R.I.P Online Manga

Coalition with Japan's Digital Comic Association plans legal action on 30 scanlation sites
The 36 publishers in Japan's Digital Comic Association and several American publishers are forming a coalition to combat the "rampant and growing problem" of scanlations �?? illicit digital copies of manga either translated by fans or scanned directly from legitimate English releases.

The coalition asserts that "scanlation aggregator" sites "now host thousands of pirated titles, earning ad revenue and/or membership dues at creators' expense while simultaneously undermining foreign licensing opportunities and unlawfully cannibalizing legitimate sales." Google lists one site on its list of the 1,000 most-visited sites on the web. An unnamed spokesperson for the coalition also pointed to smartphone applications designed to read such sites as an escalation of the problem.

The coalition is reportedly threatening legal action against 30 scanlation sites, whose names were not revealed. The organization currently includes Japanese publishers Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shueisha, Square Enix, and the Tuttle-Mori Agency, as well as North American manga publishers Vertical Inc., Viz Media, Tokyopop, and Yen Press.

Source: Publishers Weekly

Update: According to a press release issued by Viz Media on Tuesday, the coalition's members include Square Enix, Viz Media, TOKYOPOP, Vertical, Inc., the Tuttle-Mori Agency, Yen Press, and the members of the Digital Comic Association: Akane Shinsha, Akita Shoten, ASCII Media Works, East Press, Ichijinsha, Enterbrain, Okura Shuppan, Ohzora Shuppan, Gakken, Kadokawa Shoten, Gentosha Comics, Kodansha, Jitsugyo No Nihonsha, Shueisha, Junet, Shogakukan, Shogakukan Shueisha Production, Shodensha, Shonen Gahosha, Shinshokan, Shinchosha, Take Shobo, Tatsumi Shuppan, Tokuma Shoten, Nihon Bungeisha, Hakusensha, Fujimi Shobo, Fusosha, Futabasha, France Shoin, Bunkasha, Houbunsha, Magazine House, Media Factory, Leed sha, and Libre Shuppan.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-06-08/u.s-japanese-publishers-unite-against-manga-scan-sites

Those people need to mind their own business if you ask me, honestly, it should be the Mangaka's themselves choice if they want THEIR manga taken down, if it's taken down, they will loose people reading it, and I doubt ANYONE creates a Manga for the money, rather then the enjoyment of others reading it, well, that's how I'd be :P.

Seriously though, they should leave the sites alone unless the one's who made the Manga decide they want it taken down...

Espada Vampiro said:

Those people need to mind their own business if you ask me, honestly, it should be the Mangaka's themselves choice if they want THEIR manga taken down, if it's taken down, they will loose people reading it, and I doubt ANYONE creates a Manga for the money, rather then the enjoyment of others reading it, well, that's how I'd be :P.

Seriously though, they should leave the sites alone unless the one's who made the Manga decide they want it taken down...

If noone buys the manga it stops being published...

These people are doing what they should be doing. I don't like it, but this is there business and people are stealing their product and hard earned money.

sharingansasuke said:

These people are doing what they should be doing. I don't like it, but this is there business and people are stealing their product and hard earned money.

I agree...I hate that this is happening(I'll go into this in a minute...) but they do deserve their money...


Well anyhoo...This just became more serious to me...
a recent story...

Hmm I haven't checked my bookmarks in a few days I wonder if bleach was updated...hmm Naruto and bleach are no longer in the top three, I guess people got bored with them...Checks bookmarks...Where's bleach?
*Gasps for breath*
Wait...maybe it just got moved to a different spot in my bookmarks...*Scans first page of bookmarks...* It's not here! *gasps for breathe* *Checks second page....*...still empty!!! *Gasps for breath* Searches for bleach *No manga found* *Gasps for breathe* ...but I hear they gave up on sasuke...I'll try Naruto...*Gasps for breathe*

Note:I really did that...course it was more a joke to myself than me being upset...

Espada Vampiro said:

Those people need to mind their own business if you ask me, honestly, it should be the Mangaka's themselves choice if they want THEIR manga taken down, if it's taken down, they will loose people reading it, and I doubt ANYONE creates a Manga for the money, rather then the enjoyment of others reading it, well, that's how I'd be :P.

Seriously though, they should leave the sites alone unless the one's who made the Manga decide they want it taken down...

Wait, isn't it their business, or doesn't it at least directly pertain to their business' profits?

Because, you know, there aren't bigger issues in the world to address, like oil spills, flood damage, earthquake damage, the movie Grown-Ups, or hell, even getting Cartoonnetwork to stop sucking would be quite a cause.

More importantly, why are they just bringing this up NOW? These manga sights have been up for years, and there's no way these people haven't been aware of them.

imaloony8.0 said:

Because, you know, there aren't bigger issues in the world to address, like oil spills, flood damage, earthquake damage, the movie Grown-Ups, or hell, even getting Cartoonnetwork to stop sucking would be quite a cause.

More importantly, why are they just bringing this up NOW? These manga sights have been up for years, and there's no way these people haven't been aware of them.

They're already losing money they don't have time to deal with things that have nothing to do with them...especially the cartoon network bit, pointless complaining when it has nothing to do with the thread. Ok let's face it, the whole first paragraph is just pointless complaining...Why should they give up their problems because there are bigger problems going on? Someone across town gets killed am I gonna forget about my headache?I mean seriously though what are you doing about the world's problems, I mean maybe you are helping with one of the issues you mentioned but if you're not why should they? I doubt you put your spare change in charity buckets, but if you do then good for you...Don't expect the manga companies to care about the little things you don't like, or follow your example.Also yeah I don't know if you noticed but I just countered your pointless complaining with pointless complaining, so how 'bout we both just quit.


As for why now? it takes time for people to get others to work with them and the problem may have started getting worse. (do you know how many manga reading websites there are?) I was looking for new websites the other day and saw an ad for people to upgrade to premium or whatever...at the time I just thought it was stupid since there were completely better websites that run completely free but, when you think about it it's bold theft...Taking money for something that isn't even yours. I mean show it to people out of courtesy but don't take money for it. I guess it's sortof a case of when one person does bad the whole group suffers...

@Espada Vampiro: The manga artists have already sold their manga to these companies. I also see ads in the manga that appear to be placed in the manga by the mangaka... They do want to get money for their works, either that or they need the money if they want their works to be distributed. However the fact is that they already sold their manga rights to the magazine companies. The choices are not all left up to them but to the manga companies. (of course that isn't true for every manga but I doubt if they made and distributed the manga themselves they'd give them out for free...)

NOTE:My keyboard is slightly broken so there may be a lot of typos, and also from the wii I'm posting on I can only see a small portion of the text I've typed. If you can't understand since it's too jumbled and what-not I'll just rephrase it on a real compiter.

Yeah, it's pointless complaining, but you know what? There are better places to be putting your money right now rather than into making lawsuits against manga websites that you've deliberately been ignoring for years. And this isn't a headache and someone getting killed. This is a headache against thousands of people dying, cities being destroyed, thousands of animals dying, pollution escaping, and thousands of drums of oil being lost a day. Lots of people and companies are helping out, and I think it's awfully good timing that these guys find something to occupy their time right now.

It's not their problem? Maybe not, but it seems like they're doing a pretty damn good job of ignoring everything else at the moment. I think they should be putting some more money into getting anime onto American prime time if they're worried about their money so much.

And again, there's no excuse for them to wait so long. You don't watch a thief steal books from your store for three years before you call the cops on him.

imaloony8.0 said:

Yeah, it's pointless complaining, but you know what? There are better places to be putting your money right now rather than into making lawsuits against manga websites that you've deliberately been ignoring for years. And this isn't a headache and someone getting killed. This is a headache against thousands of people dying, cities being destroyed, thousands of animals dying, pollution escaping, and thousands of drums of oil being lost a day. Lots of people and companies are helping out, and I think it's awfully good timing that these guys find something to occupy their time right now.

It's not their problem? Maybe not, but it seems like they're doing a pretty damn good job of ignoring everything else at the moment. I think they should be putting some more money into getting anime onto American prime time if they're worried about their money so much.

And again, there's no excuse for them to wait so long. You don't watch a thief steal books from your store for three years before you call the cops on him.

First Paragraph:I meant that just because someone is having problems that are worse than yours doesn't mean you forget about your little headaches. Your first post is absolute proof of that. There's an oil spill in the gulf yet you're complaining about what's coming on television and how they're trying to get rid of online manga.

Second Paragraph: How much money are they going to get from that investment? Last I checked not many people in america watch anime. Don't you remember that thread went something like "Only gay and emo kids watch anime and read manga"?

Third Paragraph:Like I said before it takes time to get people to work together...Also they may not have had the legal backing, I noticed a statement at the bottom of a page on mangafox meant to protect them from legal action against them. I don't know if I'm underestimating the manga companies but I don't really care. A guy who calls the cops three years later may get alot of criticism but he'd get much more pity...:p

@imaloony8.0: this is only my opinion, but do you really think Japan would want to put their anime on American Prime time? i think not if they hold a grudge from back in WWII(irrilevent, but a possibility). than again they probably think that someone was gonna steal it or America is going to dub it and make it suckish.

« Last edited by Lilium Almateria on Jun 22nd 2010 »

There is a large population of people who watch anime. The proof is in the Toonami, a block that ran for 11 years off of almost nothing but anime. Or 4Kids, who have made a ton of money (Butchering) anime. There's plenty of money to be made in the american market.
And I think Japan got over that whole WW2 thing around the time they started letting us put American military bases in Japan.

And I think a guy who watches himself being robbed for three years would get pity due to his sheer stupidity above anything else.

And they're not fooling anyone, they could take legal action whenever they wanted. There's this thing called a "Copyright". If you don't pay for it, the person who made it/has the rights to it may sue you for money. No couple lines of text will get around that, trust me.

So, what do I make of it? This is all really oddly timed. Maybe it doesn't have to do with the crap the world has gotten into lately, but they definitely didn't wait this long by accident.

imaloony8.0 said:

There is a large population of people who watch anime. The proof is in the Toonami, a block that ran for 11 years off of almost nothing but anime. Or 4Kids, who have made a ton of money (Butchering) anime. There's plenty of money to be made in the american market.
And I think Japan got over that whole WW2 thing around the time they started letting us put American military bases in Japan.

And I think a guy who watches himself being robbed for three years would get pity due to his sheer stupidity above anything else.

And they're not fooling anyone, they could take legal action whenever they wanted. There's this thing called a "Copyright". If you don't pay for it, the person who made it/has the rights to it may sue you for money. No couple lines of text will get around that, trust me.

So, what do I make of it? This is all really oddly timed. Maybe it doesn't have to do with the crap the world has gotten into lately, but they definitely didn't wait this long by accident.

First Paragraph...Well first off you did the parenthesees wrong but it doesn't really matter...I doubt they have more of a fanbase than the american TV shows. You see how anime only comes on adult swim on saturdays? YOu see how Toonami was slowly dindled down to satursdays only? And this happened more than three years ago so don't try to blame everything on the new president of cartoon network
I agree that the WWII thing is irrellevant

Glad to see you noticed what I meant...

The legal thing said that they were allowed to do it because of the *equal sharing act* or whatever. I doubt you know all the legal things involved here and I don't claim to either.

You're right. Clearly there is a reason they're doing it now, and the reason is their business. Maybe they were just using the manga websites to make their manga more popular so that they could sue them later and force the people who used to rely on online-reading to switch, thus getting a rapid increase in income. But hey that's their business. If you want to use a thief to get money for yourself then it's not really that bad...course I don't consider all of the manga websites thieves. I just think that the manga companies have the right to keep people from taking away their business. I don't think badly at all of most manga sites but the ones asking for money for someone elses work are definitely in the wrong. The manga companies have jsut decided to attack all the websites. Like I said before I don't like it but it is their right.

Man, if I lose my Naruto and Soul Eater from this, I'm going to be ******.

« Last edited by Jirachi X on Jun 23rd 2010 »

Symbol de Au said:

First Paragraph...Well first off you did the parenthesees wrong but it doesn't really matter...I doubt they have more of a fanbase than the american TV shows. You see how anime only comes on adult swim on saturdays? YOu see how Toonami was slowly dindled down to satursdays only? And this happened more than three years ago so don't try to blame everything on the new president of cartoon network
I agree that the WWII thing is irrellevant

Glad to see you noticed what I meant...

The legal thing said that they were allowed to do it because of the *equal sharing act* or whatever. I doubt you know all the legal things involved here and I don't claim to either.

You're right. Clearly there is a reason they're doing it now, and the reason is their business. Maybe they were just using the manga websites to make their manga more popular so that they could sue them later and force the people who used to rely on online-reading to switch, thus getting a rapid increase in income. But hey that's their business. If you want to use a thief to get money for yourself then it's not really that bad...course I don't consider all of the manga websites thieves. I just think that the manga companies have the right to keep people from taking away their business. I don't think badly at all of most manga sites but the ones asking for money for someone elses work are definitely in the wrong. The manga companies have jsut decided to attack all the websites. Like I said before I don't like it but it is their right.

do you think that they will hit all the online manga sites? i mean, most dont even ask for anything in return like OneManga (as far as i know) if they really are going to try and shut alot of them down, would that really help their business image by taking away what their fans/reader/whatever loved the most? i think not since some,if not, majority would complain and probably stop liking manga all together....

@Jirachi X: im with on that, or rather, im going to be very sad... ;_;

« Last edited by Lilium Almateria on Jun 22nd 2010 »

Bot post deleted, and Jirachi X, edit your post to remove the quote from the bot within a day, or I'll have to delete that too.

Actually, I think I will pin it on the new president. Why? Because he showed up right around the time that TOM 4 reared his ugly head, signaling the fall of CN. This was also the point where they started showing a little bit of weak stuff, like Bobobo, and the Naruto Filler Hell, which scared people off, making the Toonami block shrink, which didn't help it any more, whereupon it died.
So, yes, the problem can be traced back to the new president. If he had kept on the old, awesome anime, maybe more slowly showing newer stuff to see the audience reacting to it (As well as keeping the Absolution and SARAH... god...) rather than jumping headlong in and draining everything at the sight of danger, Toonami would still probably be on.
The point is, if they focus on getting more money overseas before nitpicking this crap, they'll probably be doing better. In fact, these Manga sights aren't too bad for their business. I personally started BUYING the One Piece manga because of OneManga. I had planned to get into Rosario+Vampire, except that I was short on cash and if my parents caught the wrong page of that, I'd be in SERIOUS trouble... :P

I don't know the legal stuff, but there's still the copyright thing. Nothing can protect you if you don't have the rights to that manga, especially if you're making ad revenue off of it, like OneManga.

Yes, it is their right. I never argued that, I simply argued that they're being very strange in the timing of it. Maybe they're consorting with Dr. Doom about how to deprive us of our manga...

imaloony8.0 said:

Bot post deleted, and Jirachi X, edit your post to remove the quote from the bot within a day, or I'll have to delete that too.

Actually, I think I will pin it on the new president. Why? Because he showed up right around the time that TOM 4 reared his ugly head, signaling the fall of CN. This was also the point where they started showing a little bit of weak stuff, like Bobobo, and the Naruto Filler Hell, which scared people off, making the Toonami block shrink, which didn't help it any more, whereupon it died.
So, yes, the problem can be traced back to the new president. If he had kept on the old, awesome anime, maybe more slowly showing newer stuff to see the audience reacting to it (As well as keeping the Absolution and SARAH... god...) rather than jumping headlong in and draining everything at the sight of danger, Toonami would still probably be on.
The point is, if they focus on getting more money overseas before nitpicking this crap, they'll probably be doing better. In fact, these Manga sights aren't too bad for their business. I personally started BUYING the One Piece manga because of OneManga. I had planned to get into Rosario+Vampire, except that I was short on cash and if my parents caught the wrong page of that, I'd be in SERIOUS trouble... :P

I don't know the legal stuff, but there's still the copyright thing. Nothing can protect you if you don't have the rights to that manga, especially if you're making ad revenue off of it, like OneManga.

Yes, it is their right. I never argued that, I simply argued that they're being very strange in the timing of it. Maybe they're consorting with Dr. Doom about how to deprive us of our manga...

Toonami was made saturdays only ovwer three years ago you can't blame that on the new president...Also you're blaming him for showing the naruto episodes in order. BOBOBO started airing at the same time as Naruto which was about 5-7 years ago so you're completely wrong...Also the Naruto fillers didn't start until way after toonami was shrunk to saturday only.
So no the problem can't be traced back to the new president. Also all the shows that used to air on Toonami(Except YuYu Hakusho) had already ended. I doubt people wanted to watch the same series over and over again. Also Yuyu Hakusho and all those other shows were removed over three years ago. Most people don't start buying the manga afterwards...

How do you know that nothing can protect you from copyright if you don't know the legal things? Libraries get away with it... lol but I suppose it is a completely different thing here...

Yeah, well I just don't like your complaining it just makes the situation worse when someone finds this as an excuse to tell about all of the things random crap he doesn't like.

Being moved to Saturdays isn't actually too bad. In some ways, that 4 hour Saturday block was better than the weekday block, and it stayed like that for years for good reason.
I would have watched the series' over again. Or hell, they could have found NEW anime, other than just Naruto.

I know you can't get away with it because I've read about crap like that happening. If you own the rights to something, and someone else uses it to turn a profit, you may call copyright laws and take it away from them. Happens on Youtube all the time, and a lot of people on YouTube aren't even making money off of it!

How am I making it worse? It's not like one of the companies is going to come on this site, read my post and decide that, because of what I'm saying, that will kick every smiling child and puppy in the face. My bitching is me venting, because I get very upset about stuff like this.

imaloony8.0 said:

I know you can't get away with it because I've read about crap like that happening. If you own the rights to something, and someone else uses it to turn a profit, you may call copyright laws and take it away from them. Happens on Youtube all the time, and a lot of people on YouTube aren't even making money off of it!

People sue to protect their work, not to make money. You can't burn a DVD illegally and give it away for free any more than you can sell it. They're losing money they would have otherwise earned because of fans distributing it to coutless people for free. Perhaps there was a sudden spike of fan distribution, or they have been trying to organize this ever since it did increase, perhaps for quite a few years.

« Last edited by rate_me on Jun 25th 2010 »

imaloony8.0 said:

Being moved to Saturdays isn't actually too bad. In some ways, that 4 hour Saturday block was better than the weekday block, and it stayed like that for years for good reason.
I would have watched the series' over again. Or hell, they could have found NEW anime, other than just Naruto.

I know you can't get away with it because I've read about crap like that happening. If you own the rights to something, and someone else uses it to turn a profit, you may call copyright laws and take it away from them. Happens on Youtube all the time, and a lot of people on YouTube aren't even making money off of it!

How am I making it worse? It's not like one of the companies is going to come on this site, read my post and decide that, because of what I'm saying, that will kick every smiling child and puppy in the face. My bitching is me venting, because I get very upset about stuff like this.

They did get new anime...Bobobo,Mar,Zatch Bell(I think),Prince of Tennis,

Insert Rate_Me post...

You're making it worse because we already have the problem of the online manga being removed and you're talking about stuff that isn't even related. Peopel don't normally like the guy who drops his hot dog and says. "Global Warming, Health Care, and now this"