Shueisha , Kodansha , Kadokawa , and Shogakukan jointly filed a lawsuit in New York Southern District Court on September 4 against the unnamed administrators of website Hoshi no Romi and three other United States-hosted websites. The plaintiffs claimed that the sites, which allegedly hosted over 93,000 scanned volumes of manga, are successors to Japanese manga piracy website Mangamura, and are thus violating copyrights and earning profit off it. The companies are seeking damages and the closure of the sites.

Hoshi no Romi appears to be named after Romi Hoshino, an alleged administrator of Mangamura. The four sites being sued are currently inaccessible.

The Japanese-language manga piracy site Mangamura became inaccessible in April 2018. Japanese publishers had filed criminal complaints against the website in summer through fall 2017, and Japanese authorities revealed in May 2018 that they were actively investigating Mangamura. Police have since made several arrests related to uploading unauthorized images on the site.

Pirated manga aggregator app Manga Rock recently shut down earlier this month.

Sources: Nikkei, The Japan Times, PACER