Watch Out: Japan Is Spending $2 Million on AI to Squash Anime Piracy
After years of trying to fight piracy in vain, Japan has turned to AI for help and it could finally squash anime piracy for good. Amidst the ever-growing concern surrounding artificial intelligence and how it could harm the anime and manga industry, Japan has surprisingly managed to find a silver lining, putting AI to good use to potentially create an automated anti-piracy system.
According to a recent report by NHK, Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs plans to spend approximately 300 million yen or 2 million USD developing an AI-powered piracy detection system to help combat anime piracy. This system will ideally automatically detect websites posting pirated content while also facilitating the entire removal process for copyright holders and could significantly curb anime piracy in the years to come.
Piracy has often been likened to a hydra, as with every domain taken down, several others spring up almost instantly, and the anime and manga industry's struggle against piracy has only gotten worse as the medium continues to grow in popularity around the world. In fact, according to recent reports released by Google, companies like Toei Animation and Viz Media recently requested to have millions of URLs delisted from search results.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs estimates the losses caused by piracy to be around 2 trillion yen or 13.32 billion USD per year in losses. As such, fighting piracy has always been a downhill battle and AI may be the only thing capable of turning the tide. As the Agency for Cultural Affairs explain in their official statement, there are only so many piracy states that one can manually find and report, which is not only inefficient but also expensive and time-consuming. Thus, making use of AI is definitely the smarter move in this situation.