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NEWS: Publisher Libre Confirms Notices to Manga Scan Groups


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jukebox_csi



Joined: 28 Feb 2009
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:35 pm Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
jukebox_csi wrote:
I don't mind viewing them on the PC using the free Kindle4PC program from Amazon. My main concern is the price. $2.99 or more for a single chapter is a bit steep, in my opinion. If a typical BL manga has 5-6 chapters, at $2.99 {or more} a chap, then by the time you've purchased all the chapters in the book, you have spent greater than $15. That's more than the printed edition! And that doesn't make sense to me, seeing as 'digital' doesn't have print costs involved in the production.


That seems more like the Japanese DVD strategy ~ single volumes early then sets, soaking the niche buyers both times ~ than the conventional manga strategy of a large number of different chapters in fairly cheap serial and then the popular series get tankobon that give the mangaka the rest of their income.

A digital strategy more like the conventional manga strategy would be a subscription to a site that has current chapters for a variety of series, taken down after a period of time has elapsed, and then collected tankobon appear in eBook format for individual sale.

If they want to sell individual chapters rather than subscription access to a selection, $3 a chapter seems the wrong price point ... $0.50 to $1 a chapter would seem more likely to fly. But OTOH they may be thinking its a niche market, so slashing the price will not result in a big increase in number of volumes sold.


Yeh that does sound like it. If they're going to do individual chapters, I'd rather they have an online English version of their BeBoy magazine for a reasonable monthly fee. Theoretically, for something like Marvel does, $9.99 a month, you could access the latest edition which has several chapters from various stories that can be sampled.
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Beruda



Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 114
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:10 pm Reply with quote
Well I'll put in my two cents since nobody's asking. As an avid BL fan this dosen't bother me that much but it does make me sad to know that there are and will be a lot of titles I'll probably never get to read.

Secondly if Libre is serious about putting out more material legally then do it properly. Don't put it out in drips and drabs, commit to it. And don't limit it to just the Kindle either. Make the material available on all E-readers. I'm a book person and have no interest in these platforms but for those who are interested give them a reason to spend the money.

And just as an aside, a digital copy of something should not cost more than the physical copy. Unless someones jacked up the price for some part of the process, printing is much more expensive.

B.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:53 pm Reply with quote
I don't see a subscription-based model working for BL, it's too small a market. Libre can't justify the expense of translating every chapter of every title in all of its magazines each month for world readers to enjoy (and they would have to be translated, because most people who are reading scanlations are reading them because they can't read Japanese). It would cost too much money to do, and the money they would make back from it would not be significant enough. However, this high per-chapter rate they are trying right now isn't going to work, either. I know I personally haven't been willing to pay for a single one of these Kindle chapters. They're too expensive. They need to adopt a similar model to what Netcomics and DMP on their eManga site are already doing. Offer a low-cost per-chapter (.50 to $1) or per-volume ($2 to $5) rate for rental (3 to 7 days) and a slightly higher rate ($7 to $10 per volume) to own the digital copy on Kindle, et al.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
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Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:54 pm Reply with quote
jukebox_csi wrote:
Yeh that does sound like it. If they're going to do individual chapters, I'd rather they have an online English version of their BeBoy magazine for a reasonable monthly fee. Theoretically, for something like Marvel does, $9.99 a month, you could access the latest edition which has several chapters from various stories that can be sampled.


I was thinking of Yen Plus Online, which is access to the current and previous issue for $3/month. Yen Plus Online has Yotsuba, K-On!, Jack Frost, Gossip Girl, Daniel X, Time and Again, and Aaron's Absurd Armada. I take it that K-On! is launched in Yen Plus Online with 40 pages, and there is an eighth title that is added next week.

You'd have to want to read three of those for it to be $1/chapter, six for it to be $0.50/chapter, but unlike a print serial, its got an elastic size, so a publisher could keep adding titles until they found the sweet spot for the market.

And then the subscribers to the serial provide part of the buzz for selling the collected chapters in the emanga volumes into the ebook market.

The big question mark is localization costs. Yen Plus has always been a promotional tool for Yen volumes, so its running titles that Yen is committed to localizing anyway ... but if the subscription collection includes titles that are not licensed for print release, covering the localization costs may be an issue.
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jukebox_csi



Joined: 28 Feb 2009
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:12 pm Reply with quote
Cait wrote:
I don't see a subscription-based model working for BL, it's too small a market. Libre can't justify the expense of translating every chapter of every title in all of its magazines each month for world readers to enjoy (and they would have to be translated, because most people who are reading scanlations are reading them because they can't read Japanese). It would cost too much money to do, and the money they would make back from it would not be significant enough. However, this high per-chapter rate they are trying right now isn't going to work, either. I know I personally haven't been willing to pay for a single one of these Kindle chapters. They're too expensive. They need to adopt a similar model to what Netcomics and DMP on their eManga site are already doing. Offer a low-cost per-chapter (.50 to $1) or per-volume ($2 to $5) rate for rental (3 to 7 days) and a slightly higher rate ($7 to $10 per volume) to own the digital copy on Kindle, et al.


Just to note....Netcomics charges $0.25 a chapter for 48hr rental, with the first chapter of each volume being free.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:17 pm Reply with quote
jukebox_csi wrote:


Just to note....Netcomics charges $0.25 a chapter for 48hr rental, with the first chapter of each volume being free.


Indeed, although Let Dai was .20/chapter, and some two chapter deal I read once was .50/chapter. Plus, it is the first chapter of each title that is free, not each volume.

And just cheking now, I see they've finally updated Full House. About time...
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KaraKael



Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:28 pm Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
A digital strategy more like the conventional manga strategy would be a subscription to a site that has current chapters for a variety of series, taken down after a period of time has elapsed, and then collected tankobon appear in eBook format for individual sale.


I'd still prefer a printed on paper collected tankobon, and I think that physical books are an ideal enough format that there will continue to be a market for them. Magazines, on the other hand, are more likely to go completely digital. I could easily see material serialized in a digital format on a subscription or per chapter purchase basis, then the most popular collected later for printing in a physical volume, just as the most popular magazine serials are now.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
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Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 12:18 am Reply with quote
KaraKael wrote:
I'd still prefer a printed on paper collected tankobon, and I think that physical books are an ideal enough format that there will continue to be a market for them.


I don't think they will go away anytime soon. The problem for niche titles of long running series is that sales of later volumes tend to taper off, so even if the first volume has sufficient demand to justify a print run, often market demand drops down below that mark well before the series is finished.

Cait wrote:
I don't see a subscription-based model working for BL, it's too small a market. Libre can't justify the expense of translating every chapter of every title in all of its magazines each month for world readers to enjoy (and they would have to be translated, because most people who are reading scanlations are reading them because they can't read Japanese). It would cost too much money to do, and the money they would make back from it would not be significant enough.


Which gets back to the model that Erica Friedman was discussing this summer, of crowdsourced translation that are contributed back (eg, as overlays) for use by the publisher. If the contributer authorizes it, then the rights holder on the original work could obviously use it.

It would be, IOW, just 'lation groups, no "scan", not need to acquire the original artwork, and no need to do any distribution. Obviously the translating subscribers would be BM&WOC in the social forums of the subscription site. Within the site, various overlays could compete, but obviously under contribute-back terms, and the publisher would decide which series have overlays to accept as contributions and use for mastering e-tankobon.
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Juhachi



Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 228
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 1:37 am Reply with quote
CCSYueh wrote:
Not to mention, can you say for sure fans IN Japan aren't reading these things? Just as some manga readers can read Japanese, you do realize somne Japanese can read English.

While that may be true, that's like me watching a Japanese dub version of The Simpsons, or reading a Japanese translation of Batman. I may be able to get what's being said, but it certainly won't be as enjoyable as in its original script, especially since too much stuff gets lost in translation. It's not like I don't know it's illegal, I even said so, but there are some things I can't agree with when this issue comes up, as I already stated.

CCSYueh wrote:
"Why are you pulling me over, Officer?! Why aren't you busting prostitutes on the Boulevard?! Go catch some murderers!"

Just because it's easier to go after the scanlaters does not mean they should. Seriously, the publishers have to put their priorities in order and go after what they are actually claiming is killing their industry: illegal uploads of raw manga onto the Internet. It's funny, in this whole long debate, I have yet to actually hear these Japanese publishes say the scanlaters are hurting their sale numbers. They just throw words like "protecting author rights" and serve a C&D, but in the end, they're just mad. It has nothing to do with business, it's a personal thing. And that is something I cannot agree with.

CCSYueh wrote:
Do you somehow imagine these guys WANT you to not pay them for their work? Do you ever read the author notes? The ones where they talk about the stress of deadlines, etc?

There will always be people who buy the books in stores. In fact, the people who do buy the books wouldn't read the scans online, and even if they did, they'd probably go out and buy the books anyway. The people that do read the scans online are not the ones who are buying the books, thus they don't contribute to the author's paycheck.

I think you're trying to argue that people who normally buy books would, if given the opportunity, not buy the books if they were available online. But these are two different kinds of people here: those for scans and those against them. You might as well discount the people that are pro-scans since they don't factor into the equation anyway. And even if people who normally buy the books did read the scans online, if given the chance, they're certainly in the minority.

But I'm not talking about all manga here, just manga unavailable in English with no foreseeable future of the series getting licensed. Do you honestly expect people who cannot read Japanese to buy these books? So then these same people don't deserve to read series that aren't licensed? Like I said, it's an injustice, especially when people blow things out of proportion and saying that scanlaters are killing the industry, when it is actually the publishers themselves or fan reaction to the series which is the problem. The publishers just want someone to blame, and scanlaters are an all-too-easy target.
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merc89



Joined: 22 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 2:11 am Reply with quote
Most of you are right when you say, that the manga scantalations being removed from the Internet is true and should be followed as Manga artists arent getting there due share of Money from it..

But you have to understand that the Manga Being popular is also due to these sites, which one of you Actually called a "parasitic site" *laughs at the irony* These sites make the manga more popular than they Could have Ever been. By this we get manga's way down here in India, which for normal Students like me, Costs like HELL...

And just not here. but all over the world people get to follow manga's because of this.. Anime & Manga Would nevere Could have been what it is, If not of Piracy...

Its not a Evil but a Boon to this Industry..
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 6:31 am Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:


Which gets back to the model that Erica Friedman was discussing this summer, of crowdsourced translation that are contributed back (eg, as overlays) for use by the publisher. If the contributer authorizes it, then the rights holder on the original work could obviously use it.

It would be, IOW, just 'lation groups, no "scan", not need to acquire the original artwork, and no need to do any distribution. Obviously the translating subscribers would be BM&WOC in the social forums of the subscription site. Within the site, various overlays could compete, but obviously under contribute-back terms, and the publisher would decide which series have overlays to accept as contributions and use for mastering e-tankobon.



I'd love to see something like this work, but Toshiba already tried it and failed. It'll be a decent indication of how well DMP's plans to do something along these lines succeed or fail. And again, BL is still a small market and one publisher of it doing something like this by themselves isn't necessarily going to bring in the cash, it does cost a lot of money to host a website/server, keep it updated, etc. The goal isn't to break even, it is to profit. Plus you have to consider how reticent Japanese publishers are to even go digital in the first place. There's just a lot to consider before a viable solution to this issue can be found.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 6:37 am Reply with quote
merc89 wrote:


Its not a Evil but a Boon to this Industry..


In order for something to be a "boon" to an industry, the people who were getting it for free previously have to start paying for it. All I seem to hear, though, from people outside of English-speaking countries is the complaint that they can no longer get their free manga when scanlators/aggregators take them down. Scanlations have, in the past, served if even a minor role in advertizing manga to the rest of the world, but if the rest of the world doesn't turn around and start consuming it commercially, it had no value. Libre saw the demand outside Japan, they did not approve of the means and they told the scanlators to stop. They're also trying to replace those scans with (albeit imperfect) legal digital alternatives. So, instead of complaining about how scanlations "helped in the past," let's look to the future and work with the companies that are trying to change for the better.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:33 am Reply with quote
merc89 wrote:
But you have to understand that the Manga Being popular is also due to these sites, which one of you Actually called a "parasitic site" *laughs at the irony* These sites make the manga more popular than they Could have Ever been.


First, these sites that we are talking about in this thread are not the bootleg manga viewer sites like OneMoney, MoneyStream or MoneyFox ... the topic of this article are the scanlation groups.

The bootleg manga viewer sites are para-sites:
Quote:
Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the host.
... they live off the work of the original creators, the work of the publishers, and the work of the scanlators.

And the benefit of the para-sites have been at the expense of the hosts. Unlike the popularity of the original manga boom, which was reflected directly in sales, they bring a form of "popularity" that does not generate revenues. While I do not know of clear direct evidence that direct distribution on a scanlation group's site undermines market sales, there have been direct observations that when the work of scanlation groups scanlating licensed series hits the bootleg manga viewer sites, sales of the series drop.

And now, it turns out that they draw excessive attention to the scanlation groups, where one of the manga publishers sees the scanlations of its unlicensed work as competition against its licensed work.

I have never called the scanlation groups themselves parasites. The problem is, rather, that their work provides part of the essential life-support that the para-sites require. That is why we need, in the words of Erica Friedman, a "solution to the scanlation solution".
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:50 am Reply with quote
Cait wrote:
I'd love to see something like this work, but Toshiba already tried it and failed.
Of course, many innovations fail the first couple of times before they take off. I at one time had an Epson Geneva laptop computer - CP/M, built in Word-Star, a portable dot-matrix thermal printer, a cassette drive to store files. The Geneva was not a runaway success ... nobody else imitated that particular form factor ... but eventually a version of the laptop was developed that did work.

Quote:
It'll be a decent indication of how well DMP's plans to do something along these lines succeed or fail. And again, BL is still a small market and one publisher of it doing something like this by themselves isn't necessarily going to bring in the cash, it does cost a lot of money to host a website/server, keep it updated, etc.
They can work with OpenManga if they don't wish to bother with the cost of running a website and want a form of deal that is pure revenue share with limited costs on their part.

Quote:
Plus you have to consider how reticent Japanese publishers are to even go digital in the first place.
Yes, in 2008 or even 2009, a big hurdle would be what seemed the deep reluctance of Japanese publishers to go digital in the first place. Fortunately, this is 2010, and Japanese publishers seem far more determined to take the plunge into digital distribution.

There is still the question of manga-ka reluctance to go digital: since rights are unbundled in the manga industry, to get an online site that has digital manga within the first serial rights time window, both publisher and manga-ka have to agree.

Quote:
There's just a lot to consider before a viable solution to this issue can be found.
That's what I find appealing about Erica Friedman's approach ... rather than ending with the fact that there is a lot to consider, she starts with that fact, and then starts considering.
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setsuna8



Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 11:02 am Reply with quote
I'm annoyed but not overly upset. If the manga in question was going to get US releases then I would understand but they have asked for a removal of all titles. I can think of at least four old titles that I'm very sure they won't release. I support manga and always have. Enough that I had to breakdown and buy a second bookshelf just to hold all my manga. I think what it comes down to is they are hoping to get more licenses. I believe they think scanalations are preventing that. If you look at June manga they almost exclusively have Libre titles and have even changed their covers to reflect that.
Libre has been know for being more aggressive since they took over. I've heard a couple manga-ka complain they are stricter on deadlines an encourage manga-ka draw "more ecchi scenes" I'm guessing they want to avoid Biblios's fate. They are turning out more books a month than ever before. Its just a little sad to see it go down this way. Animation and Manga companies are counting on those licenses so I guess all we can say is "Good luck" and support them.
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