@HaxeyeMihawk:
@Malintex
So you'd rather that Manga reading as a hobby become less mainstream and more niche like the past in which only the hardcore fans and basement dwellers need apply? Can't say I agree with that, hell the only way companies like Shonen Jump would be willing to expand and actually release translated current issues of the magazine internationally is if manga reading becomes more popular in other countries so that they'd actually think it were profitable, if it shrinks then so will the number of legal ways that we can obtain it.
Yes. Anyone of regard or renown on AP would probably tell you the same thing. Whether it's the secret forums, New Pork City, or wherever people retreat to, if a community gets too large it loses all sense of community at all. It becomes a mob, and nobody who thinks wants to be part of a mob.
Publishing companies are indifferent to fans. They only care about making money, and if catering to fans earns them more money than not, they'll listen. Otherwise, they'll be a 4Kids and ignore everyone who protests, because those opinions don't matter. It is the same rule of numbers that dominates politics as well.
Shounen Jump itself is niche. Most people who go to stores don't buy manga as an experiment, they buy what they know is good. If Jump released all OP manga available in tanko, I guarantee few OP fans would buy the Jump antholgy.
The real ticket to profits are merchandise, not promotional pieces like anime or manga. The fact that the companies refuse to invest in merchandise already damns them to a profit hard cap - the manga market. Abridge that further, the "people who want to support licensed manga" market. It's amazing they're in business at all, that kind of market relies on the altruistic. It's a failed business model and deserves to go extinct like other failed models before it.
@firecrouch:
They're already hurting in the long run because scanlations are hurting their sales
I honestly do not feel this is true on the Japanese publishing side of things. It could be true for for R1 companies, but for R2 were are like a bonus market they can only make extra cash off of. Unless the R1 companies managed to reel in R2 simply because "without R1, R2 doesn't make anymore extra cash" I can't see them burdening themselves with international legal threats unless it's some stupid cultural power dominance thing.
As I've said before, it is expensive for companies to take legal action and potentially disastrous if they lose a lawsuit, which give the current climate in American IP law could happen. Hence no action taken until now.
Unless an actual suit is filed, and if any site deserves it it is Mangastream, I won't be convinced of any major thematic changes to the online scanslation scene.
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