MangaDex, a popular website that hosts thousands of manga, manhwa, and manhua, has received its biggest DMCA takedown notice ever. According to reports, the site received coordinated legal complaints from major Japanese and Korean publishers, including Kodansha, Square Enix, Naver, Kakao, and Webtoon.
The result is the removal of more than 700 manga and manhwa series. A running list over on Reddit confirms hundreds of manga and mahwa series have been removed, including
Apothecary Diaries, Black Butler, Black Clover, Bleach, Jujutsu Kaisen Solo Leveling, One Piece, One-Punch Man, Overlord, and many more.
While MangaDex has received DMCA takedown notices in the past, a forum super moderator explained that this is "the first time a takedown has happened on this scale." It's likely part of a broader effort by publishers to combat manga piracy globally, which has also reuslted in some of the larger anime piracy sites shut down permanently.
The DMCA takedown hit came just days after MangaDex announced a policy change to prohibit excessive profiteering from content infringement, but this appears to be unrelated. As the moderator explained:
It is unrelated. We have received a dmca request for those chapters.
Note that this is the first time a takedown happened on this scale. Before it was just singular manga on the direct request of the author, or Naver because they're scary.
The chapter listings (a v3 feature where you can see the chapter but can't access the images) will return asap with the unavailable v3 feature. So for the users that use chapter read markers for tracking (please don't), don't worry your markers will return.
The users that want a list of what has been taken down will have to wait for said feature too.
MangaDex is a community-driven, non-profit website that hosts user-uploaded fan translations of various manga and manhwa titles in multiple languages. For many readers, it's the only way to find and enjoy these titles, especially the smaller series.
Is MangaDex piracy? Technically, yes, especially since much of the content is uploaded by fans without official permission from copyright holders.
But it's really morally gray. The unfortunate truth is that many of the titles hosted and translated on the website are simply not available anywhere else.
While popular manga and manhwa series do eventually attract English publisher attention, many of the more obsure series are left ignored because there's simply not enough money to be made for the publishers to pay to license them. MangaDex gave readers a chance to experience these smaller titles, even though yes it technically is piracy.
The truth is that manga and anime is growing at a rapid pace globally. Fans are demanding more and, unfortunately, only the largest titles are gaining publisher attraction. Even then, only the largest markets, like the United States, tend to get translations. It's a problem that must be solved if the industry wants to continue to grow.
Although Manga Plus, Shonen Jump, and VIZ Media offer legal alternatives to read manga, their selection pales in comparison to MangaDex. And again, it all comes down to money. For now, MangaDex remains up and running, but who knows for how much longer.