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kensh1ro wrote:

In short, I wish there was some practical way that manga licensers could do what their anime counterparts are doing (Hulu, YouTube, their own sites). Maybe a static add between chapters, but that's for people who like to read an entire volume in one go (me). Or, that could work for chapter-by-chapter guys, too.

But, I'm sure they've already considered that...

Since the legit sites ~ Yen Plus Online, SigIKKI, eManga, etc ~ seem to use flash for their online viewing, it could be dynamic ads, like the ads between levels in online games.

So far, they have been either rental, subscription, or advertising teaser model, but some ad-supported views in the mix seems to me like it would make sense.

Of course, there's a reason I can't name them off the top of my head. I want to read sitting in a chair with my feet up, and with online viewing that means my netbook. But the only online flash viewer that is actually workable on my netbook is the eManga one, and eManga is mostly BL. If SigIKKI would pay for the use of the eManga flash player, I'd be there regularly.

Paploo wrote:

text wall

That doesn't solve the current problem of scanlations popping up mere hours after the manga is released in Japan. You can spout all you want about there being "alternatives" and "support or die!" rhetoric, but they're crippled by one dominating fact: Time.

Waiting months for something that is easily provided for free by "unscrupulous" people within hours will still make people flock to the scanlations.

Paploo wrote:

http://www.shonensunday.com/top.shtml That's why VIZ is doing with their Sigikii and Shonen Sunday sites http://sigikki.com/

If you want to see more offerings like it, keep visiting their sites and read the chapters. Buy the titles serialized on it too if possible. Show them there's a demand and help them make a profit.

http://www.yenpress.com/yenplus/ Yen Press has the Yen Plus subscription too. Every pub has moved into digital in some way, but fans need to support it, and reject bootlegged sites, if it's going to grow.

agila61 wrote:

Since the legit sites ~ Yen Plus Online, SigIKKI, eManga, etc ~ seem to use flash for their online viewing, it could be dynamic ads, like the ads between levels in online games.

... Guess the companies are quicker on the draw than I thought...

Also, I saw a Japanese free manga site, by the guys who publish Golgo 13, I guess becuase I was "reading" some Golgo 13 (full volumes!!) there and it looked professional (a pop-up manga viewer like the preview things from the Tezuka site).

So really, sites like MangaFox are becoming useless when the publishers themselves post free-to-read manga, except for people who like low-quality scans.

'Nother possibly stupid suggestion of something that probably already exists: Since I've never heard of those sites until now, maybe ANN could have a links section that includes these sites. Sorry if it's already there. Embarassed

I didn't say support or die. I said don't be a jerk, support the artists. Though lots of titles do tend to die [ie- get cancelled] when not supported, so there you go. A cockroach being hard to kill isn't a valid reason to stop complaining about the cockroach.

Kenishiro- I think a links section to legit manga reading sites would be a nice idea for ANN. I've seen some manga blogs do it. It's handy. At the very least, a sticky w/legit sites like http://www.astroboymagazine.com/ in the Manga forum on the site would be super useful.

Sunday Silence wrote:

Paploo wrote:

text wall

That doesn't solve the current problem of scanlations popping up mere hours after the manga is released in Japan. You can spout all you want about there being "alternatives" and "support or die!" rhetoric, but they're crippled by one dominating fact: Time.

But more people read the scanlations on the bootleg manga viewer sites than directly at the scanlation group's download, even though there is a delay between when its released and when its placed up on the bootleg scanlation viewer sites.

So the fact that you google "read free manga online", you get a bucketload of bootleg sites and no legit sites, that probably has something to do with it as well.

Paploo wrote:

A cockroach being hard to kill isn't a valid reason to stop complaining about the cockroach.

Don't tell me that, tell that to the companies.

agila61 wrote:

So the fact that you google "read free manga online", you get a bucketload of bootleg sites and no legit sites, that probably has something to do with it as well.

Show me, aside from scanlations, a legitimate translated english version of Black Butler Chapter 50 that I can read online right now. I would like to support Yana Toboso, so please, provide me access to said legit version.

I can wait.

Back already? Oh, I see the problem: YA CAN'T PROVIDE ME ONE. Neither Square Enix nor Yen Press has such a legitimate version online right now. And yet, we have tons of sites throwing out scanlations like candy within days of the release.

Again tell me, how am I supposed to support Yana Toboso when there is no legitimate way to look at her manga online? And don't give me this BS about buying the magazine or wait patiently, because those arguments don't work anymore. Not when scanlators do it faster than paid translators!!

HAHAHA

Thanks Silent Service, that post was really hilarious, the idea that you would be willing to support any legit manga is the funniest thing I heard in a week.

Congrats Sunday Silence, you merit a Fan Delusion Pony for that post

That said, wow, way to justify and personify her recent rant.

Charred Knight wrote:

HAHAHA

Thanks Silent Service, that post was really hilarious, the idea that you would be willing to support any legit manga is the funniest thing I heard in a week.

Paploo wrote:

Congrats Sunday Silence, you merit a Fan Delusion Pony for that post

<edit>

That said, wow, way to justify and personify her recent rant.

Before you jump on your high horses there compadres, as i've stated before in other threads, i'd gladly pay for a service where manga is concurrently released in Japanese and English by the publishers themselves. No catches, no DRM, no specialized formats, just provide the service, and you could beat the scanlators at their own game. If scanlations are any proof, people want to see stuff right away instead of waiting for years or decades for the stuff.

Instead of berating, maybe you should look at yourselves first and wonder if you are contributing to the problem at large?

Sunday Silence wrote:

agila61 wrote:

So the fact that you google "read free manga online", you get a bucketload of bootleg sites and no legit sites, that probably has something to do with it as well.

Show me, aside from scanlations, a legitimate translated english version of Black Butler Chapter 50 that I can read online right now. I would like to support Yana Toboso, so please, provide me access to said legit version.

You really think the majority of the views on the bootleg manga sites are Black Butler? The bootleg manga sites know better:

Quote:

meta name="description" content="Read your favorite mangas online! Hundreds of high-quality free manga for you, with a list being updated daily. Naruto manga, Bleach manga, One Piece manga, Air Gear manga, Claymore manga, Fairy Tail manga, Inuyasha manga, and many more..." /

Indeed, for availability at Mangafox, the topic at hand, your challenge may be a backfire:

Quote:

The series Kuroshitsuji has been licensed, it is not available in Manga Fox.

... so that particular bootleg distribution channel clearly does not view that as important for their target audience as Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, or Air Gear (though Claymore and Inuyasha seems to be false advertising), and so Black Butler Volume 3 at Amazon is more Black Butler than you can get at MangaFox at the moment.

agila61 wrote:

Guardsman Bass wrote:

Moreover, how do you plan to collect? Seize their assets in the US, assuming they even have any?

The point is not to turn a profit on the lawsuit itself, its to interfere with their ability to make money in their enterprise so they have no incentive to do it.

Most of their revenue originates in the US, most of their revenue originates due to views by people with US IP addresses, take the views and cash flow from the US out of the picture, and there's a lot less revenue available to pay a CDN and leave anything left over for the enterprise.

You still haven't answered how filing a suit in the US against a company based in China is somehow going to cut off the revenue from people in the US visiting that site. What are they going to do, ask a judge to block the IP address of the site? They'll just move it, assuming the law even allows them to do that.

Charred Knight wrote:

HAHAHA

Thanks Silent Service, that post was really hilarious, the idea that you would be willing to support any legit manga is the funniest thing I heard in a week.

And you're a moron for assuming that's the case. For example, I already pay a subscription to Crunchyroll so that I can get the latest episodes of Naruto/Bleach/whatever 1 hour after their release in Japan.

I'd do the same thing, except that no one is offering the same service for the big stuff (think Naruto, Bleach, etc). Instead, the idiots are trying to shove everybody through the "paperback" hole, and it just won't work in this day and age.

agila61 wrote:

Why would you sue them in China? Their revenue is likely mostly coming from the United States, and primarily due to United States viewers ... sue them in the United States. There's a substantial chance that they won't even show up to defend the case ... they are, after all, destroying dollars worth of market for a fraction of a penny of revenue for themselves, so its not there's anything left over in MangaFox's revenues to pay the owners, if they hire a good US copyright lawyer.

That's part of the speculation that they are making hay while the sun shines: that they realize that a case is going to be brought, they can't afford to fight it, and if they fight it they are likely to lose, so they are going to generate the revenue they can now and if they have to start blocking US IP addresses down the track, well, cross that bridge when they come to it.

The reason to sue in China is because they'd ignore any court's ruling in the US. The Chinese aren't going to jump because we ask them to.

If you want people to take notice of you, you have to make your will known to them as directly as possible.

Of course, as others and myself have pointed out, it's not really likely to work anyway. This is one of those cases where self-help would work best but the courts frown on asking Big Al to go break some kneecaps.

And yeah, I know there has been an effort to do pretty much what I mentioned but as you pointed out, the reason it isn't working is because it's limited to niche of niche titles (not even to niches that bring in cash, like hentai.) The Japanese have to take some big titles and put them into a system like that.

Really, I don't understand their reluctance. There is an obvious market and if they control the digital distribution, they can promote buying phyiscal copies and give lots of info on what's licensed and not. (I remember reading serious posts years after Naruto was licensed from people upset that it had been taken down from some big fansub site and having no idea it was licensed!) Wink

See, the problem as I see it is the lack of a legal alternative. Legal streaming is only just starting to really get itself going. It'll take several years to see if it can actually shift some fans over to it from the fansub sites.

That's why the Japanese and the licensors all need to stop wasting time and actually TRY to make to a legig manga scan site work too. It will take years to even begin to fix the problem but it CAN BE DONE! Spirit and guts people!

If you look around online, MangaFox's servers are actually US-based. From my understanding, they operate out of the states, with some staff in China.

I think with stuff like Rin-ne, it's clear VIZ and other are giving digital a lot of attention lately. But it's mostly up to the japanese rights holders, which is basically the artists themselves, whether or not a given series will be available digitally. I imagine there might be more willingness to attempt stuff if the illegal stuff wasn't so rampant.

Well its China. Nah I'm kidding.

You know hasn't ever occurred to you people that :

A. we don't know the whole story

B. you'd be ignorant if you think these companies did not have "contracts" set up with these distributors. Mangafox, onemanga, mangavolume, all the group msns have been around for years(some almost 10 years) and now they choose to fight back? Most common excuse "No money?" please they develop a spine when we are in a recession cmon.

C. "online crime" and law can't keep up with each other

D. because of C a lot of these accusations/ lawsuits are based on ethics and morals which is considered by a lot to be bs. You know the common whats right for you is not right for me vice versa. Why law exists. It tells you what you can and not do.

E. Meaning, when it comes to online distribution of 1 material, a precedent doesn't really exists since technology keeps changing. For example, in the case of anime, if 2 ways to distribute something exists (even if the method is similar in the eyes of the law 1 small difference = a huge difference), the law will only get 1. Music common example. Torrents are illegal, but direct downloading for the most part isn't. End result is still the same, but oddly 1 way is more wrong.

The argument you often see here "well you didn't pay for it blah blah blah" just shows how little you know of the situation. That response doesn't cut it. There is more depth to it. For example, in these copyright situations the law states that the hosts may be held accountable if they knowingly uploaded copyrighted material. Also, the law states that hosts shouldn't be responsible for secondary liability(in simpler terms, when other people, not the hosts, upload shit). The obvious question is how do you prove that in the terms of the law? You can't just say everyone knows this or I see it. No you need tangible data to support your claim. Not no he say she say bs that goes on a lot in this forum. Finding that concrete evidence is one of the reasons why "online crime" is not resolved as quickly as Assault and Battery. Common play that occurs in courts:

One distribution method may have a lot of evidence.
Law says its wrong.
The perpetrators then find a new method(evolution of technology) and now the law enforcement has to find new data.
Meaning for now, that new method of distribution is not illegal.
Law then says it is wrong then cycle repeats.

Simply put that is what's going on. Clearly mangafox thinks the law enforcement's evidence is not sufficient and that according to the law itself, they should not be held accountable. That's what the may be and not reponsible implies however, their is no absolute precedent that defines that may be and not responsible. In what situation are you responsible? When does may be mean yes? What is responsibility online? Many similar court cases have different rulings. According to you all, youtube should be banned. Youtube operates a lot like these manga distributors. Bunch of second parties uploading copyrighted stuff. Millions of copyrighted music on youtube. Millions. Yet in the most recent case agaisnt viacom, the courts ruled in favor of google aka the "law" does not find youtube to be illegal. Essentially the question is why is it I can upload copyrighted material on youtube, but I can't on my website? The law does not have an absolute answer. Like here, many different positions. For now, the question still remains, what is legal and what is illegal?

agila61 wrote:

Sunday Silence wrote:

agila61 wrote:

So the fact that you google "read free manga online", you get a bucketload of bootleg sites and no legit sites, that probably has something to do with it as well.

Show me, aside from scanlations, a legitimate translated english version of Black Butler Chapter 50 that I can read online right now. I would like to support Yana Toboso, so please, provide me access to said legit version.

You really think the majority of the views on the bootleg manga sites are Black Butler? The bootleg manga sites know better:

The point is, people keep harping over "Oh, there are legitimate ways to get X product, go legit and don't Pirate!!!!" yet when caught in a way where it's technically impossible to accomplish said task, they resort to strawman fallacies a/or backtrack to a point where they try and make themselves look like the "good person" in the argument.

The reason why I chose Kuroshitsuji is because yes, it is impossible to find an online translation that isn't a fanscan. Hence the argument. People are telling ME to find legitimate ways to support the artists of the manga that I "pirate." I counter with "Okay, show me X manga thru Y format," because I'm sure as hell ain't gonna wait over 9000 years for Yen Press to pump out Black Butler 4 in the USA and I would gladly pay for a service that provides me Kuroshitsuji, translated officially into ENGLISH, that coincides with the release in Japan of each chapter (which, I believe, #51 would be released in November, if the scanlation site I found is right).

And what do I get? Well, let's not dwell into the name calling and flagrant baseless accusations......but I digress.

Simply put, yes, WE ALL UNDERSTAND there is a problem. However, we're so fractured in our own beliefs and morals, we conflict with each other and let our petty jealousies and actions come to the front. Thats the biggest problem right now.

Until we can actually come to an agreeable solution, we're still gonna be butting heads and calling each other unmentionable swear words in Mongolian.

I want a solution, and I have one, so where is the middle ground in all of this infighting?

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