Mangadex to purge titles for legal reasons

[aunony]

As a world-renowned Professor of Advanced Internet Law™, holder of a PhD in Extremely Serious Legal Studies from the prestigious University of Trust Me Bro, I have conducted a comprehensive legal analysis of this situation after carefully reviewing:

• One forum thread
• 900 angry comments
• And my own deeply authoritative gut feeling

After extensive deliberation (approximately 2 minutes and 14 seconds), I have reached a groundbreaking legal conclusion:
This piracy site should be closed.
Yes. Closed. Immediately. Preferably with dramatic music.

Under Article 69 of the International Maritime Manga Convention (which I definitely did not make up), any website hosting "scanned Japanese illustrated literature of questionable licensing status" is, in fact, legally spicy.

As a fully qualified authority in:

• Advanced Copyright Vibes
• Maritime Scanlation Law
• Applied DMCA Avoidance Theory
• And Intro to Googling "is this illegal???"

I must formally advise the following:
Shut it down.
Pull the plug.
Lower the sails.
Walk the plank.

Please take my professional legal opinion seriously. I have:

• Read at least two Wikipedia pages (with citations needed)
• Once watched an episode of Suits
• Nodded thoughtfully during a YouTube video about copyright
• And possess a powerful intuitive sense that “laws probably apply here”

After thorough consideration of statutory frameworks, jurisprudential precedents, and the sacred doctrine of "it was fine until ads showed up," I confidently conclude:
"This piracy site is legally suspicious."

Thank you for attending my lecture.
My hourly rate is $900, payable in exposure and forum clout.

 

[Nekomizus]

I mean you could send letters to all the copyright holders and let them decide how they wanna go about that lol

 

[DracoSafarius]

So the fact that they haven't been booted proves that the MangaDex staff does in fact agree with EtherealNeko's stance.

Bingo

 

[NightmareOkami]

A screenshot of what one of the staff said on the Support channel if some users don't want to check the MangaDex Discord.

"Legal reasons" there's no way a illegal manga site has a legal council for said site

 

[ellatron6000]

Lol no there's not, gender identity has nothing to do with what content you like. I and many others like me are just as confused that this is happening as anyone else, just say you're salivating at the chance to be a surface-level dimwit and leave it at that.

shota oni pfp so peak... wonder if thatll go too

 

[MajinChainsawDihh]

The age old saying forever remains true, "mods gay"

 

[sillyangelboy]

shota oni pfp so peak... wonder if thatll go too

ohoho, peak meets peak i'm really hoping that it won't, it's kinda all i use this website for gdkfgkl, since the staff said that only works with explicit sexual intercourse and underage characters are going to be going, but i guess we'll see since it's still suggestive at times.

 

[luigiymario2]

Man, I just wish Mangadex's server were based on somewhere like Netherlands so that the piracy fucking site could do the piracy alone, ignoring DMCA requests and not having to censor themselves like this shithole place just did. I hope someone else takes over the piracy idea soon and creates a new website for the actual love of the game and not trying to go corporate having a "legal" council when the whole idea of the website is legally questionable at best.

 

[seekermoc]

So the fact that they haven't been booted proves that the MangaDex staff does in fact agree with EtherealNeko's stance.

Or there's an internal rift in the MD staff, between staff coming from the community and staff planted by NamiComi, with NamiComi somehow coming out on top. RIP the MD community.

 

[yogurtman250]

Or there's an internal rift in the MD staff, between staff coming from the community and staff planted by NamiComi, with NamiComi somehow coming out on top. RIP the MD community.

Probably this sadly

 

[QualityGames]

Upon uploading content, the user confirms to us that they are authorized by the copyright owner to upload the material, so there is some additional nuance regaring one user or point in time versus another. The issues with the loli content is more intrinsically related to the material itself, so you can expect it to be enforced more strictly to some degree.

The titles were wiped because it was the safest and fastest action to take at the time. We want to have the title pages available, though some of them have covers that might require editing beforehand.


Our legal department told us to take action and we took it. That is the extent of what I can or want to say regarding that.

And you should be bringing counterpoints to them and actual solutions rather than removing legal content.

 

[DracoSafarius]

I told myself I wasn't going to speak in here

But if y'all don't behave I will be locking the thread
This is the last warning

Just for future reference, this was not a good idea.

Near everyone’s wanting either information (the other two mods have been decently helpful with this, to a degree) and/or news of EtherealNeko stepping down/apologizing.

Third mod coming in to aggressively tell people they’re threatening to lock a thread only makes people angrier and is just going to reconfirm for many who already thought the site itself was taking a stance.

 

[NekoiNemo]

Wiping out the page kinda makes me wonder: what is even the bloody point in Manga*Dex* existing anymore?

 

[LilithRaven]

Then why don't you just lock this thread and be done with it? It's not like there's anything productive coming out from either side. Some people won't be happy, but you can hardly damage the reputation of the staff more than a certain someone already did.

Or do you just want to see how utterly retarded a large portion of your userbase is to feel better about yourself?

are you next in line to be Mod? you do have the knack for insulting every. single. reader. on the website :3

as for this thread not being productive? by who? the Mod-wannabe like you? ha it awake people and people will see what utter shite this website has become :3 so no, from our point of view, this thread did it’s job

 

[BanzaiYuri]

I know of a certain austrian guy who also censored some books because of their origins.
Great time to not live in the USA.

Ah the great American "LITERALLY HITLER!1!!" response XD

 

[oricalco]

There is a reason why this sort of genre is fucking extinct in the manga industry.

are you a complete retard? do you have any idea how many of the mangaka made their start doing ero doujins?

 

[Blanc]

Our legal department told us to take action and we took it. That is the extent of what I can or want to say regarding that.

Edit phrasing.
"Our legal department"

How long does it take for users to realized that MD is not a community project anymore, It's a service that give end users ability to read and upload manga?
The Uploader uses MD storage, and the reader uses the content uploaded by the Uploader.
We should treat MD as a company and a host site, not as your friend; that time is long gone now.

The last few staff comments really hurt what Bart was trying to defuse the situation a few hours ago.

 

[WiseOldKing]

still can't believe they removed How to live with a Noraneko girl... esp when we were only 4-5 chapters from the damn ending

 

[piratesgoyarrrr]

Stop the misinformation. Titles being removed depict sexual activity between characters that are minors, either in appearance (handled on a case-by-case basis) or confirmed in the dialogue. It's about law and compliance with it. If you jerk it off to little kids, go and do it elsewhere; there are sites that specialise in that.

---

Staff note: Please refer to the following post for a somewhat less unsavoury follow up on this.
https://forums.mangadex.org/posts/29007231

Thank you for letting me know to enable my adblocker.

 

[vidopnir]

Upon uploading content, the user confirms to us that they are authorized by the copyright owner to upload the material, so there is some additional nuance regaring one user or point in time versus another. The issues with the loli content is more intrinsically related to the material itself, so you can expect it to be enforced more strictly to some degree.

The titles were wiped because it was the safest and fastest action to take at the time. We want to have the title pages available, though some of them have covers that might require editing beforehand.


Our legal department told us to take action and we took it. That is the extent of what I can or want to say regarding that.

Other people have already clowned on you for this statement so I shall post at you instead.

Do you, the developers, have ANY plans for actual resiliant operations beyond the short term and can you share them with us? I mean outside of selling subscriptions while Tristan9 (CTO of Namicomi and former MD staff) swims around in his pool of money like Scrooge McDuck and MangaDex burns, do you have anything else?

There were mentions earlier today of users potentially contacting publishers to come fuck you up again because you want so badly to be "compliant", would you survive that as a business?

How do you feel about Pace Capital (NamiComi's million dollar investor) recently wanting to de-risk their NamiComi investment?