Libre Shuppan and MediaWorks are launching a new yaoi light novel label titled B-Prince Bunko on April 7th.

According to the report, publication planning and editing will be handled by Libre Shuppan, while ASCII MediaWorks will handle publishing and the novels will be sold through Kadokawa Group Publishing.

Source: LightNovel.org

Japanese BL publisher Libre Publishing will be launching a new manga magazine called Kurofune ZERO on May 28th.

Source: Ultimatum

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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Manga Jouhou has posted a reply from Libre Publishing regarding the CPM/Be Beautiful incident. According to Libre, the license agreement CPM had with Biblos became invalid after Biblos filed for bankruptcy. CPM has since failed to establish a new license agreements with Libre Publishing:

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Rabbit Valley, an online anime/manga shop, has announced that it will drop all CPM/Be Beautiful products from its catalogue due to the recent copyright issue with Libre Publishing:

NOTICE - Pirated works removed
It has come to the management's attention that several items we sold by the publisher "Central Park Media" doing business as "Be Beautiful" were not authorized, licensed reprints of an artist's work. We have pulled the following items from our catalog: "Golden Cain," "Embracing Love Volume 1," and "Selfish Love" volumes 1 and 2. It is the policy of Rabbit Valley (R) Comics to NEVER endorse piracy of any kind. Until the licensing issue is cleared up, these items have been pulled from the site. Further information is available from the original Japanese publisher's website at http://www.b-boy.jp/info17.html.

Source: Icarus Blog

According to Yaoi Suki, in response to Libre Publishing's recent copyright infringement accusation, CPM's Managing Director John O'Donnell is currently heading to Japan to sort things out with Libre:

I spoke with Matt Geller, who works for Marketing Director David Hair. He did not have any comment yet, but promised to get back to me as soon as he did. He was, um, unaware of the situation. So, I gave him the link to the Libre site and showed him the notice.

Japanese BL publisher Libre Publishing has posted a notice on its website claiming that Be Beautiful, CPM's yaoi imprint, has been illegally publishing its properties in the U.S. The notice encourages fans to refrain from buying Be Beautiful products.

An English version of the notice is available on Libre's website:

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