In late 2006, Leiji Matsumoto accused J-Pop singer Noriyuki Makihara of plagiarizing lyrics from the Galaxy Express 999 manga, and announced that he would like to hear an apology from Makihara. In 2007, Makihara Noriyuk filed a 22 million yen lawsuit against Leiji Matsumoto for "repeated demands for an apology and false accusation." Now Daily Yomiuri Online reports that the Tokyo District Court has ordered Leiji Matsumoto to pay 2.2 million yen in compensation for defaming Noriyuki Makihara:

The Tokyo District Court has ordered renowned manga artist Reiji Matsumoto to pay 2.2 million yen in compensation for defaming popular singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara in a case concerning Matsumoto's claim that Makihara wrote a song using words taken from one of his comics without permission.

Presiding Judge Misao Shimizu ruled Friday the phrases in question could not be considered overly similar and he ordered Matsumoto to pay compensation for saying on a TV program that Makihara had admitted plagiarism.

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Earlier this month, a lawyer named Masatoshi Uchida accused Hideo Iura's manga Bengoshi no Kuzu of plagiarizing a novel he once wrote.

Now Mainichi Shimbun reports that Hideo Iura and Shogakukan are denying the alleged copyright violation:

Iura admitted that he had referred to Uchida's novel but denied that he had violated any copyrights.

"Copyrights cover only concrete written expressions. What was published were actual crimes, and even if I used them as reference, it does not constitute a violation of copyright," a statement from Iura and the publisher said.

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ANN reports that a lawyer named Masatoshi Uchida is accusing Hideo Iura's manga Bengoshi no Kuzu of plagiarizing a novel he once wrote:

Tokyo lawyer Masatoshi Uchida has accused Hideo Iura's Bengoshi no Kuzu (Scum of Lawyers) manga of plagiarism and petitioned the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday to ban sales of Shogakukan's Big Comic Original magazine. (Big Comic Original has been serializing the Bengoshi no Kuzu manga since 2004.)

Via: MangaBlog

Japanese readers recently noted similarities between Naka Gomura's manga Megabaka, serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shounen Magazine's January 11th Special Issue: Magazine Dragon, and other popular series such as Death Note, Air Gear and MPD-Psycho.

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From YaoiSuki comes a brief talk with CPM's John O'Donnell regarding their company's licensing dispute with Japanese BL publisher Libre Publishing:

Since putting up their notice, O'Donnell says Libre has not taken any action to settle the matter, and even refuses to sit down with O'Donnell or any other CPM representatives to try and work it out. Libre has not filed a lawsuit. He hopes that Libre will bring their lawyers to the U.S. so that the matter can be settled, but thinks that they are trying to deliberately harm the sales of the books until CPM's license expires so that they can license the series to another company.

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Publishers Weekly has posted a list of its print magazine's "Best Books of 2007." Three manga appeared in the list's "PW's Best Comics 2007" category:

• MPD-Psycho by Eiji Otsuka and Sho-u Tajima
• MW by Osamu Tezuka
• Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto

Also, in the latest issue of PWCW, Kai-Ming Cha interviews IDW's editor-in-chief Chris Ryall regarding the publisher's entry into the U.S. manga market, while Ed Chavez reports on the growth of the new online manga translation service MangaNovel.

The Okazu blog reports that Rica Takashima, creator of the yuri manga Rica 'tte Kanji!?, has given permission to a Spanish scanlation group to scanlate her manga.

Also mentioned is a new Yuricon toolbar, as well a Polish interview with Eriko Tadeno.

Kazuo Koike, author of popular series such as Lone Wolf and Cub and Crying Freeman, announced on the 10th the formation of Kazuo Koike Gekiga Sonjuku Co., Ltd., a one-man company based on the Gekiga Sonjuku program, originally established to educate new manga creators.

The new company (headed by Koike) was created for the education of new creators as well as for the protection and management of intellectual property of Japanese manga. According to the announcement, Koike has become increasingly frustrated with how he couldn't do much to protect his works from being used in foreign movies and other media.

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ANN reports that a group of 11 manga artists, including Tetsuya Chiba, Takehiko Inoue and Go Nagai, has won a lawsuit against 2 manga uploaders who uploaded their manga onto the internet. As a result, the uploaders are fined 20.5 million for copyright infringement:

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According to a thread on Rumic World's forum, a scanlation group called Freelance-Manga sent a letter to Viz Media regarding the handling of the manga Inuyasha. Freelance-Manga later announced that a supervising editor from Viz responded to the letter:

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