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JayGray91🐉🍕 @piefed.social

Mihon, an aggregated manga reading app, issues a troubling warning they might shut down due to imitators that uses old Tachiyomi name

mihon.app

Mihon could be under threat

Misuse of Mihon’s name and branding by a group may endanger the project

Citing Kotatsu's recent shut down, two of Mihon's devs said that misuse of Mihon’s name and branding by a group may endanger the project.

I copied the text if you don't want to go the link. It's a bit long so I spoilered it.

Hello everyone,

With Kotatsu's recent shutdown and due to some ongoing issues over the years, I believe Mihon is also under threat. If you care about the project's future, please take a moment to read this message.

Who is behind the threat, and how?

A group going by iiTachiyomi and recently Miyomi has built a massive following by impersonating Tachiyomi (Mihon's predecessor) across various platform. They only rebranded to iiTachiyomi after years of request and only on platforms where they had a low following.

Their blatant impersonation was one of the key reason behind the legal threat Tachiyomi received, which ultimately led to its shutdown. When we announced Mihon and exposed their behavior, iiTachiyomi promised to change their ways and not impersonate Mihon.

However, just months after Mihon launched, they resumed the same behavior by:

  • Creating a new brand "Miyomi: Tachiyomi and Mihon community" to capitalize on Mihon's name
  • Posting Mihon release notes and announcements without attribution
  • Sharing updates of third-party extension repos without attribution
  • Failing to clarify they are not the developers behind Mihon or those extensions
  • Selling fake Mihon branded merchandise

Why does this threaten Mihon?

When P.CoK, the anti-piracy division of Kakao requested the removal of extensions, the Tachiyomi team complied. iiTachiyomi, however continued distributing them in a misleading way, causing confusion that escalated into legal pressure, which resulted in Tachiyomi shutting down.

Now, they are doing the same thing with Mihon. Their misrepresentation and misuse of Mihon’s name, branding and work puts the project at risk, despite Mihon having already corrected the mistakes Tachiyomi made. It could also cause problems for other apps they promote.

What to do from now on

iiTachiyomi claims to serve the community, but their actions prove otherwise. To protect Mihon:

  • Report iiTachiyomi or Miyomi pages that mislead users
  • Correct people who confuse Mihon with iiTachiyomi or Miyomi
  • Don’t share or support unofficial Mihon merchandise
  • Spread the word: Mihon has no connection to them

Signed by:

  • Antsy, Mihon Developer
  • jobobby04, TachiyomiSY Developer

This is after the action that Kotatsu manga app shutting down due to Kakao's continued war on manga piracy, and Google's future policy of limiting what Android users can install on their own devices.

From Kotatsu's github readme:

Important

In light of recent challenges — including threating actions from Kakao Entertainment Corp and upcoming Google’s new sideloading policy — we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Kotatsu and end its support. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed and to the amazing community that grew around this project.

One year ago, Tachiyomi shut down due to Kakao's efforts, as per this post here.

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