Forum - View topicINTEREST: Wall Street Journal Reports on Manga Piracy
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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You examples are not about "not good enough" but they are not what is being asked for by folks in this thread or the folks that check out scans. Most of the sites you listed were pay to view, samples, or previews, which is the same antiquated model that is not comparable to the scans people want. One site was damn near all boy love stuff from Korea. |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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@ ArsenicSteel
But then that boils down to people just wanting it to be free. I can see a streaming type of thing like what's been going on on those illegal manga sites, but if it doesn't work out, what else can they do? |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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VIZ's antholgy sites seem to post new chapters, and take them down once they're printed, so they're continually updated, and usually have a decent chunk of material to check out for numerous series. I mean, why leave the material up there when you can just take it off and direct people to the touchedup version in book form? It also helps save on bandwidth, since they have real costs involved like paying artists, translators, graphic designers and programmers and what not, while aggregators get well-meaning but illinformed kids/adults to do all the work for free and don't bother paying for anything.
People keep saying they'll pay for real manga- EManga and NetCOmics book offer that sort of material, though both seem to primarily do well online with genres/titles that also do well in the print market. NetComics started out with lots of general shoujo manwha and some seinen/men's manwha, so if you want more of those, buy some of those titles. If you want more online manga, support what's out there. If you don't want to pay for stuff, read webcomics and stop moping about. If companies can figure out a way to make free stuff work, we'll see it, but until then it's not like there's not lots of other non-paying options out there for you from webcomics to libraries. Enjoy and appreciate what's freely given to you rather then stealing because you think you're entitled to it. If you look at all this stuff, and how much of it has come about in the past 2 years, you'll notice that a lots of stuff has happened even before tehy decided to take legal action against these sites. Anyone remember ComicsOne's PDF comics? Companies have been trying this for years, it's not something they can solve overnight. Stepping all over their toes won't help move thigns along all that well. ALSO- http://gomanga.com/ Seven Seas has a ton of original web manga titles. |
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ArsenicSteel
Posts: 2370 |
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If someone wants free manga then there is not much to do about that except catching and punishing them. The problem is there isn’t a legal avenue for people to access non-licensed manga to visit (hit count) or pay for a subscription in order to reduce the traffic and interest in the current scanlation sites. The yaoi and sample then pay sites aren’t comparable to the kind of site needed to effect scanlation sites.
Without creating a legal alternative then shutting down all the current scanlation sites will just produce a lull until the next crop of sites, which will have servers that are harder to get shutdown. This spending money and time on a stop gap measure only serves to put the more red on their books and slightly hinder scanlators. The answer is to provide a digital outlet that manga companies can get some revenue from. This is the same answer the music industry and film industry discovered years after wasting time and money on prosecuting 14 year olds, buying out Napster, and losing repeatedly to Swedes. I am not saying to stop the enforcement of their copyrights. I am saying they need to use some of the cash that is being used to patch the hole in the Titanic and put it in a dingy. |
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noobiesnack
Posts: 34 |
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For those of you claiming there are legal alternatives, Tell me why There are manga volumes out there that are 15+ volumes behind the current releases in Japan?
@Paploo, I checked out those sites. Every single one of them were subscription based, previews, or had manga that was some 30+ volumes behind the Japanese releases. Bleach, for example, on one of the sites was at volume 8. last time I checked, Bleach was on vol 42. Unfortunately for VIZ Paploo, not many people want the clutter of books in their rooms. Some people like them as collections, but not EVERYONE. @ArsenicSteel, That last part I completely agree with. They are just going to repeat what happened to the music and film industry if they try this. At current rate, I give it 2 years and we will have a pirate-bay version of the current manga-aggregation sites and the industry will create a digital outlet after fighting a hard, losing battle. Back to @Paploo, do you REALIZE how much money can be made off of advertisments? I recently ran numbers on some of the highest traffic manga-aggregators, the ones that see millions of hits a month, and got numbers in the thousands of dollars. throw that in with ads to buy the hard copy volumes and collectibles from the series and a lot of money can be made. Also, the manga publishers are doing what happened with the music industry and the film industry, they are being IMPATIENT with their attempts to digitally distribute. They cannot expect something to be solved overnight, which is why they are trying the alternative, that wont succeed, which is filing lawsuits. Also, they have to have a centralized website, not just individual publishing sites. People will go wherever things are available. If its a legal site, they will go there. If its illegal, they will still go there. If they want to fight piracy, they need to change their direction and start at step one in fighting piracy, not do what the music and film industry did which was jump from step A to K, only to complete steps A to K after a long battle and lots of red numbers. I do not support piracy, but ill be damned if people think that throwing around legal notices will solve anything. I am currently in the process of writing a nice long rant on this current situation. I am trying to find as much material as possible so please, keep posting for me so that I may rip it apart and use it for my rant 
Remember, anyone can throw words around. Following through is a different story. |
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Aura Ichadora
 Posts: 2285 Location: In front of my computer |
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They both have a lot of titles under their belt. They have a lot of dates they need to get their titles out by, and also to make sure they have the best possible product out by that date. Also, in the case of Viz since I'm unsure in the case of Yen Press, I know they don't have a lot of their staff anymore - that often equals a slower pace because there's less people working. So I can understand that a title like Naruto is only about three or so volumes behind compared to a title like Tegami Bachi, which is about six volumes behind. They want to focus on getting the super popular titles out as they can, in order to make their money and keep afloat as a business, compared to the lesser popular titles. And eventually they'll catch up on their larger gap titles, such as Bleach (I'm sure that'll get a speed-up soon, with how popular it is). When it comes to online releases, more than likely what they have posted there are mostly for previews because they really do expect you to purchase the volumes. Companies do work hard on those volumes, and gain more from people purchasing the volumes compared the ad revenue from reading online. If you don't want to collect the manga, well...then you're stuck with just the previews then. That's kinda your fault for being stingy and not wanting to collect the manga volumes, even if it's just one or two of them from your favorite arc. Of course, if you can't buy the volumes, that's a different story. Anyway, hopefully we will eventually gain an all-the-way-around legal site for viewing manga, and won't be just for previews. I'd love for there to be a site to go to like OneManga or MangaFox, but completely legal and available for all regions. |
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noobiesnack
Posts: 34 |
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@Aura: Yes, I know that they are only a little bit behind, but 3 volumes is still around 13-18 chapters, then add in magazine releases.
As for the lack of staff, point there it moot. They could grab the local scanlator group, pay them a small fee, and have a quality chapter in a day or two. There are some very talented people who scanlate as a hobby and probably wouldn't mind a few extra dollars in their pockets for it. I don't understand why they need a bunch of 'professionals' when I have seen scans that look close to the professional work. However, do not take this as all scanlation groups are good. Many of them just throw words onto a white-out box and call it scanlated. However, there are sites out there that produce medium to high quality scanlations that would be perfect to take this job. I know I may sound like I am throwing someone out of work, but when a company is suffering, cutbacks will have to be made or things like this happen. And actually, lets do some math. Say 20,000 people buy a volume at $9 a pop. thats $180,000. Now say, you put that whole volume online and because its online with ad revenue, you make $1 per volume but because it is online, you now get 200,000 people to read it. You just made 200,000 which is more than what you would have made off hard copy sales. Dont forget as well, of that 200,000, a few of them are figurine collectors and seen some of your ads for figurines and say 100 of those 120,000 people go and buy a figuring for $40 a pop. Just think about it... Also note, for those of you claiming it costs a lot of bandwidth, how much do you think paper costs, ink, and printer maintenance? Anyway, There is a legal way to read manga that is going to be similar to how the current aggregate sites work now. It hasn't been released yet, and I really hope that the publishers will jump aboard fairly quickly. The site is called OpenManga.org, which I am sure many people should have heard of already... if not, your not trying hard enough lol. also, on the comment of the storage, yeah. in today's world, many people dont want clutter. If they don't have the room or the money for it, they wont buy it. Charging more for an online copy just means you dont want it online. But what the fans want, they will have it and it doesnt matter if you, i, or the publishers tell them not to. All you can do is fight fire with fire. you cant fight fire with oil. |
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Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
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those numbers would be sweet if they really worked like that; after reading Answerman's latest column with the response about streaming anime, though, I have to wonder if it would actually work. There would always be a scanlator who was faster than the official site, and as people do with anime, they are too impatient to wait the extra couple of days to see the new content, and go instead to the fansubbers/scanlators. On the flipside, though, there *are* a lot of benefits to having a digital product -- aside from the money saved on printing, which I'm sure more than pays for bandwidth, they will never print an excess of somethings and have a ton of back stock; additionally, things should never really go "out of print", which should make fans happy. |
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noobiesnack
Posts: 34 |
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@saturn: Well, the numbers are CLOSE to that. Take Naruto for example. According to stat figures, I estimate around 1-2million people read it online. and that number is monthly. imagine that number under ads that even just give $.25 per chapter view. Also note, Naruto comes out 4 times a month. (go with 1.5m) 1.5m * 4 views * $.25. of course, this is provided that the service is free and un-intrusive and is available right away.
The problem with the way the official sites for anime do it is because they don't release right away. Some of them wait up to a week before showing the series. Anything more than a few days (a few hours for extremely popular series) will end with fan subs. They also restrict access to premium members only for 1 week. They cannot accomplish the move to digital distribution of manga like that. Manga is a lot easier to translate, clean, edit and distribute than anime. Obviously the publishers would have to have the chapters translated, edited, and typeset in advance. They would also have to provide a free alternative to viewing the same chapter, even if that means a low resolution scan for the free version with quite a few ads. Really, I am starting to think that manga publishing companies are digging their graves now. A site like OpenManga will be the death of manga publishers if artists can upload their stuff and get all the profits from a larger audience. I think they will spend all their money on fighting the losing battle against piracy instead of investments and when their spirits are finally broken and are ready to give in, all the artists will be getting adapted to digital distribution. that is of course, if OpenManga can pull it off which I have really high hopes for success! |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14773 |
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Yeah, he's only using those numbers as an example, but those numbers are way too optimistic. Sadly, GNs usually sell in the low thousands only, while online ads have gone down the toilet. I don't think such online ads can make that much money... yet. Today's generation of anime/manga fans tend to be a stingy lot, while only a tiny fraction would spend a decent amount. I look at it from kinda like a per-capita view: the amount of money spent per-capita anime/manga fan cannot support all the titles that those anime/manga fans want to cross over their shores. There's just not enough money to be made to support all that. Many titles would have to be left out regardless. No way near will it be all-inclusive, and that won't sit well with large chunks of fans. (In contrast, the Japanese consumer market is more reliable: they still have to pay for their magazine anthologies notwithstanding - they don't even have the digital option, mostly.) |
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noobiesnack
Posts: 34 |
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@enurtsol: Yes they are optimistic. But you have to remember, I am accounting for ads being from professional websites who will have some sort of need to advertise on such a site. Sites such as hobby shops, collectors items, and other stuff that will pay money to show up on there. There is also the ability to make a user watch a video ad, kind of like what all those American On Demand websites do for their popular series. Those things are not cheap to make and can generate a good deal of revenue.
Also, ad revenue from what I have seen is paying out about $1.00 for every 20,000 impressions and that's using a crappy ad service like Google Adsense, for text ads only anyway, I have to guess that you would make slightly more off of flash ads. now remember, 3 ads per page brings that 20,000 down to 6666 and some change. now remember a manga like naruto has around 20 pages, using google ads that only show text, that is about $1 for every 300 chapter views. Sure, not a lot. But its something more than NOTHING. Actually, the whole generation today of the world as a whole has become a stingy lot. Most of them want it yesterday. But I still hold firm that if the publishers try something seriously as a whole, that is not trying to fail at fighting piracy, they can turn it into profit. It has taken almost a year and a half for Crunchryroll to see black numbers, but they are finally doing it through their hard work to bring us anime legally. But, I dont see publishers being patient enough to wait a year... They rather shoot first then go 'wtf, why didn't it die?' than to try and think of a good, meaningful alternative. |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14773 |
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Heh, Crunchyroll only broke even, not from subscriptions and ads alone, but from investors kept propping them up. Without those money coming in, subscriptions and ads won't be enough for a long while. (Not saying they won't ever be - even Amazon had to bleed thru a lot of cash and several times would had died if not for some last-minute cash injections.) I just wish I'm as optimistic as you.
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bayoab
Posts: 831 |
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Because as it is, the market is flooded with releases and therefore, catching up faster isn't going to help?
Great, that's enough to license.... a dozen or so volumes. There is no way to support the amount of content that flows out illegally.
No, they aren't similar. The publishers are filing lawsuits at the actual hosts and content creators, not the downloaders.
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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@Paploo:
All those links just confirm the basic problem, in my opinion, which is that most manga publishers essentially see digital distribution as some sort of restricted preview system for a small number of titles, as opposed to a genuine and full-fledged distribution platform that generates independent profits on its own all across the board. In other words, they've set up a system that is responding to the ultimate needs of their traditional business model (generating more physical volume sales through previews and teasers) rather than those of their target audience (gaining a convenient access to entire runs of both concluded and ongoing manga without being restricted to specialized devices or the availability of physical copies). In terms of marketing, I would say that's a losing proposition as long as the companies continue to be afraid of radical innovation. And by "radical" I don't mean giving anything away for free, but removing all of the prejudices and mental blocks that prevent them from successfully taking full advantage of the realities of modern technology and responding to the underlying needs or wants of its users (collectively, I mean, not individually), in exchange for potentially astronomical or at least significant profits (not just from ads, mind you, but also from actual digital sales). Innovation can be painful, surely, but stagnation is simply poisonous. If they aren't ambitious enough to take huge risks, they will never achieve great success and will just continue loudly whacking moles for the sake of "doing something" and sleeping well at night. I've said this before and I will say it again: the manga (and anime, for that matter) industry still has a lot to learn from the gaming industry and, in particular, the runaway success of Valve and Steam. The industries and companies involved might be different, but I would point out that the attitudes and interests of their customers overlap more than most people might be willing to admit, which is certainly not a coincidence. Millions of people don't want to own boxed copies of games anymore (or just can't buy them for one reason or another) and millions don't want to own print copies of manga either (ditto). Millions will always resort to piracy, no matter what you do, but hundreds of thousands (or their proportional equivalents) can be partially or completely rehabilitated if they're given the right incentives through convenient legal digital distribution alternatives. It's a lot easier to say this than it is to come up with specific strategies and numbers that work, of course, but that doesn't make the underlying points any less valid. Perhaps we'll have to wait a decade or two, for lack of a better estimate, but having a wider digital distribution is going to become more, not less, important from now on. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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If you want to solve the problem, support the solution- things start small when really money/work is involved vs. just lazily profitting off piracy.
And while millions do read Naruto online, they read it on dozens of websites and torrents, so even if VIZ did stick it all online, they'd have to sue all those sites out of existence first- which is what this is about.
1- Theres this place called a Library. 2-I make webcomics- I know about online ads- they aren't a terribly reliable thing, and not something advertisers have wrapped their heads around. Not saying it couldn't be done [ANN seems to be doing fine by streaming, and I know some webcomic artists who get okay money with ads, though some still rely mostly on print merchandise and donations], just saying there's a lot more to it then simply sticking a bajillion manga online and sticking ads on them. There's licensing involved, and when you have t oactually pay people, you might want to start small rather then do something big like an aggregator site. |
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