In what could the first step of Japan trying to combat manga spoilers, several individuals have been taken into custody for allegedly uploading chapters of the worldwide hit manga series "One Piece" before its official release.

"One Piece" is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been appearing in "Weekly Shonen Jump" since July 22, 1997. The story follows a band of pirates in search of the ultimate treasure to be the next Pirate King.

Several Japanese news outlets have identified three individuals connected to the incident. Yo Uehara, 30; Shizuka Nagaya, 23; and Ryoji Hottai, 31 were all brought to the police station for allegedly breaking the Japanese copyright law. Their law states that it protects all works that fall under the literary, scientific, artistic or musical domain. The law provides moral and economic rights, without the need for a formal declaration of registration. The three suspected men were brought in for purportedly uploading the scanned images of the manga even before they went on sale.

Further reports say that the men allegedly bought copies of the "Weekly Shonen Jump" manga before its official release, scanned the images and finally uploading the pages of "One Piece" and other manga titles online. Authorities said that Uehara and Nagaya's spoiler site has been online since 2016 and have raked in a total of 75 million yen ($687,150) in terms of online ads. On the other hand, Hottai's website has been active since 2014 and accumulated 305 million yen ($2.80 million) up until his arrest.

In a statement released by a representative of "One Piece's" publisher, they said, "With the author pouring his heart into these works, we are strongly angered it was profitable to release inappropriately made versions. We hope these arrests will be a warning against piracy and the unauthorized use of publications."