Found via Deb Aoki’s Twitter feed: an article “reviewing” the One Manga site. As Deb points out, the author gushes about the frequency with which new chapters are posted and the popularity of the titles on offer, but never acknowledges the elephant in the room:
One Mange [sic] is one of the most popular free Manga resource websites on the Internet. It hosts a huge amount of Mangas which all can be read online or downloaded to a local system for offline reading.
Between ten and twenty new Mangas are added everyday to the website making it one of the most frequented websites for Manga lovers.
It hosts many of the most popular Manga series from Naruto and Bleach over One Piece and Fairy Tail to Full Metal Alchemist, Hunter X Hunter and Kenichi.
The big problem with this review (aside from the glaring typo in the first line — isn’t that the best Freudian slip ever?) is that the author makes it seem as if One Manga is providing a free and legal service. Right on the first count, wrong on the second. One Manga isn’t authorized to distribute any of these properties. One Manga doesn’t own the copyright to Naruto or Bleach or Hunter X Hunter; their creators do. Nor does One Manga have a license to translate and distribute authorized versions of those properties in the United States; only VIZ Media LLC does. Nor is One Manga a legitimate retailer offering the authorized versions of these books for sale.
Though One Manga has an extensive disclaimer denying its responsibility for most of the content that’s available through the site, the fact of the matter is that One Manga is facilitating the digital distribution of manga without the express permission of the copyright holders. And that’s the essence of a copyright violation: appropriating and distributing someone else’s intellectual property without their permission. Hiding behind the classic Internet service provider’s defense that you’re simply providing access to content and are not responsible for the actual content strikes me as disingenuous, especially when the sole purpose of the site is to provide free, unauthorized versions of existing books.
Put another way, One Manga is providing a service that circumvents the most basic rights afforded an author. Those rights — which are exclusive to the copyright holder, I might add — are as follows:
- reproduction right — the right to make copies of a protected work
- distribution right — the right to sell or otherwise distribute copies to the public
- right to create adaptations (called derivative works) — the right to prepare new works based on the protected work.
As the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use website further points out, these protections serve a very important function:
This bundle of rights allows a copyright owner to be flexible when deciding how to realize commercial gain from the underlying work; the owner may sell or license any of the rights. (See Copyright and Fair Use Overview: Who Owns What?; accessed 3/20/10).
In other words, copyright empowers authors to profit from their own creations as they see fit: by signing a contract with a publisher to print, advertise, and distribute their books, for example, or by licensing their characters’ likenesses to clothing companies and lunch box manufacturers, or by authorizing an electronic edition for the Kindle. If the copyright holder hasn’t given you permission to distribute his work digitally, you have no business doing so.
So what’s the socially conscious manga lover to do? First, take the time to educate yourself about copyright. Stanford University’s Copyright and Fair Use website, which I cite above, is an excellent resource for folks wishing to learn more about intellectual property law. Second, post a polite comment at ghacks.net asking them to remove the articles about One Manga and other scanlation sites. And third, take the time to educate others. Yes, it can seem like you’re talking to a brick wall when dealing with the more truculent members of the manga community, but keep the message simple: scanlations violate the spirit and the letter of copyright law. Rinse and repeat as needed.
Here’s the thing I don’t get–why doesn’t Viz go over there and zap them? Too much hassle, because a new set of hydra heads will show up instead?
That’s a great question, Rob. I’d be surprised if manga publishers weren’t making an active effort to combat piracy, but I’m guessing (and if someone can correct me, please do) that time and expense prevent them from launching an all-out war on scanlation sites.
Rob, that’s it exactly … the “aggregator” sites are like dandelions … if you just pull one out without pulling out its root, it grows right back.
The roots are the host locations. A determined effort to get the copyrighted material taken down at the host location would result in a substantial drop in popularity of the leech bootlegger sites.
However, doing that is a labor intensive task unless you can afford the up front cost of network spidering software or digital fingerprint services to catch the material as it goes online. So its normally the most lucrative properties that get effective enforcement, while rights owners in niche markets have a much harder time.
Thanks for the insight, Bruce — what you say makes a lot of sense!
Some publishers do contact them and ask them to remove titles, which they do. They don’t host any CMX titles (that I could tell), and they take down Dark Horse titles and some others as well. I’m going to assume that either the other publishers don’t care, don’t know, or don’t think it’s worth the bother.
I think a big reason why you don’t see Viz or Tokyopop going after scans is because of how much scan DNA they have in the company genetics. Even outside of a historical angle, I was just reading an interview a while ago with a Tokyopop letterer talking about bringing her distributed scan work to her job interview.
Along with what Kris said, Dark Horse and CMX just have the sort of ties that don’t tolerate that sort of thing where manga publishers don’t.
I doubt that other publishers don’t care or don’t know about scanlations. I’ve seen several small yaoi publishers, for example, express frustration about how quickly their material is made available online for free. For a small niche publisher who specializes in manga that some folks feel uncomfortable about buying in person, scanlations do constitute a form of unfair competition that clearly hurts sales. I would be willing to bet money that many of these smaller companies are trying just as hard as the big ones to have scans taken down.
I suspect the main reason we don’t hear more about the problem directly from publishers is fear of upsetting fans; if Company X is perceived as the publisher that shut down the major scanlation sites, I could see a backlash in certain corners of fandom.
One possible reason that scanlation is treated so calmly is that the big companies like VIZ and Tokyopop just don’t need to worry about it. Bleach and Naruto are huge properties that sell slot despite being avalible for free online. Plus, a lot of series wouldn’t be nearly as popular over here if they weren’t scanlated first. Or at least they would take much longer to become popular, maybe longer than they could afford to publish an unknown title. I could be wrong, and welcome any debate, but I think in a lot of ways the really big manga companies actually benefit from scanlation. Even though it ruins small companies.
Kate, I do understand what you’re saying about a backlash, but how many people in those corners you mention are actually buying books in the first place? Anyone who reads scans and then, later, goes on to buy books knows exactly who ruined the scan scene already: speed scanners, people drawing attention with scan reviews, fans telling mangaka all about how they love illicit translations, publishers staffed by active scanners. I may just be getting old, but you can’t really blame The Man for dropping the hammer when no one around you knows how to maintain. If Company X shuts down a major scan site, the only people who will be terribly bothered are the people who aren’t offering any useful support now.
Also, how much are we expected to do when Company X refuses to do anything themselves besides giving scanlators jobs? The days when a scanlator scans for the satisfaction of a job well done are gone. They now do it so they can get paid or start a Crunchyroll and Company X looks the other way or outright gives them a pat on the back. How often are we supposed to call up Sancho to go slay the dragon because Damsel X is only interested in him as a suitor?
I understand it is a copyright violation, although the problem is that there are so many websites doing the same thing. I personally have come over that website and don’t use it. But that is probably because I don’t read manga on the PC as it is quite difficult to do so.
I prefer manga on the go, so I buy the books as they are quite cheap to do so.
I don’t know why the illegal distributers are shut down, but there should really be a anti-piracy movement to combat against all of this.
@Matthew: I think it’s a double-edged sword: yes, scans can help popularize a series and build a fanbase, but if a significant number of those fans never buy the books, then the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Many of the titles on the NY Times Bestseller List have anime adaptations that are readily available here in the US, and I think that having an animated tie-in is still a more important reason for certain series’ mega-hit success than scans.
@Jade: My only point is that companies aren’t heavily publicizing their efforts to shut down scanlation sites, not that they aren’t taking appropriate action. I agree with you that there’s a hardcore community of folks who will never, ever buy the books, no matter what, and that some companies have made their own position a little fuzzy by hiring folks who got their start in scanlations. But as I said before, I can’t imagine that companies are idly sitting by while their most lucrative franchises are being stolen and circulated online. They have licensing agreements with Japanese artists that they are bound to uphold; I doubt many Japanese artists would be happy to know that someone had done cruddy scans and translations of their work and posted it for free on the ‘Net.
By the way, I love the fact you used the phrase “the Man.” I use it all the time, and my students used to think I was some kind of ’70s fossil for doing so. Now I don’t feel quite so geriatric!
@Vagish: I’m with you about reading manga online: I’d much, much rather be holding a print copy. When I don’t want to buy something, I get myself to the library. Or buy a used copy off of Amazon.
@Kate: Back when Kodansha dropped all their Tokyopop licenses, they had also sent out a wave of C&Ds to major scan sites within a couple of weeks. Now, this is pure speculation, but considering the coldness of that break compared to warmth of Mike Richardson of Dark Horse writing forewords, I have to wonder how much of Tokyopop’s inaction on the scan front lead to that relationship being cut off. As Kris pointed out, Dark Horse and CMX are protecting their licensed properties while all around the net, other licensed properties are not being protected; there’s definitely a correlation there.
I also have to wonder if one or two major publishers came out and even suggested that they would no longer hire scanners that continue to distribute, how many quality scanners would have any motivation to continue distributing? Experience for employment is the only reason serious scanners with any amount of talent actually do it. Again, Dark Horse and CMX with their access to comic professionals has no problem with going after scanlations, they receive no backlash of any worth based on that pursuit, the only difference I can think of with manga publishers is the possibility that scans are their little hobby farm more than cutting into real business.
But more importantly, yes, I use horribly out-dated slang and phrases like ‘dig’ and ‘The Man’ and sometimes even more ridiculously ‘dab hand’ or ‘kenning out.’ Sure, I’m well on my way towards that inevitable chess match, but that doesn’t explain some of the goofier turns that pre-date me by decades. Also, I’m terrible at chess; life is horridly unfair.
I’m going to give a perspective of someone on the other side of the fence. I do go to scanilation sites (One Manga and Manga Fox) for personal and professional reasons (although mostly professional). What I mainly use those sites for are to get a glimpse of a manga series I may want my library to purchase. If I am not familiar with a series, I need to get a sample of what it is so I know if it is appropriate for our collection as well as what age group to place it in. I will say that I do look first on the publisher’s sites (mainly Tokyopop) to see if they have something up.
I also want to correct an error that I am seeing. Tokyopop has asked One Manga to take down their scans in the past. I know for a fact that they had One Manga take down Chibi Vampire.
I also don’t like the implication that just because someone reads from these sites that they do not buy manga. I know people who read these sites and also buy a large quantity of manga (usually the series they are reading online). Yes, I will admit that there are people who do not buy it, but to assume that just because one is reading something from these sites does not mean that they are not purchasing it.
I think one way the publishers can combat this situation is not by having someone troll these sites (there are a bunch) but to put scans of their own manga online. I know that Tokyopop will have some sample pages of their manga to view, which is helpful to me. Obviously there is a need to have manga online or the scanilation sites would not do as well as they do. They could also make apps for iPhone and Android devices.
@Jade: I’m not sure that Tokyopop has been more lax than other companies in enforcing their copyright; as Michelle points out, Tokyopop has issued cease and desist orders for titles like Chibi Vampire, so my guess is that the continued online availability of Tpop manga has less to do with employees coming from the scanlation world than with the persistence of the scanlators. Many of Tokyopop’s hit series skew young, so I’m guessing that’s a contributing factor, too — folks who grew up in the Internet age have a different attitude towards intellectual property than us old geezers who remember LPs and computers with 512K hard drives.
I don’t know enough about Kodansha and Tokyopop’s relationship to know why Kodansha decided not to renew the licenses, but I think the decision had more to do with Kodansha’s plans for launching their own imprint here in the US than it does with lax licensing enforcement. To my knowledge, Kodansha did not renew the licenses on DH’s Otomo manga, too, and Kodansha was clearly happy with the work DH had done on series like AKIRA — Mike Richardson wrote the afterword!
So I don’t know. I think publishers are in a difficult position with scans, and I’m glad I don’t work for the marketing or legal departments of any of these companies.
@Michelle: I am a contributor at the School Library Journal, so I understand the challenges you face in trying to determine what’s appropriate for your collection. I know that reviews can only convey so much about the content, artwork, etc., so I can see why you consult scans. My point here is a legal one, however: no matter what your rationale for using scans — even if it serves a good purpose, and even if it results in a sale — you’re helping promote a culture of piracy.
In order for companies to post sample chapters online, they have to negotiate directly with the Japanese copyright holder — licensing agreements don’t automatically grant US publishers the right to distribute the material digitally (even if it’s incomplete). More and more companies are moving in this direction, however: DMP, VIZ, Tokyopop, and NETCOMICS are all making digital content available for free or minimal charge, which is a trend I think we’ll see continue over the next few years.
Honestly, the problem isn’t a legal one, it’s a cultural one. Who cares if it’s illegal? Not many. Personally, sorry, I don’t. What keeps me from scans isn’t that they are illegal but that I don’t like reading from a screen and I don’t necessarily feel guilty for the publishers. Why? Because I feel like publishers want it both ways:
“that some companies have made their own position a little fuzzy by hiring folks who got their start in scanlations” and “I suspect the main reason we don’t hear more about the problem directly from publishers is fear of upsetting fans; if Company X is perceived as the publisher that shut down the major scanlation sites, I could see a backlash in certain corners of fandom.”
This type of thinking helped create a culture of scanlations. I would believe this was a legal issue if you saw this sort of thing creep up in prose or non-fiction or even the superhero comics (though I haven’t really gone looking, so I could be wrong on that – I guess I could say no high profile sites). The problem is that a sub-culture exists and it depends on scans. It’s emotional. Emotion will trump law every single time.
I’m not saying scans are all good or all bad. I’m saying they exist, they have an emotional root and the publishers either need to adapt or attack. Right now, I don’t think they are scared enough to do either one.
My husband had a good idea. He said publishers should sell the a digital copy to a reader for a less than paper copy fee and include a certain number of copies – let’s say 10. Then they are free to swap and distribute those copies in a number of ways (maybe an app). There could also be a limited overall number, like 1,000. Then people could swap like trading cards and certain titles would be considered very valuable and people who own those titles would have their ‘stock’ go up. A lot of scans are about ‘look at me, look at what I have’ and power (at least what I’ve seen from the people who constantly scan). This would fill that need AND have the publishers stamp of approval. The scans would be high quality.
They could also release titles early and let amateur translators have a crack at them, maybe earn a job.
I’m sure there’s a million holes in this idea and have at it! I just though it was an interesting solution.
Oh I forgot to add, in Danny’s master plan to stop scans and save the empire, the digital copy would come out before the paper one.
That is all.
Nowhere in that article do I see any indication that the site is legal. Nor do I see where that’s even an issue in this article.
Generally, people who read tech blogs aren’t morons. They know that there are a lot of sites out there with illegal content. They’re smart enough to make their own decisions about it – and smart enough to not just ASSUME (as you did) that by not stamping “HERE THAR BE WAREZ” on an extension review that the site the extension deals with is 100% legal. Again, tech blog readers aren’t morons.
ALL that this article is doing is giving a heads up and a review of a new browser extension meant to be used on OneManga. That’s ALL. And as a tech blog, they would be remiss in NOT doing so.
I assume that since you’ve now decided to rail against tech blogs that post info about browser extensions that help the end user engage in not-entirely-legal (or even not-at-all-legal) activities, you’ll also be posting an article like this for every review for an extension that, say, allows one to download from YouTube, or allows one to right click and save images from pages that disable right clicking, or perhaps the extensions that allow the user to access torrents from their browser without an external application? What about torrent websites in general? Torrent applications and plug-ins? Reviews about these things?
In other words… Don’t shoot the messenger. You want to complain about this website? Complain to the website. You dislike the fact that this extension exists? Complain to the extension creator.
DON’T aim your self-righteousness cannon at a website that’s merely reporting on new browser extensions that might be of interest to some of their user base. That’s their JOB.
I love that I didn’t even realize that ghacks.net is a tech blog that was reviewing a Chrome extension until I saw Shari’s comment. (And by love, I mean hate.)
This is a terrible and misleading blog entry. If you want to make a “piracy: threat or menace?” blog post, just do it, don’t implicitly encourage comment-trolling on another blog for being Socially Irresponsible on the Internets, or what have you.
@Sadie: DC and Marvel (and many other American publishers) are wrestling with the same problem: fans buy the floppies, scan them, and make them available online for free. So whatever solution the publishers come with — and I think your husband’s digital distribution idea sounds interesting — it will need to be one that’s implemented industry-wide. The real challenge, I think, will be persuading Japanese artists to get on board with digital distribution. Cell phone manga apps are increasingly popular in Japan, so I think it’s really a matter of “when” not “if.”
I’m really reluctant to jump in here, but I have to note that a good half of the review of the browser extension was dedicated to a qualitative evaluation of the site, specifically its popularity and the content it hosts. To say that the blog is merely alerting people to a browser extension doesn’t strike me as entirely accurate, and I don’t think it’s inappropriate or out of context to expect them to characterize the site thoroughly, which would include an explanation of the origins of its content.
I think when you start seeing ads for these sites it’s gone a bit too far. Has anyone else seen the Mangafox ads everywhere? I’ve seen them on Youtube, livejournal, and a bunch of other sites that have manga/anime related content.
@David – You bring up a good point, but one also has to look a bit deeper at the tech blog in question.
A peek at their popular articles shows links on downloading Youtube videos, file hosts, free movie sites, how to watch ABC TV (and I’m sure it’s not an article about turning on your television and changing the channel
), Rapidshare searches… and so on. For those who might not know better, this all amounts to a blog that is, to put it nicely, “file-sharing friendly”.
In other words, we’re not dealing with lily white manga readers who are being led to believe that this site of magically free manga is totally legal. We’re dealing with techies who know there’s free stuff out there and by golly, some of ‘em are going to enjoy it.
So painting the article the way THIS blog has… as some kind of nefarious and/or ignorant portrayal of scanlations as a legal alternative to buying manga… Well, that’s just plain silly.
Might as well walk up to a pirate and tell them that Rum they’re drinking has a lot of alcohol in it.
@Shari: Simon Jones said it best over at the gHacks site:
“So, a site with a similar extension, but offered a feed of social security numbers instead of manga, would also be worthy of coverage then? Reviews of the latest warez? Why not drive traffic towards spam blogs which reproduce the posts from this site? That seems like a mighty impressive technology to me… content without work.
“Mr. Brinkmann is free to report on whatever he wants. But it’s also fair for him and his readers to be made aware of the nature of sites such as OneManga, in case he is not familiar, and ask he exercise some editorial discretion not out of obligation to law, but obligation to journalistic integrity.”
I’m not trying to engage in some kind of flame war with gHacks; I’m asking one of the bigger tech sites not to promote piracy by posting articles promoting sites that distribute material in flagrant violation of international copyright laws.
Shari: Maybe it might be useful to say how I came across the article in question and another about a similar site. It was through a Google news alert for “manga,” which aggregates mostly blog posts and general media pieces on the topic. And I would imagine that those kinds of news alerts reach an audience far beyond what ghacks sees as its core, like-minded audience to… well… “lily white manga readers” like myself. Now, ghacks might not intend to reach that particular audience or any audience beyond the “file-sharing friendly,” but reach it they have. And while I don’t know how many people use a news reader that uses “manga” as a search term, I’d guess it isn’t insignificant, and I’d also guess that many of those people aren’t familiar with ghacks’ particular ethical position. Are the people who stumble across these articles obligated to dig into exactly what that ethical position might be when the article itself is in a context that gives it a certain appearance of mainstream orientation?
In all honesty, I tend to reserve my irritation for general-interest media outlets like student newspapers or arts weeklies that blithely link to these kind of sites rather than something that has “hacks” in its name, but I do see how someone could arrive at this article without any context beyond the fact that it’s listed in a roster with newspaper articles, blog posts, and so on.
@Katherine – And I responded to Simon there, so the same response would apply here.
Also: “I’m asking one of the bigger tech sites not to promote piracy by posting articles promoting sites that distribute material in flagrant violation of international copyright laws.”
Then you’d be asking them to take down a good number of their articles about BitTorrent, Rapidshare and any other links to free movie sites and other sites that you deem unacceptable.
In other words, you’re promoting censorship.
Again, if your problem is OneManga, take it to them. If your problem is with the extension gHacks is promoting, then bring it up with the extension creator.
If you want to censor a tech blog because you don’t approve of what they have to say… Oh, too late. You’re already trying to do that.
@David – Again, you have some very good points.
However, the same could be true of any article anywhere on the Internet. When people do a search, they land on some unexpected sites… and might misunderstand the site they land on. It’s the way of the ‘net.
A particularly hilarious example is when ReadWriteWeb posted an article about the implications of cross-site Facebook Logins and a bunch of Facebook users (who presumably get to Facebook’s login page through putting “facebook login” into Google) ended up at ReadWriteWeb and actually thought they were on Facebook. They began filling the comment field with: “I don’t like this new look for Facebook” “I can’t understand what’s going on” “How do I log in?” “I just want to play Farmville! Where is my page??”
So I do understand that people can end up outside of their usual haunts and end up on a site they may not understand, as in the ReadWriteWeb case.
However, does that mean ReadWriteWeb and other blogs shouldn’t ever post articles about Facebook Logins, for fear of confusing Facebook’s users? Of course not. Does that mean that the web, in general, should be dumbed down so that any stranger passing by can understand everything they read on every site? I don’t think so.
And while I realize this is a different issue, since legality is involved… It’s really not THAT different. After all, there are PLENTY of websites out there that discuss illegal activities – expecting that any of them (let alone all of them) would put a “Hey, if you came here from Google, we’re talking about ILLEGAL STUFF HERE” warning on their posts is kind of ridiculous.
But at the end of the day, what this all comes down to is censorship.
I support gHacks’ right to post whatever they want in their blogs.
I support Katherine’s right to post this blog entry right here.
And I support my right to voice an opinion on it.
What I DON’T support, however, is the dangerous turn some comments here (NOT yours, David!) are taking towards promoting censorship.
Perfect example, from the blog entry itself: “Second, post a polite comment at ghacks.net asking them to remove the articles about One Manga and other scanlation sites.”
In other words, let’s mobilize and try to censor other people’s blogs. And that, my friends, is WRONG. And I shall exercise my right to say so as often and as loudly as I like
@Shari: If gHacks chooses not to take the article down, that’s their right. If they choose to delete my comments or respond with their own editorial explaining why they’ve written several articles about OneManga (and the various apps developed for it), that’s also their right. But please stop trying to frame this as some kind of censorship issue, or demanding that I contact every single person or company that’s contributing to the problem of digital piracy on the Internet; my blog’s focus is manga, which is why I responded to this particular series of articles at gHacks.
I know your goal is to defend a site that you read on a regular basis — a very laudable goal — but your comments have crossed a line from righteous indignation to overblown hysteria. To date, none of my readers have posted nasty comments at gHacks; if anything, most folks share your “Who cares?” attitude about copyright and piracy issues and have chosen to say nothing.
Sorry, Katherine… but there’s no hysteria here. Just a bit of nausea
And the truth? I never read gHacks before today.
I just found YOUR righteous indignation, condescension and call for censorship of others’ blogs to be horribly distasteful in every possible way.
Hence, I commented here.
(And after that, I did enjoy exchanging some thoughts and comments with David Welsh. He’s a fellow of sound mind.)
You can try to color the issue however you like to, but you’re promoting censorship by asking that gHacks censor their blog posts to fit YOUR idea of what’s appropriate for THEIR blog.
@Shari: About the only point on which we agree is that David Welsh is a smart person.
Manga (as opposed to Western comics) also has the added level of translation.
Is there a grey area when the existing translations are horribly inaccurate or censored?
I would be far more supportive of people who did scanlations in response to those kinds of problems as opposed to just did not want to pay for the product.
@J.A. Crestmere: There are two forms of manga piracy: the first is straight-up theft, akin to superhero fans scanning the latest issue of JLA and posting it online for others to read, free of charge. The second, as you point out, falls into a greyer area: fans are scanning and translating chapters that may not be available in English yet, or re-translating material to suit their own tastes. Though there are many instances of name-changes, localization, censoring of naughty bits (e.g. by drawing on panties), and flat-out bad translations, manga publishers have generally adopted a policy of fidelity to the original whenever possible. Many fans expect it, and are very vocal about their preference for literal translations.
There are also a lot of folks who use scans to sample series (see Michelle C.’s comments, above), to gauge what’s popular in Japan, or to avoid paying $10 per volume. Tiamat’s Disciple, a British reviewer and anime/manga fan, has posted a number of articles explaining why he reads scanlations, which you can find here: http://www.tiamatsreviews.com/?s=scanlations. You might find them helpful for understanding hardcore fans’ attitudes towards scans, and how scans fit into the fan culture. Hope this is helpful!
What if I want to read new chapters of Nodame Cantabile because Del Rey put its volume releases on a pathetically slow schedule? Do I have to wait at the whims of the english publisher just to stay legal? As a fan, I don’t have forever to wait for books, but once they do come out, I do, in fact, buy them.
@Oliver: Believe me, I’m sympathetic — I follow a number of series, too, and would love to get new volumes of 20th Century Boys, Kekkaishi, Detroit Metal City, or Summit of the Gods every month! I think as more publishers explore digital options, the gap between when something is released in Japan and when it’s released here will narrow considerably; for big event series, I think it’s quite likely we might see simultaneous release in Japan and other major markets, as VIZ is doing with Rin-ne, and Dark Horse plans to do with its CLAMP “mangettes” project. (Remember that announcement from SDCC 2007? I barely do, either!) Until then, however, there isn’t a great solution. I don’t know why Del Rey has Nodame Cantabile on a slower release schedule: it may have to do with less-than-robust US sales, or their licensing agreement with Kodansha, or the rate at which the series is being issued in Japan. Maybe another reader has the answer?
@Katherine: Theft is theft but there is a grey area here. I have no problem at all with people making “illegal” translations when the originals are compromised in a significant way (which means something more significant then Anglicizing the names of finding American cultural idioms to stand in for unfamiliar Japanese ones).
If you scan the pages and distribute them, that’s illegal.
Even if you add your own translation – you’re actually not allowed to modify the original pages without first receiving the authorization to do so and of course, you’re not allowed to distribute the modified images either.
Putting up your translation in text form only would be fine I guess, since then it could be considered as your own work. I’m not sure to which degree a translator first needs to obtain an authorization in order to translate something.
But anyway, in the case of manga you’re not allowed to distribute the whole thing with images, no matter whether is has been licensed, censored etc. in your region or not. Unless you get the authorization to do so.
The only difference is that in the case of a work that doesn’t exist in english, the scanlations probably don’t hurt sales that much and might still have their positive effects, which used to be the original intention (making a work popular). But that doesn’t change the legal aspect.
Well, it’s a never-ending discussion. I don’t believe that scanlations are necessarily bad or have only negative effects. But one thing is for sure – they’re not allowed to do what they do. And I have the feeling that quite a lot of readers are not aware of that.
Btw, many scanlations have really bad translations as well ^^;; Especially for the less popular series the official translations are often better. Less popular series can be quite far behind their japanese release as well. And quite a few series are not available as scanlations at all.
@J.A. Crestmore: Some of the changes that fans are most unhappy about are ones that the Japanese artists themselves have requested or approved! Most of the discussions I’ve seen explaining why fans prefer a scanlation over the licensed version hinge on pretty small stuff, not radical re-writes of the text. I tend to favor a translation that’s idiomatic and gives me a sense of who the characters are, so I’m generally not bothered by small alterations of characters’ names, or slight differences in translation of slang.
@lumi: You’re absolutely right about the legality of scanlation activity: if a scanlation group doesn’t have the express permission of the copyright holder to translate and distribute digital copies of the work, their scans are an infringement on the author’s rights. You’re also right about the quality of many scanlations… in a word: Babelfish! Thanks for your insights!
Way back in the dawn of time, I was in my very first Library Science class, when the teacher asked, “How many of you censor what’s in your collection?” I raised my hand. That very week, I had thrown out a magazine that arrived in the mail that was highly inappropriate for the library I worked in.
Was that inherently evil?
You don’t know what kind of magazine it was, nor what kind of library, but my guess is that you’re feathers ruffled.
I worked in a pharmaceutical advertising firm’s library and the magazine was a Catholic Church magazine. It simply had no place in our collection.
It was not relevant to any of the topics we kept journals for.
Was that inherently evil?
You censor every day when you decline to keep junk mail and things of no interest to you.
You censor when you don’t read opinions that disagree with yours.
You censor, because as humans we cannot accept every stimulus that our senses encounter, or we will go mad.
Asking a tech blog to not cover sites that encourage stealing is really not a misuse of anything, much less censorship. It’s just that – a request. Whether asking a tech blog that frequently covers illegal sharing tools to not cover another one is sensible is a different story.
The rage that always comes up in these conversations boils down to people who read manga for free don’t like to be reminded that it’s illegal. It forces them to come up with new explanations/justifications for why they do. I see the same exact rage in smokers who are reminded that it not only will kill them, but harms the people around them. And in people who compare Obama to Hitler. No one likes to have their worldview questioned or to be required to justify what we *know* is bad behavior. It makes us truculent and pissy.
Folks – You want to read OneManga, that’s fine. Please also read the blogs of some of the manga artists who are working themselves into the hospital, and not making enough money to live to balance out your self-righteousness. There are real people you’re stealing from – not “The Man.” Actual individual humans who are struggling every day, working *grueling* schedules that you can’t probably imagine ever working, to get 32 pages of completed work out a month so you can relax and read a stolen copy for free. I hope you’ll have a nice little explanation for your favorite manga artist when he or she asks you why you can’t be bothered to pay for what you read.
Thank you for your comments about censorship, Erica! Americans are quick to use the word, yet few have a concept of what real institutional censorship is all about. Years of studying Soviet culture make me reluctant to use that word unless I feel like the act of censoring constitutes a deliberate effort to deceive, coerce, or prevent the dissemination of important information, e.g. deliberately withholding information about casualties in a war, suppressing information about the rise of an infectious disease, arresting journalists or scholars for expressing anti-government points of view. In this case, as you point out, the site in question was free to ignore me, to respond with their own editorial, or to edit the article to include information about the legality of OneManga’s “products” (for want of a better word) — I have no way to compel them to do anything. At least I shamed them into fixing the typo in line one!
I really didn’t want to jump back into this discussion. However, after reading some comments made by Erica, I felt that some things needed to be said. First of all, to those who do not read and mightily condemn those who do read scans, have you ever asked those who do their reasons? It appears to me that you have gotten in your mind that al these evil pirates are just getting all they can for free to stick it to “the Man.” (What man is that precisely?) It seems to me that you are just making assumptions without actually attempting to understand why they are doing this.
“The rage that always comes up in these conversations boils down to people who read manga for free don’t like to be reminded that it’s illegal. It forces them to come up with new explanations/justifications for why they do.”
You are wrong on this point. The rage comes from being judged by “self-righteous” people who do not bother to actually discover the real reason why people read from sites such as these. To enlighten you, I have asked users of these sites why they go there. I do admit that yes, some just want free manga. From the majority of people that I have asked, they are there to see what new manga is coming from Japan. Another thing that may shock you is that these people are actually buying it too (and a lot of it). This is another stereotype that I dislike and sends me into a “rage.” Another part of this statement that is inaccurate is that readers “don’t like to be reminded that it’s illegal.” A large portion of the readers of these sites are teens and honestly, many don’t realize it is illegal.
What really makes me sad is that many of the comments are not helpful to the situation at all. What I have seen is “we are better than you” instead of actual solutions to the problem. Katherine was right in that education is a step in solving this issue. Unfortunately that is not enough. Since there are so many people using sites like these it is obvious that there is a need for digital manga. However, the only way that is ever going to change is if the Japanese publishers take note and start the process there.
@Michelle: Erica isn’t a scold who’s been waiting for an opportunity to wag her finger at scanlation readers; she’s a manga publisher who runs a yuri convention here in the US. Her comments reflect years of experience running a convention, licensing material for the US market, doing translation work, and hosting a yuri-themed website — in other words, from a deep engagement with creators, fans, and publishers. I understand that you feel unfairly lumped together with folks who don’t buy the manga they read online, but from a purely legal standpoint, what you’re doing isn’t any different.
I certainly agree with your point about the need for better methods of digital distribution. I don’t know if you saw Jake Forbes’ essay at MangaBlog, but I thought he offered some common-sense solutions that, if implemented on a wide basis, could help combat manga piracy: http://www.mangablog.net/?p=7492.
Yeah.
What about the video game Rom and Iso sites? Did anyone made a move against them? Apparently, they only have removed “ESA Protected” Roms, which are still distributed regardless of the protection.
==
May the mother of pirates shine upon you.