Forum - View topicINTEREST: Manga Publishers Team Up for 'Stop! Piracy Edition' Info Campaign
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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Sure, scanlations offer translations of series that may not be legally available locally, but with the advent of internet shopping and Amazon which pretty much ships books anywhere, I would think that it's a viable option to read scanlations for the translations while also buying the Japanese release of the chapters you read to pay the creators for their work. I don't think it has to be a one or the other type of situation where you either only buy what's available or only read scanlations.
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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Well, this is what i should call "piracy" is one of the most Japan's biggest issues they face. Prehaps Japan is already tie to embrace its digital manga in recent years.
On an articles of the Japan Times stated about the Digital manga being an piracy issues: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/05/27/general/will-digital-piracy-ruin-future-manga/ What does hold these piracy for the digital manga is unsure. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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Disclaimer: I don't read scanlations and I buy most everything that I read. That said... I'm not sure if you're aware of how much shipping & handling costs. I used to buy a ton of manga from Amazon.co.jp back in the day, but then they got rid of the cheaper shipping options, and now if I wanted to buy a volume of anything I'd have to pay almost three times its price to get it to where I am. (Of course there are still places that offer cheaper shipping, but that takes months to ship. I may not be even interested in the series by the time the books get here!) Same with music, Japanese companies whine about piracy and discourage digital (because it surely leads to piracy!!!) and encourage people to continue buying physical, with perks, extras, etc. that come only with physical releases, and very often delaying the digital release of songs and albums. But if you want to ship anything to outside Japan you're paying through the nose. Not long ago there was a song I really liked, and the physical CD single came with a booklet with a (very) short story that I'd wanted. so I went to Amazon to order it... except the CD itself was 1500 yen, and with shipping & handling included I would have had to pay over 3500 yen. For one(!) song and a 500-character story. So yeah, that's not going to happen. Nowadays I buy all my manga digitally (and rip them for archiving purposes becuase these damn things cost as much as the physical volumes but are DRM'd to hell and back, I'm not risking losing everything in case the store goes down). There are only two places where I can buy Japanese manga/ebooks while not being in Japan and not having a card issued in Japan. Those places also don't offer packages/bundles/etc. so assuming you're following 10 manga series, and they're not all in the same magazine, you have to buy every release of those magazines at full price, just to be able to read the most recent chapters of one or two series. ...so yeah, that's not going to happen, and it's not just me who thinks that, it's also Japan's manga-reading population, which one of the reasons why magazine readership is shrinking. All that money adds up. Not incidentally, I think the main reason behind this recent "omg no piracy" campaign is the falling readership of manga magazines (so not "manga" in general) which publishers try to blame on pirates, but I think it's getting very obvious that 1. the market is over-saturated and there's just way too many magazines people are expected to buy and again, all that money adds up; 2. publishers are still struggling to embrace digital and find ways to get their content out in ways that people want, instead they try to replicate the same business schemes they already use with physical and surprise, it's not working; 3. especially as still relatively few people are even aware of digital being a valid, viable option of consuming manga because publishers haven't exactly been advertising it so far. So basically I think the problem is three-fold: 1. manga publishers are woefully behind times and are just now realizing that physical is on the way out, and the old ways of publishing are not sustainable anymore; 2. also, publishers continue to wear blindfolds and don't try to understand how people prefer to consume digital media, instead they fumble around with stupid ideas that don't work; 3. region locking prevents people outside Japan from accessing a whole lot of stuff digitally, that's unreasonably expensive/excruciatingly slow to buy physically. (Also: not everyone is a collector. I don't have the space to buy physical copies of all the manga I read.) And this is important because while the "omg no piracy" campaign focuses on the domestic market, I'd bet actual money that most people using the pirate sites are not, in fact, Japanese. |
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crosswithyou
Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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I just checked Amazon and for books, to the U.S. it's 600 yen per shipment + 350 yen/item. If you buy three volumes, that's 1650 yen in shipping, and say at 600 yen a book, the total would be 3450 yen. It's what, at least $10 for one volume of manga in English? It would seem the costs kinda even out, and perhaps even cost less if you buy in bulk... If you have a Kinokuniya or some other store that carries manga in Japanese nearby then you have even easier access. I obviously haven't been to a Kino in the States in years, but I remember the last time I bought manga there, it was about $8-12 a volume, so it would actually be more expensive than buying off Amazon (assuming you buy at least three books from Amazon). Personally I would just wait for the tankoubon release rather than buying the magazine every week/month... As far as music goes, shipping at places like CD Japan are probably cheaper than Amazon since they charge by weight. For digital, iTunes' library is pretty vast, and they even sometimes get to release songs before the physical release. In the end it's still a very complicated situation with no easy solution though. |
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Chrono1000
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I would say that the biggest issue with manga is that while translated anime can be legally watched on the same day as the Japanese release that on average most translated manga is 2 to 3 years behind the Japanese release. That is a huge time gap especially when many manga forums are discussing what is happening in the latest chapters. A lot of the English manga industry is stuck in the 20th century and needs to embrace the digital market with something closer to a simulcast release schedule. I think that would be one of the best ways to reduce piracy.
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I'm not in the US though - I'm in Central Europe so for me it's 1100 yen per shipment and 350 yen per item. This is the breakdown for one volume (for volume 6 of the excellent Nodoka no niwa): manga - 429 yen, shipping & handling 1450 yen, taxes = 75 yen. I'd be paying over three times the price of the actual volume for shipping and handling. And sure, buying in bulk is possible, but then again - I want to read it as soon as possible. And I'm not going to pretend it's the '90s when the only way to read the manga I wanted to read was buying the physical releases.
I don't, actually. But that aside, it's what I was talking about in my previous post - Kinokuniya or Amazon, I don't want to buy physical manga. I don't have the space to put it all. If I wanted to get rid of them I'd have no way to, because with them being in Japanese no used book store would take them in. Selling on ebay is more hassle than it's worth (and again, they're in Japanese which limits both the potential buyers and the price). I buy manga digitally, and I want them to be available in more convenient ways than they currently are.
That's exactly what I'm doing. And if I'm very interested in reading a twist or something I'll sometimes pirate the mag. And it's not just me, this is what so many Japanese people are also doing: tachiyomi, cafés/etc, or just simply not reading the individual chapters and getting the tankoubon. Fewer and fewer people are buying magazines because unless you're genuinely interested in most of the series they're running it's just burning money. (In case of tankoubons, it's mostly the same, with more and more people simply not buying stuff unless they're very interested in it, otherwise just reading it in a store or a café, or renting it or buying it used. I've seen a lot more mangaka speaking out about people buying their manga used, than about piracy. When it comes to piracy they're usually like sure, it's bad, of course. But buying manga used hits a lot closer to home for almost all mangaka who I've seen talking about this.)
Again - I don't want to buy CDs. I bought loads of CDs from CDJapan when that was the only way, but now it's not. I'm not going to pay all that much and wait all that time for my shipment to arrive, only to take a look at the booklets, then rip the CDs to my digital library, put them on my shelf, and never look at them ever again. And when I buy my next laptop later this year I most likely won't have a device that plays CDs anymore. It's the 21st damn century, why the hell is Japan refusing to accept it. Also I'm not in the Apple ecosystem, I don't use iTunes. But even if I wanted to (and believe me I went through a phase) it's not as simple as just buying stuff on iTunes when you're not in Japan. You can't. You're region locked out of it. You have to jump through hoops and do magic tricks with gift cards and multiple accounts to be able to buy most of the music I want, and there comes a point where I refuse to twist myself into a pretzel and jump through any more hoops just to be able to buy something that Japan is very adamant on not selling to me. I know of exactly one (1) online store where I can buy digital music with my non-Japanese card in my non-Japanese region (OTOTOY), and even there I was region locked out of being able to buy at least two labels' releases just a month or so ago. Why? Hell if I know. I can still VPN my way in but it's getting more and more of a bother, never mind the privacy issues. Also, when I buy digital I want to buy the whole stuff and not just part of it. In my case, I follow some 2D idol groups. Physical releases often have added drama tracks - those are never, ever available to purchase digitally, for reasons unknown. Not on OTOTOY, not elsewhere. In short, the situation is ridiculous. And there tends to come a point where I just say hey, look, I wanted to give you my money but if you don't want it, I have other ways.
Indeed it is, but it would certainly help lots if Japanese companies weren't so damn myopic and regressive. |
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reanimator
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@Stuart Smith You're so right about this. It seems like on people who posted their outrage didn't bother to check the full context of the article. 
The campaign is for Japanese domestic market only and Japanese publishers are already doing digital distribution of vast majority of their catalog on various platforms in Japan. It's like none of these "outraged" people don't even know that Japanese people are already reading most of their favorite manga on digital format legally. Oh, I just read the latest chapter of "Flying Witch" in digital from Japanese publisher's site. |
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SWAnimefan
Posts: 634 |
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If you want to compete in a global market, you have to adapt to function in that new environment. And there is no need to pay for third parties or licensors when your content is digital. Manga or Anime. Piracy deals in English-speaking areas? I have to go back to read it, but I'm sure I didn't see it specify "English-speaking areas", just it pointing out specific websites that may have happened to have been hosted in an English-speaking location. |
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ARC-1300
 Posts: 360 |
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i think that you are over simplifying it. first off not only does the author need to get paid,but so does the publishing company,and not only that,now we move into the English side of things. you now need to pay the company that is publishing it in English,or whatever language. than the translators ,type setters,and im sure im missing a lot more than that. the retail chain for carrying it on their shelves yadda yadda yadda |
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