Japanese and US Manga Publishers Ally Against Scanlations

According to Publishers Weekly, 42 Japanese and US manga publishers have united to form an international group to combat scanlation and they are threatening to take legal actions against 30 websites. The publishers coalition includes Kodansha, Shogakugan, Shueisha, Square Enix, Vertical Inc., VIZ Media, Tokyopop, and Yen Press.

The spokesperson of the group said they will take injunctive measure if the scanlation sites stop their activities on their own. They have already been reporting scanlator's violations to US Justice Department and FBI. Publishers Weekly named MangaFox and OneManga as the major scanlation websites.

Kurt Hassler, the publishing director of Yen Press, pointed out the inverse correlation between the increase of the traffic of scanlation websites and the decrease of the manga sales in US.

The spokesperson said that so-called "scanlation aggregators" have transformed the fan based activities of scanlation into for-profit websites that provide thousands of illegal scans of manga and earn money by memberships and advertising revenues. Hassler said that fan scanlators had withdrawn their translations when the manga was licensed but it's no longer the case with the current "business" scanlators. "We don’t want to have to do this but publishers are now focused on this problem."

Source: Publishers Weekly, Anime!Anime!

Story by ladyxzeus