Internet service company Yunyao “Identifying certain persons owned by or represented by Sony and Bandai Namco who are suspected of copyright infringement”.
You can read these requests here and here .
The proposed subpoena attached to the request identifies two domains: hikarinoakari.com and hnadownloads.co. Both domains are associated with Hikari-no-Akari, a piracy site that specializes in Japanese music, including music popularized by anime TV shows.
According to pirate news website RiptideIt was first reported that Sony and Bandai Namco were taking legal action against Hikari-no-Akari, a piracy website that has been operating for more than a decade and has over 1 million monthly visitors.
The subpoena request issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, includes letters sent by Sony and Bandai Namco to Cloudflare on June 20, asking Cloudflare to “immediately disable access” to certain content addresses of the two websites.
The full text of the letters can be read here and here .
It’s unclear whether Cloudflare has responded to these letters. However, as of Thursday (July 4), both the hikarinoakari.com and hnadownloads.co domains were down for Internet users.
according to Riptide, Cloudflare does not block access to the web content it serves. Instead, the company forwards the request to the website hosting company hosting the URL in question.
The letters listed specific tracks that were allegedly available for pirated copies of “Bright of the Light.”
Sony Music’s roster includes half is enough by japanese singer anonymousalso My preview go through Kitani Tatsuyaa song popular in the animated series go! go! Loser Ranger!and Goodbye, Yiwuhe! go through Sage Ye Zhijinused as the theme song of Japanese dramas tiger and her wings.
Bandai Namco’s Checklist Features Ronof peacekeepersappears in the animation About me being reincarnated as a slime; Junxiof believeappearing in the same anime series; and blue day go through Shota Horie and Miho Karasawaappears in the animation As a reincarnated noble, I want to use my appraisal ability to rise up in the world..
The subpoena request was made under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law allows rights holders to petition the clerk of any U.S. district court to issue a subpoena to service providers requiring them to turn over identifying information about copyright infringers.
The efforts by Sony and Bandai Namco suggest the music industry may be stepping up its fight against piracy amid a recent surge in digital music piracy.
According to the data company governmentthere is one 13% annual increase By 2023, traffic to music piracy websites will increase to over 17 billion Visit during the year, wired reported earlier this year.
After years of decline, attributed to the popularity of legal music streaming services such as Spotify, apple music and YouTube MusicMuso data shows that music piracy will be on the rise again starting in 2021.
In recent years, many music rights holders have worked to hold Internet service providers accountable for piracy that occurs on their networks.
In the US, they have filed lawsuits against the following ISPs: Chartered Communications, Cox Communicationsand altis usa.
This is mainly due to the increasing popularity of torrent file sharing protocols, which enable decentralized sharing of files. Torrent files can be accessed through numerous websites that support piracy, so illegal file sharing cannot be blocked by targeting any specific website.
However, Hikari-no-Akari provides direct access to the URL where a specific file can be found, making it possible to target the site directly.
according to RiptideThe piracy site also operates a private forum and a Discord channel that is notoriously difficult to join.global music business
