News Manga Publishers Targetting Edited Manga Sites

[Newkerzy]

Yup, that's right. They have more of a right to speak about this rather than the publishers. Y'know, I'm kinda hoping Bakuman's mangakas will bring this issue to light and speak their minds about this.

 

[Kizo]

MangaToshokan.com has pulled all titles belonging to publishers in the coalition.

Their statement:

We hoped it wouldn't come to this, but due to mounting legal pressure, we have been advised to remove all series serialized by the publishers in the coalition. This was a very difficult decision to make, and one we did not take lightly. Unfortunately this means we have had to remove the majority of our library, however we have been able to retain some manga, as well as most of our manhua and manhwa. We will be shifting the focus of the site more to manhwa and manhua (Korean and Chinese manga). For some of you, this may be your last visit to MangaToshokan, but before you leave we would appreciate it if you could fill out a short six question survey that we are going to share the results to the publishers. If nothing else, we hope it will make them aware of the consequences of their actions. Also if you could pass this survey on to other people we would appreciate it. Again, we apologize for this, but we don't have any other options at this point.

This is another major blow. MT was easily my favorite Edited Manga site, as they provided (in my opinion) the best mix of selection and image quality.

All this negative activity, and nothing positive. No further developments on Crunchyroll's potential manga division, no word (aside from useless hype and silly idealist banter) from OpenManga in over a month, and most upsetting, no word from the publishers themselves. Pathetic, really.

 

[Yusaku Jon 3]

I've just now decided to delete all Manga Toshokan links from my PC due to the recent move. Looking back at this, it was going to be a matter of time. Look at what MH had to do.

That being done, my only options for the time being are to keep an eye open on upcoming developments in the community and to prepare myself to take an occasional trip out to the nearest Kunokiniya Bookstore outlet to browse through their manga collections for the volumes that are of greatest interest to me. Given the state of the industry, it isn't any surprise that the coalition is looking after its bottom line. They might have a point against unauthorized distributors, even though I'd be one of those who'd follow up by actually purchasing the physical copies of the manga in question once they're made available.

This reminds me of an experience that I had with an anime fan club that I joined back in the 1990s. Prior to then, I had no choice but to collect pirate videotapes recorded off of NHK broadcasts overseas. The fan club had a strict anti-piracy policy which I followed as soon as they made it known; they made up for the lack of access to the original anime by giving fans an outlet through which to read others' articles on the anime in question through reviews.

It looks like I'll have to do this again, for current and past manga series.

 

[Alterno]

I think communities should assume the same position taken by bit torrent communities, we don't host files, "we just index links", Manga-Helpers and othe communities just took the movement of some early torrent communities after being targeted... "I'm giving up, don't want to mess with laws", I wonder if there will be an IsoHunt between the remaining communities.

IsoHunt after taking a stand in their own way "we don't host files, we just index links", have growth a lot and are even co-producing original series for bitorrent download.

I think this was an opportunity for communities like these, if not taken other project appear as alternative like OpenMmanga and some new others that are around the corner as said by ANMTV. Don't get me wrong... I'm grateful for the staff for becoming for a good time the savior of those who want to keep up with the releases in japan, but now thats part of the past, this is just "another discussion board" where we meet friends with the same interest and find summaries of upcoming chapter, which are mostly these days copied from Narutofan anyway.

MH have been losing a great deal of activity even before this attack from publishers, let's remember the "ONLY ENGLISH" Spoiler policy, other international trans should be hidden in spoiler tags. that affected a great deal the speed with received spoiler, because back them (2 or 3 years ago), most of the spoilers poster were internationals users, aways from the Good Ole states and england, although this policy seems to be softening with the time (I'm glad), the damage is already done.

"Remembering the past leads, to not make the same mistakes". I don't know if MangaHelpers executives might be in for a Mangahelpers that index links to raws/Edited Mangas trough .torrent files, but it the day comes, count me in as donation #1. I don't know what's wrong, really the manga that I read, I end buying them and the laws of where I live allows me to have a digital copy of something that I own. I've alway seen shounen jump weekly as previous of the volumes, more than anything else.

Support your favorite authors by buying their volume, is really cool to be able to touch and smell the pages as they pass to another.

 

[Kizo]

... and there goes the biggest one of all.

OneManga announces that it is shutting down "early next week," citing now-familiar legal pressure as the reason behind the move.

One tiny positive recently has been the news that Square-Enix will be opening an e-manga store in North America and France. The best part about this is that it shows that a publisher within the coalition is focusing on online ventures, but there just isn't information to be fully satisfied yet.

Still waiting for word from the coalition, OpenManga, and/or Crunchyroll on a legal way to read English translations of current major-market Japanese releases. The wait grows more ridiculous by the day.

 

[benelori]

I cannot believe that mangafox is still standing...I mean they have probably one of the largest databases from all Edited Manga sites...

 

[Xsoteria]

Well OM was honestly too big to stay alive. I mean, it was a huge target for licencing and anti-pirating lobby. I'm surprised mangafox is still standing though. But OM was more popular than them after all.

I don't think this will mean that all of the sites will go down or anything like that. It will be a bit more difficult to read the manga for those who can't buy it, but we all know that piracy fight is an endless and ulitmately, futile one.

 

[kitteejazz]

T_T whyyyy its not fair it was said that crnchy roll was an illegal site at first and now it has investors why don't they just do that with the big manga sites too, I'll be damed if I have to read manga that came out two years ago in japan just because the US licenesers don't know how to pick it up right iwhen it came out plus that was the only way I got into other non-popular series that would have never known about, in the end if I like the manga I'm reading online well enough i will actually go buy it!! It's just a waste of money to see new series at the book store and have to buy it just to see if its good! Are they also talking about anime hosting sites too? T_T

 

[BBB Banana]

Man now I need to read some mangas with the Raw and translation separeted and that's a pain in the a** sometimes.

Well mangafox and some other big sites are still standing probably there will be new "underground" sites that will start to post more manga. We can also go directly to the Manga Editors website.

 

[HPTR Fangirl]

Hopefully, this is correct place to post this.

OneManga is going to remove all of its unauthrized and translated Manga content and scans early next week, according to the news posted on the Anime News Network

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-07-22/manga-scan-site-says-it-will-remove-manga

 

[benelori]

^^Yep, I think it's actually a wide-spread news right now...there was this pop-up that appears when one accesses the site...
Popularity or not, mangafox still has a greater database, so I still don't get it...maybe they are stubborn or something...also there are other sites from where one can download stuff, so I'm suprised they are still standing...I expected more active movement from this publisher's alliance...

 

[THM Nindo]

Onemanga is closing

Hey guys,
Have you heard the news about Onemanga closing?

Apparently, the mangaka said that they were no longer approving manga Edited Manga, and to respect their wishes, onemanga.com is closing.
PS: Onemanga forum will still be open, though

I'm not to worried right now because there are still plenty more website to get our weekly manga chapters, but I hope this is not going to spread more...
It'll be really a pain if it gets harder and harder to get our chapters...

What do you think about this news?
Worried or not?

 

[Katz]

Re: Onemanga is closing

Onemanga closing is a big lose to the online manga community, I see no cause for concern just yet tho....now if Mangastream,Mangafox go down....that would be alot more un-settling

R.I.P Onemanga

 

[matsemann08]

Re: Onemanga is closing

My biggest consern about this is that Onemanga had everything :P
1146 mangas are currently on Onemanga, that's quite a few
Sure it will still be easy to find the biggest most well known mangas other places, but still, Onemanga was very well organized and easy.
Let's just hope that they don't take down Mangafox.
Mangastream wouldn't hurt as much since they only have a few mangas and only about the 5 newest chapters.

 

[sir_arles]

Re: Onemanga is closing

As long as we have IRC Edited Mangas will not disappear. Onemanga and mangahelpers were HUGE loses, but it doesn't mean is the end.

It's not the first time a big site has closed... so as always, we'll live on.

 

[Kaiten]

Re: Onemanga is closing

Distro and Lurk aren't going anywhere, I'm sure.

Onemanga is taking there manga down for the same reason we did, the coalition of Japanese and International Publishers. Mangafox will go, just not as quickly, since they are owned by a China based company and will resist to the end. Mangastream I hope does not, they are Manga Editors not aggregation.

Being honest, I am glad to see online readers go. When I started reading their were none, manga had to be found. Between mangaupdates and google this was never that hard. The former is still around, I recommend checking them out. I know some need to read online, for computer/internet connection reasons. I feel bad for anyone in those situations.

 

[benelori]

I think the best reading experience would be getting the volumes, but in second place downloading at reading them on PC from ones own hard disk...I rarely use online readers, only for latest chapters of some popular manga, but I download most of them...

I wonder what will happen to these sites, which offer download...they should disappear as well, because if aggregations will disappear then the popularity, not necessarily all of it will move to them

 

[BBB Banana]

Maybe we will see Edited Mangas for smaller mangas in livejournal comunities again that is if all big sites go down. Big Ones like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece are easy to find.

Also Manga Editors websites are still up so no problem for now.

 

[CBlitz]

well there goes the convenience of having tons of manga at the click of a button. Now we actually have to look for it ;__;

oh well not a particularly big deal, not like Manga Editors are going anywhere

 

[igotthegoods]

As long as the internet exists, Editing with never die. No one should be worried about that. It just might take a little more work to get your manga fix.

It was only a matter of time for the big online reader sites to start going, but I'm ok with it. I rarely use online readers (pretty much only for the latest releases of the big 3, really now that Mangastream doesn't allow chapter downloads anymore ) and always prefer downloading when it's available. The tracker at Mangaupdates still keeps me updated on what is newly released and links to Manga Editor websites, where I can usually get what I'm looking for. Plus, mangatraders is still up and me and #lurk are already pretty tight, so I'm good for now.