Forum - View topicNEWS: Weekly Shonen Jump Editors Discuss Unauthorized Copies
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 348 |
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Lol - what a load. Defending the pirates is just as dumb as defending the industry. A good helping of moral shame anybody? Any takers? You know, people who post this sort of amusing talk generally know next to nothing about, "THE LAW." It's illegal! And the scanlator's look around, free as birds and say, "Oh yeah? Says who?" *shakes head* This whole legal thing is only good if companies can rely on "THE LAW" to bail them out. And yeah, they can't. Thus illegality is something that people on forums like to toss around. As if it helps the industry to talk about what is and isn't illegal. Short reasoning: it isn't helpful. BTW, I sincerely hope you didn't address your comments to me, since that would mean you didn't read my thoughts at all. Piracy is illegal. Fine and good. But my discussion was on the industry's problem. What can and should they do? Buy people Japanese Rosetta Stone software? THAT'S your solution? Slapping potential consumers in the face? Lol, that's as bad as begging with them not post manga online cause it's hurting the mangaka's desire of how the manga should be read. Actually, I don't read scanlated manga very often at all. I don't read much manga period. My view is strictly interested in how the industry will eventually change (personal interest of mine is business models). And I see the change as inevitable for these companies.
Need a puke bucket? Seriously though, what if I was a manga artist? I think I'd be darn ticked about this problem. But I don't think I'd be so much upset at the fans posting my stuff online as I would be the companies not having a clue as to what to do about it. Its like, all my hard work done, so many people wanting to read it, but there's only one surefire way of getting it the same as Japan. And that's out and out stealing the manga. I'd be ticked alright. Yeah, some would be at the jerks who steal it, but most would be at the fools who just shrug their shoulders and say, "Lets run a quick PR message in WSJ and appeal to the fan's good nature (even though the average fan's are usually just kids)." I'd want some solutions on the table. Not this pansy response. Like darn it - YOU'RE THE BUSINESSMEN! You figure it out. Lol. |
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LordRedhand
 Posts: 1472 Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana |
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ZiharkXVI by your response your not a fan, at least not by the definition of it the fanatic. Well I guess in one way you are but it's not manga or anime that your a fanatic of.
Here is an exercise: Breath, just breath. Breath enough to get comfortable with the concept of not getting X series (perhaps ever) or the next chapter in a series, and keep breathing and realize that nothing has happened. The world and you are still the same, that the world, your world has not ended. That nothing about you has changed, even with these "great" stories, and why? Because you treat them like nothing so thus become nothing to you. If things go as they are then everything will eventually be ground down to the same, sliding down into the lowest common denominators to turn a buck. I feel that at that point the spark of creativity will be dead at that point, that spark of making our collective worlds better forever snuffed out. I don't want that to happen, so would it physically or mentally hurt you to practice some patience? |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 348 |
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What in the world are you talking about? Fan, fanatic, and breathing exercises? Fan of anime/manga? Are you under some strange impression I'm upset? Lol - okay. I suppose I should preface my entire comments by saying that something needs to be done. I guess you think that since I'm ragging on the industry that I have some super awesome series I want translated still for me online and I'm worrying. Cleary, you didn't read anything I wrote. Tis okay. Here's an exercise. Put on some glasses. Cause if anything I'm more of an overall anime/manga fan. I can't think of any WSJ manga that I couldn't live without. Not my type of stories anyways. But what I'm really discussing here is the need for the industry to shift, or change. You must think that means I have no problem with scanlators? I'd say, if it were possible, start taking them out. It's sadly not an option, so thus my discussion turns to alternatives. I guess nobody here wishes to discuss alternatives for the industry and would rather term people in either scanlator defenders or haters. When it's fairly clear that discussion is pretty pointless. Meanwhile, the industry suffers because I have a feeling the boards sit down and talk about these exact same things. A lot of them can't see past the scanlators to any concrete solutions. Leastwise, I haven't seen a good response yet. And if they don't hurry up and find a better way to deal with the problem, they're gonna be looking for a new line of work fast. |
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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[quote="plethebest"]
Hi there, fellow truth knower. |
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Jikkle
Posts: 6 |
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They'll never be rid of the pirates the best they can do is minimize the problem with a better business model that capitalizes on fan interest in manga.
What they need to do is work with their overseas partners and release a model that allows the chapter to be released at the same time it is in Japan. They have these chapters in advance so I don't see any reason they can't make them accessible to say a Viz media to have them translate it and be ready to post it the same day WSJ comes out in Japan. Whether they like it or not or whether it's right or wrong fanscans have probably brought them more attention and popularity to manga to overseas market than there ever would've been without them. A lot of people are into series like Naruto, Bleach, and etc that wouldn't be if they didn't read fanscans. They should take a message from the music industry who fought music downloads hard at first but than turned the desire of people who wanted music downloads into a very profitable business for them. Sure people are still going to pirate the music but that hasn't stopped services like itunes from making a lot of money and making more money for the industry than they ever would've if the service never existed. So they should take the fans desire for having quick, quality translations and turn that into a profitable business for themselves and their manga creators. Sure there will be people who still read pirated fanscans but like itunes you'll still be making more money having the service and not having it. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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You know, all these posts in reaction to the letter here and on anime vice and other places about not beign able to stop it makes scanlations sound like cockroaches. Which are gross, vile, and something you can at least manage to control so they don't infest the whole place with their icky grossness. So yeah, can't get rid of em, but you can sure sqoosh most of them and make people aware they're not a good thing. Seriously, reactions like that make scanlation fans sound like some kind of unhealthy fanatic unable to connect with the realities and consequences of their actions. I certainly hope most fans are smart enough to realize what they're doing and make changes, and can sympathize with the artist and editors of SJ. Also, even if these companies bend over backwards to give you what you want, I suspect most fans of that ilk will still pirate. Just look at how people still fansub shows that are being simulcast for free on the same day it airs in Japan at great cost to licensors and japanese companies. Or how they're now complaining about how expensive anime still is despite companies switching to cheaper and cheaper releases that are primarily boxsets. There's only so low a price you can go. Which is why it's best to start taking a harsher approach, and get rid of the unhealthy, insidious aspects of fandom. These people will never be pleased, and manga publishes would just loose money trying to accomodate them. Stuff like Rinne and SigIkki is a nice move, and people seem to just ignore them while whinging for more, more, more, and not changing their ways to give back..... trying to appease the leech market is pointless, so it's better just to be rid of them and start taking action. I hope SJ's letter is a sign we'll see more of that. Anime/Manga will get along just fine without them, and if they still want anime/manga, well, they can pay for it and go through legal venues for it like everyonelse. Libraries, Streaming Sites, Used Books, Book Stores, Comic Shops, online shopping, importing from Japan, convention vendors, so many other options out there that don't break the law and have such a horrific effect on the market. Also, saying "But________ also has a negative affect" just doesn't cut it. It's just ignoring the issue at hand, which has become grave enough that SJ felt it had to publish that letter. Shifting the blame is pointless, and immoral, because this is an issue that really needs to be dealt with ASAP |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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You know, as someone who hates reading things online, if this forced me to learn patience and wait for the next release of xxxHOLiC and FMA, which I only recently cracked on and started reading online... I'd actually be okay with that. Moral discipline for myself! There are a whole ton of series that I still avoid reading online, I can persevere on these if I must. Besides, yes, there are LIBRARIES if you really need to preview things before buying them. And if your library doesn't have manga, start pestering them with purchase requests!
Honestly, I'd like scanlations and fansubs to eventually be restricted to the exclusive world of releasing and/or drumming up interest in older, unusual, unlicensed, and unlikely to be licensed material. If a series is going to come out, then we can be patient, but if there's only an ice cube's chance in hell of it getting translated, well... Also, for anyone who reads the crappy translations of magazine scans, wouldn't it be nice to get slower but better translations on better quality (i.e. from the full volumes, purchased and imported from Japan by foreign teams rather than scanned in Japan) images? Oh, and in regards to sites that post manga in online readers: I'd love it if they learned a little more responsibility and took down chapters that have been released in a given language. So to take xxxHOLiC and FMA as examples, pull down the first 15 and 23 volumes respectively. Or, you know, take down licensed series period. And I actually like online readers better, since downloading can encourage keeping. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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The thing is those bigger scanlation sites aren't out there to be nice- they're out there to make money, for entirely greedy, selfish reasons that fans of their sites often accuse real manga and anime publishers of. Wanting to protect the work of your employees and business partners and keep your company finacially solvent? Not Greedy/Selfish.
Profitting off of someonelse work that you haven't licensed, while posing as fans to fool naive fans who think scanlations are "teh awesome!"??? The definition of selfish and greedy. And I would put fans who don't recognize the dangers of that under the selfish and greedy banner too, though I recognize a lot of them are naive and fool themselves about what they're doing [or have no clue it's not official/legal/moral in the first place- so many of them are just kids with no idea of the harm they're doing], and often aren't aware that they're victims in a sense too, especially the ones who donate money or buy subscriptions to these services. I feel real sorry for any fan who's ever been conned into doing that when they could of used that money to buy real manga or comics or other keen stuff that supports artists. Anyhoo, I suspect legal action would be the only way to get some of them to take down licensed stuff. I've even seen OEL material on some of these sites, which puts a real gruesome bent to it all. Posting scans of that stuff and crediting a "Scanlation group" for it is something that pretty much moves any consideration of friendly motives away, and shows them for the horrible, selfserving, corrupt businesses they are. |
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wilco488
Posts: 4 |
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Oi. It's a convenient scapegoat but stopping people from uploading raw scans to the internet won't necessarily help their magazine sales. The average consumer is largely ignorant of finding scans on the internet. It's common for people read the latest chapters of their series on convenience store newsstands and not buy the actual publication.
Same here in America, as someone who works in a bookstore, I can attest to the fact that most manga in the store is just read in the store and not purchased. It's also one of the sections with a higher percentage of shrink. And again...many fans aren't even aware they can get the latest chapters online. Simply eradicating titles from the internet isn't necessarily going to solve the problem of falling sales. Tight economic times...non-necessities (like manga) are the first things to go from people's budgets. I'm not saying their shouldn't protect their properties, but don't expect targeting the "pirates" to magically fix your falling sales. As many others have said...the industry definitely needs to change with the times. With the rise in e-readers/e-book apps, it is foolish not to make manga titles available on those. The publishers' hesitance to adjust to the changing market has definitely contributed to this problem. As such, they can only place so much blame on the uploaders. Instead of vilifying the behavior -- give people a reasonably priced, legal alternative! |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Exactly. Give me a legal option to scanlations and I'll stop reading, and you'll also get rid of the reason scanlators scanlate, and all the people who want something for nothing will no longer have a source to get their free stuff from. Reposting from another thread that started getting into this: If the publishers here manage to get some sort of online subscription service (think maybe 2-bucks a pop for a ton of chapters a week, or maybe a montly fee) I'd be willing to pay it to keep up to day with the release in Japan on such titles like Naruto, Skip Beat, Gakuen Alice, Ouran Host Club, etc. I'm also a former scanlator, and I can tell you the main reason people scanlate is mainly because they're fans that either 1) want to bring a title to people here who can't get it legally or 2) want the latest chapter and can't wait however many months/years it'll take for the chapter to be released. The common habit of scanlators (the majority I've seen) are fans who really do care about whatever title they're scanlating, and usually they stop scanlating if a series is picked up by a US company. I think that if suddenly a legal alternative to let's say Naruto were given to people online, 2-5 days after the Japanese release (Japan releases it around Tuesday, scanlaters give me the chapter by Wed/Thur) most scanlators would probably stop because there'd be no point to all their hard work. Scanlating a chapter, and doing it fast is a lot of hard work, and no fan would like to be seen as working against the title and stealing money from the author. All reasons for a scanlator to scanlate would be removed. There will always be the exception of random jerks who like to post free crap online to go against the "man", but true fans actually want to support the product, and I'm pretty sure they outnumber the scanlators who don't care. The fans who are looking for stuff for free are another story, but if there's no one supplying the product, they'll have to find it by other means, more than likely the legal way. Example of a scanlation splash page to give you an idea of what I mean: 
Aggregator sites like onemanga need to be delt with though for sure. About 10 years ago I had to learn basic dos prompts to search for scanlations in IRC channels, now adays you get it with a couple clicks here and there. This was when publishers didn't see scanlations as much of a threat, and even seemed to use it as sort of research source on what titles they should license (I remember Tokyopop's acquisition of Fruits Basket for example was partially because of online scanlation popularity). Those days are long pass now with the major scanlation sites. |
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sdhd
Posts: 169 |
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I was talking about internet sites that have raws that anyone can get it off the internet. The publishers need to go after the people who are buying the raw manga. That is the root of the problem of scanlation. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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I don't think it's really about magazine sales at the end of the day- it's about protecting the artists rights and ability to control and make a living off of their work. They framed it all in a way that makes sense. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Wait, what?? You mean the people who are legally purchasing their product in its original form and hence giving them money? Or maybe you mean the people who upload the raws. Because yes, if they were stopped, scanlators would be forced to import copies and they'd make a little extra money while simultaneously not having raws online for Japanese people to use instead of purchasing the works. It's really the raws they're going after, not the scanlations. Scanlations are primarily the concern of English licensors and translators, not the Japanese companies. Nobody in Japan is going to go with an amateur English translation when they have the Japanese easily (and as noted, cheaply) available. But if they can download it in Japanese free online, well, that is a problem. |
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ABCBTom
 Posts: 183 |
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It's a nice theory, and one we all believed for a time. Perhaps you yourself will stop reading scanlations, but people are torrenting free, simulcasted anime. There is a legal alternative to watching shows like Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Within hours of it airing in Japan. And the piracy has not stopped. The industry is moving. Very slowly, but it is moving. The so called "fans" are the ones who keep changing the terms of the deal. Most won't be satisfied unless the companies provide the scanlations themselves. |
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sdhd
Posts: 169 |
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I was talking about people who are buying raw manga with the purpose of using them for scanlation. People who are buying manga in the Japanese language for their own enjoyment should keep doing so. Maybe the Japanese publishers need to clarify what exactly they want done about raws, scanlation, and licensing manga to foreign companies. Is this a problem in Japan only? Do they want Japanese people to stop uploading raws manga onto the internet because other Japanese customers may not buy the hard copy due to the manga availability on the internet? Is this a world wide problem for the publishers? Do they want to resolve the matter and have control of the content? What steps are the publishers taking to replace the raws that are uploaded onto the internet so the manga can be profitable and people can have access to it at the same time? Without a lot of the details from the article I think we, the readers, are jumping to the wrong conclusions or not. |
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