The operating company of Nhentai, which has since been revealed as Delaware company X Separator LLC following a court order, has filed a counterclaim against PCR Distributing, following the latter’s lawsuit initiated last year.
Based in San Diego, PCR Distributing was founded as a wholesaler of English-translated adult visual novels imported from Japan. It represents that it does business as the English-language adult visual novel publisher JAST USA and doujinshi publisher J18 Publishing. These are sister companies to adult merch and doujinshi retailer J-List. As Torrent Freak reports, PCR filed a subpoena request to force Cloudflare to reveal Nhentai’s operators, alleging that Nhentai was knowingly infringing on its copyrights. When Nhentai moved to prevent this, PCR filed a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and inducement of copyright infringement.
- As an aside, Cloudflare recently lost a copyright infringement lawsuit in Japan, brought forward by manga publishers KADOKAWA, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan. Cloudflare’s CDN offerings, which duplicate web resources across its servers globally to provide faster access nearer to customers, were found by the judge to infringe on copyrights as these resources can include pirated material. Cloudflare maintains that this process is automatic and neutral. It was reported on December 4 that Cloudflare has appealed this decision.
Nhentai’s attempts then to dismiss the lawsuit, and in the event of failing to, to dismiss PCR’s petition to have its operating company unmasked, both failed in April. In its answer to PCR’s lawsuit in November, it more or less denied all allegations, plus any attempt to link Nhentai (which uses the .net domain) to the similarly named Nhentai(.to).
Nhentai claims that PCR’s lawsuit is frivolous, as PCR purportedly consented to Nhentai’s use of the copyrights in a series of emails from October 2020 to April 2022. It claims that PCR explored allowing Nhentai to keep the works up in exchange for providing a direct means for users to buy the legal versions. PCR says this was not permission but merely a discussion. Nhentai adds that throughout this lawsuit, PCR has misrepresented its ownership of the allegedly infringed-upon copyrights “to manipulat[e] the judicial process,” did not own any of the disputed copyrights, and that the statute of limitations on claims had passed, among other arguments.
Nhentai says that during the period that PCR had sent its emails exploring a partnership (October 2020 to April 2022), it hadn’t filed any copyright registrations with the U.S. Copyright Office; and it began doing so only doing so on or after March 19, 2023. Having never retracted the purported offer to Nhentai to keep its works on the site, PCR then filed a subpoena request to force Cloudflare to identify the company behind Nhentai. Nhentai alleges that not retracting the “offer” all while registering the copyrights was so “that it could sue Defendant/Counter-Plaintiff for alleged copyright infringement.”
Nhentai says this PCR either knew its “offers” at the time were false or were made without regard for the truth, so that Nhentai could rely on them. It claims that this is fraud/intentional misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation.
Nhentai is seeking a jury trial and damages to be determined at said trial. It estimates that the damages surpass $500,000.
Source: PCR Distributing Co. v. John Does (Amended Answer to Complaint — Document #70), via Court Listener, via Torrent Freak
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