Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[panzerkampfwagyu]

So, this is a pretty big blow to the site that honestly sounds like it could be its doom. I still can use the site for the ones I read here that weren't purged, at least.
I wonder what the plan from the Mangadex team is to deal with this issue, given that it does severely harm its ability to be a manga hosting site.
As a european reader, the US localizers are also pretty useless for their region locks, so that is not an alternative I can even take.

And yeah, these corpos not using the fan scanlators and pretty much giving them official translator status, getting free high quality translations out of it they can sell and good publicity by working with fans is really foolish of them.

I at least have Mihon as my backup, but I do think that a library and reading progress export would be pretty good, so that I can at least continue on sites that do not respect the DMCA, adblock making their aids go away. I think a site info about which series in the users library were affected and which the latest chapter read was would be really useful

 

[Forikorder]

Copy pasting what i read on reddit regarding the additional clause when a chapter is uploaded. Is this seriously the case?

Someone already confirmed that chapters can still be uploaded w/o any additional steps. But if there were any DMCA issues, the series uploader will be fully accountable.

So, if things were blown out of proportion and the uploader somehow got called to court or whatever, it would no longer be due to unauthorized publication alone, as they might also be charged with false representation of authority.

Since MD will no longer protect the scannies, they can simply give out the uploader’s or group’s info to the rights holder should it be found that the uploader doesn't fulfill no. 3.

Because of this, many large groups with little anonymity might steer clear of MD altogether, which will reduce future uploads on the site.

has there been any official statement regarding this or just other people interpretations?

 

[Naabii]

Noooo! I still need the rest of seitokai mo anaaaaaaaa

we still do all of our series, just not in MD

 

[Septazia]

we still do all of our series, just not in MD

Where then? WeebC? the "new" Bato?
At least here I could write my thanks to scanlatora without joining a million discord groups

 

[deackychu]

Here's what I don't understand: why the sudden purge of titles now? If you dig back through the previous DMCA claims from 2022 to 2024, there's still somewhere between 300-400 titles they chose to ignore takedown requests for. Heck, I found requests for eight titles I translated to be taken down back then, but they've gone unnoticed.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I'm finding that there seems to be a lot of series removed that were caught in a "catchall" keyword purge? I've also done extensive digging through the database, and a lot of titles that got nuked don't seem to have any such claims against them. At this point, I'm probably just going to reupload them and say they were taken down in error.

I also don't see how adding the checkbox forcing groups to claim they have permission from the copyright holder to upload on here. Unless they're going to actively vet every title that is uploaded by ticking that box, it's not passing the blame onto the uploader/scanlator: they're still actively hosting the material regardless.

 

[T-sama]

Here's what I don't understand: why the sudden purge of titles now? If you dig back through the previous DMCA claims from 2022 to 2024, there's still somewhere between 300-400 titles they chose to ignore takedown requests for. Heck, I found requests for eight titles I translated to be taken down back then, but they've gone unnoticed.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I'm finding that there seems to be a lot of series removed that were caught in a "catchall" keyword purge? I've also done extensive digging through the database, and a lot of titles that got nuked don't seem to have any such claims against them. At this point, I'm probably just going to reupload them and say they were taken down in error.

I also don't see how adding the checkbox forcing groups to claim they have permission from the copyright holder to upload on here. Unless they're going to actively vet every title that is uploaded by ticking that box, it's not passing the blame onto the uploader/scanlator: they're still actively hosting the material regardless.

You make it sounds like there's some shaddy scummy shenanigans behind this rather than being just a dmca issue, from mangadex side I mean, cause if what you say is true then it does look hella sus

 

[tempJKI]

Comeso (the one supposedly behind this dmca) is known for dmca'ing fan artists too, there were a few cases in the past, both on Twitter and Youtube, users who received dmca notices and strikes respectively.

Edit: but this is too big for them, as some people are saying, it was likely Kakao the real culprit, as both manga and manwha were the one deleted. They even created an unit, called P.CoK.

You are correct. The likely culprit is Kakao, who also created P.Cok.

I forgot about that 'team' until you mentioned the name again.

And as per standard, despite having official publishers, the amount of accessibility to those publishers are limited based on my experience due to geo-IP lock.

And pricing for those who are users (paying or free)

E.g. Tapas app which abitary increased their per episode price before on 2023

 

[jeezits]

Here's what I don't understand: why the sudden purge of titles now? If you dig back through the previous DMCA claims from 2022 to 2024, there's still somewhere between 300-400 titles they chose to ignore takedown requests for. Heck, I found requests for eight titles I translated to be taken down back then, but they've gone unnoticed.

Because the companies want to start dumping MTL slop onto the shitty apps pretty soon, and they can't get people to pay for garbage when quality is available for free.

Why else would they issue DMCA's for series like Yawara or Kongou Banchou that ended decades ago, and never got English releases in the first place? Literally no money was ever changing hands over titles like those ever, but somehow now they're concerned about the money... they weren't making...? being affected.

 

[Forikorder]

You make it sounds like there's some shaddy scummy shenanigans behind this rather than being just a dmca issue, from mangadex side I mean, cause if what you say is true then it does look hella sus

There could, shinigami who falls in love with a human doesn't even have a publisher and it got taken down, sheep princess (same author) is still up and thats even licensed

There seems to be a lack of logic in what got hit which makes me wonder if the DMCA got faked or mistakes in how mich it effected

 

[AnonymousContributor]

Funny you say this, cause the Japanese actually don't care at all about that, I remember once a yuri mangaka got pissy cause someone was translating her doujins, even threatened not making next issues if they didn't stop.

I also remember seeing some artists surprised that their art gets uploaded in places like danbooru and such, even though they're publicly posted on pixiv, Twitter and so on.

The reality is that there's a cultural difference between us and them, we from the west understand that with the internet anything can be taken from one place and uploaded into a other, no official translation so fair game make our own translation, piracy and so on.

The Japanese though? Many really seem to not like or not even understand that mentality lol, doesn't matter if there's no translation in our language, for many of them fan translation is wrong out of principle.

Publishers just put money behind that, which makes dmca happen from time to time, but in practice if it depended on the mangakas we wouldn’t be here reading the fan translation of their works.

that makes them retarded because if it's public it's public lmao

what the fuck do they expect people to do? learn japanese??

fucking scum

 

[AnonymousContributor]

The thing is Japanese publishers want us to pay per half a chapter like their domestic audience. Otherwise it's not worth the investment to them.

Pure retardation assuming the world is Japan

 

[Jpec07]

Do we know which company was behind the DMCA request? I don't think they realize what MangaDex can give them.

 

[AnonymousContributor]

People still use sadpanda even though fakku and that other site completely killed it with dmcas.

Hitomi sometimes has shit that was taken off sadpanda so uh yeah

 

[deackychu]

You make it sounds like there's some shaddy scummy shenanigans behind this rather than being just a dmca issue, from mangadex side I mean, cause if what you say is true then it does look hella sus

I mean, it could just be that the Lumen database is just that shitty to search through. Hell, you have to keep reverifying you're human if you are poking around too long, which is hilarious. It's almost like they don't want you digging half the time. Still, there's a lot of things that just don't add up. Mixed in with this purge was a hell of a lot of fanart purging on account of that weird German company, which doesn't make much sense either, so...

 

[tempJKI]

Do we know which company was behind the DMCA request? I don't think they realize what MangaDex can give them.

Many Japanese publishers and also big named Korean publishers like Kakao.

Kakao has already been organizing a mass takedown way before 2023 if I am not mistaken from memory.

It's just that only in 2021 where both Kakao and Japanese publishers decides to collaborate to 'remove' piracy.

 

[T-sama]

There could, shinigami who falls in love with a human doesn't even have a publisher and it got taken down, sheep princess (same author) is still up and thats even licensed

There seems to be a lack of logic in what got hit which makes me wonder if the DMCA got faked or mistakes in how mich it effected

According to mangaupdates

Ningen ni Koisuru Shinigami-chan - Kadokawa
Ookami no Kawa o Kabutta Hitsujihime - Takeshobo

So far it's publisher issue, not author issue, it seems some Japanese publishers want possibly all their stuff removed from here, it's not about being licensed or who is the mangaka

 

[T-sama]

that makes them retarded because if it's public it's public lmao

what the fuck do they expect people to do? learn japanese??

fucking scum

They simply don't care about filthy gaijin, literally, they also see it as ways for Japanese readers avoid buying manga cause they can read other language translation I guess.

And again, it's out of principle, they don't want any piracy at all, period, anything else is irrelevant.

For them the rest of the world literally doesn't matter, it's part of the reason I find stupid make sites like mangadex and Dynasty that obey dmca, they literally don't give a single fuck about us, it's all about money and copyright, why should we care about them?

And before anyone goes "but the mangaka wah wah", publishers fuck and underpay mangakas for the most part, hell I remember one manga got movie adaptation and mangaka didn't even  know it was a thing, obviously they got no money either.

 

[T-sama]

Pure retardation assuming the world is Japan

They're used to being able to easily exploit and abuse japanese consumers and workers, they think the same will work in the west

 

[T-sama]

I mean, it could just be that the Lumen database is just that shitty to search through. Hell, you have to keep reverifying you're human if you are poking around too long, which is hilarious. It's almost like they don't want you digging half the time. Still, there's a lot of things that just don't add up. Mixed in with this purge was a hell of a lot of fanart purging on account of that weird German company, which doesn't make much sense either, so...

What I find interesting is that for example, let say watamote has some Twitter and pixiv stuff by the author, so you know, not really owned by the publisher, also will get removed due to the dmca.

I honestly can't even imagine how many one shots, pixiv, Twitter, fanbox stuff and so on might have gotten purged just because it's tangent to a series or mangaka, but not  really property of a publisher, some will become lost media for sure.

it makes it looks like mangadex is going a extra step and purging more stuff than necessary out of fear, which just reinforce that mangadex is dead and people should move on, after all what's the point of uploading anything here if things go like this?

 

[saitohd]

Don't worry too much about the mangas removed, you can find most of them elsewhere. Also stop suggesting the site to go legit or paywalled. I'll be generous and say only 5% of the readers will be willing to keep using this site if that happens.