According to Anime!Anime!, mangaka Akamatsu Ken established a stock company J-Comi with Deguchi Ryusei. The aim of the company is to provide discontinued manga electronically for free. As a test launch of the beta version, all the fourteen volumes of Love Hina manga will be available for free downloading from November 26th. The full launch will be made on January 10th 2011 and scans of out-of-print manga will be provided in PDF format without copy protection.
Layout image of J-Comi website
Akamatsu came up with the idea when he started to receive letters from fans, who obtained his manga by illegal downloading. He thinks it’s impossible to eliminate the illegal scans from the internet and it would rather be beneficial if the authors put advertisements to the scans and earn revenue from them. Akamatsu has found the way to establish a “Library of Out-of-print Manga” independent of publishers because publication contracts of manga usually expire in three to five years. Akamatsu is also planning to enable the users to upload scans and to share them via J-Comi after the inspection by the staff and the addition of advertisements.
Sources: Anime!Anime!, Natalie, J Comi official blog
