The Tokyo District Court ruled Thursday that the former operator of a now-defunct website allowing users free access to pirated manga must pay a total of around 1.7 billion yen ($11 million) in damages to three major Japanese publishers.The compensation over the website Manga-Mura is the largest ever levied in similar lawsuits, according to the plaintiffs -- Shogakukan Inc., Kadokawa Corp. and Shueisha Inc.The court recognized that the publishing rights and exclusive usage rights of the publishers were infringed.Site users were able to save the images they viewed on their own devices, and "…READ FULL ARTICLE
