It Begins

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-06-08/u.s-japanese-publishers-unite-against-manga-scan-sites

MetaMario

Oh, boy .

Strongbad456

This is not gonna end well. It's probably gonna end with MangaStream being shut down.

Gustrono

Danm.

This is gonna be fun as hell.

Cyan D. Funk

Gets popcorn ready

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

As long as they come out with legal alternatives like what they've been doing with anime it shouldn't be a problem. Although even if they don't I don't mind since we're not entitled to simultaneous releases.

1000sunny

Oh hell no, MangaStream better not get shut down…...FUCK!

Legal alternatives would be great but we don't have them so they better get something done about that quick..

m00n

So they will shut down Onemanga. And a few other big ones. The real question is: Will they aim for scanlation groups. And we still don't about that.

P.s I'm not worried for mangastream or something. You can't crack down on One Piece scans or Naruto scans. They will always be around. It's the more obscure titles that you don't know about until you find them online one day or that don't even exist other than in Japanese that I would miss.

Tokoro Ataru

We knew it was coming with what happened to Mangahelpers. But the thing is this: until a legal alternative exists, it will keep going…and even with said legal alternative, people will always find a way.

Robo Gorilla

I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope that they crush Mangastream and leave everybody else alone. My second choice would be them doing nothing. But I'm really hoping for getting rid of Mangastream.

Chopperrules

I agree with Firecrouch. So long as this massively (ungodly) sized petition squad combines their wealth to organize a site where they host legal English scans of the series, I won't have a problem with this at all. I'd be willing to pay a small fee monthly or something to support them too.

But if they just get rid of the scanlations and don't fill the void, all hell will break lose. Hopefully they will first deal with helping the fans of the popular series, and then move to the less popular series.

@Robo:

I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope that they crush Mangastream and leave everybody else alone. My second choice would be them doing nothing. But I'm really hoping for getting rid of Mangastream.

They said they have a list of 30 names. There's a very high chance that includes other great places like One Manga and Manga Fox…

Jazzy Jinx

I'd be more than happy to pay for the shit if I could get some translations of the series up to date. I don't want to sit around here in America holding my dick and knowing that progress to the story is being made while I re-read shit I've already read. Surely they must know how impractical it is for countries outside of Japan, right?

Herodadotus

I guess it was only a matter of time.

choperman

oh please new sites will come up we will always have online scans, what there doing now is bull shit, I don't want edited mangas that come out years later, fuck them if your gonna do this make a site where we can read them online for what it costs to get a weekly shoen jump magazine for two years i'll pay as long as i get my translated unedited scanlations

EDIT: it should take a very long time for this to start though, to eliminate it completely is out of the question, it won't happen

Chopperrules

@Uncle:

I'd be more than happy to pay for the shit if I could get some translations of the series up to date. I don't want to sit around here in America holding my dick and knowing that progress to the story is being made while I re-read shit I've already read. Surely they must know how impractical it is for countries outside of Japan, right?

Exactly.

I don't want to be a hypocrit, since I support legal alternatives for all series, anime or manga. But if they don't give the fans sensible treatment, I can't condone it.

sanji499

I always knew it would happen but not that fast.

I guess Money is the issue. That's it. I do not blame them. We might watch what is happening later in anime.

Robo Gorilla

I'm not really worried. I've seen enough of the "Graaaah! It's all oberz! No this time it's real!!!" catastrophes to not worry anymore. As has been said, they can close the sights, but I don't imagine they'll have any luck stopping the raws. New people will people will take over and start hosting again.

choperman

@sanji499:

I always knew it would happen but not that fast.

I guess Money is the issue. That's it. I do not blame them. We might watch what is happening later in anime.

can they ever successfully do this though, the same kind of thing happens with movies I doubt they'd ever truly shut it down, and if they did all hell will be released,

I ain't buying shit from them if they do actually do this, I'll boycott as will many others, you can just read them and not buy them

I want my stuff unedited and in the same time frame, if i have to pay then fine but we better have scanlations

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@sanji499:

I always knew it would happen but not that fast.

I guess Money is the issue. That's it. I do not blame them. We might watch what is happening later in anime.

With anime we've been getting legal simulcasts, but not any coalition.

http://www.viz.com/news/newsroom/?id=617

Envy

Something tells me that there is no legal alternative in the works and that's the worst part.

I'm all for supporting the industry, in fact I really get annoyed at those who choose not to, but this… There is no way to get many of those obscure manga titles and there's no way to get the newest chapters. Unless I choose to learn Japanese, which to be honest, I really don't have much interest in.

If they do have a legal alternative around the corner I will love them forever, but I just doubt it.

Malintex_Terek

It's just smoke and mirrors at this point.

Wake me up when the papers are on the judge's desk.

sanji499

It would be a bitch if they take down the sites right before the moment we are expecting the most in the manga right now.

However, people could find alternatives by reading on other sites with different language. A spanish could go to a spanish website to read online.

Americans and English do not seem to have a good reputation on learning other langages.

This is where knowing another langage can come in handy.

maxterdexter

@firecrouch:

With anime we've been getting legal simulcasts, but not any coalition.

http://www.viz.com/news/newsroom/?id=617

The legal option in… 2 countries.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@sanji499:

This is where knowing another langage can come in handy.

Like Japanese?

Anyway if you haven't already read Publishers' Weekly's take on this. It seems like they're more concerned about scanlation sites that make money.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@maxterdexter:

The legal option in… 2 countries.

Actually right now you can watch "Bleach" on Crunchyroll in South Africa, Europe, and North America. Just sayin'.

SleepySlug

Sorry, I don't find this quite as worrying as the censorship thread from a month ago was. The chances of them achieving much other than removing a couple sites seems unlikely. In the end people will keep translating them even if they have to resort to torrenting or other means of distribution…

@m00n:

So they will shut down Onemanga. And a few other big ones. The real question is: Will they aim for scanlation groups. And we still don't about that.

P.s I'm not worried for mangastream or something. You can't crack down on One Piece scans or Naruto scans. They will always be around. It's the more obscure titles that you don't know about until you find them online one day or that don't even exist other than in Japanese that I would miss.

Sadly, these are the mangas that benefit most from being distributed in this way. I would never have bought all of Paradise Kiss if I hadn't read the manga first and seen how awesome it was. Likewise, I plan to pick up the English release Hourou Musuko in December 2010 (already preordered through amazon) because I read it on One Manga first. Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece are going to sell because of they're so well known regardless of whether online readers exist. Unfortunately, that's probably not true for lesser known series….

(I know Parakiss is actually pretty well known but I discovered its goodness later than others)

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

Can't people just get a sense of how awesome a manga by reading it in a bookstore or looking at free previews that manga companies put up online themselves?

SleepySlug

@firecrouch:

Can't people just get a sense of how awesome a manga by reading it in a bookstore or looking at free previews that manga companies put up online themselves?

Generally no. Mangas start slow. I would NEVER have bought One Piece just by looking at some random volumes…

WiggyDee

Mangastream remove chapters from their website once they've been published in volumes inside of japan, this probably takes a part in why they're so defensive about other people using their scanlations which I'm assuming is why some people hate them so much.

That said, I'm fine with sites like onemanga being closed down since they take it all a bit too far. But I think mangastream, while still being illegal, have a much more respectful approach to scanlations and shouldn't be too high on the priority list of websites to take down.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@SleepySlug:

Generally no. Mangas start slow. I would NEVER have bought One Piece just by looking at some random volumes…

I didn't have that problem. I bought the first volume, lost interest, then read the next two books at a friend's house before deciding to buy them. I didn't just look through some random volumes.

Robo Gorilla

@WiggyDee:

Mangastream remove chapters from their website once they've been published in volumes inside of japan, this probably takes a part in why they're so defensive about other people using their scanlations which I'm assuming is why some people people hate them so much.

That said, I'm fine with sites like onemanga being closed down since they take it all a bit too far. But I think mangastream, while still being illegal, have a much more respectful approach to scanlations and shouldn't be too high on the priority list of websites to take down.

No, mangastream are the biggest offenders.

Lately two retarded things have happened that people blame for these recent attempts to stop scanlating. People congratulating Kubo on his 400th chapter, giving spoilers, on twitter before it was even released in japan. And iPhone/ droid apps which cost money that provide scans. Guess which retards did both? Mangastream.

Yonkou3

I don't have a problem with it as long as they give us a legal alternative. I work to buy things i like, and i like manga so why not pay for it?

As was brought up recently, i still feel this way.

@toiim:

Hey guys. I know it isn't the most original idea, but surely viz should create a iPad or PC application, similar to iTunes, that allows you to buy and download manga.

If you have iTunes, you'll know how easy it to buy a song. Search, click, listen.

I think Viz could easily save the industry if they go to the digital realm, which is what fans want. Why continue to force fans to go to a shop and buy the manga and read it on paper. They wouldn't have to pay for printing costs.

I know I'd use it to buy comics, wouldn't you?

"I'd absolutely LOVE an app like this because most of the time i can't get One manga to load quickly on my Iphone and of course i cant save chapters, i have to go to the site everytime and search. If i could have a catalouge of chapters on my Iphone/pad that i could read whenever i'd be in bliss. Especially since it isnt practical to carry my manga's around with me when i go places but i still like to read them. For exmaple the train/doctors office/ work etc."

Robby

Oh no, Napster is about to be closed down! How will we ever get obscure songs now?

The genie is out of the bottle. There's no stopping it. But I've said before and I'll say again. I support the material I like. Every manga series I truly enjoy thats been released stateside, I buy, and I try to do the entire series run and would gladly support a proper, fairly priced, legalized system that worked as well as the current bootlegs do.

If tomorrow I no longer could read Naruto, Bleach or Fairy Tail… I wouldn't give a crap.

choperman

this won't happen for a while i would think so no need to worry yet

Jazzy Jinx

This post is deleted!

SleepySlug

@firecrouch:

I didn't have that problem. I bought the first volume, lost interest, then read the next two books at a friend's house before deciding to buy them. I didn't just look through some random volumes.

True. You deciding it was good was based on a friend having already gotten into the series and showing you later parts of it. Now consider a series none of your friends have. You may love if you got to read it, but chances are you will never find out since it is not well known. I would argue that this is already the fate of many series today. Decreasing availability on the web will likely only hurt them more. Are scanlations overall a positive or a negative to the companies? Who knows. But I don't think it's so cut and dried that you can definitely say one way or another.

To me, they're good because they get these series read…

Airflow

They'll shut down a few big sites and we may have to download raws and reads translations as opposed to scanlations.

It'll be fine in other words.

HaxeyeMihawk

You know I wish that Jump would start doing an international version that's current with the Jump in Japan (while possibly coming out a few days later) that's fully translated and allow us people outside of Japan to get yearly subscriptions. If anything were to actually come out of this I wouldn't be surprised if no legal alternative was given.

toujun

big deal…. if they shut down the scanlation sites, then people will just start downloading them off p2p networks and such.

Buuhan1

What they need to understand is quite the number of us don't like "stealing" from these companies or authors, but rather we have no other alternative than to simply deprive ourselves of the series, and we all know that ain't happenin', nor is it fair. Me so sorry I no born in your country.

If they want money they should release various weekly manga magazines here like they do in Japan, or hell, even monthly ones! (what do we got, Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat, and Yen? And even then those MONTHLY issues are HALF THE SIZE as the ones that come out WEEKLY in Japan) But nope, they're not willing to "spend" the money doing such a thing. You can't make money if you don't spend money. Think these big corporations would understand that.

Malintex_Terek

One benefit of taking down sites like Onemanga and Mangastreamer is they'll shave away a good chunk of the online fanbases for various manga, which will promote the longevity of communities because tons of worthless fans do nothing but pollute discussion, especially if they have nothing original or interesting to contribute.

For a long time, I always held the believe that more promotion = how I morally justify myself for reading pirated scans. Sharing the joy of something I like with someone else respects the spirit of the author's intent - to entertain people. Plus, doing so potentially opens up the possiblity of more convenience - faster subs, better scans, easier access.

But with the massive number of people who have access to anime/manga these days, it's started to negatively affect the communities that helped foster people in an era when fans were few. Our Manga forum is nigh incomprehensible and there's almost nothing in there posted that I haven't already heard or thought of myself. Convenience hasn't necessarily improved either with the exception of Mangastreamer, whose community is probably the reason this whole mess is happening. Onemanga doesn't have a fleet of translators who work on obscure titles, they are merely a host for those titles. Many potentially interesting manga, which can benefit the most from mass exposure (not stuff like Naruto, One Piece and Bleach) are not getting the advantage they should be getting from Onemanga because there's a translator shortage. Translators thrive on glory, and there's almost no glory for work on a title that isn't on Onemanga's top viewed manga list.

I will miss how ridiculously convenient those sites were, but I think the effects on the fanbase would be a fair tradeoff.

WiggyDee

I would like to make a suggestion, could it be possible for anyone with the power to alter this thread to include an anonymous poll on who supports their favourite manga by buying the volumes after reading it online? I think it could offer insight into just how legitimate this whole endeavour is.

@Robo:

No, mangastream are the biggest offenders.

Lately two retarded things have happened that people blame for these recent attempts to stop scanlating. People congratulating Kubo on his 400th chapter, giving spoilers, on twitter before it was even released in japan. And iPhone/ droid apps which cost money that provide scans. Guess which retards did both? Mangastream.

From a money grubbing perspective that does bring them up as higher targets since anyone that makes money out of any act of piracy is really setting themselves up for a lawsuit, but most of what you just said doesn't really effect how much manga is sold. Which seems to be the whole point of this escapade.

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.

I'll be happy if the day ever comes in which I can just plop down like 30 bucks and get a year's worth of legal, hassle free SJ.

Badass SnoCone

@firecrouch:

As long as they come out with legal alternatives like what they've been doing with anime it shouldn't be a problem. Although even if they don't I don't mind since we're not entitled to simultaneous releases.

We may not be entitled to the releases, but tell me: Do you read the scanlations every week as they come out? Of course you do. I'm not condoning this, but I'm saying that we all do it. If they're not going to give us a legal alternative, then they shouldn't stop the production of scanlations.

Satsuki

I'm not surprised this is happening, but like many I worry about the obscure titles. I'm sure that big names like Naruto and One Piece will be taken care of legally one way or another, but what about titles like Oishi Kankei and Until Death Do Us Part? I can read Japanese, but they're clamping down on raw scans too, so I can't even turn to raws. I only became aware of these titles because I saw the updates on onemanga and decided to give them a shot.

The only reason most of us even know about titles like these is because of scanlations. They'll lose a lot of potential fandom because we simply won't know about them.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@SleepySlug:

True. You deciding it was good was based on a friend having already gotten into the series and showing you later parts of it. Now consider a series none of your friends have. You may love if you got to read it, but chances are you will never find out since it is not well known. I would argue that this is already the fate of many series today. Decreasing availability on the web will likely only hurt them more. Are scanlations overall a positive or a negative to the companies? Who knows. But I don't think it's so cut and dried that you can definitely say one way or another.

To me, they're good because they get these series read…

My friend never got me into the series. I happened to have gotten the first volume beforehand and he got a few more. Now back on topic, bookshelves at bookstores or libraries work the same as the internet, just in physical form. You can browse different manga and stumble upon one you may have never heard of, pick it up, like it and decide to purchase it. The advantage with scanlations is that you're more likely than not to stumble upon a series that you'll never get to officially buy in English not because scanlations take away potential buyers, but because a manga is so niche that it won't make enough of a profit upon being released overseas. In the end though, scanlations overall hurt sales across the board because as long as you have a free alternative, there's less incentive to even put out a niche series to see if it's even profitable.

@Buuhan1:

What they need to understand is quite the number of us don't like "stealing" from these companies or authors, but rather we have no other alternative than to simply deprive ourselves of the series, and we all know that ain't happenin', nor is it fair. Me so sorry I no born in your country.

If they want money they should release various weekly manga magazines here like they do in Japan, or hell, even monthly ones! (what do we got, Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat, and Yen? And even then those MONTHLY issues are HALF THE SIZE as the ones that come out WEEKLY in Japan) But nope, they're not willing to "spend" the money doing such a thing. You can't make money if you don't spend money. Think these big corporations would understand that.

Why can't you just not steal then? You can live without your favorite series, you're not obligated to get the latest chapter, and you'll get all of it officially published eventually as long you continue to support the official release.

And unfortunately the rest of the world isn't Japan. A magazine like the ones made in Japan wouldn't work here because the market is completely different.

Satsuki

True dat.

I always thought an online version of Shonen Jump would be an interesting thing to try. Most of us don't buy monthly mags because A. We lack money, and B. We don't want to buy a monthly/weekly mag because we don't want to litter our limited space with stories we'll be buying in bulk form later. But an online service that was free or even charged a pittance (no cost of paper/printing), would be very satisfactory.

Jazzy Jinx

The way I see it, depriving countries outside of Japan of the manga they want so desperately to get out here wouldn't be much different from people that read it online and don't buy it. Think of it this way, you read it online and don't buy it because, "Dur hur, I can't fucking buy it because it's not up to date and it's not around." and then by taking it off the internet what you then do is, "Dur hur, I STILL can't fucking buy it because it's not fucking around and I don't know what's going on."

It's all self-defeating. Getting rid of it is just going to hurt them because I do read obscure series and I do buy that shit if it ever makes it over here but I'm not going to buy something I don't know about. And not because it's bad or I'm simply not looking around but because it's NOT FREAKING HERE.

"Hai guyz, given that there are no scantalation sites out there, they won't be cock-blocking all this money we be gettin. It makes a lot of sense if we have our only target audience be Japan and toss every other country half a bone and fuck them if they don't like it. We want to earn money by doing shit our way because we're hip and you're not cool until you remain an adamant asshole about it. You're buying shit on our terms. We don't serve you, you serve us. That's how we make money."

The scantalation sites put that shit out there so countries (getting screwed over by the wonderful "practicality" they're cranking out to them) know what the hell is going on and might just become interested in it. If it's gone, they don't know what's going on and they won't give a fuck. Sure, a bunch of a-holes aren't going to pay but those are the same a-holes that weren't going to pay regardless because of lack of availability. The difference being that the former at least has some a-holes that are going to pay.

Edit: Quickest solution is JUMP doing the same shit they're trying to take down and monopolize it. Refusing to do it is freaking retarded.

Badass SnoCone

@Uncle:

We don't serve you, you serve us. That's how we make money."

That actually is how it seems sometimes.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Badass:

We may not be entitled to the releases, but tell me: Do you read the scanlations every week as they come out? Of course you do. I'm not condoning this, but I'm saying that we all do it. If they're not going to give us a legal alternative, then they shouldn't stop the production of scanlations.

Why not? It's their product, they should be able to do whatever they want with it. I personally wouldn't wind mind if I could no longer read the latest chapter of "One Piece", it's just another diversion.