Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga Aggregator to Close as OpenManga Plans Launch
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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The point is, the "official releases" are at best months behind the manga sites, and that gap needs to be closed. Just as Crunchyroll/Hulu is for shows like Naruto and Bleach, and Funi's page is for FMA and One Piece, the manga need a similar option. New authors I couldn't care less about, I'll check them out after they get published. I don't have time to play editor.
. . . This doesn't make a lick of sense.
Also silly. I'm not talking about those that would, say, scan in a Viz release of a title and post it, that's a bit shady, but scanning in and translating this week's Shonen Jump so that we can get this week's chapter in less than the year or more it takes for a Viz book to come out. "Liscensed" is a non-distinction. "Released in English" is the only distinction with any value.
Hey, so long as they release them in a format that works (.cbr/cbz or .rar/zip, etiher works), and within a week of the Japanese publishing date, I'm going to go through the official channels. If they drop the ballm on either count, I'll stick with the less official (but more consumer-friendly) alternatives. So long as the big dogs are providing a viable alternative to fan-scans, then they have NOTHING to worry about. They only have to worry when they're providing a substandard product, and know it.
One Piece.
Maybe not for you, so maybe you shouldn't download them. That Is a valid reason for me, and so I will continue to download them. To each their own.
Better question, why would I when there are so many other titles to read?
I'm sorry, I don't take the attitude that "I'll just read whatever is put in front of me." I read what's good. Some things are good, some things are not, I read the good things, I don't read the not good things. I don't read whatever's free and legal just because it's there. I read a few web comics, because I enjoy them, but there aren't nearly enough quality web comics out there to make up for the content gap that would be left if I dropped the dozens of manga titles I read on a monthly or weekly basis. Saying "you can read titles X, Y, and Z online if you want to" is completely irrelevant if what I want to read is titles A, B, and C, and those titles are not available online. The only resolution to that situation would necessarily involve having A, B, and C available online.
Wrong for two reasons. First, she makes the point that "fame" is a currency, so in that regard, even Robin Hood was trading in the currency of fame for his actions as much as any scanlator, and two, we are "poor", in the sense that we are not being provided with the same selection of manga, nor with the same release speed as our Japanese counterparts. Scans just cover that gap. No, we're not in monetary poverty (usually), but no money is changing hands here, so monetary poverty isn't really relevant. We're in "intellectual content" poverty, and the scanlators are balancing that out. Scanlators rob from the content-rich to give to the content poor, and profit only, if at all, in a certain level of minor celebrity their efforts afford them. It's a fairly apt analogy, really. |
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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Spot on. If I waited more I would probably forget about it. To be fair, even downloading illegal anime and buying a small fraction [which is what we get over here] of that is still way more expensive than that £9 monthly MMORPG I could be playing 24 hours a day without extra charge. Clearly, the same goes for manga. Call me a thief as much as you want, but be aware that this thief's money is also supporting your hobby, and professionals over there, and over here.
Couldn't agree more. |
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silver_deeds
 Posts: 61 |
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Erilot, you make it seem like the world's going to end or something. Here, Brad Rice has a good way of explaining things. "The Industry" isn't pure evil. They're just finally going digital. Hopefully, in a way that will make our voter dollars count for the content that we want. But for that to work the big n' easy manga-sharing sites got to go, and they're getting a chance to just walk away. They aren't saying scanlation groups and people like littlegreenwolf are bad people, either. No one's painting anybody black or white here. But it's time we stop painting things into the background. And on a side note, no, scans aren't going away just because some collectors are gone. You just have to go to the source now. Remember irc? Well, maybe not. That time is gone, but perhaps the digital manga world will have to be a little more social again. Oh, the humanity. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Talk about painting in black and white issues ... I cannot tell whether or not I am one of the ones supposed to be blindly condemning everyone or not? If I am supposed to be, its patently false ... I've been very focused in this issue on singling out the scumbag mass bootleg manga viewing sites as ... what was it I called them? Uh ... oh, yeah, "scumbags". If it comes out as painting the issue in black and white terms, that comes from singling out the part of the issue that is as a plain matter of fact deliberately trampling on the rights that authors must have in order to encourage the creation of new creative work. And it I am not, then the conversation with those who do paint the whole issue in black and white terms is not the only conversation on offer, and its your choice if you participate in that one rather than the other one.
For the big scumbag bootleg manga viewing sites, the reasons for defending them are denial, rationalization of liking the consequence of their trampling on the rights of creative artists, or falsely putting them into categories of defensible activity. Especially in this thread of the discussion, founded as it is on the OpenManga recognition that both what traditional "ethical" scanlator groups were attempting to accomplish is worthwhile, and that in the context of the current online environment, going about it the same old way causes far more harm than good, they are one of the biggest reasons why even "ethical" scanlation groups now do more harm than good. Take them out, and offer multiple alternatives in their place, and translated manga may be able to get into the position in the new information economy of magazines, growing slowly but steadily, rather than the position of newspapers, dying like flies.
The question is, of course, the ultimate consequences of the action. Its not the scanlation of the epic that causes the damage, its the release into the wild where it provides part of the broad tent of diversity that enrichens the content of scumbag bootleg manga viewing sites. Contributing to the damage they do is a greater ill than the benefit to individual readers of making the otherwise unavailable work, available. I personally do not like the "thief" term, because right to control copy is not something that is about the material item: it is something about how we encourage the creation of new work so that there is a rich cultural heritage available to be copied.
Here is also a difference. I believe that if we fight for it hard enough, we can leverage the possibilities of low cost copying and distribution provided by the internet to make these kinds of things available for legal translation and distribution. But that requires building up new institutions, and not just tearing down the old ones. The limitations of print publishing that we have been living with since ~1500 can be bypassed, and far more can be made legally available for far smaller niche markets ... if we can get viable new systems of rules set up that work for the new media. However, it is harder to create than it is to destroy. In addition to seeding new systems and revising them as we go to improve upon the designs ... we have to do weeding of the destructive systems that have been built up, to make space for the new systems to grow.
So I do not know if I have been pigeonholed into the "every sin is equal" slot, but whether or not I have been slotted into that slot, I will not tone down my rhetoric about scumbag bootleg manga viewing sites. They are in my view a seriously destructive system, and if you are asking me to tone down my "rhetoric", you will need to first persuade me that I am wrong. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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That's a false argument. The "big and easy" manga sites don't have to go anywhere for the official sites to prosper. DB stopped doing Naruto AFTER Cruchy and Hulu started streaming it, not before. Most series that are available on stream sites are still available as torrents if you like. They can coexist just fine. The only reason that an official site could have difficulty competing with a "free and easy" site is if they are putting out a lesser product. For example, if the official site releases manga A. more than a week after that chapter's printed in Japan, B. In a lame format like some proprietary, non-portable reader, or C. in small or low quality images that are hard to read, then yeah, they would have difficulty competing with the existing outlets, and they would deserve to, for releasing a lesser product. If, on the other hand, they play their card right and produce the product that the customer-base demands, then they'd have nothing to worry about, and plenty of people would go for their option instead of the alternatives out there. |
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silver_deeds
Posts: 61 |
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There's a difference between anime and manga when it comes to internet convenience but I'll put that aside. I never said scanlations will, or have to, disappear. I do think, however, that you're greatly under-estimating just how big and bad these "free and easy" sites got. We're talking in the top 1000 in the WORLD. Do you understand the kind of money that means? How much you could sell that site for? And it's 100% illegal. If official sites are "putting out a lesser product" then that's only because they are competing with a free product--some of that is just directly scanned official product!! You want to compete with yourself? These companies will be putting up sites full of ways to buy that official product really soon. Money talks and how will they be able to develop a system that works for everybody (mangaka-publisher-fan) if we won't even talk to them? So yeah, those sites DO need to go away. They're NOT a gray-area like non-licensed scanlations floating around; that line was passed a long time ago. There is no question that they are breaking the law and profiting from it and therefor must be put down. It's not a question of whether or not the companies can or can't prosper with them in the picture. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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There is currently, which is the problem. There's no reason why there should be.
Which is why that would be . . . zero. Nobody with enough money to buy such a site for a lot of money would WANT to buy that site for a lot of money, because as soon as they did they'd get slaughtered via lawyer. These sites are popular, don't confuse that with profitable. If a site like Mangahelpers was capable of being profitable without litigation then they wouldn't be going anywhere.
No, they're putting out a lesser product. The price isn't even a factor in that. They either aren't putting the book out online at all, or if they are it's much later than what a rag-tag group of amateurs can hack together, or it's in a fugly, non-portable format to "prevent" exactly the sort of scans that end up on the Internet first anyways. It's ridiculous. They need to nut-up and start actually competing by putting out the better product, cleaner, faster, better in all ways. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Whatever the sites profitability, if they're doing something illegal, it has to go....
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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You are comparing apples and oranges. First, Hulu only reached profit this last year, and would never have reached that point without copyright enforcement at the big video upload sites. Without copyright enforcement activity at YouTube, including their digital fingerprinting technology, YouTube/funimation would be lost among the bootleg channels. And of course, Crunchyroll urgently needs the views that are being lost at leech streaming sites. Its bootleg leech streaming that the legit streaming sites have to beat back to give them room to grow. Torrent downloads from DB's site never topped 1m for an episode, while views of DB's fansubs are easily in the millions on leech streaming sites. Now, its only a matter of datamining the leach video streaming sites that use Veoh and Megavideo, who respond promptly on being informed by rights holders that bootlegs are being streamed from their site in support of a leech streaming site. But the tacit collusion of Rupert Murdoch's MySpace with leech streaming makes it harder work to shut down the bootleg streams. Peer to peer sharing of rip-offs can not be stopped, but the big manga viewing sites also shows that the majority of people do not want to go to that trouble if they don't have to. The majority would rather just browse to a site, pick a title, and start reading. Easy to find and easy to use can obviously be done with brazen piracy, but since its so brazen, its subject to direct enforcement. The less brazen piracy, which is harder to find, and requires more work to get at the pirated bootleg ... that is not the core potential audience for legit distribution in any event. So the core potential audience for legit online distribution is not at a torrent download site, its at the scumbag bootleg manga viewer site.
Yes, and copyright enforcement resulting in bootleg rip-off sites not being able to get away with directly hosting the rip-offs, forcing them to use third party hosts, resulting in "taken down for copyright infringement" notices showing up instead of the rip ... that is part of ensuring that the rip-off site has a lesser product in terms of ease of use for the majority of viewers. The fact that the rip-off sites do not have to pay for their content means that they can do more with less ad revenue. Just like if you get a $100 watch from the guy on the street for $20, and if it is a genuine article, it is stolen property, and he can sell it for $20 because he bought it from the thief for $10. (Of course, normally its a Chinese knock-off that cost $3 to make and $2 to ship to the US. But the people buying the $100 watch for $20 are all hoping that its genuine stolen merchandise instead of some shabby knock-off.) And the fact that they are openly and willfully breaking the law and face whatever competitive disadvantages result from operating outside the law is the competitive downside for those sites. But since they are mostly violating civil law, the rights holders have to take action in order to see to it that there is a competitive downside to breaking the law. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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What about it doesn't make sense? The smaller the share of the audience that is in the market, the longer it takes a volume to break even. The longer it takes a volume to hit break-even, the slower the release frequency has to be, Release frequencies tend to be slower in the US because in the US its a niche market and niche markets have more difficulty hitting break even in traditional print publishing. Its all well and good to say, "things have to be X, Y and Z and then they can just outcompete unfair illegal competition", but when X, Y and Z are financially impossible, its not terribly usable advice. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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I don't like these aggregator sites myself, and it's too presumptuous to assume otherwise based on one post. What I don't like are various people -- you not included -- indiscriminately grouping all of these scanlation groups and readers.
I feel scanlations of Children of the Sea drummed up some nice support on the Internet, particularly as those who those few scanned chapters actually buy books. Viz licensed it, then the scanlation group dropped it. It is a problem that the scans still exist online; however, that is a problem that can be dealt with by provoding an alternative and diminishing the presence of the now irrelevent scanlations. Viz has done the first one, but not the second. That shouldn't be. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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I'm saying that's a piss-poor way to compete though. It's like if a rival car company engineers a better car, so you "compete" by slashing their tires. They should compete DIRECTLY, by releasing a product that is BETTER than the existing sites, rather than by attempting to hobble the existing sites to a lesser state.
That's a terrible argument though, because the existing sites do everything they do for NO cost, the only expenses they have are in keeping the site operational, and that's typically a pittance. There's absolutely no reason why the official sites could not maintain the exact same operation, only with faster releases since they'd have early access to the material, and cleaner scans, since they'd be able to get the raws directly from the source. There is absolutely NO excuse for the official sources to not be producing exactly the same thing as the existing illegal sites, only better and faster.
That doesn't make any sense at ALL. It's not like they release Nartuo Vol 22 and then have to wait until it breaks even before releasing Vol 23. It's not as if someone walks into the store and goes "well, I came in to buy Vol 22, since I just finished 21, but lo, there is Vol 23, I think I'll skip right to that on and never buy 22!" In what universe does that make sense? There's no reason to not release every volume as fast as they can, if someone's going to buy them, they're going to buy them, if not, they won't, the timing is irrelevant. And regardless of their volume release schedule, the individual chapters online MUST release on a weekly schedule. Sorry, there's absolutely positively no other options, whatsoever. None. Provide the viable alternative FIRST, then worry about cleaning up the scanlators, once their services are no longer required. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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You don't seem to get it. It does make sense. The more popular a series is, the faster the release schedule. If a series isn't doing well, it's not a good economic decision to to continue to push out volumes at a fast rate. Why have One Piece and Naruto gotten a sped up schedule? Because people buy it. It doesn't take long to sell a few thousand copies of one volume. Heck, VIZ is making money off of it and already has a strong hold in the manga industry. So it makes sense that, in order to keep that revenue going, they release as many volumes as possible. Now, let's take a look at other instances. Black Butler does well, but YP seems to be playing it safe, especially because they are a newcomer compared to the other larger companies. Their books still sell, but they feel safe. Higurashi, a popular series, recently got a faster release schedule: one volume every other month.. Then we look at a series like, say...Laon, a manhwa. If it doesn't sell well, or at least initially, the publisher will put it out at a slower rate because they're losing tons if they don't. If it takes two months for Laon to make a profit, then they aren't going to put out 5 volumes of it within 3 months. Easy way to fail because you enter deep into the red and can't get out. Not saying Laon does or doesn't sell well; it was an example. Basically: A company can't license a series and put out 10 volumes of it over the course of 6 months. It's an economic risk, and they have to think of themselves before whatever fanbase first. It's not about skipping volumes, it's about how the market works and making sure you don't spend money releasing 5 volumes when it takes awhile for one to even break even. If you release 5 in two months, it would take even longer for the later volumes because many people won't actually buy them all in addition to other releases. Each month, each company (with the exception of VIZ) usually releases 10-14 volumes. If they upped it to 30 volumes per publisher, things would get real bad real fast. Putting chapters online is growing more and more popular, but sometimes it just isn't feasible. Some Japanese publishers don't want an American company putting their work out online. Other times, the English release isn't caught up. For a company to offer weekly online scans for every ongoing series, then it'd probably be a deal where people need to pay. It's not as simple as it seems. It's getting better, but we can't to rush forward and fix everything in a single swoop. Last edited by RestLessone on Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Del Rey seems to have moved towards dumping some series in omnibuses due to declining sales, and some of their lesser selling titles and brand-new titles have 6month gaps between releases [similar to say, the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure schedule]. I think what RestlessOne says is true- in the current market, quick releases will only be given to books that sell, and if you don't support a release, you will ensure it's release will be even slower then the current rate.
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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But that's just the point, Naruto IS a top seller, it's probably their most profitable title, and yet they're STILL a year behind Japan in their release schedule! Vol 48 just came out here, and yet they're printing Vol 52 in Japan right now. If sales = service then one would expect them to be at least on the same printed volume, but really there's no excuse for them to not have chapter 497, if not chapter 498 available on their site right now. I couldn't care less if some sad-sack little manga only gets a release every few months, but the big titles, the ones that top the scanlation sites, should be published at the same rate as they come out in Japan, as near a simultaneous release as possible. Also, digital distribution is a much lower risk model, since you don't have to worry about unsold stock. At the end of the day though, their profit models are not my problem. I just want to read the manga. If they put it out on time and in a convenient manner, then I'll go to them. If not, I'll go elsewhere. They don't have the option of forcing me to do business with them.
That wasn't the point he was originally making though. He was saying that the scanlation sites were somehow slowing the releases, not that declining sales were slowing the releases. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. The people that buy manga buy manga, the people that don't, don't, scanlation sites have nothing to do with it. |
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