Manga scanlations sites to close

[ggctuk]

OneManga to close - other sites to follow suit after being threatened by American/Japanese manga anti-piracy coalition (http://news.suite101.com/article.cfm/manga-scan-site-will-remove-unauthorized-content-by-end-of-july-a264657)

Mangahelpers is down also.

Do they honestly think they can beat piracy? Not this way. Would I have bought the manga I had bought without having first sampled them via the scanlations? Not a chance in hell. And now they're going to make it more difficult for themselves to make money because people won't have the ability to sample a series (certain publisher sites offer "chapter previews" but these pale in comparison to actual releases when you want to get a feel for the story or its characters).

In no way do I endorse people making money off these scans ALA Tazmo and his site NarutoFan. I think sales will now plummet because people won't be sampling manga before they buy them. I may sometimes download a whole series but I always resolve to buy the official volumes to replace those and I delete the chapters I have downloaded when I do.

Discuss.

[AsteriskRocks]

They are going to implement legal alternatives. Such as what Square Enix will be doing:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-07-21/square-enix-plans-digital-manga-store-in-n-america-france

However, unlicensed series will suffer.

[ggctuk]

It's also more the fact that official translations take so damned long to come out when scanlations can be out in the week of the Japanese chapter.

[yamiangie]

well it's back to just reading TV tropes and fan wikis for me

[Fat1Fared]

=well I respect sites like OneManga for taking the makers wishes into consideration here (no matter how misguided some of those wishes maybe) but I think the problem here is actually down to two things:-

1=Publishers once again mess up cause and effect

2=once again misusing priacy law and making it almost actually not work for how orginally made

1-In terms of point one, this comes because publishers have seen a drop in profits over last year and half, and publishers as always blame these things (even though scanner users are actually very small in number) and so have forced through this change in stance, however in truth these problems probably more to do with recession than scanners, however cannot do much about that lol

2-this is what annoys me, as copyright and priacy law is to do with using other poeples ideas as your own and this is not that, there could be some miss use of goods here, but generally what this is, is not illegal, but massive companies use their push to threaten these groups and force to close and the real problem here is that this then makes the use of priacy itself not work for what it was made for and turns it into nothing more than bulllying tool for companies and lawyers

=Still despite my moaning, I don't actually use scanners unless I cannot actually get a copy of the manga here, (so only read 2 manga's online basically lol) so this doesn't effect me massively lol

[killshot]

What's that giant manga corporations? Speak up, I can't hear you over the sound of your own futility.

Buy seriously, this will do nothing to curb piracy. Direct downloads of scans from file sharing sites are still available. All this does is make it slightly less convenient. I'm not in the habit of reading manga anyway. I'll be over here watching anime I downloaded illegally and not caring about anti-piracy laws.

[Yuuki Kuran]

I guess this wouldn't have happened if people actually bought the books...I like reading manga online too, and I've bought a few manga from some of my favorite series', but I want to make sure the chapters are good first before I buy anymore. Or else I would have been wasting my money..... Now I have to wait forever to see what's going to happen in Vampire Knight, or what might Naruto's ending is going to be like. This sucks!

[TheOcean]

This sucks plain and simple. I guess its time to learn Japanese so I can subscribe to shonen jump.yes I know there's an english version that isn't that far behind the original Though my favorite manga aren't even done by them and are very hard to get ahold of in any form in the US.

[LordZorc]

This is my response:

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/206/0/1/Shredder_Disapproves_by_HeraldOfDarkness.jpg

[TitanAura]

MAMMOTH WALL-O-TEXT

Well I suppose it's a good thing I've been slowly weening myself off of scanlations for the past year and a half and this will be my final step towards being 100% legitimate with my manga reading habits. Get well acquainted with your library system, you'll learn to LOVE IT. Same principle applies to your local bookstore's manga section (though if someone smashes you over the head with an Encyclopedia Britannica, you'd be wise to stop setting up base camp in the middle of the comic section).

I'll admit that I still can't afford to buy all of my favorite manga's, but I still buy the really important ones as I'm able to, so long as I don't have to buy more than a dozen volumes to have the complete collection.
*skip this if you don't care*
Side note: To be honest, GTO remains the only long running series I own in its entirety totaling 25 volumes which is roughly 2/3 of my current collection. I'll probably eventually own all of FMA, but since that will probably end up being 25-30 volumes long, I'll stick to my local library for now (it receives the newest volumes surprisingly fast after their initial release). Anywho....

I'll weigh in my own opinion on the matter.... I agree with their decision.... mostly. I have a substantial disdain for scanlating due to it's unfortunate lack of quality control, though I know of a handful of top tier, professional level scanlation groups. I'll voice my sympathy for those unfortunate casualties but in the long run it's best to leave proper translation and localization to the real professionals. But that's just my opinion in relation to the quality of scanlations.

Concerning the obvious financial reasoning behind their decision.... I'm uncertain. First let me state why free online distribution more significantly impacts printed material than it does it's counterpart anime: Because it cannot be broadcast the way anime can. Fansubs have changed the face of anime worldwide but it hasn't had the financial impact on those shows that producers and investors claim they do. Why? Because TV shows profitability is based solely upon advertising. Fansubs have no impact upon the advertising revenue provided by television broadcasts because the fans of those shows will still tune in to watch those shows. I still watch reruns of The Simpsons, don't you? Since these shows can be seen for free on television anyways, it's less harmful to the industry as a whole. But this isn't the case for printed material, is it? They can't be broadcast and books rarely, if ever, rely upon advertising to make money because their profit is based SOLELY upon the retailer. This is where things get tricky....

Clearly there's a rather significant hole in their logic if they believe the people who read mangas online for free are the same people who would buy those mangas if they couldn't read them otherwise. This has already become apparent when compared to video game piracy because if projected sales for video games were based upon pirated copies, every major game release within the past 5 years would have broken record sales by 10-fold and the same holds true for any other form of media. I'll be honest, I wouldn't have bought GTO if I hadn't read it online first because I never would have discovered it in the first place (none of my local bookstores or libraries carry it and I'd be damned to just start buying the whole collection without first knowing whether or not I'd like it). Does this not debunk their claims? Well.... not exactly.

The fact is, we are cheating. Do we deserve to sample these series? Certainly, but what we've done is expanding the concept of taking a complementary slice of the pie into devouring the entire thing before deciding to pay for it (and as we all know, most of us would selfishly decide not to pay regardless of how satisfied we were with the taste). Sometimes we have to test unknown waters to find hidden gems. I'll give you an example. (Though you may skip to my TLDR summary)

I own all four volumes of a series by the name of Miki Falls (http://www.amazon.com/Miki-Falls-Spring/dp/006084616X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8463472-9773709?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183909265&sr=8-1). It's a series created by Mark Crilley. (http://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley) Here's the thing, I based my decision to buy the entire series upon the following information: Mark Crilley is an amazing artist (thusly I concluded at least it will be nice to look at) and his synopsis, simply paraphrased, is "a simple 'boy meets girl' story following Miki, the heroine, as she gets to know Hiro, a boy at her school that seems to possess a mysterious power of supernatural origin." That's about it. I knew nothing of his previous work as a children's book author (Akiko), and even less about what I was paying for. And I don't regret it a bit. I felt like I had discovered something and it was all the more rewarding to have found it by accident. Not only that, I was able to personally contact Mark Crilley and give him my personal critique and gave me the chance to inquire about particular details that he had left out, which he happily answered. This series is to me what I'm certain Scott Pilgrim was/is to it's initial fans, a brilliant jewel that has gained popularity partially thanks to your personal support.
TLDR Summary:
BUY MIKI FALLS! DOITDOITDOIT! I'm kidding, but seriously, it's good and I'm not lying when I say I knew nothing about it when I committed to buying it while it was still less than a year old. And I'm not even a fan of romance novels and that's saying a lot.

TRUE STORY:
I was reading the second volume of Miki Falls, when I suddenly realized I was reading a romance novel in a pink shirt while cooking over a hot stove while caring for a 1 year old infant I SHIT YOU NOT. The power of this series was so great that it had caused my body to invert my penis and grow a pair of ovaries.... I got better.

TLDR of the TLDR:
I agree with their decision but only in theory. I wish the world were so simple but most of the people being affected by the destruction of scanlations are people who otherwise can't afford to buy manga in large quantities in the first place. Not to mention how significantly this will decimate unlicensed series.

[Fat1Fared]

What's that giant manga corporations? Speak up, I can't hear you over the sound of your own futility.


=hah har, Killshot, you know what I mean, compaines like Digital Manga probably have compaines like eversheds to their name and so get given a team of 20 of best lawyers going to review their case, while a website like one manga probably has 1 law student who cries indigently as the law once more gets misused, who is going to win in court <_<


MAMMOTH WALL-O-TEXT

Well I suppose it's a good thing I've been slowly weening myself off of scanlations for the past year and a half and this will be my final step towards being 100% legitimate with my manga reading habits. Get well acquainted with your library system, you'll learn to LOVE IT. Same principle applies to your local bookstore's manga section (though if someone smashes you over the head with an Encyclopedia Britannica, you'd be wise to stop setting up base camp in the middle of the comic section)..

=Titan, as always what you put is true and so I can see what saying, but there are several problems with it:- (problems I expect you already see, but will say them anyway)

1=though I cannot speak for US, england is bankrupt right now and so what is there plan for dealing with that, there closing down all the libraries, though I am lucky that my Anime society has finally this year won its battle with the uni and forced them to accept that manga’s is a real form of media and literacy, so now having to allow us to put several copies in there, even this is not without problems, first they are making the anime society fund for it, ourselves, now because there is 20+ of us, we are able to do this to a point, but still means that having to be careful and limited with our stock...etc, but also this saves what 20+ of us fans out of the millions, very few uni libraries are as accommodating of this media as ours are and few that are, still limited in use

2=Bookstores, now I will buy them from these, but in end there stocks are equally limited and only sell massive stories like Deathnote, meaning some of smaller ones like School Rumble simply impossible to find without the internet, now I am happily getting ready to buy school rumble online, within next few months, because I have fallen in love with series despite all its failings, however I would never have even heard of it without scanner sites as no shop would sell manga of this kind

3=I cannot afford to buy manga all time and so that means I have to slowly dip in and out, while buying them (this why only read about 5 manga series full stop) however most won't be patience and want whole series as quickly as possible, because my way means take years to get through even small series with the dip in and out method, heck even I use scanners when get to really really good parts and cannot wait to see what happens or with series where simply cannot wait till finally own it to read it, we are human and impatient and this means most will be disenchanted with series before able to finish collection if cannot read it reguraly enough to keep interest

4=Ad's, now can see your point here, ad's, aspecially for more major anime series are great source of money, while this not quite same for literacy media, however i think thing here is, you yourself are perfect example of scanner user, in that use it, then buy it anywhere, because rather have proper copy of series and 99% of scanner users think like you, they use scan's as stop gap between getting real series and reading series and that 1% who don't buy after using scanners will never buy it, they simply won't read it at all or will find another new way to get it free

=I understand why they want to do this, but they are not dealing with problem at all, they are dealing with symptom, and that will have no effect at all, unless considering negative effects

[TitanAura]

=Titan, as always what you put is true and so I can see what saying, but there are several problems with it:- (problems I expect you already see, but will say them anyway)

Yep. Just about. Anyone that pays attention to what I say usually knows I speak in very broad terms with very little focus on the smaller details unless I delve schizophrenically into a personal story like I did about 53 times in my last post. I can only speak from personal experience but libraries are shutting down here too. Within my districts, only one library remains untouched because it holds the archives for the city's important documents (laws, court cases, etc etc). The other two have been downsized by limiting the days they operate. The one I frequent once a week is open Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (excluding Sunday, that's basically every other day).

Bookstores.... Amazon. That is all. The only thing I've ever bought from a book store in person is the Azumanga Daioh Omnibus.

Aside from that, I've pretty much made my stance clear on the matter. I do not agree with how they are implementing it (which is akin to swatting a fly with a nuclear device *quote relevance ftw*) though I believe they hold the right to make the call. SquareEnix has the best understanding of their fanbase (so why haven't they announced a new Chrono Trigger game yet?) so here's hoping other sites catch on. I don't mind banner ads when I'm reading manga or watching anime so long as they aren't pop-ups.

[KlawedFlaw]

This has caused Mangafox to have 69 pages worth of manga series to choose from... Wonder what the 69th one is.

Wait? Did someone say 69?

Number 69 is some one shot yaoi manga called Zurui Otoko. >_> I knew there was gonna be something like that as number 69.

[Novax]

Here's my take on this situation. I do not blame the manga company in doing this because most of us has not bought any manga books ever and it kills the business. HOWEVER, what im am pissed is that the companies won't take any consideration of lowering the price of the manga books because it cost 14-18 dollars for these books and it takes so god damn long to translate the japanese books into a language that we are acustomed to.

[yamiangie]

I believe in my heart some day we will achieve simultaneous releases with the publishing of the Japanese graphic novels. Really take a leaf out of long time American Comic readers and just wait for trade. I'm sure not every one piece fan buys Weekly Shonen Jump each week.

and OneManga's manga is down for good since we have started a new month. No loss here Initial D is better as an anime anyway even with the dated CGI cars

[OwlCoffee]

Ugh, the internet really is going to be dead. Prince is right. I know by the time I have kids my age I'm going to be like "We use to be able access everything on the internet and we didn't have to pay. You just downloaded it and it was yours" They will scoff at me and only say "Stop bullshitting Mom."

[beatlesgirl95]

Well, sucks to be a lot of the manga translation companies. Now, they will have even less of a market. I know I only bought have the manga I have today because of the scanlations I've read online (like so many other people said already). I understand how the companies feel because there are a lot of people that don't buy the manga series if/ when they come out in English, but I personally, like a lot of manga series that haven't been licensed yet. What am I supposed to do? Wait a year for the manga to get licensed and then wait another 2-3 for them to get to the chapter I was last on? No thanks.

[ValkyrieJuno]

Well, sucks to be a lot of the manga translation companies. Now, they will have even less of a market. I know I only bought have the manga I have today because of the scanlations I've read online (like so many other people said already). I understand how the companies feel because there are a lot of people that don't buy the manga series if/ when they come out in English, but I personally, like a lot of manga series that haven't been licensed yet. What am I supposed to do? Wait a year for the manga to get licensed and then wait another 2-3 for them to get to the chapter I was last on? No thanks.

My situation is about the same. I've been waiting to read the newest chapters of unlicensed manga like One Piece, Ultimo, and Shugo Chara and now I can't read them anymore. I'd go buy the volumes but we all know they're like $10 per volume and One Piece has like 50 volumes! I don't have the money to buy all of that.

[KlawedFlaw]

Some sites are still rogueing around. I won't name them.