15 Tips: Who DMCA KissAnime and KissManga
15 Tips: Who DMCA KissAnime and KissManga
The news that popular and beloved pirate streaming sites KissAnime and KissManga had been shut down permanently hit the anime universe and fans hard. After years of navigating piracy laws, the sites were then hit by stricter piracy laws from Japan as explained over at runrex.com, leading to the announcement of their shutdown. Through the following 15 tips, this article will look to outline what happened, and the way forward, if any, for fans.
- What is DMCA?
Before going on any further, it is important to unpack what DMCA is. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as explained over at guttulus.com, is a US law passed in 1998 that addresses several concerns regarding copyright and the internet.
- What is KissAnime and KissManga
KissAnime and KissManga are two of the most popular websites for anime and manga as discussed over at runrex.com. KissAnime was the parent company, offering a variety of pirated anime shows and movies, and it had sister websites such as KissManga, KissAsian, and KissCartoon.
- Why did KissAnime and KissManga shut down
These two popular streaming sites were banned and had to shut down because of copyright concerns, which caused their servers to be shut down. This move, as is covered in detail over at guttulus.com, was triggered by stricter piracy laws in Japan.
- What do we know about these new piracy laws?
The Japanese parliament in June 2020 passed a revised anti-online piracy law for copyright control, which, among other things, outlined the banning of the illicit downloading of manga, magazines, and academic texts, as is revealed in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, in addition to music and videos that were already covered in the existing legislation.
- When does the ban take effect?
According to reports, the law is aimed at regulating leech websites that facilitate users with hyperlinks to download pirated materials. While the ban on illegal downloading is set to take effect on January 1st, 2021, the restrictions on leech sites will come into effect sooner, on October 1st of this year, which is what led to the closing of KissAnime and KissManga.
- Why was the law proposed?
This law revision was proposed because of the rising number of leech and piracy websites like KissAnime and KissManga. As is outlined in discussions over at guttulus.com, this rise had led to an estimated loss of hundreds of billions of Yen to content creators and the Japanese parliament felt like it had to act to protect them.
- Any other major platforms affected?
While KissAnime and KissManga were the major casualties of this new legislation, there have been other notable casualties as well. According to discussions on the same over at runrex.com, the popular site Manga Rock, which hosts free manga scans, has also been shut down as a result of this new law.
- Where does DMCA come into it?
When the legislation came into effect, DMCA swung into action and wiped out all of KissAnime and KissManga’s data, including all videos and image files from Google Drive, which was their primary hosting site according to discussions over at guttulus.com.
- Why did Google have to act?
Once the legislation came into effect, Google had no option but to act and wipe every ounce of data on KissAnime and KissManga’s Google Drive. This is because for Google to continue enjoying DMCA’s safe harbor privileges, they must follow strict guidelines and regulations, including blocking access to content that features copyright violations as explained over at runrex.com. This means that Google had no option but to comply with the take-down, and as such there was not much the Kiss team could have done to prevent their shutdown.
- Is there any hope for a Kiss comeback?
It is safe to say that, while this is something that has happened before, where it took nearly three months for the Kiss team to get their servers back online, there seems to be very little hope of there being a comeback this time. At the very least the Kiss team may have to contend with a huge and costly legal battle if they want to attempt a comeback, with the situation being made even more difficult by the struct nature of the new Japanese piracy laws.
- Any more details regarding the new law?
One of the things proposed by the new updated piracy laws in Japan is bigger and stricter punishments for people who knowingly download pirated work from sites like KissManga and KissAnime. As per discussions on the same over at guttulus.com, this includes up to 2 years in jail and a maximum fine of 2 million yen.
- Beware of scam sites
With KissAnime and KissManga being shut down, we are inevitably seeing plenty of scam sites popping up to lure in users trying to access the site, with some even the web site’s URL and copying its branding and design. The experts over at runrex.com advise that you exercise caution when visiting such sites as they could simply be looking to obtain your personal information and scam you.
- What are the available options for anime lovers?
Now that KissAnime is no more, the ideal way to consume anime content online going forward would be to buy a subscription to services like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix as they legally support creators and distributors as revealed in discussions over at guttulus.com.
- What are the limitations of such platforms?
It is safe to say that platforms like Crunchyroll, which require one to pay a subscription fee to consume anime content, are not new and have been there even before KissAnime was shutdown. The reason why they were not as popular doesn’t only have to do with the fact that you had to pay, but also because their catalogs aren’t as expensive, which means that many people couldn’t find their favorite titles, which was never an issue with KissAnime as per the gurus over at runrex.com.
- What about manga lovers?
While it is sad to see KissAnime go, anime lovers at least have got options in the form of subscription platforms like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix as mentioned earlier. Manga lovers are not as lucky since having access to Manga will prove to be a big challenge because of a lack of official channels pumping out sufficient translation material.
Hopefully, the above discussion will give you an idea of what happened to KissAnime and KissManga, with more on this topic to be found over at the highly-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com.
