Forum - View topicINTEREST: Irodori Comics CEO On Takahashi Criticizes Manga Rock Pirated Manga App
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 898 Location: Southern California |
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Never heard of Manga rock as I have not visited a manga pirated site for...how long...maybe 7 to 8 years? (now days whichever manga that is not available legally in USA, I can read them officially and legally from Japanese or Chinese legal distributor sites, which of course, requires a fee), so, is Manga Rock the biggest manga pirate site at the moment?
After manga rock is taken down (let's assume that at the moment), are there going to be more manga pirated sites surfacing as the substitutes? Last edited by Engineering Nerd on Fri Aug 30, 2019 1:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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catbot158
 Posts: 232 Location: United States |
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Manga Rock is one of the bigger ones, yeah. I actually didn't know you could pay a subscription fee, or that it had an app...like, isn't the point of pirating is to not have to pay for anything? Also kind of illegal, Google. Maybe check that your apps weren't created by illegal pirating sites? Also, yeah, there are always more pirating sites to go to. I won't name the sites themselves, but if one falls, another takes its place. As long as people want something they have to pay for/can't get, they'll find a way. |
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catbot158
Posts: 232 Location: United States |
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I have a question for peeps in the forums related to this: if a manga/anime wasn't available legally in your country, and the chances of it coming to your country are slim to none, does that mean it's fair game to pirate?
I'm curious what people say, especially outside the U.S., since most of the things I pirated in the past were because they weren't available. |
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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And, unfortunately, there are plenty of other manga & anime apps with unauthorized content that available across all of the major app stores. I don't understand how they have been allowed to still be on them, unless 1) licensors/distributors don't know or don't care, 2) the app stores don't know or care more about app store numbers and largely look the other way. Given the history of rights holders going after sites, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense from the outset. Then again, activity against them has been quiet in recent years, (Japan notwithstanding)
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Lactobacillus yogurti
 Posts: 845 Location: Latin America |
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As someone from and in Latin America, I wouldn't say it's fair game. If we had the chance to read the series we like legally, and at an affordable price (Crunchyroll's becoming more and more expensive here due to the dollar exchange rate), you can bet your mitochondriae we would do so. Unfortunately, Latin America isn't seen as a big manga/anime market by Japan, and only until relatively recently did Viz pay attention to us as potential customers.
However, the dollar exchange rate is making a huge dent in everyone's budgets/wallets, and some things are getting prohibitively expensive. There are some Mexican and Spanish publishers that cater to Latin America, but the amount of series they bring are relatively few, sticking to well-known older series, and don't get me started on the price of each volume. I was collecting the Spanish edition of Saint Oniisan and the Mexican edition of Captain Tsubasa, but unfortunately, buying these series on a salary like mine is something I can only do about once or twice a year. So for us, reading scanlations from "illegal sites" has become what you could call a necessary evil, since we don't have as many options as people in the USA, or even Europe do. I wish I could give money to the mangaka I follow, but unfortunately, it's tough being poor in a country that's poorer than the USA. The lactic acid bacterium hath spoken. |
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Engineering Nerd
Posts: 898 Location: Southern California |
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Oh, you misunderstood  I was talking about the legal options that make me stay out of pirating manga 7-8 years ago, now days I can view pretty much whatever manga available legally on Bookwalker (Japan) or Bilibili manga (China, biggest legal manga distributor in China) , of course I have to pay for them, but the digital quality is amazing so definitely worth it. In USA, since only mainstream Shonen Jump manga got most coverage (Yen Press simulcast can be a bit iffy) , so I occasionally use Viz or Manga Plus (by Shueisha) for those "big titles)
Personally I support creators via Bookwalker and Bilibil Manga because I can understand Japanese and Chinese, and both sites are very friendly for international digital buyers, and Amazon Japan is also pretty easy for physical manga purchase for more financially-viable people. Yen press , Viz and other North America distributors also made my life much easier to support Japanese creators, thus I have absolutely no reason to bat an eye on illegal scans. As long as you are not promoting those illegal sites or mentioning them in a conversion (which you did correctly), you are doing your part. Making manga available to more regions take time and patience, and we just need to contribute as much as to our capacity Last edited by Engineering Nerd on Fri Aug 30, 2019 2:11 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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catbot158
Posts: 232 Location: United States |
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Oh no, I thought you were talking about Manga Rock having a subscription fee/app. My bad! To be fair, I could see MR doing that, though. Maybe. |
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chronos02
Posts: 267 |
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If something is not officially available in your country, it's not fair game to simply pirate it, there are PLENTY of other options out there to get your hands on the official stuff. The problem? It requires effort, and not everyone is willing to put in the resources and time required for a hobby like this.
The title is likely available in other countries that speak your language, so that's one very affordable option, if not the most. Yes, you have to pay for import taxes, as well as shipping fees, and maybe even handling fees if the item does not have shipping to your country. The second option is to look for the title on countries that have your second tongue (if you have it) or a language that you can learn without too much trouble. This is one option that many people use (say the UK or France for titles available on the other territory but not on their own. Finally there's the option to import directly from Japan, and with a group of people (or by yourself) pay for a translator to get the thing you want completely translated so you and the other people that have bought the item can understand it. The extra option is to learn Japanese, but not many take this route. Plenty of legal option out there as you can see. Humans are simply lazy creatures, so most of them will simply pirate when the title is not available in their country. By the law, it's NOT illegal, however, it's immoral (Unless both Japan and the country you live in have special deals when it comes to IPs). |
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1294 Location: Texas, USA |
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How this apps has stayed on the appstore, and has accumulated 133k reviews and a 4.8 out of 5 star rating is beyond me. The fact that you can pay them $5 a month is even more ridiculous. Type "manga" into the apple appstore, and Crunchyroll Manga is the first legal service I see at result number 4, Viz Manga at number 5, Shonen Jump at number 9, and then Manga Plus (the service that is available worldwide) is all the way down at number 35. Almost everything else is a pirate app, minus Comixology/Kindle, Webtoon, and game apps that come up before MP. Apple and Google really need to do something about this.
An English webcomic artist called Manga Rock out for streaming their web comic without their permission, and MR had the gall to ask in public on twitter if they could form a compromise, and when the artist said they already have a partnership with a publisher and are already streaming it for free on their own site and threatened legal action, MR finally and reluctantly removed all of their works from their site. I doubt MR will do something like that for the Japanese artists that can't defend their properties. https://twitter.com/tsulala/status/1165820103293919233 |
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Engineering Nerd
Posts: 898 Location: Southern California |
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Is the first option really legal though? Most distributor agreement has region restrictions which do not allow certain products to ship to other countries, so even put money issue aside, that rule seem pretty complicated for European and Latin customers . Personally I was lucky to avoid that problem since I can just buy them legally via official Japanese and Chinese digital distributors, and they seem to allow foreign buyers as long as you can understand the language. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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Generally speaking, yes. A manga retailer might have a legal agreement with the licensor to restrict their sales to a given region, but that agreement does not apply to the customer who buys the manga, or a 3rd party who might resell it to someone else. Let's say that company A licenses a manga from Japan. Their agreement allows them to sell the manga in countries X, Y, and Z. Company A could not advertise or sell the manga in country W, but a 3rd party could resell that manga in country W, or a customer living in country W could import the manga from country X, Y, or Z. The key is who is doing the importing. The manga retailer who has the agreement with the copyright holder can't do so without violating that agreement, but any 3rd parties can because they aren't part of that agreement. |
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Ermat_46
Posts: 725 Location: Philippines |
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Forget the scanlation vs. legal manga debate. The main issue here is that aggregator sites like Mangarock is offering paid subscriptions to unaware readers. Even scanlators will get mad for this kind of crap.
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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One of the many things I find shady about all this is that scanlators have very little legal recourse if they aren't getting any money out of it.
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Araragifeels
Posts: 88 |
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MangaRock used to offer a pro version that removes all the ads. Now MangaRock is offering a subscription for both ads free and Data Sync On the cloud, unlimited download (which data sync and Unlimited download was originally free). People who original pay for the pro version doesn't have to pay for the subscription in order get ads free.
Anyways MangaRock is getting greedy. If MangaRock is going to continue charging for subscription then they might as become a legal manga source and start paying author for their work. And if not then they should remove the subscription. |
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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If they asking for money, they should paid the people who do the Scanlation.
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