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Chinese Site Administrator Sentenced for Posting Early Shonen Jump Scans
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Shueisha announced on Tuesday that the Shanghai Xuhui People's Court convicted and sentenced the administrator of a Chinese site that was illegally uploading and distributing Shueisha's manga online. The court sentenced the administrator to three years in prison on Friday, although the sentence is suspended for three years. (The prison sentence will not be carried out unless the defendant is convicted of another offense in the next three years.) The court also fined the administrator 80,000 yuan (about 1.2 million yen or US$11,000).
Aside from the criminal case, Shueisha is also seeking damages in a separate case in civil court. The defendant has admitted to the acts, written a letter of apology, and agreed to pay damages to Shueisha.
The site opened in 2013, and began posting Chinese-translated scans of manga from Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, days before the print issues officially shipped in Japan every week. The site earned revenue from ads, and it had 400,000 unique users. The Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau arrested the site's administrator on October 30.
Source: Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)
