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INTEREST: 'Stop! Manga Piracy' Campaign Prints Thank You Ads in Newspapers in 4 Countries


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PipimiOden



Joined: 26 Mar 2022
Posts: 197
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 12:46 am Reply with quote
The only manga i pirate are the ones not legally avaliable here in any fashion, otherwise I just borrow from the library, use the comics plus subscription i have with one of my library cards, or just not read the manga at all if it's exclusive to k-manga or anywhere you have to pay per chapter.
I've had to drop so many korean webtoons because of their daily pass system because I'd much rather binge read and that's merely a daily barrier, what makes you think I'm gonna spend money on individual chapters (or parts of chapters!) when I could just use Viz or Shueisha's one-payment-a-month services or wait for the library to get the physical copies instead?
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AniMangaNime



Joined: 02 Oct 2023
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 2:49 am Reply with quote
Quote:
However, English-speaking manga fans were not without their criticisms


Lmfao, perfectly described them
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3542
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 2:51 am Reply with quote
I'll think about it when I see The World God Only Knows available officially. Until then I will be here just shaking my head and laughing at that...

Or Fushigi no Kuni no Bird
or Onee-san wa Joshi Shougakusei ni Kyoumi ga arimasu
or “Okaeri, Papa”
or an undropped Eromanga Sensei
or Asebi and Adventurers of Sky World

or, you know, any of the other thousands of manga that don't have official translations
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James02



Joined: 10 Sep 2014
Posts: 210
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 3:34 am Reply with quote
I typically only read from illegal websites if I have to. For the most part, I read from Viz Media, but there's also Webtoon that I read from. Other than that, there is one manga series that I buy the books instead of just reading them for free.
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Rouward



Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 3:40 am Reply with quote
Two factors why:
Manga isn't legally available worldwide especially in Southeast Asia; and official alteration from original scripts and illustrations.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3542
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 4:00 am Reply with quote
Rouward wrote:
Two factors why:
Manga isn't legally available worldwide especially in Southeast Asia; and official alteration from original scripts and illustrations.

Happened with the webtoon for a current series airing, Senpai wa Otokonoko;
https://x.com/ethylenescans/status/1634685563520397312
https://www.reddit.com/r/OtokonokoSenpai/comments/1e2njd9/
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SinisterOracle



Joined: 13 May 2023
Posts: 343
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 4:31 am Reply with quote
I purchase physical manga, digital manga, use the MANGA Plus app, and read a few things on Lezhin. I have also used illegal websites to read a series when it is not legally available in a language that I can read. Censorship is another reason people will seek out illegal websites instead of buying the censored version. The manga industry should be trying to overcome these barriers to maximize the availability of manga as well as its profits.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1155
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 7:40 am Reply with quote
I am still amused that, in a world when we have Manga Plus, Manga UP… plus Jump+ (and other Japanese online magazines, if you can read it), people still find excuse to pirate manga.
I know that when I started reading manga in the 90's I'd had love to read manga simulpub for free, from the original sources. But apparently, that's not enough for the Jolly Roger crew: truly first world (otaku) problems.

Also AFAIK, Japanese publishers or authors has no saying in other countries laws' on what's acceptable for them. And there is always the chance of purchasing the original Japanese.
Reading manga for free is not a human right.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3542
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 7:55 am Reply with quote
kgw wrote:
I am still amused that, in a world when we have Manga Plus, Manga UP… plus Jump+ (and other Japanese online magazines, if you can read it), people still find excuse to pirate manga.
I know that when I started reading manga in the 90's I'd had love to read manga simulpub for free, from the original sources. But apparently, that's not enough for the Jolly Roger crew: truly first world (otaku) problems.

As the article says, the fandom is divided. We're clearly on different sides on this. I'm not going to forgo gems found out there just because no-one's bothered to release them officially in a language I can understand.
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SinisterOracle



Joined: 13 May 2023
Posts: 343
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 8:38 am Reply with quote
kgw wrote:
I am still amused that, in a world when we have Manga Plus, Manga UP… plus Jump+ (and other Japanese online magazines, if you can read it), people still find excuse to pirate manga.
I know that when I started reading manga in the 90's I'd had love to read manga simulpub for free, from the original sources. But apparently, that's not enough for the Jolly Roger crew: truly first world (otaku) problems.

Also AFAIK, Japanese publishers or authors has no saying in other countries laws' on what's acceptable for them. And there is always the chance of purchasing the original Japanese.
Reading manga for free is not a human right.


While your idealistic notions are cute, they’re not realistic. There is plenty of manga that is not available on any app, is out of print, and the legality of having some manga imported based on content may be questionable depending on which person you asked and which day it was.

Nobody claimed that reading manga for free (or watching anime for free) was a human right.
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mrsticky005



Joined: 06 Nov 2008
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:04 am Reply with quote
These guilt tripping "support the artists"
campaigns are kinda ironic when they
got animators literally dying from over work.

Of course I'm sure they will blame that
on "piracy" but I think these massively
successful corporations that benefit
from others labor but undercut wages
are the real pirates.

As someone trying to make their own
comic I would welcome piracy because
then I would know people are reading my
work. Some may say but if they pirate then
I don't get paid. Sure. But they likely weren't
gonna pay anyways probably cause they can't.
Of course I would want to get paid for my work
But I am opposed to guilt trip marketing.

I do think some piracy really is bad though
particularly when it is used to scam folk.
But the fan scanlators translating work that
isn't necessarily available officially actually
should be thanked for the success of manga
and anime.

Don't get the wrong idea. If you can support
the official release then I think you should
and sure supporting artists is good but
also because it's just nice to have an official
high quality version of your favorite manga/anime.
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RobbiRobb



Joined: 08 Oct 2021
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:05 am Reply with quote
Yeah no, as long as nobody is going to officially release the mangas I read, I'm not going to stop pirating them. The same way this was a problem with anime a few years ago, this absolutely is a service problem. I started reading manga in 2020 and have since made an effort to buy all the physical releases of series I enjoyed. There are some manga that are available digitally, but I'm not a fan of paying for what is essentially a pdf, so crucify me if you want to.

Let's throw in some statistics to get a better idea of the problem: I have 65 manga on my manga list. There are a few one-shots among them, but most of those are full series. For context it is noteworthy that pretty much all of them are yuri manga, so obviously it's going to be a niche that not a lot of publishers will be able to fill. When manga are available legally, it's mostly the popular stuff. Getting back to the list, out of those 65 manga, only 20 are available legally and 2 of those only have a digital release. I own 7 of those already and there are two additional ones where I'm currently undecided if I'll get them at one point in the future. The other ones are mostly manga I have read but didn't really enjoy, so I'm not going to actually waste money on them. Admittedly, this isn't the best way of going about this, but I think a legal reader where you pay a subscribtion to get access to an entire library might solve this issue, because then I'd pay a base fee and get access to stuff I enjoy as well as all the stuff the is alright or even bad.

Still, there are also currently 10 manga I'd like to buy legally but can't, since they are only available in Japanese. So there are more manga I'd like to own than there are manga I actually own. And the two that are only available digitally which I'd like to own but won't buy. So yeah, it very much is a service problem and until that is solved I'll continue to pirate manga. If publishers don't want my money, there is nothing I can do.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6232
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:24 am Reply with quote
mrsticky005 wrote:

As someone trying to make their own
comic I would welcome piracy because
then I would know people are reading my
work. Some may say but if they pirate then
I don't get paid. Sure. But they likely weren't
gonna pay anyways probably cause they can't.


If you have the choice of getting something for free a paying for it. Almost everyone one would take the free option. Especially as in this particular case fans have open about preferring fan translations of series usually for how stuff is named versus the official translations


mrsticky005 wrote:
I do think some piracy really is bad though
particularly when it is used to scam folk.
But the fan scanlators translating work that
isn't necessarily available officially actually
should be thanked for the success of manga
and anime.


Not if their translations/proofreading/formatting/scanning is spotty. Which granted even the official stuff can have it’s problems but still.
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Thulebox



Joined: 15 Mar 2024
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:27 am Reply with quote
mrsticky005 wrote:
Don't get the wrong idea. If you can support
the official release then I think you should
and sure supporting artists is good but
also because it's just nice to have an official
high quality version of your favorite manga/anime.

Mangakas literally get paid more depending on how many tankobon volumes get printed though so I don't understand your high horse position of "hey, starving artists should just be glad people see their art at all". I've got no issue with piracy as long as people aren't loud and proud about it.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1155
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2024 9:28 am Reply with quote
SinisterOracle wrote:

While your idealistic notions are cute, they’re not realistic.
On the contrary, I think they are quite realistic.As realistic as paying artists for their work and not for "exposition".

Also, if someone don't like their country's laws for what's readable or not, they should change them. If they can't, they have bigger problems than manga availability.
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