If you read manga online, you might have been affected by a recent slapfight between Mangadex and a couple of scan groups.
I think this is highly entertaining and seems like it'll only get increasingly funny.
Characters:
Bato.to: now-defunct site where most groups uploaded their translated scans
Mangadex: basically the new Batoto
Jaimini's Box: a scan group that does One Piece and other highly popular Shonen Jump titles
Other scan groups:
- Hatigarm Scans
- Meraki Scans
- Facepalm
- Other irrelevant characters
January 2018
Batoto announces that it's shutting down. I don't remember the explanation why, but it was probably something about money.
Mangadex is created. Uploaders flock to the site to replace the 7TB library that was formerly on Batoto.
March 2018
Jaimini's Box members complain to MD about how their scans were being uploaded without their permission (they previously did not upload to Batoto, they host their own site).
There is a shouting match, and eventually it is agreed that there would be a 2-week delay for their uploads, or all of their chapters are to be removed.
MD agrees, and although forum posters are assmad about the delay and insult JB for the delay (they could just go to any other aggregator website) things stay relatively stable.
January 2019
Facepalm starts competing with Hatigarm to release the same manga. Hatigarm formerly uploaded at a pace of one chapter a month, whereas Facepalm put out chapters every day, embarrassing Hatigarm's slow pace.
May 2019
Facepalm eventually amps up their antagonizing of Hatigarm Scans for taking donations [via Patreon], going as far as to call it a scam. It culminates in this image:
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Meraki Scans (friends with Hatigarm), gets butthurt, and starts complaining about 'toxic users', where MD forum hotpockets tell them to take it up with Facepalm instead of shitting up the forums.
Meraki and Hatigarm are furious. Both groups delete all of their chapters.
June 11 2019
There is a
big post on the MD forums (
archive) about various scan groups all deleting their chapters from MD. They cite ongoing harassment and point to screenshots that suggest that the MD site admin "wants to go legit like Crunchyroll and Fakku". This is touchy history about old big fan sites going legit and then going litigious on people. Some commenters lose their minds.
Several scan groups pull out:
- Meraki
- Hatigarm
- Champion Scans (irrelevant to this garbage fire)
- Jaimini's Box
- some other irrelevant groups
The name that sticks out here is Jaimini's, because they are unaffiliated with the 2019 drama and MD had formerly assumed they had a functional working relationship.
This image gets posted, revealing a possible motivation for some of those groups to be pulling out:
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It turns out that every group that pulled out had a Patreon. Jaimini's in particular gets called out because their site also has crypto miners, as well as how they seemingly have conections in Japan to get the newest One Piece before the Japanese even get to read it. (Note that leaking One Piece is something that puts people in jail) They also note a cost of $55 per week for doing this even though a WSJ magazine costs less than $5.
All of these groups' chapters get pulled (supposedly comprising of less than 1% of the total MD library), and nothing really happens for 4 days.
Happening now: a flood of spam accounts that is basically a ddos. Wonder who the culprit is!
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