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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Gachiakuta Creator Kei Urana Addresses Manga Piracy
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 553 |
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... When starting to read the article, I didn't think this was going to end with the author replying to negative comments with troll face memes and sardonic guilt tripping. I feel this is gonna end badly and whatever plan that she teased is going to be bashed regardless of its utility.
In regards to the topic, I'm a "these things are not a right bestowed upon you to read" person, they're not primary needs, they're secondary and there's thousands of millions of free things that you can read or watch instead of having to watch any of them you want to like nothing. Which doesn't mean you can't do it, but if you do, at the very least don't act entitled about it and have some restraint not to boast about it to the author. And yes, it's not a pure black and white issue given the issue of preservation or some ways this has resulted in series being saved like the Love Bullet thing, but again, it's something that I think you have to accept that many authors won't like and be ok and live with it instead of trying to go entitled and confrontational. |
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kgw
 Posts: 1556 Location: Spain, EU |
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First, its her work and she deserves respect.
Second, we can read legally Gachiakuta through K-manga, with free chapters. Third, from what I understand after the Syunein "issue" is that many mangakas think that fans who read pirated manga (many of the from overseas) feel more entitled to complain or harass creators under the idea that "I made you famous". Fourth, it is ironical or something that authors asking for respect for their works could receive vitriol from fans. If anything, that just lead to them not coming overseas or even not allowing their works to be licensed. |
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SonicSP
Posts: 55 |
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I'm gonna go start, uh reading it today then. Thanks for the heads up, Urana.
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Sokunokumi
Posts: 1 Location: Vienna |
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I really think the entitlement is real in this fandom, as is the toxicity. Dealing with that is not easy and I am quite surprised she was so open about that topic.
I respect her greatly for that but I can already see a rather negative outcome, as has been said above. I really hope she deals with it professionally and won‘t get harassed over this :/ Also I respect all artists greatly since I have no talent whatsoever for it nor the capacity to train hard enough for it. I feel like I have to correct this statement though:
„We“ is a rather broad term. I am part of that „we“ since I‘m from Austria and K-Manga is available as well but if I read correctly, most of Africa doesn‘t, some countries in South America don‘t have access as well and more. I mean, she even said so in her post, she is well aware, that some countries don‘t have access. Piracy isn‘t a monochromatic affair. I for one read pirated manga as a sort of „demo“, if I like it, I buy it if it‘s available in my country (which often it is not). If I don‘t like it, I drop it. Gabe Newell once famously said „The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.“ And this rings very much true for different kind of media as well. I think it‘s great that japanese companies finally make an effort to publish their products outside of Asia but at the same time I do get that people are put off of having 5+Apps for different manga on their devices whereas a big piracy site has all of their manga on just one site with one account which lists all updates. It‘s a difficult topic and I understand and emphasize with all sides. The most optimal solution I can see is a kinda subcription „steam“ for all things Manga and Anime, and ideally no fragmention (looking at the TV streaming situation) |
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kgw
Posts: 1556 Location: Spain, EU |
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I am always complaining about news about "worldwide" releases that only means "(North) America", so I understand well the complain about access. But the complaints seems to come from places where they DO have access to many Internet tools. Also, in the news there are reports of people who told to her (paraphrasing) "even if I could have it legally, I choose ilegal means because blah blah blah". That's something you cannot fix. Japanese market and enterprises, truth to be told, are quite chaotic in their licenses and releasing policies (we Jpop fans envy how kpop and kdramas take over the world). But that do not gives anyone the right to deprive the authors from their works, and specially not to taunt them when they say "hey, don't do that!". And so far I haven't seen Steam giving all their games for free, so the "piracy is service issue" has their own faults. |
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Riku157
Posts: 192 |
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She isn't wrong with her statement about obtaining it for free doesn't hurt sales since it decentivizes people from going out and actually purchasing it. Even a YouTube channel like Dead Meat (which reviews/explores behind the scenes content for horror movies) encourages people to watch the movie they're reviewing and not substitute their reviews for watching the movie, but many people will skip watching just because of the video (since he goes over all the key stuff in the movie).
But not everyone has the funds to watch/purchase the content, and not all works are even translated/available in all regions. I don't even know where I can watch Katanagatari, Madoka movies, Shiki, or Nanoha legally in my country. Then you have to throw in having like five different streaming services and six different reading applications with this content or that content inflating monthly bills. As it stands, piracy is the only fair way to go about things when availability and costs are considered at the moment in my opinion. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 5179 Location: New York |
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The artist has been getting a ton of flak from social media (reinforcing the earlier article this week that social media does, in fact, ruin everything), but it's hard not to be defensive of what you use to make a living.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5384 |
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Generally, I'm more sympathetic to situations where a legitimate option isn't available. Oftentimes, the biggest blow to piracy comes from giving a reasonable way to acquire the content.
But some of the comments highlight that there are always going to be some people who insist on having things for free. That is inevitable, and why I think she is wasting her time engaging with that with things like the GIFs. All it does is work them up and make them feel even more strongly that they are right. |
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SaiyanHeretic
Posts: 111 |
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As a matter of fact, Steam does regularly give away free games. It's not just all F2P live service titles, there are a lot of full games from indie devs too. (Presumably, they get some kind of compensation directly from Valve, since indies who can't afford marketing otherwise couldn't expect a lot of upfront sales and will get buried under daily releases.) Also, Gabe's quote isn't about giving away something, because you literally can't beat the price of free. It's about offering a service with features that users will value compared to the drawbacks of piracy sites. For example, a lot of manga (and anime) piracy sites are flooded with ads and are potential vectors for malware. The quality of fan translation is wildly inconsistent. Chapter comment sections are full of bigotry and abuse. An official legal channel for reading manga can offer professional localization instead of AI slop machine translation, moderated community integration, and other perks that altogether make it worth the price of admission. That's what Gabe was talking about and that's why Steam is the market leader of PC game sales. Global manga publication doesn't have a platform like that yet, because the industry is so fractured. I use the Shonen Jump app specifically because it's free to keep up with my favorite currently-running titles, but that leaves out a HUGE segment of manga as a medium. The few other publishers who offer apps are lagging behind in value and basic usability. Even more don't have any real accessible options for readers outside Japan. |
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StellaStellaStella
Posts: 42 |
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It'll never not be funny to me when people tell a Japanese mangaka or director right to their face that they're pirating their stuff. My favorite joke on it was from Game Center CX when Arino found out people in America were watching his show and he was like "whoa, we got a distribution deal with America?" and one of his collogues was like "er.. not exactly"
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 7240 |
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It’s not even social media that’s the problem it’s “people being pricks” a problem as old as rat infestations.
It’s really fun when you’re trying to read hentai on some sites and the translation is a mess (both human and MTL). And then you scroll down to the comments to see random homophobia/transphobia. |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 884 |
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People need to check their libraries. You can read library books via the libby app. I live in Sweden which sucks and has nothing so I was surprised at how much manga there was aviable at the library. I assume other countries with larger populations and/or those that haven't had their libraries funding cut down to basically nothing by their governments yet have even more.
It does have limits though. I was reading To your eternity at the library but they just I guess stopped getting those at some point, The library staff also told me you can read library books from other countries libraries, so in theory there might be a way to read manga from japanese libraries online. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to do that and I'm too embarrassed to ask |
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lufia2rocks
Posts: 73 |
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Libraries are only an option if the series in question has an official translation and it's one that's worth reading. For series that rely on fan translations to be consumed it doesn't really help. And I imagine at that point people would finding reading a scan online easier than going down to a library.
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yeehaw
Posts: 884 |
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Well, if someone decides to uses scans instead of libraries for something that is available then they're just choosing to steal when they could support the author, which I would consider a shitty thing to do. And if someone is easily miffed by translations then they should maybe learn japanese and read the originals, that's what I did |
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