The war against manga and anime piracy by officials has been ramping up heavily in the past year or so, with major breakthroughs being accomplished and popular sites being taken down or blocked. And now, one of the most popular manga scan sites in France, the third-largest manga market in the world, is dealing a major blow to a big site and with officials eyeing even more. While many sites are being blocked and siteholders are being punished, the root issue remains unsolved.
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As reported by the International Publishers Association, Le Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE), a professional trade union association and lobby group on behalf of French publications, has announced that it and nine of its member companies got the website Japscan blocked. The site offers 13000 unlicensed titles comprising of manga, manhwa, and manhua, and has more than 690,000 monthly visitors. This is major progress after the SNE recently managed to block the massive Z-Library after many cases brought against the site, and from the comments made by the association’s officials, it is clear their push against piracy in France is far from over.
Scan Sites Are Being Targeted In A Fierce Campaign
SNE continues its legal efforts against Z-Library and similar counterfeit book sites, aiming to disrupt their operations and “make the 7 million manga readers aware of these illegal practices”. SNE advocates for ARCOM, the French telecoms regulator, to have broader authority to block related domain names, citing the need to revise Article L.331-27 of the Intellectual Property Code to remove current limitations. Emphasizing the publishing industry’s investment in legal digital access, SNE warns that book piracy undermines author and publisher income, threatens booksellers, and damages the overall health and diversity of the cultural ecosystem.
In the past year, many sites and leakers across different countries like in China, the U.S and Europe have been cracked by major Japanese publishers like Shueisha and Shogakukan alongside officials, with sites like Mangedex and Nunu TV suffering major blows. The campaign against piracy is still fierce amidst the growing popularity of anime and manga worldwide. However, this does not actually do anything to solve the issue of a lack of official publications of manga in different languages, and it is because of a lack of this that many resort to piracy. MangaDex’s takedown is a major example of this, as many niche and shojosei manga that would have otherwise never been released in different languages were copyright striked, leaving fans with neither fan-translated scans or official versions. While the SNE does note they are working on making more manga available officially, unfortunately, other countries are not getting the same treatment.
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Image Courtesy of TOHO
