Anti-Piracy Statement

Last updated: January 2026 · Author: Giovanni Picaro

Scanhua is an editorial publication, not a piracy site. We do not host, link to, or facilitate access to unauthorized copies of manga, manhua, or manhwa. This page sets out, in detail, our position on piracy, scanlation, and the broader question of how readers can support the creators whose work they love.

1. The plain statement

We oppose unauthorized distribution of copyrighted manga, manhua, and manhwa. This applies to scanlations, raw scans, full-volume downloads, “manga reader” sites that aggregate scraped content, and any other form of distribution that bypasses the author and the rightsholders. The position is consistent across the three traditions we cover and across the formats those traditions use.

This is not a moralistic position adopted under pressure. It is the position that follows directly from valuing the medium: if creators do not earn from their work, the work does not continue to exist.

2. Why piracy harms the medium

The economics of manga, manhua, and manhwa publishing are tighter than they look. Mangaka work brutally long hours for compensation that, even at the high end, is not extraordinary by professional standards. Manhuajia in China and webtoon artists in Korea face their own forms of structural pressure. The international licensing system that brings these works to English-speaking readers is a recent achievement, built on long negotiations, and still fragile.

When a reader chooses a pirate site over an official source, the choice is not free. The pirate site’s revenue comes from advertising that does not flow back to creators. The reduced demand on official platforms makes future licenses harder to negotiate, makes risky or unconventional works less likely to be picked up, and reduces the pool of money available to the people drawing the next chapter.

The argument that “I would not have bought it anyway” is not a complete defense. Even if it were true for any individual reader, the aggregate effect of widespread piracy is real. Publishers track sales, and they make decisions about future investments based on what those numbers say.

3. The legal sources we recommend

We strongly encourage readers to support the official editions of works they enjoy. The English-language manga, manhua, and manhwa landscape in 2026 is the best it has ever been, with a wide variety of legitimate platforms across price points. Major options include:

• Manga Plus by Shueisha — free official simulpub of major Shōnen Jump titles, supported by ads and premium subscription. mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp
• Viz Media — the licensed English-language home of much of the Shōnen Jump and Shōnen Sunday catalogs, plus extensive backlist. Subscription and individual purchases.
• Crunchyroll Manga / K Manga and Kodansha’s official platforms — for major Kodansha titles in English.
• Webtoon (LINE Webtoon) — the largest official platform for Korean and original-English webtoons. Free with ads, premium for early access.
• Tappytoon, Lezhin, Tapas — additional official webtoon platforms with extensive licensed catalogs.
• Bilibili Manga — the official global platform for many Chinese manhua, with English translations of major series.
• Local public library systems — many libraries now offer free digital manga loans through services like Hoopla, Libby, and equivalents elsewhere.
• Print editions — bookshops, comic shops, and online retailers stock licensed English-language editions of most major series. Buying physical volumes remains one of the most direct ways to support a creator.

The list above is not exhaustive and changes as platforms launch and licenses shift. When a platform we recommend stops being legitimate, we update the recommendation.

4. Our position on scanlation specifically

“Scanlation” — fan-produced unauthorized translation of manga — is a complicated topic. We are direct about our view.

We acknowledge that scanlation has, historically, played a role in introducing English-speaking readers to works that would otherwise have remained inaccessible. Many of us first encountered manga through scanlation in earlier decades, when the official translation pipeline was thinner. We do not pretend otherwise.

What we believe in 2026 is that the historical justification has eroded. Most major series are now available officially, often within hours of the Japanese release (simulpub). The economic argument that “scanlation expands the market” is no longer persuasive in the way it was when there was no market to expand into.

Specifically:

• We do not link to scanlation aggregators.
• We do not recommend scanlation as a substitute for official editions of works that have official English releases.
• We do not host scanlated images on this Site, even for review or critical purposes — we use publisher-provided promotional images or, where editorial necessity requires, brief original-language panels under fair use.
• We respect the goodwill that genuine fan communities built around scanlation in earlier decades, and we recognize that some of the people now working professionally in the licensing industry came up through that culture. Acknowledgment of history is not endorsement of present-day infringement.

For works that are genuinely not officially available in English — older or niche titles that have never been licensed — we discuss the work itself in our editorial coverage but we do not link to or recommend specific unauthorized sources. The right thing for the reader who wants to access such a work is to advocate for an official license, sometimes through publisher reader survey programs or through the increasingly active community of small-press licensing operations.

5. How to report piracy of work covered on Scanhua

If you find unauthorized distribution of a work that has been covered on Scanhua, the appropriate first step is to report it to the rightsholder — the publisher, the platform, or the author’s representatives. They have the standing and the legal infrastructure to take action.

If you would like to make us aware of a particularly egregious case (a major scanlation operation distributing a work we have recently reviewed, for example), we are open to receiving the information at info [at] scanhua [punto] site with the subject line Piracy report. We may, in some cases, write editorially about the situation; we may also forward the report to the relevant publisher’s anti-piracy team where we have a contact.

6. How to report unauthorized use of Scanhua’s own content

If you find content from Scanhua republished without authorization on another website (full articles, translated articles, etc.), please see our Copyright Notice, section 8, for the reporting procedure.

7. The harder cases

We acknowledge that the situation is not always clean. Some readers live in jurisdictions where official platforms are not available, or where the language of official publication is not one they read. Some readers cannot afford the official editions and would not be able to access the work at any price they can pay. These are real situations, and they do not have easy answers.

What we say to readers in these situations is: support the official editions when and where you can, advocate for the official platforms to expand into your region or your language, and if you must use unauthorized sources for access, do so with awareness of what is being lost in the equation. We are not in a position to police individual reader choices in difficult circumstances. We are in a position to be honest about what those choices mean.

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