Seems to me like the Publishers can use this site to track down the scanalators
Anyway as long this site remains afloat, everything is fine for me at least

Personally, I think that it is because of the scanlated manga that allows the manga industry outside of Japan to get its business. I know for a fact that if it weren't for scanlated manga, I would have never grown to love manga the way I do now. Yea, it is illegal, but it also gives the manga publishers profit. By being able to see the goods for free creates the feeling of wanting to own the manga, at least for me. That, and people want to know what happens next. If only the publishers outside of Japan could keep up with the current releases, then everything would be ok....

I read the article...really the companies are about to hurt themselves...I got more interested in manga because of finding it online...then would buy what they had avail in the US...I think they're sales dropped due to the economy and people spending less...

But it will probably be just like music...and they'll make a site like itunes for manga

Lol, same here... I never really used them, since I tend to visit scanlation groups' websites/IRC channels anyway.

Your prediction just might come true sooner than we think...I don't really care about the download links, but I think it's pretty unfair that there are so many more terrible criminal activities taking place via the internet, but people are so focused on as minor a crime as scanlation (and yeah, I acknowledge that it's illegal).

i next expect them to go after the scanlators. on the anime front, i expect the streaming sites to be closed and the fan subbers to be stopped.

The American industry needs to check Alexa ratings of one manga and manga fox. majority of traffic comes from overseas where we can't afford to pay $20 in shipping for a $10 manga volume that will take 1 year delay to get published and 2 months in ship to get to our hands or get lost en route.

FML.

Only those DL links, I think.

Just the DL links...if you noticed, the DL column in the release page is gone.

Links to the scanlator site/forum through their group page are still intact.

That's why we are not approving releases from now on for groups that are not in the database

The site seems to be down, but I wouldn't jump to comclusions so fast.

I think the first one is mangatraders. It's already down since yesterday.

Yea, if Manga world went digital and much cheaper, I couldn't hope for more. I reckon that's how scanlation would die off.

getting a bit ot but still.. katydid wrote in kotonohas commments: "but how are they ever going to justify printing anything more “exotic” if they can’t even turn a profit on something supposedly mainstream (e.g. the Shonen Jump titles) because everybody and their grandma already read it the same day it came out in Japan?" why won't jap publishers just license their manga blank the day it's released in jap so english publishers can dish out digital manga with the best translations and quality you could imagine the same day? user should be able to create an account and subscribe to certain channels for small appropriate bucks and get a reading flat for those manga. make it hard to rip for most people and you're good to go. mangastream+binktopia manage to release good quality scans the same day it's in the book store in jap. why shouldn't big publishers be able to do so too?

Huh? one volume costs like 6 euro here in Germany. not 9+.
I get what you mean but seriously I like having the actual book better than having only scans on the computer. Just my opinion. No offense. ^^

Better to be safe than sorry

I doubt that. Google "manga" and a link to MU is at #10.

To be honest, I'm glad if Mangatraders or any online reading/hosters sites are down and gone. Because for me, I see them as the reason why the scanlation world is being much exposed to public as they are now.
They attract more fans, true. But they also attract people who won't put more brains or extra effort to come and interact with the scanlators. Also, those sites 'created' some new groups who aimed for net fame instead of introducing new titles.
I see scanlating as a way to introducing unknown titles to public, especially the unwritten conduct that one will dropping the project once the title is licensed in the US. But what happened now is pretty much straying from that idea, with the speed scans and net fame scans. People wanted to have mangas in a free and easy way. Thus they prefer mangahosters and/or online reading sites where they can get their manga fix within one click. I know it's easier to bookmark/rss feed a site instead of bookmark/rss feed numerous groups (in case you're reading several titles from different groups).
Anyway, I see mangaupdates as the information center, so those publishers shouldn't be able to do much. If anything comes to worst. Try checking irc 101

They aren't down, they're just having server problems.

I completely agree. It's laughable the pirates cry foul when they are the ones doing all the plundering.

Don't throw around absolutes like right or wrong, especially those based on "morals".

Since the dawn of Internet, which truly made culture global (and immortal), it's WRONG to deny anyone another country's culture [in 4D]. "We are the world..."

4D, as in time, i.e. I sure as hell wasn't gonna wait for my country to send the final season of Lost. (They still haven't begun.)
Internet also made spoilers global.

It's WRONG to call it stealing if "they" could, but have stopped or won't provide you with a legal way to obtain Item-X, especially since it's a "clone".

A) It's a duplicate - the quantity of Item-X does not decrease for said company.
B) Since no monetary exchange can be made, it's 100% impossible for them to lose any money because of it.

Shunning the Internet instead of embracing it? If they can't adapt to the times, they will perish, and RIGHTfully so. Survival of the Fittest.

hahahaaha talking about right and wrong in this way, that's laughable.

But seriously, most scanlators try to do projects/manga that are not yet translated in their language, groups which translate the popular manga are continuing the project from when it was dropped due to licensing. Yes this is illegal, however, it was the manga community who made the series popular in other languages. The worst part legally speaking is those who thry to make money off these scanlations, eg Tazmo.

"not being able to get something legally does not justify stealing it" that my friend is quite the moronic idea. If lets say you could not get food legally what can you do but "steal" it. But that is a bad comparison and mainly because in most cases nobody is stealing anything scanlating unlicensed manga is perfectly legal as nobody owns the right to publish the series in that language.

"The publishers are taking the action they think is necessary to protect their legitimate intellectual property." Yes so do many publishing companies hollywood included try to take down filesharing of movies and the like. The matter is quite simple: the out price themselves. The concept is simple, what upholds the law? it is not the police although they are the driving force behind the reason, quite simply it is the risk/reward ratio. In most cases the risk far outweighs the reward so most people wouldn't break the law, however, in this case like all internet piracy the risk is minimal and the reward is great often savings of $100s $1000s or even $10,000s compared to a negligible risk of being caught/prosecuted and fines of $10,000s to $100,000s tops.

Actually whether it will work is part of the question. how do you think they will fund the litigation? through their prices driving more people to the internet, and stopping fans who are willing to support their favourite authors from doing so.

Actually they are going about this completely the wrong way; they need a competing medium. Manga is free on the internet, But not for the scanlators who not only use a very large amount of their personal time scanlating but in many cases their own money as well.

Scanlating, contrary to publisher belief, supports the author, while admittedly not as much as each person buying their own book, where do you think the scans come from? the book, straight out of the book, and in most cases ruining the book in the process. There are many series that i read/have read that i would not buy, but my support of the scanlator by visiting their site would contribute to their advertising revenue however little and may even have allowed them to start a new series or buy a new book.

must be said i feel nothing about taking money from the fat wallets of publishing company CEO's and if you dont support the community why are you apart of it?

sorry for the double post
forgot to say that i do go to the scanlator teams sites and comment to give out my thanks out to them and to chat a little. Scanlating stuff is hard work and they do deserve our appreciation - The reason everyone of us reads scanned manga is because of their effort after all
still, since i already am familiar with 5 languages i decided to learn jap - but its so damn hard!!
speaking stuff is pretty much ok. the writing stuff is miles away...

Perhaps they joined forces in order to be able to target more server nations? I assume the Japanese companies want to target sites like mangahelpers that have a large amount of raws on them while not being hosted where they can easily target them.

a lot of English publishers like tokyopop release Manhwa. This removal avoids trouble for mangaupdates - like Manick said, they want to keep this as far away from the grey area. I'd rather have manga info than releases. I choose what to read and buy depending on the info and the ratings and the reviews i see on mangaupdates .

I think it's easier to just remove the column.

excuse me, what?

Only download links.

That's what it seems to me. This might be an interesting read (It's down now but what the articles says is that not all publishers think that scanlation is bad).

What I'm curious about is why the coalition doesn't seem concern with chinese sites that function similarly as manga aggregators. They might be of chinese scans of manga from Japan but they're still licensed property and they have an even more notorious ads in those sites. Don't you wonder what the coalition's stand on this is?