Anti-Piracy Coalition vs. 30 Manga Scanlation Sites

Enough is enough! Japanese and U.S. manga publishers have just about had it with illegal "scanlation aggregator" websites that are hosting thousands of pirated manga titles, many of them already licensed in English, and making easy money at the creators' expense. All the while, legit manga publishers are forced to decimate their staff or even shut down business due to plunging sales, as manga fans nowadays have unrestricted access to pretty much any title, even on mobile devices.



Through a joint press release yesterday, a slew of Japanese and U.S. publishers announced the formation of a multi-national manga anti-piracy coalition, in a "coordinated effort to combat a rampant and growing problem of internet piracy plaguing the manga industry". Participants in the coalition include the 36 members of Japan's Digital Comic Association, joined by Square Enix, Viz Media, Tokyopop, Vertical, Yen Press and the Tuttle-Mori Agency.

These 42 companies have so far identified 30 sites targeted for "aggressive action". They haven't given any names yet, but a spokesperson for the coalition said that they are giving such offending websites a chance to lay down arms peacefully. Otherwise, they are threatened with a legal gangbang, with the participation of such painful guests as the Justice Department and the FBI.

"It is unfortunate that this action has become necessary", said a spokesperson for the group. "However, to protect the intellectual property rights of our creators and the overall health of our industry, we are left with no other alternative but to take aggressive action. It is our sincere hope that offending sites will take it upon themselves to immediately cease their activities. Where this is not the case, however, we will seek injunctive relief and statutory damages. We will also report offending sites to federal authorities, including the anti-piracy units of the Justice Department, local law enforcement agencies and FBI."

Publishers Weekly offers more background information about the 40-year-old practice of scanlating manga, and how this formerly fan-driven activity has become such a huge deal, especially in the last two years of free-falling manga sales in the U.S.

"Go back 2 years and track these sites and you’ll find an inverse relationship between the rise of traffic on these scanlation sites and the decline in U.S. manga sales", said Kurt Hassler, publishing director of Yen Press.

It's interesting to observe how this news comes soon after one such illegal scanlation aggregator website, OneManga, was spotted in the top 1000 most-visited sites on the web according to Google, with an estimated 4.2 million unique visitors and 1.1 billion page views. Liek... gief!

Unrelated to all this, the Japanese publisher Kadokawa (who of course is among those 36 members of Japan's Digital Comic Association) has withdrawn a recently released light novel called Ore to Kanojo ga Maoh to Yusha de Seitokaicho (under the Dengeki Bunko imprint), due to it plagiarizing the more popular light novels Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu. The second anime season of BakaTest is only coming in 2011, by the way.