ISTANBUL

A Japanese court on Wednesday punished the US cloud service company Cloudflare Inc. to pay a heavy fine of around 500 million yen ($3 million) in damages to four major Japanese publishers of popular manga over copyright issues.

According to the ruling, Cloudflare "failed in its duty to stop" the content delivery network service to one of the largest illegal sites by having a contract with them, according to Kyodo News.

Presiding Judge Aya Takahashi found that Cloudflare had simplified its identification procedure, enabling the piracy site operator, remaining anonymous, to efficiently distribute pirated copies, and did not suspend the service even after publishing houses had notified it of the copyright infringement.

The company, however, argued that it was unaware of the infringement and that it was the website operator that transmitted the data.

Cloudflare also expressed its intent to appeal the ruling, cautioning that letting it stand would seriously affect the efficiency and reliability of the internet.

According to the plaintiffs, the ruling marked the first time a court held a company that enables transfers of cached digital content liable for damages.

The four companies, including publishers of popular manga titles, such as One Piece and Attack on Titan, were named as Kodansha Ltd., Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Kadokawa Corp.

Separately, Indonesia's Communication and Digital Affairs Ministry has issued formal warnings to 25 domestic and foreign digital service providers, including major global platforms such as Cloudflare, OpenAI, Duolingo, Dropbox, Shutterstock, and Getty Images, for failing to register under the country’s mandatory Electronic System Operator rules, required for all platforms operating in the country, according to the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

"If a platform continues to ignore the notification, administrative sanctions, including access termination, may be imposed," Alexander Sabar, the director general for Digital Space Oversight, said in a statement on Tuesday.