Forum - View topicNEWS: J-Comi: 'Purify' File-Shared Manga with Authorized Ads
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Lightning Leo
Posts: 311 Location: Earth |
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This may be a step in the right direction, but it's still far from being a proven (or necessarily favorable) model. I'll get excited when I see the actual numbers.
Keep in mind that this is only being considered for "out-of-print" titles that Japanese consumers would otherwise be unable to purchase domestically and for which there is no extant legal alternative for purchasing. We can safely assume this means that contemporary manga (like Bleach, FMA, One Piece, etc.) aren't being considered. So don't go running out pirating that next episode of Naruto all willy-nilly just yet! 
Also keep in mind that this puts advertising into all the pages of the manga. I don't know about anybody else, but ads on every page sounds like it could visually detract from enjoying a work. It would be strange getting to the most stirring/dramatic height of a series, only to be greeted with Arnold Schwarzzeneger laughing hysterically and crying "Bui!" . So, it seems mangaka will possibly make money in a forum where they otherwise would not have: pirating. To a certain extent doesn't this legitimize what pirates/scanlators do? It seems to me that it tacitly encourages the concept. I can already hear the anxious breaths of a million prepubescents suddenly empowered by the notion, as though they've been given the blessing to illegally download/scanlate with reckless abandon. I can only wonder how the mangaka being courted for these services will react to the notion of implicitly encouraging piracy, with the promise of possible compensation. Unless, J-Comi is reposting the manga onto their site and serving as the primary portal for accessing this "purified" manga, but that isn't made very clear in the article. And I rather doubt it, because then J-Comi would be bearing the brunt of bandwidth/hosting costs. The only thing that would ever make pirating legitimate, in my eyes, is if the authors gave express permission for it to occur, in which case it would no longer even be pirating. I can only wonder if this program, and its fiscal model, actually intends to establish this as a norm. If so, could this be the sign of a completely different rethinking of the distribution/profit model? It could revolutionize the industry by eliminating a lot of middle-men, but then again, it could destroy it in someways too. Print books may go the way of dinosaurs, or only be reserved for collectors. With such an open mandate I could see a flood of titles oversaturating the Internet, which more likely than not would significantly undercut advertising revenues and on the whole diminish overall author profits. Really, who knows what would happen? Another question to consider is whether the revenues on advertising are earned on a pay-per-click basis (PPC) or per viewed impression (CPM), what the projected click-through-rate (CTR) for these advertisements would be, and what the going rates are for the services. Depending on the nature of the service and the actual impressions/click-throughs, authors could really make anywhere from $50-$500,000. It could be a resounding success, or a measly pittance. Also, advertising as a sole aspect of a profit model seems woefully insufficient comparable to the market value of the manga (as a physical sold volume book of work) being pirated. Most ad-based profit-model services have to augment their existing platform with other product offerings. For example, most web-comic authors not only rely on advertising to make profit on their free comic sites, but also have to sell books/merchandise, or offer subscription services (ANN is itself somewhat similar in this regard). Of course, if we consider that these manga are out of print, they must have already lost significant value in the market anyways, and probably could be worth less than 100Y at a reseller like BookOff. So for these types of books, this could actually earn the original authors more than they would have in the market itself. I suppose this experiment will make for an interesting proving ground for this type of model. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Almost as if that was taken into account when the "Out of Print" specification was made.
How much work is that compared to finding the creator, contacting them, finding advertisers, sorting out terms of payment ... heck, even formatting the advertisement into the manga file is more work than these so-called "fan groups" do when they turn out the raw Japanese scans that we are talking about here. Its not as if these are scanlations, after all. They are just scans. |
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DTJB
 Posts: 671 Location: Dubuque, IA |
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This actually sounds like a pretty good idea, and from Ken of all people.
Doesn't Marvel also put a bunch of their old comics on disc too? |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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no idea really the his latest manga is the only magna i am still following legally, love hina was my 3rd manga of all time and well ai love you was just... eh fun thing about ken is though he was a doujin artist for a while as well and did final fantasy 7 doujins etc. |
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Chunx
 Posts: 75 Location: Lion City High Command |
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is it what I think it is? Comic Laundering? Even if the term is totally wrong, man does it sound cool or what?
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Ermat_46
Posts: 726 Location: Philippines |
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I'll re-state here what I posted in the same article on Torrentfreak:
If the copyright holder didn't profit, it doesn't matter because it is out-of-print. No sales would be damaged since no one sells it. Even if there are copies available in Ebay, it is usually second-hand and the mangaka would not benefit from it anyway. If the copyright holder profit from it, then good for them. No risk. - Or they could use file-hosting sites like Megaupload or Mediafire. since the give money depending on the number of downloads, and no bandwidth-cost. And to those who says that it encourages piracy: Well, piracy is a reality. (admit it) Even if they send C&D or sue the scan groups, piracy will not die. Just look at Hollywood, a bigger industry. Even if they have the bucks to "stop" piracy, well... It's just that this move by J-Comi is a way to adapt to that reality, so that they'll profit. Please correct me if there is someting I miss. Thanks. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Of course, some people confuse file sharing with piracy, but that's just because piracy is the only use they make of file sharing. If the creator has the digital rights ~ which would normally be the case for OOP works, since manga rights are typically unbundled ~ and if they approve, then its not piracy. It would be trickier with scanlations, because the translation as a derivative work requires the approval of both the manga creator and the translator(s) ... but for raw scans, there's only the rights of the original creator. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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That all kind of ignores the already existing, massive market for digital manga in Japan on cellphoens and net based clients. Like CDJapan's Ebook rental site http://renta.papy.co.jp/renta/?rbc=1001 There's several websites like that, that license and pay creators for OOP content. Akamatsu's developed a different model for this sort of thing, w/free downloads and ads. That's how Flex serializes their comics in Japan, so it has been done. But anyhoo, I could see a lot of people turning him down based purely on already having existing digital options that they make money from, and would prefer their readers use to access those works. I also wonder- are they being paid a one time fee for the ads? Or per download? If they have to depend on fans downloading from Akamatsu's site to get their per-copy ad-rates, what will happen when a user uploads the copy w/ads to Winny or other filesharing services? It's not a bad idea, and I imagine some will look into it, but it doesn't seem to be a perfect solution by any means- I think at most it's a new option for a digital outlet, and a way for Akamatsu to shine a negative light on piracy while offering fans an alternative. Also- anyone reading into this as some kind of fixer scanlations, Akamatsu's service is Japanese only. Though I'd totally be for them repurposing unauthorized scanlations as a nice kick in the shins for people distributing their work illegally. Still, overall, a great thing, and hope Akamatsu keeps experimenting with buisness models and delivery methods until he find's one that works for OOP works (and the fact that it's OOP works he's referring to indicates if it's in print, he probably wants you to buy it..... with Love Hina coming back into print here, everyone be sure to check that out :) ). Akamatsu's definitely not a fan of scanlations- shared this link before on the forums http://2chan.us/wordpress/2011/02/23/you-wouldnt-scanslate-a-car/ "KenAkamatsu Am I too late? I get the feeling that [my project to release free manga PDFs] won’t be enough at this point. RT 7039 people “liked” this with their real names… RT To nobody’s surprise, Facebook is permitting the [illegal] manga reading app: http://ow.ly/40mvf petitmango @KenAkamatsu I can’t believe that many people have no respect for the law! This is really quite terrible, but I’m glad to assist your project at every step. KenAkamatsu I feel like people are less aware these days of this type of crime. Including Apple and Baidu (w). KenAkamatsu Hasn’t illegally scanned manga, propagated so casually like this, fallen into the category of “property of the Internet”? You won’t be able to eliminate it. The only thing we can do at this point is [launch our own free websites with the] “advertising model”. (Because charging people would be difficult.) KenAkamatsu The most recent illegal scans are very high quality, and the translations are exceedingly accurate. (^^;) If there’s no respect for original authors on the net, then obviously the official versions will lose out." [FYI as an update to that--- at the time I emailed Yen Press about the Facebook site (when that article was posted, the link worked, and was scanlations), and a few days later it was gone, though did pop back up as it's own website. Still, if you see someone posting an author's work illegally, never hurts to notify them or their publisher, as sometimes the site does close down, like the Kindle-based piracy site profiled on Robot6's blog] |
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