Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[T-sama]

It just seems strange to me to DMCA chapters of manga that never had an official English translation to begin with, there's no merit in it.

Welcome to Japanese mentality, they don't care about nuance, they see their manga pirated they want it all removed out of principle, artists are the same, they simply don't know about fan translation or how to fight it.

 

[BakedBanana]

I apparently haven't ever logged into the forum so my "join date" is today, my opinion still is what it is.

Last time I tested it, join date goes by when you first log onto the forums, not the site.

Nevermind, I just repeated what you said, woops. Disregard my comment.

 

[Angry_Panda]

Which is the flaw on trying to play by the rules even though we're all thieves, people love to whine how Weebcentral, Batoto and such are eeeeevil shitty manga sites, but maybe they have the right idea since they do things different and completely ignore dmca

What's the point of breaking the law (steal mangas) if you're going to do it half-assed and can lose a lot of stuff like this?

Right, but MD isn't having to run like hell to try and stay one step ahead of the takedowns, and the users aren't having to rebuild bookmarks every couple of months. There's probably some impossible trinity thing here, but I'm supposed to be 'working' right now....

It just seems strange to me to DMCA chapters of manga that never had an official English translation to begin with, there's no merit in it. I was thinking it might be automatic AI mass DMCA actions that mixed things up in the process.

It's an old Berne Convention thing - the right to translation exists in/as part of the original work's copyright.

 

[kn4ll]

Which is the flaw on trying to play by the rules even though we're all thieves, people love to whine how Weebcentral, Batoto and such are eeeeevil shitty manga sites, but maybe they have the right idea since they do things different and completely ignore dmca

What's the point of breaking the law (steal mangas) if you're going to do it half-assed and can lose a lot of stuff like this?

Because this mainly is a scanlation site for scanlators to upload their scanlations, and not primarily a piracy site.

 

[Moriko]

In the meantime, we'll always have the shitposting thread.

Thanks for the response. For your sake if nothing else, I will remain hopeful that the site can stabilize. Even if history tells me that it's going to be harder and harder to weather the subsequent takedown waves that will assuredly come.

 

[Angry_Panda]

I have the impression that only chapters included in released volumes have been deleted. Chapters that are not part of a released volume yet are still there.
Is this correct?

No, I think the staff said that was an artifact of how they cleared the affected titles, and that will be resolved soon.

 

[weebtext]

Can't have shit in this timeline, damn it.

 

[kn4ll]

It just seems strange to me to DMCA chapters of manga that never had an official English translation to begin with, there's no merit in it. I was thinking it might be automatic AI mass DMCA actions that mixed things up in the process.

Most of them are popular manga, so my guess is that they might be planning a license in the future, or they're licensed in other countries like France. They're protecting their products so to speak.

 

[kn4ll]

I have the impression that only chapters included in released volumes have been deleted. Chapters that are not part of a released volume yet are still there.
Is this correct?

They're going to be removed later, the already was a moderator post about it.

 

[christan]

I have the impression that only chapters included in released volumes have been deleted. Chapters that are not part of a released volume yet are still there.
Is this correct?

Well according to them, unfortunately no. Sad times, really.

 

[kreahleiser]

The stranger things to me is that a few publishers did it at seemingly the same time. Am I correcting in saying it was 4+ of the bigger ones, with no ties to each other?

If so, maybe something changed with the legal system to make them all act at once, because I doubt they'd sit and plan a group takedown strike.

 

[kn4ll]

The stranger things to me is that a few publishers did it at seemingly the same time. Am I correcting in saying it was 4+ of the bigger ones, with no ties to each other?

If so, maybe something changed with the legal system to make them all act at once, because I doubt they'd sit and plan a group takedown strike.

They did the same when they put down batoto, only with more publishers this time around. With batoto it was mostly shueisha, now kodansha and several others joined in.

 

[Angry_Panda]

The stranger things to me is that a few publishers did it at seemingly the same time. Am I correcting in saying it was 4+ of the bigger ones, with no ties to each other?

If so, maybe something changed with the legal system to make them all act at once, because I doubt they'd sit and plan a group takedown strike.

They did the same when they put down batoto, only with more publishers this time around. With batoto it was mostly shueisha, now kodansha and several others joined in.

There seems to be some industry momentum to deal with this, and while the Koreans have been more aggressive, it sounds like the Japanese publishers are starting to move.

 

[WarpspeedSCP]

Not to mention, you usually just get a license to read it, not to download it on most official quality sites. You just rent it, not own it.

Jokes on them, Ive got a dll that lets me get epubs of whatever i buy.

 

[Septazia]

Then you're completely disregarding facts. Have you noticed that people are boycotting K-manga because they think it's too expensive, and that people expect at most to pay $2 a month for a subscription like on viz or mangaplus, even though shueisha and viz are obviously losing money on having such a low price? You can make excuses all you want, but the issue these days are not a service problem, it's that people don't want to pay and basically expect to get manga for free.

Facts? My argument is that piracy being bad is overblown and I brought the FACTS, studies, with links to back it up.

Where are your studies?

 

[kn4ll]

Factual examples like K-manga, One Manga, and Viz being boycotted and people refusing to pay are more than enough to show that you're wrong.

 

[kn4ll]

Jokes on them, Ive got a dll that lets me get epubs of whatever i buy.

I use calibre and dedrm/obok mostly to remove drm, but it doesn't work on shueisha titles for some reason. I guess they've updated their drm. Not that it really matters since I'm not actively working on any shueisha titles right now.

 

[kreahleiser]

There seems to be some industry momentum to deal with this, and while the Koreans have been more aggressive, it sounds like the Japanese publishers are starting to move.

There isn't much to benefit from striking an, on paper, non-profit group of randoms translating their stuff for free access. I know you can argue that donations to MD through Nami, and individual groups, is "profiting" but the actual service itself isn't costing to access.

They're effectively just swatting at flies, knowing they'll return no matter what. If their damn apps and websites didn't use such exploitative, money-grubbing methods then they'd have an easier time. Having to buy "points" to read a chapter that's been intentionally split into three goddamn parts to cost you more is just pure scum, especially when as someone else has pointed out the physicals work out cheaper.

 

[Cool.Ice]

You guys suck, just close up and shut down if you're going to let the majority of your active catalogue be taken from you like this.

Ah yes, think of the community, and try to pay 1.3 trillion yen like the last site these corporates sued

 

[kn4ll]

There seems to be some industry momentum to deal with this, and while the Koreans have been more aggressive, it sounds like the Japanese publishers are starting to move.

Yeah, they're probably colluding. Could mean that their main goal is putting down mangadex, but we'll just have to wait and see I guess. Sadpanda complied to DMCAs and haven't been taken down, so I'm being optimistic.
I don't think it's the end of the world if mangadex gets taken down, there's going to be several others to take its place, but most likely they're going to be worse like batoto. Wouldn't surprise me if comick would allow for uploads if mangadex gets taken down.