- Manga publishers have issued DMCA takedown notices against the popular manga scanlation site, MangaDex.
- More than 700 series, like Solo Leveling, Dragon Ball, and The Apothecary Diaries, have been removed from MangaDex.
- This is the largest takedown in the site's history, according to one of MangaDex's moderators.
With the advent of official manga reading apps like Manga Plus, Shonen Jump, and more globally, fans are no longer left to rely on pirated sources. The latest chapters of popular manga series, such as One Piece, Chainsaw Man, and more, are available to read for free on these apps. Despite all the new accessible options, manga piracy continues to soar as availability varies from region to region. MangaDex, one of the largest manga scanlation sites, acts as the piracy hub of manga readers, but not anymore, as the website was hit with a flood of DMCA takedown notices.
Well-known manga publishers such as Kodansha, Kakao, Lehzin, Square Enix, Webtoon, and more have teamed up and sent DMCA takedown notices to MangaDex. The manga piracy site violates the copyright policy by illegally hosting a large amount of manga without a license.
As a result, over 700 manga series (both licensed and unlicensed) have been deleted from MangaDex’s site. Redditors also noted that some of the deleted titles are not available on any other platform. The complete list of DMCA takedown notices is publicly available on the Lumen Database, which you can check for yourself.
Popular manga and manhwa titles such as Solo Leveling, Dragon Ball, and The Apothecary Diaries, among others, have been taken down. If you are curious, you can visit the linked Reddit post to find out the complete list of manga and manhwa no longer available on MangaDex. One of MangaDex’s moderators said that “this is the first time their website has experienced DMCA takedowns of this scale.”
Unlike other manga platforms, MangaDex was an ad-free platform and didn’t make any profit from hosting pirated manga content online. However, the site still infringes copyright laws and is deemed an illegal manga reading platform. Many fans are supporting the official manga apps these days, but the expensive cost of subscriptions, as well as online releases and the unavailability in their regions, leads them to piracy sites.
The future of MangaDex remains unknown as this large-scale DMCA strike can eventually lead to the site’s shutdown. According to the Lumen Database, copyright strikes were sent to other manga scanlation sites as well, but MangaDex is the first platform to take a major hit and suffer a big loss today.
Is this just the beginning of the takedown of anime and piracy sites? What do you think about this issue? Let us know in the comments below.
