We know some of you have been following the recent events, and we have a statement we would like to make regarding aggregators. For your reference, aggregators are websites where you can read manga online.

As a result of several new instances brought to our attention, and his continued actions contrary to the will of scanlators, we have removed matias067 from the MU staff. We thank matias for his service of reporting several thousand releases during his service here.

While this action would seem to be appeasing the community, that is not our intent. Even though we disagreed with what was occurring, we could not unfairly move against one of our members at the time because we didn't have a concrete policy regulating those actions. Our rules were about respecting release delays here on this site. We never considered the scenario that one of our updaters would not be respecting delays on some other website. As a result we have again modified our policy, and as such will no longer tolerate relationships between our release mods and aggregators.

Some of you may see this as the justice denied you weeks ago when we adamantly opposed the public crucifixion of one of our staff. While we cannot speak to the effectiveness of eliminating one of our moderators, we ask that you consider the bigger picture. MU has one voice in a large community. Just as we cannot control what others do in this community, we also cannot defeat the aggregators. The Internet is a vast environment of anarchy where new groups and organizations pop up and drown out into non-existence on a daily basis. How can we possibly control this? Only one reader need know about a release from a particular scanlator, and update an aggregator on a regular basis. The problem with release delays is compounded by the fact that in such a platform, they are virtually impossible to enforce and violations (by any particular entity) are difficult to detect. Such attempts would simply be thwarted by using different usernames or email addresses.

At the end of the day, all we can do as a website is state our position. We do not support and try to actively spread the word against profiteering off the backs of scanlators. At the same time, while we encourage you to go and buy Manga you like, we continue to have no official position on aggregators in general. You must make your own decisions about your associations with the community and these sites.

Thank you for your time,

Manick & Lamb

Now everyone knows where the position of MU in the community called "Internet"

I think this is reasonable. MU isn't the internet police. In fact, if it weren't for posts from MU like these bringing to attention sites like MangaFox (by linking out relevant posts) and Tazmo, I for one would've remained completely ignorant, possibly continuing to support sites like MangaFox. I'm aware of the ramifications that scanlations have on the manga community, but there are certain lines I draw when it comes to them.

..then there is of course the fact that artificially forcing delays on the internet, where everything goes, only and ONLY to make the group leader's e-peen feel bigger is completely retarded. Sorry, it has to be said. There is completely needless drama over the most worthless things..

Not all delays are solely for e-peen stroking though. There are people who ask for delays for valid reasons.

What scanlation groups or leaders do is completely up to them. Be thankful for their work and efforts. If you want to scanlate yourself, then do it, but don't blame anyone for having pride in their work.

I think it is a shame that it had to come to this. The only mistake Mathias did was get MU involved with the crap on mangafox. Aggregators are a part of the manga comunity and people need to accept that, they may be parasites who make money off of groups works but they still help by getting the releases out to the masses. if you look back to the early days when everything was done on IRC only the more knowledgeable and dedicated could get the releases. still its importaint to listen to the wishes of the scanlators and respect their decisions if they dont want their manga on online readers.

In addition this should be at least a nice wake-up call to people who do stupid things like post about being part of MU staff elsewhere. hopefully this will put an end to all the drama and we wont have to deal with it ever again.

Thanks not only for doing the right thing regarding matias067, but also for stating a clear and sensible position about how you as a site feel about the current state of the "game"

People don't make enough of their own decisions these days, it's not up to someone else to make up your mind for you.

Except it isn't their work, it's somebody's work that they're stealing, slapping their name on, and then trying to do whatever they want with it and then complaining when someone else makes a profit off of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a scanlator myself and am just as guilty of stealing, but at least I don't watermark or ask for money (donations) or try to control the distribution of someone else's work I stole. This new breed of scanlators that popped up in the last few years that thinks it's okay to do this stuff is killing the community just as much as the aggregate sites.

While the aggregators may be a nice place to read manga, theres a huge risk against the scanlating community BECAUSE those site are making money from it. With them making money from the manga that were scanlated into english, its slowing pushing scanlation from a grey area of the law into the black area where it can be punishable and many groups are worried it can affect them as well

MangaUpdates should be thanking matias067 for his services to their damn site.

Without matias067, most of the manga that we see on mangaupdates would have been ignored or forgotten to be noticed. Some scanlation groups die and their chapters go missing to the public. But look up at the sky; is it a plane, a bird? No it's matias067 uploading the missing chapter on mangafox for everyone to read and enjoy. Matias067 should be looked upon and seen as a hero to manga readers around the world, and not a damn villain.

You f-ckers need to give back matias067 his position as a staff. Stop discriminating because scanlators are threatening that they'd stop providing releasing information through mangaupdates.

Think about it, you fired your own most loyal staff because of other sites and parties that has nothing to do with what you believe in (as you claim that you want people to buy from publishers) but in the end, you just want people to think your staffs are pure angels.

What's next? Removing staff members that upload too much hentai?
That is why you call yourselves BAKA!!!!!

And if you are laughing at my comment, you can go f-ck yourselves.

That's a pretty cool comment you left.

while I won't be jerking off, I did laugh at your comment. For purposes of archiving, there's mangatraders, who unlike most aggregators, don't ruin the quality by resizing.
Besides that, they did thank him. And finally, there's more than enough release mods now. Since the recruitment, the list has been populated.

P.S
matias wasn't loyal, otherwise he'd listen to the warning given to him.

LMFAO
Fanboy alert!

________________

Everyday I'm tumblin'

I smell fanboy, or maybe matias067 himself?