Forum - View topicHow Does Piracy Affect Korean Webtoon Artists?
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zrdb
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I can't really comment on korean bl shit because I don't read it but to make a comment on "piracy" in general-the recent purchase of crunchyroll by sony is going to increase anime piracy because it'll make the uploaders work easier by them only needing to go to one place instead of many.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16939 |
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Did you seriously try to compare food and water and manga/webtoons in terms of being a necessity vs a luxury item? That level of ignorance is astounding.
The level of disingenuous and bad faith arguing you have displayed with your post is amazing. First you want to compare food and water to manga in terms of being a luxury item, and now you want to claim they're saying being poor is a crime. Nowhere in the article was it said that being poor is a crime. Illegally downloading manga or webtoons however is a crime. The morality debate on piracy doesn't change that actual fact. I suggest moving forward you cease with this sort of disingenuous posting here. |
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JR-1
Posts: 70 Location: Southeast Asia |
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I honestly find it kinda weird that the arguments are still decades old "piracy is a crime" for those against piracy and "be smarter in the free market" for the pro piracy when the cultural climate in recent years has shifted the idea of crime may be a necessity and laws are made by people who don't necessarily have public interest in mind (case in point: piracy of scientific journals which isn't morally wrong in a lot of cases), and that the free market isn't actually free where some people have more privileges than another (for example, an artist from Vietnam who is not fluent in english got their artwork pirated and monetized by profiteers from the US has much more limited options and social capital to rectify it compared to an US artist)
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Juno016
 Posts: 2394 |
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I guess one thing a lot of people on eiher side overlook is how piracy, view, and sales numbers generally correlate. For those on the "piracy is harmful" side, I often see a lot of artists upset to see the number of pirated views of their work increase while their legal and paid views stay the same, but they don't usually consider that many of these views do not represent lost sales--only more readers. Meanwhile, a lot of people on the "piracy isn't responsible for your financial failure" side recognize that pirated views of a work do not translate 1:1 to lost sales of a work, but fail to recognize that SOME of these views ARE lost sales--those who would purchase a work if they weren't able to pirate.
The key to a good market is to maximize the recovery of lost sales and that's it, hence why most legal platforms absolutely hate piracy. No piracy, no lost sales. Exposure may increase sales on a few lucky works, but the vast majority don't see much of a difference anyway. For those who see piracy as inevitable, you might not realize that as technology and the internet is put into fewer and fewer corporate hands with more and more connection to these markets affected by piracy, the ability to recognize and control traffic to piracy sites is increasing. Even if they can't stop new ones from popping up, they can still restrict your ability to find them through services like Google, significantly cutting traffic. ISPs also have more control over torrents. This seems to be an active goal, though it affects different markets differently. That said, corporate regulation on the internet is almost always morally questionable and I don't think leaving morality to a profit motive is ever a good idea. It's one thing to pay artists who make creative works by going to legal sites, but the companies providing services often have ulterior motives that can compromise both their audience and the ones whose work made the service as big as it was in the first place. I'm against piracy as a personal choice whenever possible, but I don't quite trust these sites known for doing their creators dirty either. I'd rather we have a good system that provides exposure for many while only taking what is needed to keep the service generally working and growing for the needs of the creators, leaving the rest to the creators doing most of the hard labor that the audience is there for. |
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DavetheUsher
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If it's something that's infamously bad and people want to watch or read it for the sake of seeing how bad it is I doubt they'd never have bought it. Or if they're boycotting a company or creator for personal reasons. Otherwise, I'd say most people do it because they think why pay when there's a free alternative, especially in the digital age. Buying physical books and DVDs is one thing since you get an actual product, but for some people it'd hard to justify paying for some digital jpgs you don't own. But physical is not an option a lot of the time in the west since a lot of stuff is digital only these days. So it's a cycle. The main issue is you can't really stop piracy, so it's one of those never-ended wars. Everytime a site gets taken down three more pop up to take its place so we'll likely never seen an end to the argument. |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 364 |
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Not very likely. Betting on what would basically be a charity organization for artists isn't likely to entice anyone to actually be a provider (it takes work to get this stuff out there and attract audiences). Not to be sarcastic, but you first. Stick with the free market. If the creators have various options in how they monetize their work and get it to audiences, the providers will be forced to compete to attract the creators. No system will ever be as perfect as you are suggesting. However, I think that creators need to stop being told that all of the profits are being whisked away by internet pirates. I'm not defending piracy, btw. I just think it is a very misguided topic every time I see it. Although as I thought about this article some more, I really wonder how the genre may skew this discussion. I don't read BL, but are the creators on Webtoons crying about the thousands they are losing? I'm reading some of the comments and it seems this particular provider is just really bad. Then again, maybe the BL audience just isn't interested in paying for this stuff like people will pay for other genres. I admit to not having a working theory if its at all relevant. |
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asie
Posts: 12 |
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To be fair, I don't think creators live in a magical bubble where nobody ever pirates anything. I just think some of them just don't want their stuff to be read by people who haven't paid for the privilege - and don't necessarily believe that this will magically make them an order of magnitude more profitable. I've seen a case where a doujinshi creator posted fan-translated versions of their otherwise paid comics for free online, so long as they cleared it with him, with multiple languages available in this manner. Noticeably absent: the English fan translation, which I have clearly seen the existence of with my very own eyes. This insistence on "asking forgiveness over permission" must stop, especially with smaller and/or independent creators where they're not necessarily contractually bound to give every decision up to The Corporation. Not to mention, piracy prevents creators from competing on quality of service - it acts as a great equalizer, where the greediest corporations' works (who may have more money to spend) are available on equal terms and prices to smaller platforms (who may have less money to spend, but offer a friendlier service in return). |
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Fenrin
 Posts: 696 Location: SoCal |
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I also suspect that this has something to do with Lezhin's unfriendly revenue model. I primarily use Tapas and have never had to pay a cent for ink, due to their many ways to earn free ink and them constantly giving out free episodes. I haven't heard any complaints from the Tapas authors either. Although, many of them seem to be treating this as a side job or passion project rather than their main source of income, which does change things.
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roxybudgy
Posts: 129 Location: Western Australia |
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People whining about pricing, quality of the work, the distribution companies, disputing lost sales... are all missing the point: the creators don't want people to consume their work if they are not going offer any tangible support.
Can't afford to pay? Don't want to support the business practices of the distributor? Don't like the work enough pay? Don't like the font choice? Then don't consume the work. You are not entitled to it. Yes, I pirate because I can. I used to translate for a scanlation group, and worked on an unofficial English patch of an eroge. I'm not going to tell you to stop pirating, but at the very least own up to the fact that there's no justification for it, and you are just doing it because there's no immediate consequences to you for doing so, just like everyone else who pirates. When a certain popular anime ripping website closed down, I bought a year's subscription to AnimeLab (not happy about the 'merger' with Funimation). Not everything I wanted to watch from the latest seasons were available on AnimeLab, so I just went without. I have a Steam library of games that I can spend time on instead. |
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ErikaD.D
Posts: 659 |
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Now I somehow feel regret for posting it. I didn't even feel I'm disingenous. I'm apologize. |
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ZiharkXVI
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Whitestrider
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Even I who can afford to pay sometimes think that some prices are "too damn high".... |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16939 |
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I always have to shake my head when people say this now a days. Anime has never honestly been cheaper to own or watch en masse then it is now. We have streaming sites where around a decade ago we did not. You can subscribe to 2 of them (though perhaps now 1 with Funi and CR merging) with Funi and CR and see roughly 75% of all new series each season. Perhaps a bit percentage wise. Netflix and Sentai don't get that many overall. Plus physical media has never been cheaper (excluding Ponycan and Aniplex). Especially if you can waaait just 6-12 months for a title when it inevitably will go on sale during the holidays at websites after it's released. I find most people complaining about prices now never went through the vhs and dvd single days, or import/buy Japanese releases. The obvious caveat to my opinion is that it's based on being a NA consumer, primarily American. |
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Whitestrider
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I'm not talking about anime (streaming) , I'm talking about manga primarily, paying up to $15 for a single volume sometimes is too much. Not all manga are worth that price, or rather very few are worth that price. Of course I buy them, mostly to support the author, but I think price could be a bit lower, especially for digital releases. |
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gRmLn
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No need for numbers. Let us assume in this instance, that ALL pirate views are from Pirate Boogeymen, every single one representing a lost sale. In this case, more popular works will proportionately take higher losses due to piracy. Yet despite this assumption there are plenty of creators who still maintain profitability. The key question is: How can these creators still thrive despite taking vastly higher (assumed) losses than lesser known creators? Hardly anyone starts out well-known, everyone has the same starting point. The logical conclusion is that fewer instances of piracy does not lead to greater profit. Any evidence available actually correlates higher piracy with higher profits. In other words, you cannot attribute a lack of success to piracy since piracy, aka cultural sharing, is omnipresent and doesn't discriminate. Even without cultural sharing (piracy) the audience for a niche genre (like Korean BL webtoons) doesn't magically become larger. If anything its growth would be even more limited, unless we believe Lezhin's promotional advertising can accomplish miracles.
Good luck trying to unionize freelance translators. Crunchyroll apparently pays translators about $80 per episode whereas industry standards usually hover around $400 per episode (broad average). Leading to a sad reality where paying for a service like Crunchyroll may be actively harming the industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5TYE38VvqM Such examples of exploitation is by no means exclusive to CR. You can't always unionize your way to sustainability, but in this instance you can vote with your wallet. The high seas also offer a far better experience and much greater selection. 
This is a very strange notion. I don't think even the most prolific pirates would get upset because everything isn't handed to them for free. On the other hand, there are some creators who believe they are entitled to having their work accessed only through channels they approve, and that sharing should never happen unless they allow it. In other words, they believe they are entitled to a certain courtesy, that they deserve to be exempted from the world's rudeness. Sad to say, no human has ever enjoyed such a privilege. Sharing cannot be stopped, it is human nature. To expect humans to fundamentally change for your convenience, is this not a form of entitlement?
Not only that, for some people in regards to certain things it seems the concept of a "good deal" all of a sudden just doesn't apply anymore. "Oh here's a service that has what you want, just pay the asking price and be happy!". How many pirate sites have a better web player and wider selection than CR and Funi? Paid services have no excuse for not being superior or at least on par with services that are free, yet we live in a reality where some things are just backwards and people are expected to just take it and be happy they get anything at all. Piracy is definitely a service problem, especially when you're expected to pay a higher price for an inferior service. |
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