Interest
Irodori Comics CEO On Takahashi Criticizes Manga Rock Pirated Manga App
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Irodori Comics CEO On Takahashi posted a series of Tweets in both English and Japanese criticizing the pirated manga aggregator app Manga Rock, which is currently available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store. Their Japanese Twitter thread has accumulated almost 60k retweets since it was posted on Tuesday.
【拡散希望】
— On Takahashi (「イロ鳥」代表:高橋温) (@OnTakahashi) August 27, 2019
漫画家の皆様
App StoreでMANGA ROCK というアプリがあります。アップル社がストアに載せているぐらいなので、公式な漫画アプリかと思うかもしれませんが、完全に「違法アグリゲーターサイト」です。
何百人もの日本人漫画家の作品をアップロードし、広告収入を得ています。#漫画
In the tweets, Takahashi describes the Manga Rock app for Japanese speakers. (The app is region-blocked for Japan users.) Not only does Manga Rock share illegal scans of numerous manga series, the app also has a paid subscription service costing roughly US$5 per month, charging users for pirated content. Due to this and the legitimacy the app gains from being hosted on the Google Play Store and the App Store, Takahashi argued that many users of the app are unaware that it is an illegal service.
Takahashi posted detailed instructions for manga creators to check if their work is hosted on the app and how to send a request for takedown. They also encouraged users to call out Apple and Google for continuing to host the app.
For English speakers, Takahashi wrote up an English summary of their tweets.
Irodori Comics publishes authorized English localizations of Japanese doujinshi. The service was launched earlier this year.
Manga Rock has been active since at least 2012. Japanese commentators have compared the service to Mangamura, a piracy site that Japanese authorities began investigating last year, when publishers filed legal action against it. Several people have been arrested for uploading unauthorized images.
Source: On Takahashi's Twitter account
