

However, at least at the basic level, there's essentially no legal difference between the protections afforded to the two. Specifically, anime producers usually have both greater ability and interest in protecting their IP than manga producers. Of course, there are practical differences between anime and manga. sponsors) are involved.Īnime News Network has a good introductory sequence of articles about legal aspects of anime. This story can change drastically when more parties (e.g.

#Is it illegal to read manga online series#
However, there are practical issues related to the cost of undergoing such legal proceedings and the fan backlash that make legal action unlikely, especially in the case of unlicensed series where the rights-holder typically has little to gain financially. An unlicensed work is still probably protected under international law though. Licensing is a separate issue of whether other companies may create and distribute the work (usually overseas). Licensing status doesn't have any legal bearing on the copyright status. So, for all practical purposes, if you're distributing or obtaining copies of manga which are not officially licensed, you're probably breaking the law. anime) and other works which are under the protection of IP law. These laws are typically pretty broad and include a lot of different artistic media (e.g. manga scanalator would still be breaking the law. Alternatively, one could think about it that Japanese works also retain certain legal protections overseas, so that e.g. That means that Japanese IP rights-holders can typically file suit against people infringing on their rights even in other countries. Japan is a partner to most countries in such agreements. There are certain exemptions, such as fair use, but scanalations definitely don't fit any of these. Without getting into too many technical details, what these agreements mean is that countries will respect each other's copyright and intellectual property to some degree. The most famous of these is the Berne Convention, but there are many others. Most countries in the world are parties to trade agreements and copyright agreements.

However, for most of the developed world the laws are fairly standardized and so, if you're willing to paint with broad brush-strokes and ignore technical nuances, the laws are all pretty universal. This is a matter of international copyright law, and as such is fairly complicated and depends on where you live.
