Remove all Manwha and ban uploads of them

[panzerkampfwagyu]

As the Korean Blackmailing industry(With that I mean Kakao, etc. The manwha publishers) is pretty much behind most of the DMCA takedowns and Manwha being the prime target for the worse scanlation groups, I think it might just be the best Idea to put the entire Genre into the dustbin and just not bother with the trouble any more.

Maybe allow self-published or ones with a clear permission, but otherwise, just remove Korean Manwha entirely from the site and not allow any uploads

 

[Basic_human]

I agree! It's called mangadex anyway.

Most mahwa is already digitally available. But manga is physical most of the time. There are things we can't read or buy without this archive site such as: one shot from magazine, old manga that have no reprint, unpopular manga without official English translation.

Even if we remove mahwa the official site can upload them. Not only that, because the demand, I'm sure they will provide English translation.

 

[Yurihater]

I get why you’re sad with all the DMCA stuff and sketchy scanlation groups. I think totally removing Korean manhwa might be a bit extreme though it would also block a lot of legit creators and stuff people actually enjoy.

Maybe there’s a middle ground, like only allowing self published or clearly permitted works?

That way you avoid the trouble without losing the good stuff.

Also, I’m a bit worried about terms like ‘the worst scanlation groups’ or ‘Korean Blackmailing industry’ it’s not really clear who counts. Without clear criteria, it might be easy for rules to get applied unevenly or unfairly.

 

[yogurtman250]

Honestly, I agreed until I realized 335km and I Love Amy are manhwas

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

You can read Manwha scanlations on other sites that can just cut off one of their heads and relaunch or have a lot of mirrors, or app's that gather these via plugins. It's mostly to pull the DMOA Targets off Mangadex.

Worse Scanlation Groups refers to the ones like that do things like snipe in order to bully off other translators from popular series' to then hoard them, then aggressively advertise their own websites, full of AIDS-containing Ads and other dubious stuff. On the websites, meanwhile, chapters are also hidden behind paywalls, to top it off.
Most of them either left or removed due to rules stopping some of these practices.

And Blackmail industry is an insult towards Kakao and co.

 

[goldencircle]

This is a good idea.

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

I agree, it's not a big loss judging by the quality of manhwas. And i would add the Chinese stuff with it.

Mangas and manhwas are also very different and i'm not sure the public is the same for both. The long strip format is something that don't help their case : it select people reading mostly on smartphones, while the manga format is more diverse. The small cultural differences, also. Focusing on just one format would be interesting, and would give a more focused experience. Less trafic and server ressources used, also...

 

[mangadexjp]

good idea but mangadex won't do that lol
because they bring a lot of traffic to the site
if you go to any aggregator you'll notice most popular stuff that gets put onto main page is usually korean slop
same goes to groups that hoard stuff
they can do that thanks to mtl
and with churning more stuff out on md initially they also bring more traffic
that is why some repeat offenders are still active and given leniency

 

[Aboideau]

Manhwa longstrips make my wrist hurt from all the needless scrolling so I'm all for it!

But on a more serious note, what is the actual evidence of this Korean blackmailing industry affecting MangaDex?

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

Manhwa longstrips make my wrist hurt from all the needless scrolling so I'm all for it!

But on a more serious note, what is the actual evidence of this Korean blackmailing industry affecting MangaDex?

We had a massive DMCA at the beginning of the year that had a lot of manga as collateral damage and they are also behind the currently going on takedowns.
Also, you can check the news forum for them going aggressively on other sites.
Keeping them endangers other manga for additional dmca.

 

[BakedBanana]

Probably should keep an eye on this for the future to see if it's only manwha that's being targeted:
https://mangadex.org/copyright/transparency?sortOrder=asc
The full copyright center page if you want to see more stuff.

 

[Angry_Panda]

But on a more serious note, what is the actual evidence of this Korean blackmailing industry affecting MangaDex?

If you track both the press releases about the takedowns and the titles/publishers affected by takedowns, it's apparent that the Koreans are more active than the Japanese on that front. In many of those it's pretty clear the Japanese publishers are just along for the ride. Most of the Japanese focus seems to be on preventing domestic piracy, and the international efforts they make seem to target top titles - realistically, if a side had just JP -> EN scanlations of smaller titles, it's not a stretch to think they could stay off the radar for quite some time. The Koreans, on the other hand, tend to go full scorched earth and try to get everything pulled down.

 

[BestBoy]

transparency

That transparency report is cool. I hope it's automated or I suspect it'll end up abandoned like the announcements page.

 

[yogurtman250]

i would add the Chinese stuff with it.

pls no I don't want to let go of That Time I Was Blackmailed By the Class's Green Tea Bitch pls

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

pls no I don't want to let go of That Time I Was Blackmailed By the Class's Green Tea Bitch pls

Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made.

 

[Evans01]

If you track both the press releases about the takedowns and the titles/publishers affected by takedowns, it's apparent that the Koreans are more active than the Japanese on that front. In many of those it's pretty clear the Japanese publishers are just along for the ride. Most of the Japanese focus seems to be on preventing domestic piracy, and the international efforts they make seem to target top titles - realistically, if a side had just JP -> EN scanlations of smaller titles, it's not a stretch to think they could stay off the radar for quite some time. The Koreans, on the other hand, tend to go full scorched earth and try to get everything pulled down.

I think we can reconsider our opinion about JP publishers, especially after seeing news like this:

https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/830/

I mean, yeah, Japanese seems more passively on surface. But, remember, they had 本音と建前 (honne/real-face and tatamae/public-face). They may seems just nodded and smiled politely, but in back, they prepared a deadly poisonous knife to stab us. Japanese is one of the top copyright hunting leader. Even the aggresive one, Korea, is their student. If we were to make an analogy, Korea is like a noisy student, while Japan is like a calm, experienced teacher. Korea, commonly by PCock, always being loud in public. But Japanese, they just calming down, say nothing, but tracking the evidence and law gap for attacking later with the lawsuit. Also, Japan, led by CODA, actively opening some partnership in copyright hunting. Their most known partner is China and Korea. But, there's also US, Brazil, Indonesia, or elsewhere whenever we didn't know since they think they not had to press releasing about it. They also actively and quietly sharing the intel between them.

https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/794/
https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/767/
https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/791/

Further, their government (Japan) also funding on AI development on pirate sites and illegal content tracking (link1; link2). They aim to make it work "as early as in fiscal 2026."

But, of course, we can't deny that the animanga expansion and today manga's illegal access also comes from their "secretly permissive" act. Japanese publisher forgiving a lot, but also targeting the big fishes that can make the shock and deterrent effect widely. So yeah, maybe we can consider them both as balancing approach from Japan :3

 

[Angry_Panda]

I think we can reconsider our opinion about JP publishers, especially after seeing news like this:

https://coda-cj.jp/en/news/830/ [...]

Except Kakao (P.CoK) has also taken some credit on their side (though much of that appears to be directed at the ancillary community - Discord and Reddit - and civil action for financial damages rather than taking down the Batoto network itself). Also note that Batoto was hosting Japanese raws, which is probably the easiest way to make it to the top of the JP shitlist in a hurry.

I'm not saying JP publishers won't come after someone for scanlating, but they seem to be much more focused on preventing original language piracy than scanlation. The Koreans don't seem to draw that distinction.

 

[Evans01]

I'm not saying JP publishers won't come after someone for scanlating, but they seem to be much more focused on preventing original language piracy than scanlation. The Koreans don't seem to draw that distinction.

Ah, so that's what you mean! That's interesting viewpoint since I just know it from you. Maybe I'll try to do further research again. Thank you for clearing the misunderstanding

 

[IotaCS]

I'm not saying JP publishers won't come after someone for scanlating, but they seem to be much more focused on preventing original language piracy than scanlation.

From the takedowns I've seen, it looks like it happens mostly with JP titles that have official translations. If a title doesn't have an official TL, then naturally the publisher isn't losing any sales due to scanlation - the people reading unofficial TLs weren't going to buy the raws anyway.

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

Also, IIRC Mangadex doesn't allow direct upload of Raws for the same reason, it is too risky and likely to get pursued.