In Rouanne. Image – Getty: Fortgens Photography
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
Frankfurter Buchmesse Outlines Plans for Comics, Manga, Webtoons
HarperCollins Buying French, German Manga Operations
French Publishers Navigate a Shifting Rights Landscape
‘Joining Forces in an Unprecedented Way’
You may recall that in September 2024, the French publishers’ association, Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE), was successful in a campaign featuring 12 of the association’s publisher-members, seeing the “Z-Library” site blocked by the Paris Judicial Court.
In another successful blow against piracy in France, a decision was handed down by Paris’ Judicial Court on July 23 supporting the SNE and nine of its members in legal action against the site Japscan. Publishers engaged in the effort this time comprise:
- Casterman
- Crunchyroll
- Delcourt
- Glénat
- Kana
- Ki-oon (AC Média)
- Kurokawa,
- Panini
- Pika
Publishing Perspectives readers will recall that it’s Crunchyroll’s French and German manga operations that were recently acquired by HarperCollins in an eye-catching play.
The association in Paris describes the huge inventory of manga, manhwa, manhua, comics, and graphic novels that have been offered by Japscan in French territory—reportedly some 13,000 titles—”in violation of the rights of authors and publishers.” The publishers say the site was attracting as many as 690,000 unique visitors per month in France.
“Book piracy is a particularly worrying phenomenon in the manga sector,” the SNE reports, “with 83 percent of readers visiting pirate sites, according to the Mangas.io study of 2025. This phenomenon directly impacts publishers’ sales in a declining market.’
‘Defending Copyright Whenever It’s Threatened’
Vincent Montagne
The SNE’s chair, Vincent Montagne, says the publishers’ association in France “is actively fighting piracy, recently marked by two successful court cases to block the Z-Library Web site.
“This new action confirms the union’s commitment to defending copyright whenever it’s threatened.”
“In 2024,” SNE reports, “sales in the manga publishing sector decreased by 9.3 percent in volume.”
Benoit Pollet
Benoit Pollet, president of SNE’s manga group, is also quoted in the news from Paris, saying, “All publishers in the manga group are joining forces in an unprecedented way to take legal action against piracy.
“The aim is to collectively contribute to all initiatives that will raise awareness of these illegal practices among our 7 million manga readers .”
It seems to have been the Z-Library success that has inspired the SNE to intensify its anti-piracy work. The association’s team says it intends to “strengthen our strategy against counterfeit sites, regardless of their size, the complexity of their organizations, or their desires to maintain and even expand their audiences,” all of which of course is damaging to legal, legitimate publication and sales of content.
In order to widen and broaden its anti-piracy work, the SNE is requesting that professional organizations “be able to use ARCOM to extend the blocking obtained before the judge to all domain names that would subsequently be used to access the targeted site, as is already provided for rights holders in Article L. 331-27 of the Intellectual Property Code. A review of this article therefore seems urgent and necessary to remove its limitations.”
ARCOM is the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication in France, working to fight digital piracy, as well as the illegal broadcasting of sports content.
“French publishing is investing heavily to provide widespread public access to digital books through numerous legal offerings,” the SNE’s media messaging says. “Book piracy undermines the remuneration of creators: authors and publishers. It poses a threat to the entire book ecosystem, particularly booksellers, and harms cultural diversity.”
Amy Nazru, writing for CBR about the SNE publishers’ widely-applauded action, notes, “While publishers intensify their legal battles, industry data suggests the root of the problem lies in a global demand that official channels struggle to meet.
“Analysts at MUSO reported previously that fan-translated manga chapters often appear online faster than official releases. Although platforms like Crunchyroll, Manga Plus, and K Manga have made strides in providing legal, simultaneous digital access, issues like regional restrictions and paywalls continue to push many fans toward unofficial sources.”
’75 Million Copies Sold Last Year’
The SNE’s leadership is handled by Montagne as chair and Renaud Lefebvre as director. Its manga group is made of 10 or so publishers to focus on issues in manga production, including piracy and digital reading platforms.
Benoit, as manga group chief, spoke in November at a major regional comics conference in Le Havre. Some of the data points he included in his comments are instructive here, in terms of how France tends to be referred to by some as the world’s third manga market.
“With 75 million copies sold last year” in 2023 in France, Pollot told his audience, “comics in all their forms, including manga, represent the second-largest publishing segment in France. One in five books sold is now a comic book.
“It is estimated that there are around 10 million buyers of comics, manga, and graphic novels in France. The sector ranks first in international sales, accounting for more than 30 percent of all rights transfers.
“There were 3,850 of these international sales last year, with the main languages into which they were translated abroad being Spanish, Italian, German, English, and Chinese. ”
Benoit also made a point that relates well to the content-development work that Elena Pasoli‘s Bologna Children’s Book Fair is positioning now as a leading edge of its work.
Manga, comics, and graphic novels as a group, he said in Le Havre, “increasingly inspires other cultural universes, such as cinema, series, theaters, video and board games … I would even go further: Interdisciplinarity has taken over many stages and the public regularly approves of initiatives that combine disciplines—as in a ‘drawn concert,’ ‘opera-manga,’ and even new writing or new modes of reading, such as the webtoon, which is developing today. …
“Comics are plural and that is their great strength.”
More on the French market is here, more on industry statistics in many markets of the world is here, and more on translation and publication rights is here. More on piracy is here, more on copyright and its protection is here, and more on comics, manga, and graphic novels is here.