Manga Scanlation Crackdown

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Card Slinger J

Aspiring Trainer
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Recently lots of Manga Scanlation sites including OneManga are being forced to remove their content and this also includes making it harder to read recent chapters from popular titles such as One Piece, Bleach, and Naruto.

I had a very bad feeling this day would come, manga publishers and distributors are now wanting to charge us to read their manga instead of being able to read it for free before deciding as to whether or not to buy it If it sucks or not.

Alot of people do read their manga online cause they enjoy it however I can understand that Japan isn't making a profit from the scanlations on the internet infact the main manga series nowadays that I read
are Hajime No Ippo and One Piece.

Now it's gonna be even harder for people to read manga anymore unless they cough up money for it. How are people going to feed off their manga addiction with the economy in the state it's in right now? I mean shoot people don't have the money for it...
 
How do you think manga authors are going to make money to continue making the manga if no one buys the manga anymore?
 
I guess you have a point but Manga titles in the U.S. are farther behind than Japan is and being stuck having to catch up to the most recent chapters in Japan is going to suck big time especially for those who are trying to get their manga fix every week.

The economy is still pretty bad and people can't afford to keep up so technically this is a bad business decision on Japan's part. They say American Comics are recession proof but what about Japanese Manga where it's less about politics and more of a mix of slice of life, action, adventure, sports, among other interesting genres?

In American Comics you can only go so far with the Funnies in the Newspapers and Superheroes. I think companies like Marvel and DC could branch out from Superheroes and more into other genres like Japan is doing without going overboard with politics and religion.

Not that Japan has gone overboard with politics and religion in their manga content, but it's more common in American Comics with Marvel and DC. It's their perspective of surrealism and drama that makes the comics in what they believe is more interesting overall and I'd rather read something that isn't as surreal as American Comics are today, Japanase Manga has less surrealism.
 
So, they're not allowed to show scans of a manga. It's not even like it's a video or a song, it's literitly just a picture. Using that Logic, why has Google Images not been sued yet? They host millions, if not billions, of different copyrighted pictures. So what makes them more expemt from the law then these websites
 
I can understand it, but I don't really like it. If I want to buy manga, I'll have to travel miles away, which also costs money. Another option will be ordering them online, but then there will be extra costs.

I don't like to jump to the option of pirating, so I'll just buy them, I think. Bye money!
 
I most certainly can understand it from the artist's standpoint, but for the bigger name manga, why bother? They're kinda just trying to make the cash cow go MOOOOOOOOO.

Worst comes to worst, I can just plan out a few days where I take a trip to Barnes and Noble, sit down with a giant triple chocolate chunk cookie, and read through a good ten or so books. (Not like I don't do that on a standard trip, for the most part...at most I'll get through three books before I have to go home and the like, and I don't treat myself to one of those delicious cookies.)

What I'm mostly concerned about is the non-translated manga. You know, the ones that never make it over here? The big one I'm talking about for this is Persona 4, given how I love the game. While it's been slow, OneManga has been updating a few chapters here and there. The chances of us getting that as a translated manga are slim to none, given how they haven't done it yet for the vast collection of Persona 3. And I may be an otaku at best, but I cannot read Japanese. A lot of Persona series work is about psychological development with the characters, as well as their feelings (such as being able to take a gun to one's head and pull the trigger to summon a Persona...X3; ). What, then, would I do if the series had to be dropped from OneManga? Easy- I couldn't read it. At all. I am considering buying the manga anyways, just because I enjoy the artwork (like an artist, tch), but I would like OneManga to be there as a good reference as to WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON.

I'm kinda split on this issue. I can understand lesser name artists wanting their money's worth, but the bigger mega-millions people kinda don't need it. Also, if you're gonna crack down on it, at least have English versions available. I'll suck it up and get a sore back from reading for a long time in Barnes and Noble, and perhaps save up some money to buy it later.
 
Zenith said:
No, now you have to buy things you're supposed to pay for!

The world is ending!

To the bunker!
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Sigh...

Now you're just being overly dramatic. There's still other sources on the internet to read the content, one scanlation site dies a new one takes it's place. It's a never ending cycle.
 
Zenith said:
No, now you have to buy things you're supposed to pay for!

The world is ending!

To the bunker!
Click to expand...

Your "Holier than thou" attitude is disgusting. I will not say that I engage in, nor do I support the "Pirating" of media, but that's just it. It's Pirating, Pirating is not stealing.

imgres


What people are under the assumption of when pirating is that EVERY pirated thing would result in a loss of profit. Would you spend $500 on photo-editing software? Would you spend $1.00 a song? Would you spend $+20 on a DVD you'll watch once and never see again? This is the exact same with the Manga.

And as for the Fan-Translations... that's just embarrassing to read, and goes back to my previous point. I'm not going to learn a new language and spend large amounts of money tracking down and importing when I can skip the entire process, and read it on the internet. In fact, if I had the choice of "Spend Time and money to read this, or not read it", I'd pick the latter, as would many others.
 
Setzer (Harry) said:
What people are under the assumption of when pirating is that EVERY pirated thing would result in a loss of profit. Would you spend $500 on photo-editing software? Would you spend $1.00 a song? Would you spend $+20 on a DVD you'll watch once and never see again? This is the exact same with the Manga.
Click to expand...

If you take it from that point, it doesn't seem so bad. But you're looking from the individual perspective. If you look from the global perspective, that photo-editing software isn't $500 anymore, it's $5 million.
The same with the songs, DVDs and Manga.

If the 1/4, maybe 1/5 (and I'm being optimistic) of the Manga reading community reads Manga online, that would make a difference of 20/25% loss. If you forbid it, there will be about 50% less loss, assuming the half will flee to matters like pirating. I don't know how much profit Manga creators make, but I'll assume $100k per volume if everyone is buying Manga.
Online reading legalised -> $80k
Online reading forbidden -> $90k.
It'd make a difference of $10k. If you make about 12 volumes a year, it's a difference of $120k a year. That's a lot of money, dude.
 
Manga companies need to understand that most manga sites are used by Americans and Europeans who have no convenient way of obtaining manga. I completely understand that it's a reasonable request (or so they think) but people who aren't in Asia have a much harder time of finding mangas, and when you do their prices are insane (usually above that of converted asian prices).

Moreover some people just don't want to pay for the whole shounen jump magazine if they're going to read one manga. So if a store along is hard to find, imagine how hard it is to find one who carries volumes of more obscure manga (Naruto and One Piece are usually easy to find).

If they'd like to compromise to make their own English translation and ship them to more stores or at least provide a site where you can pay to read the manga from their own company (like an online shounen jump with an archive) then we really couldn't argue since they'd be making the manga more convenient and allowing legal purchase. But since as far as I know they haven't gone to any length I think this is just an all around bad move.
 
SinRaven said:
If you take it from that point, it doesn't seem so bad. But you're looking from the individual perspective. If you look from the global perspective, that photo-editing software isn't $500 anymore, it's $5 million.
The same with the songs, DVDs and Manga.

If the 1/4, maybe 1/5 (and I'm being optimistic) of the Manga reading community reads Manga online, that would make a difference of 20/25% loss. If you forbid it, there will be about 50% less loss, assuming the half will flee to matters like pirating. I don't know how much profit Manga creators make, but I'll assume $100k per volume if everyone is buying Manga.
Online reading legalised -> $80k
Online reading forbidden -> $90k.
It'd make a difference of $10k. If you make about 12 volumes a year, it's a difference of $120k a year. That's a lot of money, dude.
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You forgot my statement that I said in that post as well, and this is what most people don't realize.
If you pirate something, it will not result in an auto-loss of money to the company. They wouldn't be buying the Manga in the first place!

What your theory implies that if these people did not read the manga online, every one of them would rush out to buy the manga. That sounds incredibly dumb on paper, and even worse in practice.

Mark my words, OneManga will never result in the loss of jobs or a noticeable amount of profits.

Also, lilsparks101. Props.
 
lilsparks101 said:
Manga companies need to understand that most manga sites are used by Americans and Europeans who have no convenient way of obtaining manga. I completely understand that it's a reasonable request (or so they think) but people who aren't in Asia have a much harder time of finding mangas, and when you do their prices are insane (usually above that of converted asian prices).

Moreover some people just don't want to pay for the whole shounen jump magazine if they're only read in English. So if a store along is hard to find, imagine how hard it is to find one who carries volumes of more obscure manga (Naruto and One Piece are usually easy to find).
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Please give an example of what you term convenient?

As for "a store along is hard to find", what is hard to find about Borders, and Barnes & Noble? Or online at Amazon or DeepDiscount.com(offers free shipping)?

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=manga
http://www.borders.com/online/store/SearchResults?keyword=manga&type=0&simple=1
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=manga&ih=2_1_1_0_0_0_0_0_1_1.1_288&fsc=3
http://www.deepdiscount.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/search.results?sid=f230abd07b56ad1fe1832d637616413f4468&Ntk=primary&Ne=4&N=5&viewType=grid&Ntt=manga
 
omahanime said:
Please give an example of what you term convenient?

As for "a store along is hard to find", what is hard to find about Borders, and Barnes & Noble? Or online at Amazon or DeepDiscount.com(offers free shipping)?

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=manga
http://www.borders.com/online/store/SearchResults?keyword=manga&type=0&simple=1
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=manga&ih=2_1_1_0_0_0_0_0_1_1.1_288&fsc=3
http://www.deepdiscount.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/search.results?sid=f230abd07b56ad1fe1832d637616413f4468&Ntk=primary&Ne=4&N=5&viewType=grid&Ntt=manga
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I was looking for "Beat, the Vandal Buster". None of them had any volumes. And I was translated into English, officially.
 
Those stores do not translate most manga. More likely than not they carry what they deem to be the 5-6 most popular manga individually. And probably issues on shounen jump (which from what I know is far behind in English translations).

So if you'd like to know what I deem convenient I mean not having to go to a comic book/manga store that is no where near where I live, also being able to buy the manga that I want seperately rather than in random shounen jump magazines. Also I would never buy manga online (Well I don't buy manga at all but I especially wouldn't buy it online).
 
lilsparks101 said:
Those stores do not translate most manga. More likely than not they carry what they deem to be the 5-6 most popular manga individually. And probably issues on shounen jump (which from what I know is far behind in English translations).

So if you'd like to know what I deem convenient I mean not having to go to a comic book/manga store that is no where near where I live, also being able to buy the manga that I want seperately rather than in random shounen jump magazines. Also I would never buy manga online (Well I don't buy manga at all but I especially wouldn't buy it online).
Click to expand...
Thank you for explaining. But you are wrong about "5-6 most popular manga" part. The Borders I buy at has 2 and 1/2 aisles of it.
 
Oh well I wasn't talking about Borders and the other place. I was more referring to smaller book stores that are prominent in my area. I have heard that Borders carries a large selection but for a lot of people who don't live in cities small book stores are easier to find than large chains.
 
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