Kakao Entertainment, the Korean media giant behind hit webtoon series Solo Leveling, has released a new anti-piracy report featuring a rare interview with an operator of a major piracy website, who spoke about the site’s rise and fall, stating it is “no longer needed.”

Kakao Entertainment’s anti-piracy subdivision P.CoK (Protecting the Content of Kakao Entertainment) released a post on X announcing the publication of its 7th Anti-Piracy White Paper, a 17-page document including five interviews with undercover informants, copyright law experts and, unexpectedly, an operator of the recently shut down webtoon piracy site Reaper Scans. The site operator (whose identity was not disclosed) opened up about their motivations behind running Reaper Scans, navigating struggles with the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and IP legal risks, and their personal thoughts in the wake of the site’s shutdown.

Solo Leveling’s Kakao Entertainment Reveals Interview With Former Operator of Reaper Scans

The site operator stated that they originally came to the Reaper Scans team as a translator, driven by a love of webtoons and a desire to share them with friends. They stated, “At the time, there were very few officially localized versions of the series I enjoyed, and the quality of fan translations was disappointing. I wanted to improve this situation, believing that the works I loved deserved better than sloppy machine translations.”

Reaper Scans, like many piracy sites, was primarily fan-operated, and originally stemmed from an intent to share popular webtoons and webnovels with overseas audiences. As official platforms like KakaoPage, Tapas and WEBTOON grew, the availability of localized series increased, and content demand skyrocketed. Even readers who originated from official platforms turned to illegal sites due to extended wait times and paywalled chapters. The growing illegal site traffic sparked a massive crackdown on piracy sites, eventually bringing down Reaper Scans in May 2025.

The site operator stated they were “fully aware that our activities infringed on IP rights. We tried to minimize the impact on authors and platforms in our own way. Despite receiving several lucrative offers, we never became a content aggregator and never translated series that had official English releases. We wanted to be remembered as a responsible example within the fan translation community, even if the site was eventually shut down.”

Reaper Scans was created in 2019, and over its six-year run became one of the most popular manhwa and web novel piracy sites due to its high-quality translations, user-friendly interface and sense of community. After Kakao Entertainment issued a Cease and Desist to Reaper Scans in April 2025, the site sent out an official shutdown notice, stating, “We have decided to permanently shut down Reaper Scans and stop any and all distribution of unauthorized fan translations.”

Webtoon Piracy Sites Like Reaper Scans ‘No Longer Needed’ After Official International Releases

The site operator opened up about this decision in the P.CoK interview. “We already knew that P.CoK and the Korean government were cracking down on fan translation sites, so we took Kakao Entertainment’s warning very seriously and decided to shut down the site voluntarily,” they said. “As stated in our shutdown notice, we believe sites like Reaper Scans are no longer needed. My favorite series have been officially localized and I can recommend them to my English-speaking friends — something unthinkable just a few years ago. With the increasing difficulties in running fan translation sites, we felt it was time to end it.”

The full shutdown statement is still available on Reddit, and it concluded with a call for readers to “continue supporting the creators you love by reading official translations on platforms like Tapas, Webtoon, Wuxiaworld, Manta, Toomics, Lezhin, and Wattpad. If there is a series you adore that isn’t yet available in English, we encourage you to reach out directly to publishers.”