The Spanish National Police has informed today of the success of a major operation to break up an illegal organisation of three individuals who had been distributing pirated manga comic books for more than a decade.
Described as "the largest illegal Spanish-language manga distribution platform", the site's headquarters was based in Almería, where the owners were arrested for alleged ongoing IP offences. In the operation, the police seized hardware plus cryptocurrency cold wallets worth over 400,000 euros, while preventing the launch of a new site under the same management.
The pirate manga site had been running since 2014 and attracted millions of users worldwide. Beyond Spain, the platform was heavily used across the Spanish-speaking world, with millions of monthly users feeding a banner advertisement business that generated more than 4 million euros via aggressive campaigns, much of it through pornographic pop-ups, raising added concerns because many users were minors. Besides the more obvious financial and reputational impact on official channels and local editorial publishers, the platform's excessive ads also hurt the user experience and may have damaged the perception of the manga works hosted there.
Manga and comic books might be enjoying a new golden era, judging by the amazing creativity found globally and by the massive interest and following they spark in today's communities, and we as Gamereactor can attest to that after attending major pop culture events such as COMICON Napoli and San Diego Comic-Con Málaga last year, where we talked with both fans and artists. However, with the surge of digital devices and despite the easy access they provide (as with e-books), piracy has remained sadly common.