Forum - View topic

How Does Piracy Affect Korean Webtoon Artists?

The fact is people assume the creators lose money from piracy. That is not necessarily true at all. If the free webtoon is taken away there is ZERO proof the pirates would shrug and go, "Welp, guess I need to get that cash out." That's not the way the market for entertainment works. What ends up happening is that media just isn't used and it remains obscure. The creator still loses. Only if the entertainment us effective do people go out and purchase it. If the media is entertaining, the demand gives it worth. People will pay for it. I like the webtoons model for example. People will pay for future chapters of something they are hooked on. Those stories that aren't as good wont get that.

Fact is not all media is good. Not all is entertaining. Interestingly enough, piracy sometimes creates demand for hidden gems that other factors such as language barriers and distribution restrict.

Let the market handle this.

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.

Because piracy sites can distribute any IP and monopolize the revenue, Lezhin does not consider them as “competitors.”

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.

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.

fully understand creators getting upset about piracy, and I would never suggest that they shouldn't be able to express those feelings. At the same time, though, piracy is an incredibly complicated issue, and I think reducing it to a simplistic us-vs-them mentality doesn't do anyone any favors.

If I copy a JPG or MP3 and send it to a friend, that doesn't magically remove the file from my possession, as it would if I gave them a physical object. It's frustrating seeing these erroneous arguments that should have been put to bed two decades ago continue to be floated today, because there's so much more to this topic that needs to be discussed by all sides.

I doubt anyone who works in the industry is going to openly encourage or support piracy , even if we all know most of them do it themselves. That's why these discussions never go anywhere.

I mean isn't this in the end a late stage capitalism tactic of pairing the exploited creators against the poor consumers while companies just get richer all around? Creators want to live doing the work they make, everyone else wants a reason to live. Capitalism forces the responsibility on the consumers while the exploiters siphon off everything else around them.

I doubt anyone who works in the industry is going to openly encourage or support piracy , even if we all know most of them do it themselves. That's why these discussions never go anywhere. Nobody who wants to keep their job or stay in good relations with official companies is ever going to relent or even give credence to any talking points about piracy. Even if they, say, host illegal watch parties on the side with their friends on certain live-streaming websites or Discord every week, they have to maintain a an anti-piracy stance on all their official channels to stay professional. If people are hoping to actually change people's minds or find some middle ground, then I'm afraid it's never really going to happen. When it comes to discussing industry issues and topics, is generally is an 'us vs them' thing a lot of the time.

Can't remember where well enough to cite anything, but I thought some ANN staff had argued that piracy was not really a major problem for some non-anime industries (e.g., videogames & Steam), but that they think the evidence is different for Anime/Manga? From my brief discussions with a few ANN staffers here before, it also seemed to me the evidence of piracy being costly with little upside to creators seemed somewhat more one-sided for Anime/Manga (i.e., that the evidence ANN staff pointed to mostly seems to indicate piracy is a significant net negative for Anime/Manga as industries). If I'm not misremembering (hopefully ANN staff will correct me if I am, of course), that seems a more nuanced take than "Piracy is always and everywhere an overall net-negative financially, and fundamentally immoral to boot".

Although -- more than anything -- it just seems to me there's very little systematic, transparent evidence in general, and not much careful research (or, maybe there is but in Japanese-language academic publications that don't make their way into mostly English-language forums?).

ZiharkXVI wrote:

The fact is people assume the creators lose money from piracy. That is not necessarily true at all. If the free webtoon is taken away there is ZERO proof the pirates would shrug and go, "Welp, guess I need to get that cash out." That's not the way the market for entertainment works. What ends up happening is that media just isn't used and it remains obscure. The creator still loses. Only if the entertainment us effective do people go out and purchase it. If the media is entertaining, the demand gives it worth. People will pay for it. I like the webtoons model for example. People will pay for future chapters of something they are hooked on. Those stories that aren't as good wont get that. Fact is not all media is good. Not all is entertaining. Interestingly enough, piracy sometimes creates demand for hidden gems that other factors such as language barriers and distribution restrict. Let the market handle this.

Which do you think a creator would prefer?
1) 10,000 people read one of their works, but all 10,000 people pay for it.
2) 10,000 people read and pay for one of their works, and an additional 90,000 pirate it.

The revenue is the same either way, but all the quotes from artists in this article indicate that they'd choose scenario (1). Because in scenario (2) those 90,000 are out in piracy-centric communities, telling themselves and others where to find and pirate that artist's past and future work, reinforcing ideas like "content should be free, it's just 'cultural sharing,' anyone who says you should pay is wrong and probably a company shill/sockpuppet, companies don't really pay artists that much - so you may as well pirate, and besides they censor and change every last line to fit their (nebulously-defined) 'agenda' ", and otherwise spreading anti-industry propaganda and lies, and nursing culture-war grievances against legitimate companies.

"The media sucked to begin with" is just a retroactive rationalization for freeloading. Sure, there are cases where pirates will read a chapter or two, decide it's not for them, and quit reading. Pretty much no harm, no foul there. But plenty will read hundreds of chapters / watch dozens of episodes over a period of months or years, then decide to pay nothing into the system with "Well it wasn't actually that good, I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, on to the next season " If the "free advertising" and "exposure" generated by piracy actually helped sales, we wouldn't have seen the US anime market crash in the late 2000s, while the piracy-driven popularity of anime and convention numbers were soaring.

The fatal flaw in the conception of piracy as part of a capitalist/market system is that piracy is NOT a market behavior. It's not just another consumer choice among a range of options. Entertainment media are not some vague, abstract ideas being "shared" around -- they are commercial products that require skilled personnel (who have to be housed/fed/educated/etc.), physical spaces, equipment, money, and other resources to be produced. A consumer reaction to "this media is too expensive and inconvenient" would be to spend their money on other entertainment that provides a better value. To present piracy as a valid consumer choice means asserting that "consumers" have a right to enjoy those products, and benefit from the systems that fund and produce them, without contributing to those systems -- in other words, that they have a right to free stuff paid for by other people's money, if they don't feel like paying for entertainment themselves. Whatever "-ism" that is, it's not capitalism.

The decision to pirate it instead is a decision to engage in violence, in that it violates the artists' and companies' rights. (And it doesn't matter that nothing physical is being taken, as the action is still a transgression against another entity's rights -- your rights end where theirs begin.)

One reason these artists might be poor that isn't piracy is that lezhin has been noted as underpaying and abusing the artists that work for it several times. Strange how this article doesn't note that at all.

This is a good way to shift the blame from the consumers to basically anything else...let's blame it in capitalism, let's blame it on companies that exploit other's people work, let's blame it on society...but in the end people should be aware that if they pirate something they can cause an economical damage to the original artist: if you pirate "One Piece" the damage is neglectable, since it already sells millions of volumes anyway, if you pirate for example "Asper Girl", which probably sells only thousands of copies, the damage is much more extended.

Whitestrider wrote:

This is a good way to shift the blame from the consumers to basically anything else...let's blame it in capitalism, let's blame it on companies that exploit other's people work, let's blame it on society...but in the end people should be aware that if they pirate something they can cause an economical damage to the original artist: if you pirate "One Piece" the damage is neglectable, since it already sells millions of volumes anyway, if you pirate for example "Asper Girl", which probably sells only thousands of copies, the damage is much more extended.

Is there any way to prove if something is not selling due to piracy rather than it not selling simply because it's not popular or interesting to a lot of people? If something gets cancelled due to piracy then it's on the fans for not supporting the work. But some things get cancelled just cause its unpopular then it would have gotten cancelled anyway. I think whoever said the market adjusts accordingly is right. If a series is liked enough there will be enough people supporting it to keep it going despite pirates. If not, then the punishment for pirates is the series they like being cancelled. I guess it depends on what niche you're aiming to? If you're aiming to an audience that has a lot of disposable income then those will probably get more financial support than aiming to an audience who maybe doesn't have a lot of money to spend on luxury items. There might be something to be said about marketing towards an audience that doesn't or can't buy the comics they read.

Is there any way to prove if something is not selling due to piracy rather than it not selling simply because it's not popular or interesting to a lot of people? If something gets cancelled due to piracy then it's on the fans for not supporting the work. But some things get cancelled just cause its unpopular then it would have gotten cancelled anyway. I think whoever said the market adjusts accordingly is right. If a series is liked enough there will be enough people supporting it to keep it going despite pirates. If not, then the punishment for pirates is the series they like being cancelled. I guess it depends on what niche you're aiming to? If you're aiming to an audience that has a lot of disposable income then those will probably get more financial support than aiming to an audience who maybe doesn't have a lot of money to spend on luxury items. There might be something to be said about marketing towards an audience that doesn't or can't buy the comics they read.