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INTEREST: Manga Creator Criticizes Publishers' Attacks on Piracy Sites

First and foremost, torrent websites do not distribute illegal content, they only host a /torrent file where multiple users across the internet can share a digital file from their hard drives.

Eh for me, I always buy the original Shonen Jump and Magazine vols

Second, attacking piracy sites such as torrent sites is often a kneejerk reaction for the failure of the entertainment industry to take responsibility for their company to sell merchandise. Back before torrent websites even existed, the profits and sales of companies often rose and fell, according to the consumers and what they were purchasing. When file sharing came around, it gave content creators a big ugly stick to wag their fingers at and to blame others for the failure of their own companies to adapt and change.

Funimation and Crunchyroll (especially CR) are prime examples of how to do things. By offering so much content at a subscription rate, at nearly as close to air date as they can get and all in one place they have dealt a huge blow to English anime piracy and killed many fansub groups. The only shows that really get fansubs these days are ones not picked up, those picked up by places with a big release delay, netflix and ones with controversial sub option where people are not happy with the official ones.

Obviously, there are always going to be pirates who will never be satisfied, but there have been several examples where a change in service made a massive difference. Convincing the production committees to go along with simulcasting put a huge dent in fansubbing. A lot of the fansub groups voluntarily stopped because there was a legal alternative to what they were doing.

So, I've noticed a trend lately. Groups tend to avoid CR shows. I speak with reference to gg changing their entire plans, after CR's line-up was "leaked". I basically want to discuss why this phenomenon is occurring.

If we fansubbers really want to sub what we like, then external factors (other groups, CR, etc) surely should not influence what we choose to do.

However, I believe the inherent problem is not CR itself, but HorribleSubs and co. HS will rip CR and release it immediately after it streams, fact. There is absolutely no way in hell that any fansub group, no matter how fast, can beat this speed. Groups like gg release pretty fast, 6-12 hours after airing. For that speed, you would want to get a substantial amount of downloads. However, the majority of leechers will get the first thing out, no matter how bad it is. So, even though you release it in under 12 hours, you're only gonna get a couple of thousand downloads, as opposed to the 20k - 30k that you should have got. Which, let's face it, sucks. For that amount of effort to be fast, you're getting such measly download counts, it surely is not worth the effort. That's why I believe that groups avoid CR. Of course, one could argue that groups should do what they want, and don't care about download counts. But let's face it, if this is the case, then why would a group drop a perfectly fine and promising show like Hanasaku Iroha? You could argue, they are supporting CR, by not picking up their shows. But are they really? Leechers aren't gonna go and buy a CR subscription just because no groups do it, because they're off to download HorribleSubs!

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tl;dr
1. Fansubbers do care about download counts, and don't just do what they would like to.
2. HS is killing fansubbing.

2) Make a reasonable price - you would sell much more and make people more satisfied if you would charge 1-1.99$ per volume instead of 10$;

Also knowing how popular a series is on scanlations can help legitimate publisher's know what other markets are interested. Seven Seas does surveys asking what they should try and license, people wouldn't know what to suggest to them without Scanlations and pirates.

Yoshida thinks that websites that legally allow fans to read a variety of manga for a set price could provide an answer. He recognized that such sites do already exist, but he believes that the selection of titles offered on such sites remains too limited. He also thinks prices for access to digital manga should decrease.

dark_bozu wrote:

2) Make a reasonable price - you would sell much more and make people more satisfied if you would charge 1-1.99$ per volume instead of 10$;

I agree with HeeroTX that physical book prices and eBook/digital prices shouldn't be exactly equal, but is 80-90% of a book's value really derivable from the ink, paper, glue and shipping/warehouse costs? IIRC, niche industries like anime/manga have demonstrated relatively inelastic demand in the past, i.e. reductions in prices have not produced proportional increases in sales. Dropping prices that drastically feels more like the industry surrendering to pirates ("May as well salvage what we can before the ship goes down!") than competing to maintain the same levels of quality, quantity, and overall health they once enjoyed. Setting the digital prices as "same as paper books, minus printing/distribution costs" would strike me as more reasonable.

posted on 2018-02-11 10:00 EST
Subscription service for 720 yen/month allows readers to read manga in all 6 magazines