Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[Another_Astartes]

true..manga as an entertainment only became popular outside japan because of piracy and fan translations before

really selling me on the takedown. really REALLY gad i backed my reading list on MAL so i can go buy this shit later

 

[BigBoss10]

There was a series we were going to pick up that got hit. Is it safe to upload?

 

[T-sama]

It's looking really bad, looking up almost any series to find those scamy sites leads to literally hundreds of dmca'd notices and almost or no sites at all where you can freely read manga anymore, wish there was something we could do to help out and protect the site but there's nothing really, rip I guess

One good thing about about about shitty manga sites is that they tend to mirror each other, so a lot of mangas that get dmca can be found somewhere, problem is that Google seems to hide many of them even if they don't remove series, betting a dmca is enough for Google to hide them

I'm not aware of any library export tools.
If no one creates one within the next week or so, I will do it myself.

We don't know how far this will go, it's clear at least Square-Enix, Kodansha and Shueisha might try dmca every single thing from them here on Mangadex and in other sites.

So here a question, worst case scenario, could Mangadex work similar to mangaupdates for the removed series? We know what was removed is probably removed forever, might or not continue receiving new chapters, we don't know yet how that will go, I do know I saw new uploads but from chapters that didn't get dmca, so I guess they technically don't count for the dmca.

Anyway, my point is, for stuff removed we'll get a list of all chapters that were uploaded, just to know what was here, if a ongoing series receives a new chapter but don't get uploaded here, could we still get a notification in our feed? Just so we know a new chapter is out.

Worst case scenario Mangadex could still keep us up to date to what is translated but we go somewhere else to find the chapters, like torrent.

 

[mrboxeater]

I went through my list, seems like its mainly manga published under Shogakukan, Shueisha, Kodansha and Kadokawa. I think a few from Futabasha and Square Enix. Ah so many good ones.

Even some older abandoned manga with 1 or 2 chapters or incomplete TLs seem to have been striked.

 

[Hikage255]

was this DMCA from Japanese Publishers or Localizers

 

[T-sama]

Also, I know someone might not like it but I have to say, on one hand a situation like this is our own fault.

Having everything in a single place just means it becomes easier to get attacked.

We became complacent and lazy because it's convenient having everything in a single place.

Honestly, with how many scanlation groups don't even exactly hide their identity, not to mention the ones who try to profit from it, it's a surprise Japanese publishers are not attacking harder, especially since more and more series seem to get licensed through their apps.

Times are changing, I guess we should start changing too before they do even more damage to us.

 

[boson__]

Why did all of these takedowns happen at the same time? Were they all accumulated from some period of time? Or were they all requested simultaneously from a company acting on behalf of the collective of publishers?

 

[rayce]

just fuck this gay earth. Fuck greed.

 

[T-sama]

Why did all of these takedowns happen at the same time? Were they all accumulated from some period of time? Or were they all requested simultaneously from a company acting on behalf of the collective of publishers?

Unfortunately I think it won't stop here, they probably did a wide dmca for a bunch of series they could find, chances are if it continues we'll get a wider dmca simply saying "remove any manga from us"

Fact is mangadex is possibly effectively crippled forever for those specific publishers mentioned in a previous post

The real question is if these publishers are working together to do this, even if it's a third party doing for them, cause if that is the case it definitely won't stop here

 

[Bireus]

It is unrelated. We have received a dmca request for those chapters.

Note that this is the first time a takedown happened on this scale. Before it was just singular manga on the direct request of the author, or Naver because they're scary.

The chapter listings (a v3 feature where you can see the chapter but can't access the images) will return with the unavailable v3 feature. So for the users that use chapter read markers for tracking (please don't), don't worry your markers will return.
The users that want a list of what has been taken down will have to wait for said feature too.

Licensed series or soon to be licensed makes sense to me. That fact that y'all even respond amicably to their request makes a bit of sense to why when publishers talk about hunting "piracy" sites MangaDex doesn't always get lumped with those talks (I mean a lot of times it does, don't get me wrong and you do constantly get DDOS). You respond to DMCAs clearly. These publishers know they need this hub to know initial value for series in the English market (hey, that's why MangaPlus, Viz subscriptions exist, to name a few).

That's why for me, anything shown to be licensed I immediately put on hold for me to pay for later if accessible. If not available later when I'm willing to pay, well I am on the internet.

A dmca of this scale seems really concerning. If manga companies do similar requests for more and more of the series on the site, and this continues, would we end up with an empty mangadex, left with nothing but original Manga uploaded by users or something? Especially with just how large the extent of this takedown seems to have been in just one go, this is very troubling.

If they did chapter redirects to their sites like a lot of other sites do (ComiKey, MangaPlus, Webtoons for example), it would show some type of effort instead of simply deciding that scorch earthing a community that uses your content in a way that you don't disagree with (Nintendo for example will come after you for paying for a mod for an existing nintendo game, fan art, or now bricking your console if you modify it since it's connected to a nintendo account, thus breaking their newly adjusted EULA, or Sony wanting to do what LALIGA does in Spain and literally shut off your internet if they suspect your IP is related to any form of piracy).

 

[necrosim]

OK Japan you win, I guess I don't read manga anymore 🤷‍♂️

 

[Siquall]

Dumb move.
Making thing like this will NOT make me buy the manga, quite the opposite i' fact.

It's because of scans that manga got popular and got sales, kinda sad to see.

 

[Bireus]

The real question is if these publishers are working together to do this, even if it's a third party doing for them, cause if that is the case it definitely won't stop here

They have been, for a long while

 

[Hikage255]

this site is going to die back up your lists people and find some other less user friendly manga site

 

[T-sama]

They have been, for a long while

Not on this scale though, a  lot of stuff just got removed at once

 

[Jadeite_McSwag]

uh oh

 

[mrboxeater]

Why did all of these takedowns happen at the same time? Were they all accumulated from some period of time? Or were they all requested simultaneously from a company acting on behalf of the collective of publishers?

From what i can tell, i think they were accumulated over a period of time. Some older series that were axed or dropped TL were still striked. Some newer series from Kodansha, that were recently TLed a month or 2 ago didnt seem to get dmcaed.

 

[TimeForPizza]

this site is going to die back up your lists people and find some other less user friendly manga site

User friendly? That's not what you should be worried about.

You should be worried about what's scanlator-friendly. That's the main reason MangaDex is what it is. Online manga is anything, everything because of scanlators. Mangadex is the only place for us currently.

But the community always adapts. I have a feeling scanlators will learn how to fracture their work into "stuff that's safe to upload to MD" and "stuff that's safe to upload to another website", a website that will probably arise due to this very situation.

 

[Shot8manga]

MD too centralized, time to embraced back on decentralization and archiving.

 

[Chronigan]

Dumb move.
Making thing like this will NOT make me buy the manga, quite the opposite i' fact.

It's because of scans that manga got popular and got sales, kinda sad to see.

If you're not gonna buy it, they didn't lose anything.