Yesterday a titanic scandal emerged in the world of manga when manga publisher Libre posted on its website in English that CPM was publishing unauthorized English versions of their books:

Thank you very much for your continued interest in our publications.
Please note that we also offer copyright licensing service for translations of our own publications to foreign publishers. These are commissioned by each of the cartoonists and authors.
Recently, it has come to our attention that some translations of our publications have been published and some are to be published by Central Park Media (Label: Be Beautiful) in the United States. We wish to make it known that these publications are considered illegal because they have not been authorized by us. It should also be known that the cartoonists and authors are being victimized by this illegal act, and they are very annoyed by it.
We strongly protest this illegal infringement of our property and issuing a strong order for CPM to cease their illegal acts. We also wish our faithful readers to refrain from purchasing, loaning, or sharing any and all of these illegal publications. Thank you.
Libre Publishing Co.,Ltd.

CPM’s John O’Donnell has responded to all inquiries with “We do not comment publicly on licensor issues.”

However, manga websites just about went berserk over this story. MangaCast had a look:

Anyway you look at this, this is huge!! Since CPM started making noise about resuming publication back before YaoiCon 2006, the companies foundation was firmly on their BL titles. They confirmed that a number of those properties would continue in 2007 and they even signed a distribution deal with Consortium to get those books out. At NYCC, the publisher repeated those claims and began to reveal which titles were going to re/start in the up-coming months. Diamond Previews has the publisher listed for a number of books this spring and online stores like the Right Stuf and Amazon have books listed through early summer. If a cease and desist order is sent out the majority of those books will not likely ship at all. And what will happen to existing releases like Cage in the Finder or Kizuna #1-5 (currently in stock in a few stores)?

Much more astonishment in that link and Simon at Icarus has a thorough link round-up.