[Locked] FAKKU State of the Union 2016

J-list has no problem using paypal.

If I wasn't so busy reinventing the wheel for another project, I might have played around with paypal development. WebRTC is more fascinating right now for me. That and fapping.

Yesterday we removed all scanlations from FAKKU. This is something we announced over six months ago, but obviously it still came as a surprise to a lot of our users. Once we removed aㄴㄷㄴㄷㄴㄷㄱㅌㅅ는ᆞㅋㅈㅂㅈll unlicensed content the only material remaining was that which had been officially licensed, an overwhelming amount of which is for subscribers. The response has been divisive, with people coming out in support and people fueled with hatred of the decision.

As the person who created FAKKU nearly 10 years ago, I am here now to answer your questions and explain why I think this is the right thing to do.

Why did you remove scanlations and unlicensed content?

A lot of people think hentai is free just because it's always been free. Given our history at FAKKU we've contributed to that misconception, and now it's time to fix it. Everything you've been reading on the Internet has been a scan of an actual book from Japan, something Japanese authorities are increasingly clamping down on. Piracy is not a sustainable business model, but more importantly, piracy has never been my goal with FAKKU.

Over the past year we have officially published over 200 individual artists. After going to Japan and meeting with artists whom we've published and have had their scanlations appear on FAKKU, I have made the decision to support them as much as I possibly can. It's heartbreaking to talk with an artist and have them explain that when they Google their name they don't see their website, or their Twitter, or any way to actually support them. All they see are pirated scans of their work that were uploaded somewhere without their permission.

This isn't a problem unique to hentai, it's an issue with the anime and manga industry at large and the reason why so many Japanese companies, publishers, and artists, blindly turn their back on their overseas fans thinking we're all pirates. Because for so many years that's all we've been to them, pirates. My goal with FAKKU is to change their perception of us and removing scanlations (and giving our users a way to support their favorite artists) is the next step.

As a result of this change you'll see more content coming to FAKKU from new artists and new publishers. We will be publishing all different kinds of genres, including things you don't normally see on FAKKU. I want to bring back all of the content that has been removed, but now legally and in collaboration with the artists that created it instead of via pirated scans. Right now we simulpublish two of the largest hentai magazines in Japan, Comic Kairakuten and Comic X-Eros, which together account for almost 1,000 pages of new content each month. The fact that we have been successfully doing this for six months is incredible, it's the equivalent of publishing two entire issues of Shonen Jump every single month.

We plan to add free content for users that cannot afford a subscription, but it's going to take some time. We are still legally figuring out how exactly to do this and how to do it in a way that's smart alongside our subscriptions. If you have ideas post them in this thread, I'll be reading every single reply.

Final Thoughts

At this point whether we succeed or fail is entirely up to you, and we need your support now more than ever. If you can't afford a subscription, help spread our message and explain to people why we made this decision and why the artists deserve support. Get out there and tell people. Think of all the faps these artists have given us over the years, now we finally have the opportunity to give back to them in a meaningful way.

I hope you choose to stick around with FAKKU. If not, it's been an incredible 10 years and I want to thank all of you for being a part of it.