Summary
- Crunchyroll slammed AnimeHeaven with a DMCA notice, leading to the loss of thousands of anime episodes.
- Big media publications and animation studios like Crunchyroll and Netflix are actively targeting such piracy and illegal streaming sites.
- Earlier this month, the MangaDex site also received a DMCA notice affecting over 700 titles.
AnimeHeaven was one of the biggest piracy websites, streaming several anime titles for free, including the likes of One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Solo Leveling. Recently, however, the site was slammed with a DMCA notice from Crunchyroll, which made it lose thousands of anime episodes.
The Japanese animation industry, or the entertainment industry as a whole, has been struggling with piracy for several years. Even though streaming giants like Crunchyroll and Netflix have made anime titles more accessible to the entire world, these piracy sites continue to flourish and get millions of hits each month. Big publication houses and animation studios from Japan have been doing everything in their power to take down such sites — the latest target of the "takedown" mission being AnimeHeaven.
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AnimeHeaven Loses Its Server Following The DMCA Notice
The Error Message On The Site Confirms The Takedown
As reported by Anime Corner, Crunchyroll recently slammed AnimeHeaven with a takedown notice through a third-party service. It's entirely possible that that DMCA notice was from more than one publication or media house, but a mod confirmed on Discord that the notice mentioned Crunchyroll as a rights holder. The piracy site was home to thousands of anime episodes, and while the site still stays operational, viewers can't watch any episode due to the server takedown. When trying to play an episode from any anime series, viewers are greeted with a message saying:
“Episode no longer available because DMCA trolls took down video server.”
AnimeHeaven used to get more than 10 million views each month, so the takedown certainly has the community talking. In fact, the website's recurring visitors wonder if the servers will ever become operational again, which, honestly, seems highly unlikely. As we've seen in the past, these takedowns are often permanent, and such sites very rarely return after the takedown notice, at least not under the same site title.
This isn't the first time that big media publication houses have taken down a massive piracy site. Last year, for instance, streaming giants like Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and Hulu launched a collaborative mission to take down multiple piracy streaming sites, including AnimeRave, Fmovies, and movies7. However, the thing with piracy sites is that when one goes down, another ten take its place.
This Is The Second DMCA Notice News We've Heard This Month So Far
Manga Dex Was Hit With A DMCA Notice Earlier This Month
Before AnimeHeaven, it was MangaDex that suffered a massive blow following a DMCA notice a few days back. MangaDex is another massive piracy site that distributes content illegally, but instead of anime, it deals in manga. The site, home to thousands of manga titles, was adversely affected by the DMCA notice and lost more than 700 manga titles. Apparently, multiple companies like Kakao, Naver, Square Enix, Kodansha, and Houbunsha issued the DMCA notice through third-party companies offering anti-piracy services.
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Even though MangaDex has lost hundreds of manga titles, which is surely a massive blow, the site is still operational. However, it's unlikely that the DMCA action against the site is over, as anti-piracy companies might still target the platform with more takedown notices, affecting even more manga titles available on the site.
Source: Anime Corner
