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Harmony between scanlators & publishers


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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 3:44 pm Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
If the translation is accurate and the relettering is well done, the source of the translation is of no consequence whatsoever. What is vitally important is that every bit of content on your site is there by the official approval of the rights holders. If any portion of your content is illegal you are simply another illegal aggregate site.


Nice! And yes, the platform will be 100% legal, the system itself will constrains the upload to licensed manga only.

Alan45 wrote:

In answer to your question of will I use your site, that simply can't be answered at this point. It comes down to a cost/benefit issue. How much are you charging and how much you have that I want to read that I can't legally get elsewhere. Since I expect you will not have all of the publishers on board immediately (if ever) that decision will change as your offerings expand.

One area where you have some built in support is series abandoned by prior licensees before completion. There are a number of such series I would be willing to pay to access legally. On the other hand if something is, or will be issued here in print form I have no interest in an electronic version. Others likely will differ on that.


Yes, I suppose this is understandable. By the way, is there any manga that you really want to read but have no legal way for it?
This question is for anyone who want to answer Smile

Alan45 wrote:

Where you will have an uphill battle is getting people to commit to unknown series. You will have to provide extended blurbs and a sample of the art work or will have to offer initial chapters for free. This is especially true if you are charging by the chapter or series. It is real easy to sample free stuff but less likely if you have to spend before you try. Ironically the more successful you are at getting series the harder it will be to make them stand out and be desirable.


I've thought about this too Wink You can access the first chaps of a manga for free, but if you want to continue reading it, you will have to buy the past ones too. This should ensure that publishers will be ok with it.

Alan45 wrote:

There is, honestly, currently more manga being published legally in English and in print form than anyone can keep up with. Believe me I've tried. Shocked In order to attract the paying crowd you will have to offer something they feel they must have and can't get otherwise.


If all will result as I've imagined it, then yes, I think I will give them a better experience than in any other site xD But I will surely focus on this point more!
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 6:54 pm Reply with quote
#857164 Wrote:
Quote:
By the way, is there any manga that you really want to read but have no legal way for it?


Oh Lord what a question. I don't read Japanese and I do not follow scanlations, As a consequence I can only refer to series previously partially released in English.

Off the top of my head: 3X3 Eyes, Ghost Hunt, Aria, Two Flowers for the Dragon, Initial D, V.B. Rose, Yubisaki Milk Tea, Mobile Police Patlabor, Ghost Talkers Daydream, Blood Alone ...

I'm not good at keeping records and I find my manga spreadsheet is about a year out of date. However of the 760 + series I have bought through last June, (over 4200 volumes) about 140 are marked as abandoned by the US publisher. To give a definitive list I would have to dig out all of those from storage and review them to see if I still care. However before I do that your site needs to be more than wishful thinking.

I wish you luck and I will be interested in hearing when you have one or more Japanese publishers firmly committed.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 10:08 pm Reply with quote
st_owly wrote:
Unless you're going to offer an unlimited access for lots of series subscription I'm not interested. I read scans as a way to either fill the gap between something getting legally released in paper form, or for things which don't stand a hope in hell of being legally released. If I'm going to have to spend >£5 per volume on a digital copy, I will just wait for the paper version.


That's what amazon has for kindle. They sell manga for 5 dollars a volume, which is better than paying 11 dollar for something I might not like (didn't like You Lie in April and Monster Musume, paid a ton of money for both).
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#857821



Joined: 09 Jun 2016
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 2:40 am Reply with quote
Quote:
but the user will pay a small amount to buy each chap


Sorry, but as long as you can get manga for free, unless you offer some HQ scans with the translations being on point, I don't see this thriving at all. There are way too many established websites that offer manga for free, and every time one gets licensed or removed from the site, a new websites pops up. I honestly don't see the point in wasting your time with this if your main selling point is the manga being legal.
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:19 am Reply with quote
@#857821

It is a matter of ethics. The so called "free" websites are making money from someone else's work without permission. If that doesn't bother you, especially when there is a legal option available, then no you probably don't see the point.

The question of the profitability of the plan is unrelated to the desirability of having a legal option.
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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 2:54 pm Reply with quote
#857821 wrote:
Quote:
but the user will pay a small amount to buy each chap


Sorry, but as long as you can get manga for free, unless you offer some HQ scans with the translations being on point, I don't see this thriving at all. There are way too many established websites that offer manga for free, and every time one gets licensed or removed from the site, a new websites pops up. I honestly don't see the point in wasting your time with this if your main selling point is the manga being legal.


Alan45 wrote:

It is a matter of ethics. The so called "free" websites are making money from someone else's work without permission. If that doesn't bother you, especially when there is a legal option available, then no you probably don't see the point.

The question of the profitability of the plan is unrelated to the desirability of having a legal option.


Really not much to add xD But yes, I know this isn't a project everyone will like. This is a project for people who actually care for the manga Smile And the best ones are the actual scanlators! Many aggregators just do it for money, but scanlators do it for passion alone!

I understand that passion because it's my own passion and is worth to risk everything I've built until now to make it real.


Last edited by #857164 on Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zalis116
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:09 pm Reply with quote
#857164 wrote:
Please note I'm not the first one to think this, we can take Steam as a wonderful example: 5 Piracy-Fighting Lessons From Steam for All Content Creators.
It has done the same thing in the Videogames industry and has done it damn well too!
I see a lot of people hold up the Steam model as the be-all end-all for digital anime and manga distribution, but they don't account for one key fact. With Western content like Steam games and iTunes-style music/TV downloads, consumers get essentially the same thing as they would when pirating, so it's feasible to use that article's solutions like making the legal acquisition process marginally easier than pirating. But with anime/manga, the pirates are always going to find some quibbles with font choices, subtitle colors, sign typesetting, translation/localization decisions, or a host of other factors (including the mere fact that someone's being paid to translate instead of doing it as a labor of love), and use those as an excuse to move the goalposts and continue pirating. Not to mention, there's a pervasive attitude of unwarranted licensee resentment and "sticking it to the man" -- pirates feel that Japan doesn't care about them enough and that overseas sales are superfluous "gravy" to Japanese companies, so they feel that pirating only damages reviled "middlemen" like Seven Seas, CrunchyRoll, Funimation, Yen Press, etc., instead of Japanese companies and creators. A new digital manga subscription/download service isn't going to change those attitudes.


Last edited by Zalis116 on Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 3:22 pm Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
I see a lot of people hold up the Steam model as the be-all end-all for digital anime and manga distribution, but they don't account for one key fact. With Western content like Steam games and iTunes-style music/TV downloads, consumers get essentially the same thing as they would when pirating, so it's feasible to use that article's solutions like making the legal acquisition process marginally easier than pirating. But with anime/manga, the pirates are always going to find some quibbles with font choices, subtitle colors, sign typesetting, translation/localization decisions, or a host of other factors (including the mere fact that someone's being paid to translate instead of doing it as a labor of love), and use those as an excuse to move the goalposts and continue pirating.


If we consider that more than 1 group can translate the same manga and that the final results will still be the labor of love, I think those points will be rendered futile, won't it?

Zalis116 wrote:
Not to mention, there's a pervasive attitude of unwarranted licensee resentment and "sticking it to the man" -- pirates feel that Japan doesn't care about them enough and that overseas sales are superfluous "gravy" to Japanese companies, so they feel that pirating only damages reviled "middlemen" like Seven Seas, Funimation, Yen Press, etc., instead of Japanese companies and creators. A new digital manga subscription/download service isn't going to change those attitudes.


I think Japan overlooked western countries because of the horrible job done by the first manga translators. They were too much westernized and censored. Japanese people really didn't like this and labeled western market as too immature for manga. However, thanks to Scanlation, they now know there is a big pool of fans who love manga and can understand their culture, partially at least. A proof of this changing trend is the institution of Kodansha USA Publishing and we could also speculate that highlight the fact they haven't found a good partner yet.
The fight to piracy is also exacerbating and many aggregators have been closed thanks to it.

So, time change everything and I think this is the right time to unite publishers and scangroups Smile After all the main aim is roughly the same: let the manga thrive!
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st_owly



Joined: 20 May 2008
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Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:45 am Reply with quote
#857164 wrote:
st_owly wrote:
Unless you're going to offer an unlimited access for lots of series subscription I'm not interested. I read scans as a way to either fill the gap between something getting legally released in paper form, or for things which don't stand a hope in hell of being legally released. If I'm going to have to spend >£5 per volume on a digital copy, I will just wait for the paper version.


I can understand the preference for paper, but will you wait even more than a year for it? Anime hyper The main point of this project is to stay up to date with Japanese releases, that's why the format is chap instead of volume. This means you will spend just 2€/month to follow a weekly manga. Is it really that much?
The platform would have many manga that will not be released to the international audience otherwise, that's another strong point Smile


Yes, yes I will. As Alan has said, there is more manga being released in print than people can keep up with, that includes me. I'm not that bothered about reading the latest cool thing all the kids are banging on about. If you're wanting to do a Shonen Jump style keeping up with Japan thing, if it's not a pay x much per month for unlimited reading, I'm not interested. I'm not going to pay per chapter and risk not liking something/if I do like it, then having to pay more per volume by buying each chapter individually than just waiting *shrugs*
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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:13 pm Reply with quote
st_owly wrote:

Yes, yes I will. As Alan has said, there is more manga being released in print than people can keep up with, that includes me. I'm not that bothered about reading the latest cool thing all the kids are banging on about. If you're wanting to do a Shonen Jump style keeping up with Japan thing, if it's not a pay x much per month for unlimited reading, I'm not interested. I'm not going to pay per chapter and risk not liking something/if I do like it, then having to pay more per volume by buying each chapter individually than just waiting *shrugs*


Well, you have much more to risk buying an entire volume than a chap xD You are ok buying a paper version for 5~7€, but don't want to buy a digital chap for 0.5€ because of "the risk"? Anime hyper If you read the previous posts, you will know I already addressed that problem and the platform will give free access to the first couple of chaps.
That's said, I'm not totally against the monthly subscription thing, but it has its technical problems.
The most crucial aspect is that unlimited access means you could download the entire archive without much efforts and that will be the paradise of pirates.

May I ask you how many manga you follow regularly?
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:39 pm Reply with quote
A couple of notes on your payment scheme. Payment by chapter is apt to be problematical for me. To begin with I'm not about to just give you a credit card number and let you pepper it with .5 € ($0.56 US) charges. That would be an accounting nightmare and practically invites error or abuse. I would prefer a system where I could pay a lump sum in advance (likely by PayPal) and renew it as it is paid down. Secondly, I tend to be a binge reader. I would likely be downloading and reading the equivalent of one to four volumes at a time. Keeping up on a weekly basis is not an issue for me. Thirdly chapters are not all equal. I just checked and while individual manga volumes are fairly consistently at 180 to 190 pages each, the chapter count ranged from a low of 4 to a high of 10 per a single volume, and that was just a random sample.

You will probably want to consider a bonus system for regular users. I get a consistent 30% discount off MSRP from the store where I order because of the size of my orders.

How many titles am I following? I realize you asked st_owly but it is an interesting question. Actually it is a hard question to answer as I don't keep track that way. I checked and in the six monthly orders I made this year, I ordered a low of 31 titles and a high of 40. Of course, US publisher seldom issue on a monthly basis. Checking my lists against each other I came up with an estimate of 110 titles. Since a few of those are either final volumes or one shots, I expect 100 titles +/-.
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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:22 pm Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
A couple of notes on your payment scheme. Payment by chapter is apt to be problematical for me. To begin with I'm not about to just give you a credit card number and let you pepper it with .5 € ($0.56 US) charges. That would be an accounting nightmare and practically invites error or abuse. I would prefer a system where I could pay a lump sum in advance (likely by PayPal) and renew it as it is paid down.


Sorry if I have explained it wrong, but yes, in the actual system you will buy credits upfront through PayPal/Braintree/Stripe (still have to decide the exact technology) and then you will spent this credits to "buy" the chaps. I'm trying to streamline the buying system as much as I can. For example, lets say you are reading the chap 100 and the last available is the 110. You don't own the 101 yet. When you finish reading chap 100 and try to go to the next one, a popup will come up asking you if you want to buy it or not, a simple "yes/no" dialog. More importantly, there will be a check to always perform this action for this manga, so the next time you will automatically buy it and just read it!
I will also try to implement an "auto-refill" system, so that when you reach 0 credits, it magically refill by a fixed amount of your choice. However the autorefill is technically tricky, we'll see.

Talking about this, is there something annoying for you when you have to buy or read manga? Something you feel like "oh, man, there should be a better way..."?

Alan45 wrote:

Secondly, I tend to be a binge reader. I would likely be downloading and reading the equivalent of one to four volumes at a time. Keeping up on a weekly basis is not an issue for me.

I'm already considering a bulk buy and download thing, but what kind of feature would you like? Smile

Alan45 wrote:
Thirdly chapters are not all equal. I just checked and while individual manga volumes are fairly consistently at 180 to 190 pages each, the chapter count ranged from a low of 4 to a high of 10 per a single volume, and that was just a random sample.

Uhm, maybe the volumes with 4 chaps are from a monthly serialized manga?

Alan45 wrote:

You will probably want to consider a bonus system for regular users. I get a consistent 30% discount off MSRP from the store where I order because of the size of my orders.

That's legit! I like to reward loyal users and probably will implement something like it Smile

Alan45 wrote:

How many titles am I following? I realize you asked st_owly but it is an interesting question. Actually it is a hard question to answer as I don't keep track that way. I checked and in the six monthly orders I made this year, I ordered a low of 31 titles and a high of 40. Of course, US publisher seldom issue on a monthly basis. Checking my lists against each other I came up with an estimate of 110 titles. Since a few of those are either final volumes or one shots, I expect 100 titles +/-.

Yes, all my questions are for the community, more info I have and better will be the final product xD Everyone, feel free to answer, ask and propose!

That's said, I have to admit that much, much more I'm projecting to xD But please, don't get offended if I say this should be waaaaay more than the average xD I will love to have many users like you though xD
I usually follow 2 to 4 manga simultaneously but recently dropped to 1 because of work + this project :'(
Now I'm really curious to see what others will say Razz
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Another question for everyone. I like the credits system more than the unlimited access because in this way I can feel I own it. I've experimented it myself, but when I have access to a myriad of contents, manga in this case, I grow bored really fast, I'm not as engaged as when I buy it.
I'm the only one who feel like that? Anime hyper
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 8:25 pm Reply with quote
#857164 wrote:
Quote:
I'm already considering a bulk buy and download thing, but what kind of feature would you like?


The obvious thing would be a bundle based on the printed volume as published in Japan. In order to compete with the printed version here you would have to include all the author's sidebars and the extra material at the end of the volume. There is also corrected artwork for the printed version. Actually I would recommend limiting the per chapter pricing to chapters issued since the last volume was issued and sell whole volumes for anything collected.

Quote:
Uhm, maybe the volumes with 4 chaps are from a monthly serialized manga?


That was my thought. However, I don't have any information as to what magazines are published weekly monthly or what ever. On second look, most of the titles in my ready reference area are 4 or 5 chapters per volume. The two Jump titles I'm following are 9 and 10 chapters. Surprisingly straight comedy seems to run to more chapters per volume or less pages.

Quote:
is there something annoying for you when you have to buy or read manga?


For printed manga, no except the tendency to cancel titles. I used to have a problem with the lack of access to the source material when the manga was adapted from a novel, but Yen Press seems to be fixing that.

I have very little exposure to electronic media, mostly by choice. I bought one series from Go Manga! (KOR) and I have access to Crunchyroll's read only collection. If I'm spending money for a specific title I want to be able to keep it, back it up and be able to continue reading even if you are no longer around. For reading on screen, Crunchyroll's format is superior. It automatically can be adjusted to screen height. It also shows a two page spread at one time. This is important as some panels do cover the full width of a two page spread.

Crunchyroll for some reason started some series in the middle or added current chapters as they slowly added the earlier volumes. That was useless for me as I will not start a series anywhere but the beginning. While I wouldn't have a problem picking up the abandoned titles I mentioned from the last printed volume you will need to start those from the beginning for people new to them. The printed copies are long out of stock.

I went and counted my ready reference shelves. Ignoring series I know are complete and just waiting to be read, I counted 115 series. A few of those are likely complete. For obvious reasons I'm not up to date in my reading. Four to six volumes would be a good afternoon's reading. I'm not sure what I would do the rest of the month if that was all I was following. Wink

On page two of this forum, there is a thread titled "Manga space issues! Aaaaah!" You can see my shelves on page 1 of that thread if you scroll down a bit.
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#857164



Joined: 22 May 2016
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:57 am Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:

The obvious thing would be a bundle based on the printed volume as published in Japan. In order to compete with the printed version here you would have to include all the author's sidebars and the extra material at the end of the volume. There is also corrected artwork for the printed version. Actually I would recommend limiting the per chapter pricing to chapters issued since the last volume was issued and sell whole volumes for anything collected.

Uhm, I think I could give a little discount if you buy an entire volue, eg: if you buy all single chaps is 5€, but if you buy the entire volume is 4.5€... Something like that.
Even better, would be nice to give a free chap every time you complete an entire volume xD I'll think on how to implement this xD
And yes, scanlator usually translate everything ^^ I think the updated artwork is also easier to have, all is needed is that publishers upload the updated version and it will propagate nicely :3

Alan45 wrote:

That was my thought. However, I don't have any information as to what magazines are published weekly monthly or what ever. On second look, most of the titles in my ready reference area are 4 or 5 chapters per volume. The two Jump titles I'm following are 9 and 10 chapters. Surprisingly straight comedy seems to run to more chapters per volume or less pages.

I checked this and yes, manga issues monthly have only 4~5 chaps per volume. Therefore I will fix the price to 1€/chap

Alan45 wrote:

For printed manga, no except the tendency to cancel titles. I used to have a problem with the lack of access to the source material when the manga was adapted from a novel, but Yen Press seems to be fixing that.

Sorry, what do you mean with source material?

Alan45 wrote:

I have very little exposure to electronic media, mostly by choice. I bought one series from Go Manga! (KOR) and I have access to Crunchyroll's read only collection. If I'm spending money for a specific title I want to be able to keep it, back it up and be able to continue reading even if you are no longer around.

That's exactly my line, total understanding! xD

Alan45 wrote:

For reading on screen, Crunchyroll's format is superior. It automatically can be adjusted to screen height. It also shows a two page spread at one time. This is important as some panels do cover the full width of a two page spread.

Yes, this is done already, but personally I don't like the ability to see 2 pages. Scanlators merge the two-page spread panel in a single, nice image, so the problem is already solved xD

Alan45 wrote:

Crunchyroll for some reason started some series in the middle or added current chapters as they slowly added the earlier volumes. That was useless for me as I will not start a series anywhere but the beginning. While I wouldn't have a problem picking up the abandoned titles I mentioned from the last printed volume you will need to start those from the beginning for people new to them. The printed copies are long out of stock.

I think that is due to licenses problems. At the moment I can't really guarantee it would be different on the platform, but I'll wrestle hard to have each manga in its entirety.

Alan45 wrote:

I went and counted my ready reference shelves. Ignoring series I know are complete and just waiting to be read, I counted 115 series. A few of those are likely complete. For obvious reasons I'm not up to date in my reading. Four to six volumes would be a good afternoon's reading. I'm not sure what I would do the rest of the month if that was all I was following. Wink

On page two of this forum, there is a thread titled "Manga space issues! Aaaaah!" You can see my shelves on page 1 of that thread if you scroll down a bit.

I'll check this xD
...
That truly is a terrific collection! :O Congratulation! :O
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 8:34 am Reply with quote
#857164 wrote:
Quote:
Sorry, what do you mean with source material?


There are a lot of so called "Light Novels" that have either manga or anime or both adapted from them. Spice & Wolf would be a good example. If I find I like the anime or manga adaptation I want to go back and read the original. Previously it was frustrating that I couldn't do that. Now Yen Press is at least bring over some of the most popular which helps.

A lot of light novels are apparently getting fan translations. This might be an additional area for you since it likely involves the same Japanese publishers.
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