[IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025
-
@niq said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
The real charm about catchups was that you could use the opportunity to get into a series you haven't read before and if you indeed caught up to the latest volume before the end of the month you could just continue following the prepubs - and that's completely gone now.
When I first started reading at JNC, that was true for me.
It hasn’t been true for me for a long, long time.
Basically, I try to read the first few prepub parts of every series that comes out - the only ones I haven’t were when the series blurb made it very obvious that it was Not My Thing. So I can’t remember the last time there was a series on catchup that I hadn’t read enough of to decide if I liked it - and if I did like it, I’d kept up with it in prepub and didn’t have anything to catchup on.
-
@Gamen said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
I mean, people were stockpiling credits before too. People were bulk-buying 100 credits on the Black Friday sales or something like that? My memory is fuzzy. Switching to coins on JNC's part was basically about being able to change prices. They didn't change anything else about it; you can still subscribe for a single month and stockpile coins, yes?
Also, coins support the rental system.... which I forget even exists.
Actually, on other (book!) stores I have "coins" on, they expire after a year! And they're not even purchased at a discount or anything. That's a bit worse than prices simply going up.
Here is my opinion on coins and credits: they both are an attempt to get our money first. For subscribers, they function as value-added to the service. For non-subscribers like me, they allowed us to put our money first in exchange for the discount (BF sales, etc.). The difference is that with credits, it is a promise that 1 credit = 1 book. I think that's fair trade--I gave them money first in exchange for discount, and they promised that each credit will be worth one book, old or new, when I decide to spend it.
I spoke on the topic a lot already, so I'll try to be brief, but with coins, they certainly removed the promise that 1 credit (= XXX coins) = 1 book. That's bad, but fine for new books--inflation and what's not. What is unacceptable for me is they also raise it for old books. It devalues the money I gave them (for coin buyers) and devalues the old sub tier (for subscribers). That, for me, is a breach of trust and certainly anti-consumer. It would still be barely acceptable if they gave plenty of advance notice. That wasn't the case, and at this point I must say that was by design.
For coin expiration, is that bookwalker? I think only coins you get as cashback expire. I'm fairly sure there are laws against expiration of digital currency bought with real money everywhere. And in any case, it's not very assuring that both JNC and BookWalker are owned by the same company.
-
@niq said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
No one is going to sue
JNC is a membership subscription service - what is included has changed - you are free to discontinue being a member, and have no financial obligation to JNC, and JNC has offered to refund any membership fees they still hold if you choose to sever your membership (if only it was so easy to quit being a member of a health club, or Columbia House back in the day)
no one is going to sue, because no one would win, because JNC's liability is limited- as a plaintiff what are you entitled to?
if you are an annual subscriber - you are entitled to a refund (pro rated) which JNC already offered
if you are month to month subscriber - what damages (financially) do you suffer going forward? you feel the subscription isn't worth the cost? you feel the terms changed in a way that devalues what you formerly got? don't pay going forward (but that doesn't 'harm' you) ... to sue you need to prove damages (or in some jurisdictions unfair business practices), and JNC offered cancellations/refunds - no one has obligations to pay. It's going to be a tough 'row to hoe'
if you stockpiled coins you going to sue because of inflation? (that's not going to work) ...maybe just maybe if enough customers had thousands of coins and filed a class action to get a refund - again 'damages' would be limited to the value of the coins
A regulatory agency might take action and say that because the terms of the contract/ what is included in membership (catchups) changed without adequate notice JNC should be penalized in some way...but in almost every case I've seen those types of cases only are enforced when changes in offerings occur without a remedy . All contracts (even implied ones) have an out (for both parties) or consequences for violating the terms. "we will provide this service, you will pay for it. If we don't deliver, you don't have to pay" or some variation thereof - JNC OFFERED REFUNDS OF UNUSED PORTIONS OF ANNUALMEMBERSHIPS, they offered anyone who wanted it an 'out' - it was good customer service and effective limitation of liability -
no one is going to sue, (and win) because no one was financially damaged
no agency is going to waste their time over the changes because JNC didn't break the law - yes they changed what is included, and yes they communicated poorly, but they offered refunds to cover, and no one has obligations to buy what JNC is selling
in my mind the issue isn't about legal liability, or financial obligation, it's about community. I thought JNC wasn't just a faceless corporation, that it was a club and I was a member, and as a member I would be in the loop of changes - I still think that many of the members and contributors to the fora (and many staff/translators/editors) feel that JNC is a community of enthusiasts first, and a corporate entity 2nd, but I also recognize the reality that corporate ownership brings (and sometimes that means deals are made and details are not shared, and I won't like them)
I read banned books
-
@Jon-Mitchell said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
I thought JNC wasn't just a faceless corporation, that it was a club and I was a member, and as a member I would be in the loop of changes
What's really crappy is that if you go back and pull up the news post about when they originally raised the prices they actually mentioned they would give advanced notice when it happens on their own site. And while I suppose technically they did, it was both a shorter notice period, and in fewer places than when they did it 3 years ago.
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/5866/upcoming-jnc-light-novel-price-increases?page=1
-
This isn't quite correct. In America when you sue for a class action they can award punitive damages.
In the UK when you sue you only get remedial damages.So loss is not necessarily the most relevant factor for America while it is for the UK and many European nations in regards to whether its worth litigating.
So its not always clear cut in regards to these sort of matters.
This is why you tend to see lots of class actions in America, but not really anywhere else.
In terms of breaking the law, I think you could very easily make an argument that this is predatory pricing and that Kadokawa sits within a monopolistic position within the market for Light Novels. However, anti-trust /competition authorities are notoriously useless and slow at doing anything.
In terms of other points, there are numerous regional protections both in America and Europe in terms of unfair contract practices/terms. Which unilateral changes with 0 notices very easily can be breaching. Even more so given the increased scrutiny on premium currencies, due to the loot box saga in Europe and America.
I think JNC has quite clearly from the get go been a corporation not a community. A community is people. A corporation is a business that seeks to maximize profits. Thankfully the Light Novel industry is a matured industry where you can go buy a fully translated book, unlike Webnovels from Korea where distribution could not be more predatory (Just have a look at Navier).
If you wanted a cooperative then translators would not be on contracted work, they'd get royalties for each publication they're involved in. But that isn't how business works, and translators are frankly abundantly available for low cost. In the same way artists get sent to the corporate grinder. Especially when you can hire people in countries with far lower living costs and wage expectations.
-
@Tremarl Where are you seeing predatory pricing? As far as I can tell, Seven Seas, Yen Press, Viz Media, Crunchyroll, etc. are still in business and have not been driven out of the market. And it seems pretty clear that a publisher like Sol Press or Tentai books went out of business because of their respective owners' problems and not anything related to what J-Novel is doing.
As far as punitive damages it could be argued where J-Novel had good faith when making these changes (Kept a portion of the discount, held a YouTube stream clearly showing the changes). And proving malice in this case would be hard to do. I'm not seeing anything malicious or deliberate intent to cause harm on changing their subscription tiers.
I'm just not seeing it. Poor communication yes. But predatory pricing and deliberate disregard? No.
-
@morbelek said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
proving malice in this case would be hard to do
not just difficult, impossible to do. In a legal context, malice generally means a "desire to harm" or an "intent to do an unlawful act". My speculation, JNC didn't release info on the changes earlier because they either weren't fully baked, because the deal with SONY wasn't fully baked (or JNC was under obligation from SONY not to release details) or some combination of these factors.
I fail to see how anyone has standing to sue, how they suffered damages, when JNC doesn't obligate anyone to pay for month to month subscriptions and offered refunds of remaining annual portions - as I noted in detail that is how contracts work - when terms get violated there are remedies, a party to a contract isn't going to get a remedy beyond a refund unless a penalty for 'failure to deliver' is explicitly spelled out in the contract (a if a party fails to fulfill an obligation in a contract - you sue, if they fail in an obligation and offer a remedy - that case will be weak)
I guess I and some other commenters are just speaking past each other - I just do not see the 'injustice' that rises to the level of a violation of a contract (to an extent that litigation is appropriate)
JNC raised their prices (in 2 ways : straight forward price increase, and the reader's library offering), and made a deal to stream manga back catalog elsewhere. And everyone whom no longer wants to play, doesn't have to. keep your money, Beyond this how were you harmed? (and not "I want what I want, and I don't get it anymore and now I'm sad")
-
@Jon-Mitchell I think there are different perspectives at play here. Keep in mind that for European customers, not being notified 30 or 60 days in advance is already a violation, so even if legally speaking that only applies to JNC's Europe subsidiary Nina, it's easier for people here to feel wronged.
-
@morbelek 0 notice devaluation of premium currency and subscription is a form of predatory pricing practices.
Yen press is owned by Kadokawa also.Good faith is pretty difficult to prove when they gave no prior notice. A youtube live stream is not sufficient for a contractual change. Notice has to be done by email or mail. And even the Youtube live stream wasnt with sufficient notice periods.
@Jon-Mitchell I don't mean to sound harsh, but most of your legal opinions are either flat out wrong or misinformed. For example being offered a refund does not affect in anyway your standing to sue nor seek a remedy, as a refund is merely an offer of a remedy from one party, while standing sue and win litigation is purely based on whether a breach occurred or not, not that a remedy was offerred. For example you may seek to sue for an alternative remedy such as an injunction for enforcement.
Also breach of contract has nothing to do with injustice, its pretty stringent and formulaic. If you say X and do you Y instead that is a breach.
I think it'd be better you have a discussion with someone in the industry on this topic.
We've kind of sidetracked anyway though as the likelihood of anyone suing is near 0.
-
@Tremarl A staff member wrote that I should "vote with my wallet" regarding my displeasure. That is exactly what I am doing.
It is outright disrespectful that up to this moment JNC still has not remedied the situation by contacting everyone proper who are affected.
-
@morbelek I think the argument is more that Kadokawa controls a pretty commanding segment of the English Light Novel market now. They're majority shareholder in both JNC and Yen Press, so the competition in the LN market is Seven Seas and Hanashi primarily(?). Do Viz and CR actually have light novel divisions? Almost all the other English publishers basically only do manga from what I've seen.
@Tremarl said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
For example you may seek to sue for an alternative remedy such as an injunction for enforcement.
I suppose the biggest thing would be what the legal requirement for notice is and how that notice must be performed. If there's no actual rules, then how would you build a case that they violated them? If it's an issue of not illegal, just perhaps change made in bad faith, they may direct you to make a complaint the regulator for US/Texas commerce.
-
@jpwong The standard rules are that regardless of notice, you cannot unilaterally change a contract. The argument to go against this is that if you give reasonable notice, and the other party is aware of the changes in the contract, and continues to use the services that they've agreed to the variation through conduct.
So the case is not one of bringing notice, but rather the burden is on JNC to show that they provided sufficient notice.
So essentially. as no notice was given, they are day 1 in breach of contract. And this applies not only to the subscription services, but also potentially to all coins purchased. Because no variation of contract ever occurred, because there was no agreement between parties to vary. So theoretically everyone could stop using the services, cancel their subscription and demand a full refund on any purchased coins, subscription coins, and any remaining subscription period.
The burden is very strongly as a default on JNC to show on their end that they've given every opportunity to the consumer to be made aware of the changes, and than the consumer through continued usage of the services is happy to this variation.
Courts tend to always favour the consumer in these sorts of situations unless the company can very clearly show what it has done is correct, to a very high bar (especially for fundamental changes to the contractual terms).
In business to business relations the standard notice period for most contracts is 30 days.
Courts have a lot of discretion when it comes to this sort of thing and generally its a case of whether the judge in a particular case has your sympathy. If JNC puts forth an argument of "but we can do what we like because we said so", then you can just bring an extreme counter example "so on that basis JNC could change the prices to 90000 coins for all novels, essentially refusing to honor all previous sales of their premium currency, or devaluing it to 0". that quite clearly is not how the judge would interpret the contract, and if they did interpret in such a way, then immediately you can bring in the relevant countries or state protections against unfair contracts for consumers. Which Europe & America have, as well as Australia and several other nations.
When it comes to the type of notice, typically a physical letter is always considered good notice, followed by an Email as the second best option. You can also bring arguments in regards to general promotional material such as having it on the websites landing page, or a pop-up for users. Essentially so long as the judge is satisfied that the consumer could reasonably have been expected to be aware of the change, then he is likely to find in favour of the company.
But again I doubt any of this of much relevance, because its typically not worth it to sue, unless you are in America, and even then in America its not consumers who sue, its law firms that make it a business to litigate class action cases. Hell the UK introduced class actions some years back, and Which our consumer charity went and litigated over a massive misselling of football shirts (price fixing), that affected tens of thousands of people. The outcome from Which was "we're not doing that again", even though they won.
And when it comes to anti-trust regulators are shit. HP for example have been sued in the past 20 years by regulators no less than 4 times for blocking 3rd party ink cartridges, and they still do it. They just pay the fine each time and this is before you even get onto the numerous egregious monopolistic actions then dont get litigated against, especially in the tech space.
-
@Tremarl said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
"so on that basis JNC could change the prices to 90000 coins for all novels, essentially refusing to honor all previous sales of their premium currency, or devaluing it to 0"
What? 1000 coins has a value of 1000 coins regardless of how many coins a novel costs at the time of purchase.
The purchasing power of 1000 coins relative to novels may no longer be enough to buy a novel after a price change to 90,000 coins, but purchasing an additional 89,000 coins combined with the existing 1000 would still be sufficient to purchase a novel.
The only time it can be reasonably argued that they're refusing to honor a previous sale is if they make it so no novels are available to purchase with existing coins.
Changing the value of existing coins changes would only occur if the effective price of a novel stays the same, but the ratio of the intermediate currency changes. i.e., Old: $10 = 1000 coins and 800 coins = 1 novel ($8 equivalence). New: $10 = 10000 coins and 8000 coins = 1 novel (still $8 equivalence, 10x more coins required). In this circumstance old coins are worth 1/10 of new coins unless their value is otherwise adjusted.
Counterintuitively, this also means that the reduction in membership coin purchase discounts has increased the value of old coins by about 5.2% (=1/0.95-1) for club members and 6.5% (=1/0.85-1/0.90) for legacy premium. To be clear the value increase doesn't offset the per-volume light novel price increase of 14.3% (=100/699) so they still have a net decrease in purchasing power; just not the full decrease like coins from undiscounted coins purchased as a non-member or the coins-included membership tier.
-
@endoftheline The point being made is that it is implicit when purchasing digital currency, that you are using it purely as a medium to purchase some goods for money's worth. Its an abstraction forced upon the consumer, with no other direct way of purchasing the content (this will likely change in the very near future due to EU regulations on the matter). Anyway, to massively alter the pricing structure for goods would be to alter the money's worth of the currency itself. Which is to essentially defraud a consumer. So would fall under unfair contractual legislation.
Also a reduction in discount doesn't increase the value of coins. The value of coins is fixed against what you can use them to purchase. The dollar "value" - cost- is not actually relevant, except for obtaining the coins initially. So the coins have been devalued, while also becoming more expensive.
I think your usage of the term "Value" would only be correct here, if the exchange wasn't only able to occur in one direction.
I don't think there's yet any regulation passed on this yet, but the recommendations are provided for here guiding for any future regulation on the matter.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_831
https://commission.europa.eu/document/8af13e88-6540-436c-b137-9853e7fe866a_en
Many of these recommendations if put into the more formal regulatory framework, would put JNC among many other companies in hot water, because they all use premium currencies with the explicit purpose of fucking over the consumer.
-
So we are now getting age rating for series is this due to Texas or Sony strong arming Kadokawa and will this effect the translations what do you all think?
-
@Tremarl currency devaluation and predatory pricing are different things and are not analogous. For J-Novel's coin system, it could be considered similar to voucher system. When you exchange money for tickets or coupons at a fair or gaming establishment to spend that would be a voucher system.
On predatory pricing, you have to prove that a business set prices below costs. But you would need to show that prices were set below costs (like the average variable cost of a unit) as an attempt to drive out competitors. If this cannot be shown, the premise of predatory pricing fails.
Also, a business would need to recoup the money from their short term losses after eliminating the competitors. If the field is highly competitive and the business cannot exert monopoly like pricing power, they would have lower probability of recouping their short term losses. As it has been about three years since their price change to $7.99 from third-party retailers to the J-Novel site, this would actually be considered long-term losses.
Also the expected price range for ebooks can vary from $2.99 to $9.99 USD. J-Novel going to $7.99 is squarely in that range and normally wouldn't be considered monopoly like pricing.
Also, you normally have to prove malice in court. Good faith is a defense against malice. Also sufficient notice periods is not considered in predatory pricing. You can argue insufficient notice on something else, but it has no bearing on predatory pricing.
-
@Tremarl The fact that there are standard rules would indicate that there's some sort of legislation or legal precedent in place somewhere that can be referenced for a legal filing. If it's entirely subjective to the judge who hears the case it would seem like it would create a lot of precedent issues if one judge said 500 years was the minimally acceptable period and another said 2 weeks after the fact was good enough.
I'm not sure how the coins thing would fall out if it actually went to trial (which as you point out it almost certainly won't). Ultimately JNC changed the MSRP of the product 3 years ago and all the other storefronts out there changed their retail price in accordance to the new value and they've now done so on their own site. People on the premium subscription were promised 699 coins per month, that's what they got and still get so long as they choose to remain on the plan. That it's a virtual currency may have some impact, but like I mentioned earlier, that's almost exactly like gift cards. Nothing says a gift card has to be be a 1:1 value with the currency it was issued in (and since they can't convert gift cards to cash in most cases, if you purchase a $50 walmart gift card, you've essentially just bought $50 in walmart bucks), stores just do it that way because it's obviously easier for everyone, and you can't force a store sell you the product at the price it was when the gift card was issued if prices ever increase, so the only real difference is that JNC requires you to buy the currency to buy the product whereas most retailers allow direct payment or mixed payment as an option (I have seen a few Japanese retailers that make you buy an intermediary virtual currency to buy a digital product on their site).
-
We've gone on a bunch of tangents in this thread so I guess I'll ask my question here: does JNC need to use some sort of "coin system" to be able to make available the versions with extra content?
The way I see it current state is we buy coins (aka standard retail store), then redeem coins for epubs that may or may not have extra content that isn't in what other retailers like Amazon provide. In other words we aren't buying books no other retailers have access to, but are simply redeeming JNC specific currency for JNC rewards.
If JNC were to have a "JNC Store" where all the epubs were available for regular cash purposes, wouldn't they have to also allow others like Amazon to also be able to purchase/sell the same versions because they are a standing retail product?
-
@AnimeMayhem There's likely no specific reason they need to have the coin system. I feel like it's more for the convenience of users since they don't have a cart system. Can you imagine how much worse amazon would be if you were limited to one item per checkout? With the coin system you can buy however many coins you need and the press redeem on however many epubs you want to buy without having to go through the credit card screen every single time.
-
This isn't correct. Predatory pricing encapsulates multiple different types of pricing mechanisms and changes. What you are referencing is loss leading which is just one common form of predatory pricing.
Another type of predatory pricing is a price squeeze, where you squeeze a downstream market while to prevent competition on a vertical aligned chain.
The issue isn't the change in price, its the change in value of the premium currency through the change in price, without notice, on an already abstracted currency system.
If they did everything in $ value and you could return $ from your account then this would not be an issue.
Premium currencies by many as a default are considered predatory, which is why many jurisdictions are looking at regulating them.
Good Faith and Malice are Civil Law notions, they don't exist as much in Common Law, which purely just looks at contractual obligations.
@jpwong They will usually be consistent because of precedent in case law as to what a "reasonable notice period" is deemed to be. But the discretion may also allow a "specific case" that turns on its facts, to be different from the norm. Which case law is often filled with.
But yes as no notice was given we don't even need a specific case on its facts, and even if you were to take the consumer right to withdrawal period as the notice (14 days), JNC has still breached that as well. However, because the minimum term for a subscription is 30 days, I suspect that is what would constitute the reasonabel notice period.
I think there is a difference between changing the price of a single product which would be expected and reasonable, and changing the price of every product at once, or the vast majority of products. Essentially if terms aren't explicitly stated the courts go well "if it came up in negotiations, reasonably would they have only concluded in a specific way". And they will tend to read in favour of the party with the lower bargaining power (the consumer).
Also gift cards are different as you have mentioned in the sense you can buy the products without the gift card, so consumers are not forced into buying "premium currency", they have the option. I think that would play a decent factor to show that Wallmart has acted reasonably in the provision of the gift card services. Compared to what JNC has done.
@AnimeMayhem I feel like this is a bit of a rhetorical question.
There's no functional reason for any company to use a virtual currency beyond abstracting and obfuscating costs for the consumer. Even more egregious is the fact that its literally a 1:1 so they could just replace coins with $ as instore credit.
When it comes to driving overspending by consumers from most preferred to least preferred
Fake currency > Digital Credit (Currency) > Card Payments > Cash
