I've noticed this for Shingeki no Kyojin, Nanatsu no Taizai, Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo, UQ Holder!, Uchuu Kyoudai, ... Maybe others I've missed. The common factor is that they're all licensed by Kodansha USA.

Did they sent some notice?

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Also for Kimi no Iru Machi , Black Bird , and Kami-sama no Iutoori Ni
(black bird has no ties to Kodansha) like you said, there's probably a lot more. but yeah it's odd that more mangas have the cover image disabled ...


Edit: Also
Case Closed
Magi - Labyrinth of Magic
InuYasha

Last edited by kitty1826x at 2:52 pm, Oct 28 2014

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I noticed the same about Black Bird and that one is licensed by Viz. And after looking through a few series licensed by Viz I also found that a few had disabled images.

A list:
Bleach
Naruto
One Piece
Dragon Ball
Hunter x Hunter
Gintama

Most of the series with disabled images seems to be popular or somewhat popular shounen manga. And yes, I'm pretty sure every manga in this list had an image a week ago or two.

Since why did these retarded Japanese publishers think that posting cover images now constitutes copyright violation? If that's the case then they should shut down Wikipedia next.

Well, the recent downtime of this site opened my eyes to some things...

My opinion is, if manga updates can get rid of everything that may cause them problems, such as copyrighted images (i don't know. I'm just "ignoratly" supposing stuff), for me it's totally fine... It doesn't really affect more important information about the series (such as, if it's licensed or not, scanlation progress, summary... etc)

If I want to see some images of the manga I'm interested in, I'll just google it and I'll find images for sure.

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well that sucks. i like seeing cover images.

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add Fairy Tail to the list

I also don't really care for the "popular manga" images, because in that case, the cover has probably no influence whatsoever on your decision to start reading something. This however is not the case for series that are already low on information like summaries, comments, scores or reviews. While searching for images of some kind of manga is manageable, it is an annoying hassle for those series. Art style matters for most people, so the cover is a quick way of checking that without the actual need to start reading.

I personally hope that this does not spread.

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You can say that ... until they start removing plot summaries, or even entire entry here in MU.

If we can just google everything, then what's the point of MU. Might as well shut down the site now and just look at Wikipedia. Also, doesn't mean that it will spread to niche series. It will most likely will.

EDIT: It's really obvious that posting a SINGLE image doesn't constitute copyright violation. Also, I don't care if they shut down MU for good. It's like TVTropes (censor what we don't like bullcrap).

Can we get an official word on this matter ? Not that i need to know how the most recent Volume looks like but aren´t these images meant for promotion ? Keep on fighting the power ! No excel spreadsheet can replace MU.

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Low-res cover images scream fair-use, in every fucking way.

But it is a Copyright Violation until you win a (few) Lawsuit(s) declaring it Fair Use. (Possibly a Win. Could be a loss if the violation makes the original Work obsolete.)

Fair Use is not automatic. Rights Holders usually do not bother to sue.

Well we could try getting someone to draw fitting Thumbnail-Fanart for MU. (No Tracing.)

The covers are needed to gauge the Artstyle. I'd hate to let them go away.


We can rewrite Plot Summaries. We can draw exemplary Thumbnails. As long as the Releases are there, this Site has a purpose.

(It is a copyright violation until proven otherwise in a court of law.)


It is a copyright violation until proven otherwise in a court of law.

read what I wrote. read what you wrote. come to the conclusion we said exactly the same while I used more words

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Couldn´t the offical covers be replaced by representative fanart ? The series in question have more then enough of these.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 8:00 am, Oct 31 2014

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

It's fair use only if you assert your rights. If you do not contest their action in court, then you legally accept their jurisdiction on said intellectual property. The other problem is the outdated "About Us" description page for mangaupdates.com. This page (as of this post) mentions "scanlation" and that is typically a counterfeiting activity. Counterfeiting is illegal and that makes mangaupdates directly associated with potentially illegal activity by mangaupdates' own explicit words. Furthermore, DMCA covers online tools consistently used by pirates to facilitate piracy, thus mangaupdates falls into that category whereas wikipedia does not.

As with all laws you deem unfair, don't elect the politicians that are going to propose such corporate-friendly treaties or laws. It's just too bad so many people have a "meh" attitude about voting and/or activism. The latest incarnation of SOPA and ACTA is being written into the TPP treaty and if ratified, that will bode ill for scanlators. That's because it formally criminalizes scanlation activity if you don't have PRIOR explicit permission (written). That means asset seizure as well as being arrested by your local police is allowable. TPP also allows regulation of intermediate copies which opens the door to requirements of a completely closed path for IP. Currently, a closed path for IP is not required which is why your monitor and hard drives don't have IP recognition hardware and firmware built-in. Importantly, TPP fights reverse importation by attacking your raw sources; you cannot buy, import, or possess the raw manga without permission of the IP rights manager for that IP. Thus, scanlators who buy the raw manga in order to scanlate it will be stymied because it will be a criminal act (not civil) which will create a criminal record for those scanlators. Given the choice of having a genuine criminal record (not just a dmca request), many scanlators would stop.

Electronic Freedom Foundation article on TPP:
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

How about if we post a link to google/other search engine image search for the particular series in their description? That way, if we want to take a glimpse of it, we could just click the link.