Authorities arrested scanlation pirates that were uploading scanned and translated copies of manga magazines before they were released in Japan (tough to beat free AND early!), according to The Yomiuri Shimbun's Yomiuri Online and The Wall Street Journal (via Anime News Network).  

Four men were arrested in the Kyoto Prefecture of Japan on charges of copyright violation for allegedly uploading a scanned chapter of Eiichico Oda’s One Piece manga from the 49th issue of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, four days before publication. Three of the suspects received a copy from a fourth, Takehisa Hidaka, who worked for a Japanese delivery company, and then uploaded scanned and translated versions to the English-language scanlation site MangaPanda.

A second incident in the Kyoto Prefecture, also reported by The Yomiuri Shimbun (via ANN), involved the arrest of two men, also on charges of copyright violation, for allegedly uploading the latest chapter of The Seven Deadly Sins, which runs in Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine, to an overseas website prior to publication. The two suspects indicated they received the magazine from the same employee of the delivery company. 

Under deposition, Hidaka reportedly admitted to selling the magazines without authorization, having obtained the copies during their transit from the printer to retailers. According to the report, the manga was posted as soon as four to five hours after receipt to piracy sites with English translations.

VIZ Media releases Shonen Jump digitally in English on the same day as the Japanese release, but has been routinely beaten by scanlation sites uploading pirated copies.  These arrests reveal how that was happening.  VIZ released a statement on the arrests:

On Friday, November 13th, four men in Japan were arrested by the Kyoto Prefectural Police on suspicion of illegally taking, digitizing and distributing manga content originally published in the Japanese edition of Weekly Shonen Jump. Weekly Shonen Jump is the world’s most-read weekly manga anthology and is published in Japan by VIZ Media’s parent company, Shueisha, Inc.

It is alleged that this content was illegally distributed internationally through the online scanlation site MangaPanda. The site is also alleged to be the supplier to additional perpetrators possibly involved in the cross-border violation of intellectual property rights and copyright law.

Digital piracy is a crime that steals what others have worked so hard to create. VIZ Media actively supports manga creators and manga fan culture, and is committed to making the highest possible quality content available to a global audience through licensed channels.

Fears about a similar problem in the U.S. recently led Lucasfilm to require Star Wars publishing licensee Del Ray to delay the release of the novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens until January (see “'Star Wars' Novel Delayed Until January”), to avoid a potential leak of plot elements from copies in the distribution chain.