Forum - View topicNEWS: Translated Manga Scan Aggregator Removes 350+ Series
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Different sites may have different ways of dragging their heels. Operating out of China, MF-ers.com may hope to kowtow to the bigger publishers and be left alone to prey on the smaller ones. Their bounce rate is up and time on site and page views per user are down, but its too soon to say that the shutdowns of some of their more popular manga (even if a minority of total titles) is a crippling blow. Of course, its only the first two rounds of takedowns. 1M.com stats will be off in any event because of no OnePiece this week and FMA having finished, but they are still posting big licensed titles. |
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CareyGrant
Posts: 453 |
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Is anyone honestly surprised this group is based in the Pirate's Paradise aka China? Does international copyright law even apply in China?
MangaFox's press release reeks of spin. Negotiate? What's to negotiate? Y'all had no problems robbing anyone blind for a LONG time, but now you want to make nice? You. are. PIRATES! And not the "good kind" (See: One Piece). Suck it, MangaFox. |
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LunarianWarrior
 Posts: 57 Location: NYC |
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I do read scanlations but I do buy the manga when it's out in the US. The feeling of reading it in your own two hands is much better than reading online. Though I would have never wanted to buy it if I didn't know it was good. The #1 reason I read scanlations is to find a good series and if it's available in the US I'll buy it in a heartbeat. The second reason like other people have said is to catch up on a series. I knew Bakuman. was licensed but the release date was pushed a bit so I kept reading the scanlations (yes very guilty but the temptation to know what happens next, no excuse but some of us have fallen for it)
But still great to see the majority gone that are already licensed and popular ans being released at a faster rate here in the US. And hoping the rate of releases are the same or even better than it is now. The other reason (3rd and last) that I still kind of read scanlations is because some series are impossible to ever be licensed, like My Balls for example...Though I am trying (struggling but trying) to learn Japanese so I can import the series to own. I do favor scanlations for reading series impossible to ever be licensed but it's still wrong...it's illegal and wrong = m = (and sorry if some disagree with what I say I'm still a new fan of anime/manga but I'm up for finding a way to read/watch what I like without hurting my eyes from staring into a computer screen) |
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glitteringloke
 Posts: 160 |
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Hmmm... i think i know this person :p (and she said she's been walked through it step by step but nothing made any sense and she wanted to crack her skull on the dorm chair) but the only title i read on mangafox is still up, and i have the japanese books, just... can't read them all too well. However, if it's direct scans of stuff you can grab off the shelf at your local bookstore or amazon, then there's no need for that to be online. |
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KanjiiZ
 Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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I wouldn't read half of the manga I read if they weren't free. Most of them are pretty bad and aren't worth purchasing. I tend to buy manga that is actually worth my money like Apollo's Song or MW. I seriously wouldn't read My Balls if it wasn't free. I'm very glad that they're shutting down Mangafox's selection. It gets rid of a lot of garbage.
And c'mon people you can't wait a while for Naruto, One Piece or Bleach? The manga I want to read is chances are never going to be released here in the states (Saru Lock). |
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vashthekaizoku
 Posts: 261 Location: The House of Rat |
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As long as the publishers come up with a Crunchyroll-style form of Simulcasting the manga, like Viz has done with Rin-ne, scans wouldn't be needed. The problem there is, when you have uber-popular series like Soul Eater and Kuroshitsuji, who will take years to catch up to Japan at the rate Yen Press is releasing them, it's harder to resist the temptation to wait for the next tankobon. However, like someone posted earlier, I am also working on buying a complete set of One Piece. The thing is, that comes as a result of the insanely good stuff Oda-sensei had done that hasn't reached our shores yet. I buy the manga, buy the DVDs AND watch the legit streams, so Oda-sensei gets revenue three ways! As a lot of scanlators say on their credits pages, "these are only to tide you over until the tankobon are released!"
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1673 |
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Ugh, I'm only up to reading up to like page 35 (skim reading, that is) but as much as I want to sign up just to say my piece, it's not worth my time... These are mostly whiny brats who sound like they are 5 years old and can't get what they want.
*sigh* Seriously, preteens and teens these days (well alot, that is, so I'm not speaking out for many of the completely good ones out there), are in a world of having everything given to them. Many parents seem to have given up parenting, and just give them what they want, creating little monsters :/ And even when they grow up, it continues! A world full of technology and they seem to keep up with it. Times change, but kids now are SO much more spoiled, than probably any time in history! Take something away from them, a cell phone or free manga, and WOW how dependant are they?! I don't believe a word when they get over dramatic "boo hoo no more Naruto my life is over!" and strangely enough, all they say is "no bookstores in my area"... Really, you've NEVER heard of eBay or Amazon?! REALLY?! ...I need to calm down... As much as I watch train wreaks of forum debates, probably because I watch to see if REASON comes out of it, somewhere, it gets me all down with humanity 
EDIT: I also love how the act like they want to revolt and protest, but if they aren't doing anything to solve the problem, no one will actually bother fighting against it either :/ Last edited by Sheleigha on Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Where the legit system is heading, slowly and painfully trying to update hundreds of years of rules for printing press economics into the Internet age, is using ad-supported free viewing as a way of advertising paid downloads and printed manga. However, there are two levels to the online publishing. The first is the level of the titles that can cover the overheads of a print run so they can be licensed for conventional printing. The second is a legit alternative to scanlation for those series that could not cover the overheads of a print run. What Bitway is doing with Crunchyroll, in addition to the various publisher sites that have been experimenting with online manga viewing, like VizMedia's IKKI to promote its Signature series, sounds like its at the first level. What DMP and OneManga are doing seems like different approaches to the second level. Since the distribution costs of legal online manga are so low, the economics of scanlating still works if hobbyist translations are back contributed to the original author, with soft overlays that are displayed on top of the original art. That is the approach that can get almost any manga licensed for online distribution as long as the holder of international distribution rights agrees to take a share of gross revenue as their royalty. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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@Sheleigha -
Yeah, it really is annoying. Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, RightStuf...It all exists. If you don't wanna pay shipping, wait until you have an order over 25 bucks. If you buy enough books, get a B&N membership and save even more. Seriously. I doubt they don't have the money as well; they just don't want to spend it. Out of the entire forum, only a handful probably truly can't afford. I have no idea what's up with my age group. I'm constantly exposed to bratty, whiny, egotistical teenagers. Well, teens are almost supposed to be selfish to some extent, considering brain development and all that jazz, but these kids are beyond that. I guess I got lucky with my parents. They've always instilled this sense of responsibility in me. I'm also an avid reader, so imagining some authors, especially the more unpopular ones, losing out because of piracy angers me. I don't even understand why they would try to protest or "revolt". First of all, most of them aren't contributing to the companies. So, the publishers should care why? The ones who do buy, even if annoyed, probably understand the decision and dislike a majority of the leeches. Second, how would you even introduce the topic to a stranger? "What's the problem?" "We're huge fans of these foreign comics, mostly from Japan and some from Korea. This company publishes them in English." "I see. Why are you protesting?" "-Insert Company- has taken all the scanned pages offline, so we can't read them for free!!" "Well, was it a limited time offer?" "No, they didn't publish it! Fans put them all on so we could read for free! And now the company took them away!" What does "revolt" mean in this sense? |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6268 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well I don't go to Onemanga or Mangafox so I don't know what's going on over there. I just read about the crackdown on ANN. |
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Sheleigha
Posts: 1673 |
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I think it's like the 80s all over again, yet different... I'll admit I was born in the late 80s, so didn't get to see much of it growing up. Back then it was about the govenment and anarchy and stuff. It was the teen's form of both finding themselves in music (like any age, really) and expression with the eccentric clothing and lifestyle.
Now it's similar... But now "fighting for your right" isn't so much a political expression as it is a "GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!" age. The internet is a wonderful thing and a frightening thing with how it's created people.... That and xbox Live >_> |
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Relmstein1
 Posts: 16 |
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What would have been really nice if this announcement was followed up by the creation of official manga sites from some of the major publishers. It definitely seems weird for companies based in such a tech savvy country to not already have a digital footprint. I guess the problem is that manga is already pretty cheap in Japan and they would rather license the material then worry about translation and hosting it. If that's the case then I bet some of the U.S. publishers were probably pushing for lower licensing fees if they didn't do anything against the aggregator sites.
When I first heard about this I'd hoped that maybe it was a precursor to some U.S. publishers preparing to open a digital manga site ala iTunes. However, the recent offers of digital editions by Marvel have been a little scary. More expensive then the print version, does that make sense? http://www.pvponline.com/2010/06/08/q-what-do-retailers-think-of-iron-man-annual-digital/ It's at this point that I remember that record companies also tried to price their merchandise artificially high when Apple first introduced the idea of iTunes to them. However, Steve Jobs was smart enough to realize that most consumers would expect to pay a lower price for a digital version and kept them from price gouging 5$ for Top 10 hits. What the U.S. manga industry really needs is a one stop portal for digital manga with a decent pricing model. Without that these pirate sites will keep popping up like weeds and in all honesty I doubt attacking them directly will result in higher manga sales. |
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KanjiiZ
Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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How do you revolt against someone you never supported? Not buy their stuff....even more?
@agila: To be fair, Sigikki has been pretty unmoderated. They don't update as much as they used to and the site is pretty uninteresting now. |
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Cait
 Posts: 503 |
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Scroll down to China's listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements (The answer is "yes," though it seems the Chinese don't much care for enforcement?) |
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Lasciel
 Posts: 14 |
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Though I'm not a supporter of scans, it's always irritating when people assume availability and prices are the same for everyone. Amazon's "free super savings" for $25 up is only available for certain products-if you want to buy Kill Me Kiss Me vol. 1 for $3 it's probably not going to count toward your $25 amount. You'll have to opt for the $8 copy... a lot of the time it just doesn't work to actually save money. Going up $5 difference in price is more than the shipping for a book. Rightstuf is $49 for free shipping and $150 to qualify for free shipping if you're a Canadian. Though it doesn't matter anyway. I had no free money for manga & anime for 5 years and I didn't resort to scans. I got a job and my mom took every single paycheck  . It's a sad fact of life-sometimes you can't participate in a hobby if you're poor. Anyone poor knows this and should be used to it.
The poor kids will dig around and find the series anyway. The spoiled kids will whine and act entitled, and then go beg mummy for some manga money, which they'll likely get.  It really fcking sucks being a kid and having absolutely no control over finance and having your ability to earn money controlled by your parents, so I sympathize with that, but everyone's been in that position and you just have to wait it out. Everybody feels they're entitled to a free ride and an easy life these days.
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