Mangadex gets hit by DMCA - more than 25% of chapters gone | staff FAQ update

[Angry_Panda]

wew no wonder a few of my manga tabs suddenly died. Still got back up sources though heh
I survived the death of nyaa.se, this is nothing
can always read the moonrune version if I care enough to go look 'em up

Holy crap welcome back. Sort of.

 

[Cyromantik]

Mangadex was hit by quite the sizeable DMCA takedown, resulting in chapter numbers going down by more than 25% (that is, over 660k chapters) - and no, we're unfortunately not talking about Trump coming up with new tariffs.
Since this has led to a lot of confusion and off-topic discussions in the bugs, support and announcement threads and no real official announcement has been made yet, I'm making an unofficial one for the time being.

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Q: Where are the chapters of the titles I was reading just yesterday? / What happened to my uploads?​

Mangadex got a joint DMCA takedown notice, presumably on behalf of major publishers both Japanese and Korean.

Q: Is there a list of that titles were affected?​

No such list has been provided by Mangadex staff yet, but you'll find community-compiled lists in a lot of places like this reddit thread. Therefore, please don't spam this thread with affected titles.

Q: What's next? / What about my read markers and comments?​

An old v3 feature, allowing to show chapter metadata only without being able to actually read a chapter/access its images, is planned to re-release ASAP. This will include your read markers as well as comment threads.
This also means that, even if a reading progress/library exporter existed, it won't work until then. And no, before you ask I can't recommend one (feel free to recommend something to put here), but it looks like T10_ considers making one.

Q: Is the removal of chapters permanent? / Can I appeal the removal of my chapter(s)?​

As things stand, Mangadex staying compliant with the DMCA notice is the most likely outcome. However, there are plans to show who took down a chapter and when. This means you will be able to file a DMCA counter notice to challenge the takedown if you so wish (good luck with that).
Additionally, if you believe (and can prove) chapters that aren't licensed by a publisher were removed incorrectly, you can report those on MD's end.

Q: Why are there sometimes chapters left?​

Because of the nature of a DMCA takedown request, only chapters available at/before the time when the takedown request was issued were removed. It seems like the plan for chapters uploaded after the creation of this snapshot is to still be removed, probably to avoid further DMCAs.

Q: Can we still upload new chapters to titles that were affected by the DMCA? / What about reuploading removed chapters?​

While this is just my speculation as an official statement has yet to be made, I would strongly discourage doing so. Unless publishers suddenly have a change of mind, this would just be asking for more trouble and DMCA takedown requests for Mangadex. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if uploads to affected titles get deleted precautionary. This has also been the case for previous DMCAs (although those were on a completely different scale and applied to English chapters only...).
TLDR: No and no, please and thank you.

Q: Why is there no official announcement?​

I wouldn't be making this one if there was. They'll make one when/if they can share more details. I imagine getting flooded with DMCAs isn't the most comfortable situation to be in, let's give them some time. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure they're all aware of the situation, so there's no need to reach out to individual staff members...
That being said, I'm sure they are just as unhappy with the situation as you are, so there's no need to vent your frustration at staff. Keep in mind Mangadex is being run by unpaid volunteers...

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With that, I think I got the most important bits covered. I might or might not update this, depending on how this whole mess unfolds.
Looks like there are rough times ahead, so let's hope for the best for all of us and the site...
Seems like the moral of the story was to read Manhua all along, didn't think I'd ever say that

Thanks for the clarity, I appreciate that MD has to comply when getting the DMCA, we're all grey-legal at best, and want to continue reading/contributing, and I'm sure the Manga industry actively uses the publicly available metrics on this site for their market data, so smoothly complying is the best way to move forward, even as regrettable as it is. <3

 

[hahanaho]

are already talking about moving

Move where? I swear I don't work for Japanese/Korean publishers.
But seriously, I literally was just reading One Outs when this happened. I don't think my offline copy is complete. Some originally missing chapters were translated much later than the rest. I haven't downloaded the complete copy. FML.
They literally took down all of my favorite mangas. Except for [redacted]'s works.

 

[GipoScribantino]

<snip>

While not as severe as your situation something similar is happening in Italy too, despite the manga market being fairly huge here.

It has gotten better the last few years, but we're still kinda trapped in:
Wait for anime -> import anime version -> hope it gets popular -> if it's a hit release the manga in monthly volumes.

Basically, only already-famous works would be published, effectively making anything else unavailable forever. I say it has gotten better because I've seen works getting translated either before the anime was released or even series without an anime at all, but at the same time there have been relatively famous animes not getting their mangas published.

 

[Cyromantik]

anyone got suggestion for a new hobby?

Found-item gunpla is pretty great, and cheap!

 

[T-sama]

anyone got suggestion for a new hobby?

What about crippling depression? I've been on it for years

 

[popo53414]

What about crippling depression? I've been on it for years

That's just like food and air.

 

[T-sama]

That's just like food and air.

Alright you got me there.

Honestly? Stuff like this do make me want to go "fuck it" and drop mangas for the most part, cause mangadex was particularly useful for finding series, in part due to organizing everything so well with author and artists name, with groups, any other site are too half assed to really easily find new stuff unless you look at everything from a single tag.

It also makes me want to start download series I read, but I read way too much stuff cause I have no standards lol, hell, even if I saved only what I actually liked how many TBs that will be? And then what? Put on an external hdd? Which in time might die too? Lol

Anyway, I hope whoever creates Mangadex successor is smart enough to do it in a way that can ignore dmca, if Mangasee can do it for over a decade why can't we do?

As for the hobby question, I don't know, Minecraft? Maybe I'll even be your mining buddy, but no homo.

 

[cany543]

Pls revive the platform you guys. It's my only hobby 😭

 

[spinder]

Stuff like this sucks all the joy out of things. Still remember when kissmanga went down.. But the site is still alive (for now) and traffic is way down because of this. We got to spoiled with convenience of mangadex. Hope it won't get worse

 

[T-sama]

Stuff like this sucks all the joy out of things. Still remember when kissmanga went down.. But the site is still alive (for now) and traffic is way down because of this. We got to spoiled with convenience of mangadex. Hope it won't get worse

Depends on what you mean by worse lol, readers and scanlators will drop mangadex for sure, for the most part, which will change things more in the long run

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

Stuff like this sucks all the joy out of things. Still remember when kissmanga went down.. But the site is still alive (for now) and traffic is way down because of this. We got to spoiled with convenience of mangadex. Hope it won't get worse

With Kissmanga there was at least a library transfer for here.

 

[JVick]

Alright you got me there.

Honestly? Stuff like this do make me want to go "fuck it" and drop mangas for the most part, cause mangadex was particularly useful for finding series, in part due to organizing everything so well with author and artists name, with groups, any other site are too half assed to really easily find new stuff unless you look at everything from a single tag.

It also makes me want to start download series I read, but I read way too much stuff cause I have no standards lol, hell, even if I saved only what I actually liked how many TBs that will be? And then what? Put on an external hdd? Which in time might die too? Lol

Anyway, I hope whoever creates Mangadex successor is smart enough to do it in a way that can ignore dmca, if Mangasee can do it for over a decade why can't we do?

As for the hobby question, I don't know, Minecraft? Maybe I'll even be your mining buddy, but no homo.

The "useful for finding series" is what I'm most sad about. I really liked browsing the 'new chapter' feed and I discovered a lot of new manga that way. How do you people do that ? I'm trying to get a alternative.

 

[T-sama]

The "useful for finding series" is what I'm most sad about. I really liked browsing the 'new chapter' feed and I discovered a lot of new manga that way. How do you people do that ? I'm trying to get a alternative.

That's why I think long run that's how things could go, mangadex evolve, well, devolve really, into a scanlation hub, a site like mangaupdates where we can more easily keep track of series as we already do + easy search, and a better place to talk and comment.

One person kept insisting mangadex is first and foremost a scanlation hub, which maybe was true one day but it sure as hell isn't for a long time, so the alternative is, if things continue to get worse, mangadex at least becomes a community hub

So we come here to talk about manga, scanlation and so on, like we already do, still get our feeds and searches as usual, so we know what new chapters are out, we simply go find the chapters somewhere else.

I think that's the only future for mangadex to not die, cause here is by far one of the best places to discuss manga chapters and find series, so it could work as a better hub than mangaupdates and myanimelist have ever been.

 

[CharaDotArchivist]

That's why I think long run that's how things could go, mangadex evolve, well, devolve really, into a scanlation hub, a site like mangaupdates where we can more easily keep track of series as we already do + easy search, and a better place to talk and comment.

One person kept insisting mangadex is first and foremost a scanlation hub, which maybe was true one day but it sure as hell isn't for a long time, so the alternative is, if things continue to get worse, mangadex at least becomes a community hub

So we come here to talk about manga, scanlation and on, like we already do, still get our feeds and searches as usual, so we know what new chapters are out, we simply go find the chapters somewhere else.

I think that's the only future for mangadex to not die, cause here is by far one of the best places to discuss manga chapters, so it could work as a better hub than mangaupdates and myanimelist have ever been.

i also agree that this is the only route MD can take in terms of survival, and it's also just a better format in general tbh

 

[Yanqui9]

The sad thing is that Mangadex has always seemed to try and encourage you to read the offical thing, giving links to the official releases and such. I've bought manga volumes on Kindle and such just because I discovered the title here on Mangadex first! Its not like this is some sort of shady pirate site covered in porn ads. Very disappointing.

 

[JVick]

That's why I think long run that's how things could go, mangadex evolve, well, devolve really, into a scanlation hub, a site like mangaupdates where we can more easily keep track of series as we already do + easy search, and a better place to talk and comment.

One person kept insisting mangadex is first and foremost a scanlation hub, which maybe was true one day but it sure as hell isn't for a long time, so the alternative is, if things continue to get worse, mangadex at least becomes a community hub

So we come here to talk about manga, scanlation and so on, like we already do, still get our feeds and searches as usual, so we know what new chapters are out, we simply go find the chapters somewhere else.

I think that's the only future for mangadex to not die, cause here is by far one of the best places to discuss manga chapters and find series, so it could work as a better hub than mangaupdates and myanimelist have ever been.

I'm a casual so Mangadex is (was ? ) really something precious because I could track everything and discover new things. I'm clearly not motivated enough to monitor 10 publisher websites to do the same thing.

 

[T-sama]

I'm a casual so Mangadex is (was ? ) really something precious because I could track everything and discover new things. I'm clearly not motivated enough to monitor 10 publisher websites to do the same thing.

To be fair you don't need to use 10 sites, I think I can find all my important series with like two or three sites lol

My point is that mangadex can still be useful because a lot of stuff we found is due to mangadex feed and search features, how it catalogue authors and artists, groupx, all other sites, especially shitty sites that just copy others and are full of ads, are pretty half assed with no proper search function, much less organization.

I know it's not the ideal, but it's at least better than we start completely from scratch somewhere else without any guidance or pointers.

 

[JVick]

To be fair you don't need to use 10 sites, I think I can find all my important series with like two or three sites lol

My point is that mangadex can still be useful because a lot of stuff we found is due to mangadex feed and search features, how it catalogue authors and artists, groupx, all other sites, especially shitty sites that just copy others and are full of ads, are pretty half assed with no proper search function, much less organization.

I know it's not the ideal, but it's at least better than we start completely from scratch somewhere else without any guidance or pointers.

To be fair you don't need to use 10 sites, I think I can find all my important series with like two or three sites lol

You're lucky, we have too much publisher in France...

On that subject : who creates the page for new mangas ? Does it need to have an available chapter ?

 

[T-sama]

You're lucky, we have too much publisher in France...

Oh, you meant official translation? Cause I was talking about fan translation, I don't buy mangas on my language.

I actually don't buy mangas at all cause I'm cheap and broke lol, haven't had money in years, only reason I have money at all right now is due to government aid because of my disease, otherwise I wouldn't have a single cent.

Of course I still wouldn't buy mangas cause my currency is 5 times the dollar lol, so not like I have much of a choice but to pirate everything, independent if it's fan translation or official translation.

On that subject : who creates the page for new mangas ? Does it need to have an available chachapter ?

If I remember correctly anyone can do it, or at least request it, but I might be wrong