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On Saturday morning, the popular websites KissAnime and KissManga were permanently taken down following reports that Japan would be implementing stricter copyright laws. According to Kyodo News, a June article showed that the Japanese parliament had “endorsed a revised anti-online piracy law for copyright control, banning illicit downloading of manga, magazines, and academic texts, in addition to music and videos that were already covered by the existing legislation.”
KissAnime, which is a popular piracy website that is used to “illegally stream anime shows,” in the words of Mothership, was taken down around 6 a.m. on Saturday. According to ANI Radio Plus, KissAnime’s Support announced read, “Our beta server have been taken down, this could lead to the closure of the website. We will make more announcement after we have the decision.”
Four hours later, the message was updated to read, “All files are taken down by copyright owners. KissManga and KissAnime will be closed forever. Thank you for your supports… Thank you to those years.”
Both sites had been online for nearly a decade.
While this is not the first time that Japan’s piracy laws have forced popular sites to be taken down, KissAnime and KissManga’s are arguably the most popular sites that have been removed.
Here’s what we know:
Why Is Crunchyroll Trending on Twitter?
Why was Crunchyroll trending on Twitter if KissAnime and KissManga were the websites taken down?
Crunchyroll is a website that requires a subscription in order to watch anime. Other options to consume anime content include Funimation and Netflix, according to Geek Culture.
On Twitter, some users have written that without KissAnime and KissManga, they may be forced to turn to Crunchyroll– which has left some users upset. On Saturday morning, one Twitter user wrote, “kissanime just got taken down wtf is this i’m not gna resort to crunchyroll.”
Another user echoed those sentiments, writing, “RIP Kissanime. You kept me from having to use streaming services… like Funimation and Crunchyroll.”
A third expressed their sorrow by writing, “Kissanime was there when no one else was.”
In general, the social media sentiment was to thank KissAnime and KissManga for their service, with the Twittersphere uploading their favorite quotes and moments to the platform.
The Ban on Illegal Downloading Will Take Effect on January 1, 2021
While August 15 marked the morning that KissAnime and KissManga were taken down, the ban on illegally downloading content on these sites does not officially go into effect until next year, according to Kyodo News.
They add, however, that restrictions on leech sites, which “provide users hyperlinks to download so-called torrent files of pirated materials,” will go into effect on October 1.
Kyodo News reported that users turning to these websites have caused an estimated loss of more than 300 billion yen, or $2.75 to publishers. And those who are found to operate leech websites could reportedly face up to five years in jail or a maximum fine of 5 million yen.
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