This has been out for awhile, but I thought I'd share about it for those who don't know about it yet:

What is Batoto?

Batoto is a site that plans to grow into an aggregate for eastern comics mostly Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

Now, you've probably seen a lot of these before, from MangaFox, MangaReader, MangaToshokan and such. What's different? What's the point of yet another? With Batoto, we plan to bring a completely new way of creating a manga community. Sites mentioned above all run on a single principle - the uploaded comics bring in traffic, and thus ad-revenue is earned. The problem, however, is that the ones who put the effort to bring such mangas to the rest of the world is not able to see a cent of that earning. Translating groups, on the other hand, at times, require donations to keep running else fail to pay the bills of hosting, and other various purchases to keep it going.

So, here is the proposal: For all those who opt-in, they will receive 100% of the ad revenue. That's right, 100%.

How does this differ from just hosting it on their own websites with ads? Aggregate sites in general earn far more traffic than any single scanlator's website. Thus, the benefit increases.

Sounds like a very cool idea IMO, and though I usually don't use online reading sites, I might have to change my mind about this...

What do you guys think?

Link.

[url=http:////www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=42718][img]http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/oo105/CatzCradle64/Avis-Sigs/FunghiPower_zps2a00ba56copy_zpsfc03990e.png[/img][/url]

Personally, I translate out of my love for manga/light novels.
Of course, after translating a few thousand words, I do have the urge to bang my head through the screen, especially since it leaves me so little time to do my own reading. The thought of money might just help motivate me then, but it's not something I actively seek for translating.

Getting paid for scanlation efforts would be nice, but a lot of scanlators are just trying to do others a service.

That said, I probably wouldn't turn someone down who was offering me money.

I can see this as a disaster in the making. I already found one my projects up there that I did not upload... I don't want to get money for what I do that just kinda feels wrong, but it really pisses me off to someone else getting it.

Quote from Chaoskitty

I can see this as a disaster in the making. I already found one my projects up there that I did not upload... I don't want to get money for what I do that just kinda feels wrong, but it really pisses me off to someone else getting it.

Ahhh, I thought the same thing. Scanlating is really a 'for fun' activity, in my opinion. It just doesn't feel right getting paid for scanlating.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/cWeUK2w.png[/img]

Quote from LawX

You are like the dense main character in a shoujo manga.

Quote from Crenshinibon

And you will murder someone one day, pika. If you're my daughter.

We'd be earning money from somebody else's work, that would just give publishers more ammo to shut down scan groups.

A grand idea indeed. Getting paid for our work. Yet... it doesn't seem right.
I doubt it'll go down well, and honestly I don't think we have a right to be paid for our work. All we do is translate it, the real money should go to the artists and authors who drew/wrote the manga/manhwa/etc. Without their hard work and labor we wouldn't even have manga/manhwa/etc to translate.

Earning money off something that isn't even our work... I don't like it.

yeah, more trouble for the scanlation community.

a little off topic....but webcomic seems to be the way to go (piggybacking on the cloud tech), online reading+linking to author comic page (generating traffic) whenever you read a chapter.

Besides just the scanlators earing green, just think how easy it would be for some random person to upload a crap-load of manga ( maybe from active groups maybe not ) and then they get the add revenue, are they going to cop the place hard enough that this won't happen. And then, how can the prove that the person uploading isn't the scanlator or not. I would rather a place like anymanga or mangafox get the money to at least help run their site then some annoying little thief.

On top of that. I have little respect for scanlators that think they should get money out of our hobby. The mangakas are the only ones who deserve anything. Why don't they give the money to them instead of the scanlators.

Quote from Chaoskitty

On top of that. I have little respect for scanlators that think they should get money out of our hobby. The mangakas are the only ones who deserve anything. Why don't they give the money to them instead of the scanlators.

shouldn't the money go here?

Translating groups, on the other hand, at times, require donations to keep running else fail to pay the bills of hosting, and other various purchases to keep it going.

its cold down here fam ~

I don't like it. The whole point is that nobody should be making money from doing this. We don't want readers to be making money while we're not trying to. That's what the whole thing's about. This just sidesteps the real issue.

@Mewman: That's where the line gets drawn. By our view, using money made to upkeep sites, etc and making no profit = no profit to us. To publishers, anything made whatsoever, no matter how it's used = profit.

Quote from Chaoskitty

On top of that. I have little respect for scanlators that think they should get money out of our hobby. The mangakas are the only ones who deserve anything. Why don't they give the money to them instead of the scanlators.

THIS.

Plus, there are publishers and businesses outside of Japan who spend their lives translating and editing manga as their full-time jobs. In my opinion, I don't think it's right for fans who scanlate as a hobby to receive payment.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/cWeUK2w.png[/img]

Quote from LawX

You are like the dense main character in a shoujo manga.

Quote from Crenshinibon

And you will murder someone one day, pika. If you're my daughter.

Hello, I guess I should leave a few words too.

The main reason batoto was created, and the source of the idea of such model was my reaction to a lot of current scanlator's needs. For example, there are lot of scanlators that ask for donations, or give download links like depositfiles/uploading, which are terrible might I add, but gives monetary return. These revenue sources are usually there to fund the scanlator's raw costs and hosting fees which are usually in the negatives from my own experience as well. I want scanlators to be in a position where they don't need to do that. I don't really want to download from crappy download places that's going to give me 30kb/s without premium and I don't really want to see scanlation groups go down because they couldn't afford to get their raws. Hosting on Batoto isn't meant to make you super rich simply because we're not a very big online reader. It's in hopes that you don't need to be in the red to continue. Frankly, even that goal may never be reached.

A second reason is that I want to turn some tables and earn some respect for the scanlators. There have been a number of issues like this where scanlator wishes are blatantly ignored by online reader owners because they just want to make more money. Batoto will clearly never be in that situation as we just may be hosting your ads instead. I don't want scanlators to be enemies with online readers, afterall, that's where a significant majority of the fans are.

In response to the potential pitfall Chaoskitty mentioned...

Besides just the scanlators earing green, just think how easy it would be for some random person to upload a crap-load of manga ( maybe from active groups maybe not ) and then they get the add revenue, are they going to cop the place hard enough that this won't happen. And then, how can the prove that the person uploading isn't the scanlator or not. I would rather a place like anymanga or mangafox get the money to at least help run their site then some annoying little thief. The validation of scanlator's ads are done through admins and admins only. There can be various methods such as contact via IRC, through proof using their website, etc. A thief will NEVER be able to upload manga claiming to be their own and have their ads posted on our site.

Also, note, it's the scanlator's ads that's shown (if available). Not the uploader's ad. If the scanlator ad is not available, default ad will be shown which will be used to pay the expenses of the site, which is roughly 5x per view on average compared to mangafox as the images are not compressed for non-webtoons.

On an ending note.
You are very welcome to send the money you received to the publisher of mangas.

The Company
[b]Batoto

From what I feel, compared to other online manga reader sites, Batoto tries to uphold all scanlator's policies (since it is run by scanlators too) so I think you could ask to remove your titles if you're want. You can also choose to opt out of advertising revenue and treat it as a normal online manga viewer site. But then again, don't a lot of Scanlation groups earn money already, whether it's from donations or ads to pay for server and raws fees? I also know there are Scanlators that offer commision services to people who request manga to be scanlated or translated, as seen in a lot of hentai groups.

Not to mention, aren't there a lot of other major online manga reader sites that ignore Scanlator's policies and upload their series anyway? And I'm pretty sure, those that are run by major corporations like MangaFox earn a lot of money that doesn't go to either the Mangaka or the Scanlators. So this way, I like to think at least the Scanlators are getting a little something for their translations, which they could always use to buy more manga from publishers or send the proceeds to them directly.

[url=http:////www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=42718][img]http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/oo105/CatzCradle64/Avis-Sigs/FunghiPower_zps2a00ba56copy_zpsfc03990e.png[/img][/url]

From what I feel, compared to other online manga reader sites, Batoto tries to uphold all scanlator's policies (since it is run by scanlators too) so I think you could ask to remove your titles if you're want.

Even if they remove them, the fact that they already uploaded them without asking pretty much left a bad first impression.