This week's poll suggestion is from residentgrigo. Well, scanlations are sort of like pirating, but with a bit more effort on the part of the providers since people have to translate, edit, proofread, etc. The people providing pirated movies, music, or games usually have to do less manual labor.

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related)
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: What is your favorite demographic?
Choices:
I'm male and I prefer Shoujo - votes: 473 (3.9%)
I'm male and I prefer Shounen - votes: 1742 (14.5%)
I'm male and I prefer Seinen - votes: 3519 (29.3%)
I'm male and I prefer Josei - votes: 169 (1.4%)
I'm female and I prefer Shoujo - votes: 1945 (16.2%)
I'm female and I prefer Shounen - votes: 1911 (15.9%)
I'm female and I prefer Seinen - votes: 1142 (9.5%)
I'm female and I prefer Josei - votes: 1119 (9.3%)
There were 12020 total votes.
The poll ended: July 25th 2015

It appears males tend to focus on the male-orientated series, while the ladies are split pretty evenly. Now I'm curious what happens if you are allowed you create a character in a video game. Do you create a male or female character? My guess is that the split may follow the above guidelines too

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

I don't feel remorse for consuming pirated content because almost all the things that I've downloaded (premium software, games, tv shows, movie, music, porn, books, comics, premium tutorials, etc.) for myself wasn't going to be paid for by me ever.

Plus, I pirate all these things because of the significant convenience that it gives me. This world is not free. People still have to pay for the INTERNET connection, the computer, the laptop, the phone, and other future gadgets that require the Internet in order to be functional.

In the world of flesh, it's becoming much more difficult (if not impossible) to commit crime and get away with it Scott-Free. But in the world of cybernetics, people feel a sense of freedom that we can't get in the real world. The Internet has become an easier place for the people of the free world.

Why Pay for Photoshop (over $200)...?? Get a hacked version off a torrent site, and enjoy almost every benefit a person who would buy the software would get. Most importantly, get this FREE.
Why should a human feel bad for taking something for free, that they were never going to pay for in the first place? I know many hackers who wouldn't.

Scanlation can be called "benevolent" piracy as there is a the aspect of a translation (a mid res scan with a separate translation attached is all i need btw.) but i am not jumping down that rabbit hole. If you end up actually believing in a product than you will support in some way so i never had or will have remorse. If you like it you buy it. End of story.

What i don´t get is why bigger Japanese publishers don´t offer translated to English (or other major languages that make sense) chapters to buy on their sites. A lot now have digital services which allow you to buy whole volumes or the latest chapter but would it be that hard to employ one translator. None of this would stop piracy but they would have a valid argument against scan groups and one more employee (on part time) and more to do for their letters wouldn´t break the bank. More Japanese creators should experiment with digital distribution and self publishing (just look at Image) if you ask me but the book market needs to crash further before that road will be taken it seems.
The Bande dessinée field is also "blessed" with a strong scanlation culture as most of them come to west Europe but crossing the pond is way harder it seems.

The good think about scanlations or the way piracy has taken over the American comic market (even PC games have less of a problem with piracy) is that it forced distributors to step up their game and have day and date digital chapters, all sorts of sales incentives and so on. I would argue that we wouldn't have day and date streaming or the Netflix model if the Bay and friends weren´t a thing but i never had a problem with copyright holders cracking down on piracy as they do need to protect the brand on at least paper.
None can stop the Bay though. Not with that Alexia rank...

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

My answer is " Seldom or never "...I'm a bad guy, I'm a poor guy and I don't like to show-off and I don't lie(I'll keep quiet instead of telling truth, though depends)...

So, all of us who are reading SCANLATED items are consumes of pirated digital content...

As I said before, I'm a relatively poor guy, I don't have a huge capital...thus, it's not possible for me to buy everything...
I do buy novels and mangas/manhwas/manhuas, which ones I love and available in English...that's that...
Now, I don't bother buy Music, that's not stopping me from not listening to the new and upcoming vast amount titles....source doesn't necessarily have to be illegal (e.g. SoundCloud)...
I watch a lot anime, movies, TV series...and yes if go and starting to buy or rent all of them I will go bankrupted...sources here as well doesn't necessarily have to be illegal...
Now, lets talk about games, playing games is a huge part of my life(I play less nowadays though)...and in this particular case, I buy a lot, though depends on the titles and my taste...but, I do also download and play alot of pirated ones to check them out...I'm certainly gonna buy the upcoming 4 big titles from Ubisoft(3 Tom Clancy's and 1 from AC series; Ghost Recon is gonna be awesome, just my type)...for collection too!!
I'm a WP fan, so, every thing is legal on that part...

I'm a regular user of torrent...It is the salvation of piracy consumers!!

Well, the biggest two reason on my part are ~
#1 Money *sob* (60%)
#2 Ease of using free content...So, you don't have to worry about messing up things while experimenting this and that.

✔ Just to make things clear! Consumers are not committing any crime! We're just consuming, NOT DISTURBING!! Disturbing it is a crime!(Nobody bothers though)
I have never distributed any pirated content...So, Yes! No criminal here! Just a RANDOM BAD GUY!
I do share links with people if they ask for it though...but, that's doesn't count for anything but helping!
It's not possible to stop piracy, saying righteous things will not help anyone! Everything is up to the people...So, just Go With The Flow!!

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@lambchopsil: On all the RPGs(online and offline) I've played and playing, I always play as a Male character!
And things certainly follows the above guidelines, at least on MMORPGs ~!

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[img]https://i.imgur.com/ERg8slD.gif[/img
[img]https://i.imgur.com/HphHlPh.gif[/img]
Tv Tokyo - Anime & Manga ~ MinatoAce

Nope. And I'm not just talking about scanlations. I don't feel guilty about software, or my medicine textbooks, or anime/movies/TV series. We have cable at home but many series and movies are blocked for our region because they're too expensive for the company to cover without increasing the bill to infeasible levels. I've bought quite a few textbooks, but that's only because my uni requires us to have the newest editions and I can rarely find those online. Whatever our cable company isn't allowed to broadcast, I DL via torrent.

I'm dirt-poor, and the American dollar is 135 of our rupees (the Sterling pound is 210; the Euro 130+). No way in hell am I buying hundreds of dollars/pounds worth of books and on top of that paying almost the same amount again in shipping costs.

Once my Japanese gets better, though, I do plan to buy unscanlated manga that I'd love to read (my list for that is 700+ titles long). But I still won't be buying the official English versions. The original is always the best, anyway; not to mention cheaper. Plus, I'd rather at least some of my money go to the mangaka and the Japanese publisher and not to some western company.

Last edited by calstine at 2:00 am, Jul 25 2015

5903 picked male and 6117 picked female. Women proved to be more open minded but i was nice to get to pick the choice that the market wanted from me for a change.
I go male in a setting with an avatar lead as that is the point of that concept, call him Auron (from FF X) give him some of my looks and max out conversation skills as early as i can but a character choice as with Mass Effect or Resident Evil is something else entirely.
I went male Shepard as that is how the game was marketed and how most would and did experience it but i went Jill and Claire on first play though in RE 1 and 2 as they looked like more interesting protagonists than Chris or Leon (and the are). I wonder who i will pick in Dishonored 2 first but getting the choice between playing as either a father or his illegitimate daughter is very interesting.

Edit: Am i the only one on this board with actual money in the bank account?
I was originally born into poverty thank to Perestroika and the USSR in general so it was a goal for me to quickly reach finical stability (and then some) and to live on my own.
Pro tip: Go for a government job. The pay is good, the benefits are great, the workload is a joke and you will always find reemployment.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 12:18 pm, Jul 30 2015

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

If we are talking about music and movies, yes, I would feel guilty if I was getting pirated music and movies by independent artists and companies (because they don't make too much money themselves). This is why I make a habit of paying for indie media. Mainstream stuff: Nah. No way. They make millions whether or not I contribute to their pockets.

Manga: Well... it's readily available, and I can't read Japanese, and I don't want to wait ages and ages for the licensed translations to come out, so I read scanlations. I do purchase my favourite manga and unscanlated manga when the licensed English versions are released, though. Now I have so many manga that I have them stored away in boxes!

Of course never, I feel good about it - "sharing is caring".
Helping spread the work of an author you enjoyed is a very good deed to both the author and his potential fans. I feel that Authors should profit from their works only after the users have already used them and became fans, and not from artificial scarcity controls before that point, which only reduces the number of people that can reach that "fan" status.
Copyright is a very evil and bad thing that should be abolished ASAP.

Last edited by SinsI at 4:14 am, Jul 25 2015

I'm a cheap bastard, so no.



Why not make a poll?

If I get to choose, I always pick a female avatar.
To me they're more aesthetically pleasing, and being female myself,
it feels natural sticking to my gender.

And I just like the ladies. : D

Last edited by NightSwan at 5:55 am, Jul 25 2015

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Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.

And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

It would be good if mangaupdates had 2-3 polls on top of each other. It would get to more questions faster.

Well, I'm pretty positive the userbase here is at least 70% female. So assuming that's true, then there were indeed disproportionally many females who didn't vote, most likely because yaoi wasn't being featured.

I think that should be kept in mind for future polls.

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Poll-ception!
I forgot to admit that i am a real life crook too (at least i am not a hypocrite) and will now leave my poll alone as Monkey Island - A Pirate I was Mean't to Be is my final word on piracy. Leechers need to be keelhauled though me hearties.

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Never feel bad about it. Cause if I like it, I buy it, visit original website, or buy some merchandise. Even if I don't like, but I read a lot of it anyway (cause I was bored that day); I buy volume one and give it to a friend. With movies and ect. that pirated, I do the same buy then give to friend. I've notice that peeps don't read, watch or listen to what you like unless you hand it to them personally.

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Internet Lurker At Heart

What a strange poll.

If I felt bad or remorse for consuming pirated content, I would never have gotten into anime/manga/light novels in the first place, let alone stuck with it for so long.

I don't feel bad. Anything I read and truly enjoy and that is worth shelling out for, I will buy. Because, let's be honest, there's a lot of garbage manga out there, and I'm not going to pay for lazy, < 100% effort works. As a writer, that's something I feel very strongly about. Give me your all, and then I'll give you my money.

As a librarian, I don't see what the big deal about scanlations are. Somebody bought the book, and now it's "circulating," per se. Is the Internet not like a giant library? I rarely buy books because a) they're expensive, and I don't have that kind of money, and b) I don't want to waste money on books when 90% of the time, I won't like them at all or enough to reread. And, like I said before, I will gladly pay for books and related merchandise for series I enjoy. (Currently, I'm in the process of collecting the English volumes of Pandora Hearts, even though I prefer the scanlator's translation to the official one. And since Karneval got licensed, I'm going to start buying that, too.)

I agree with another poster, though, in that I always support indie artists and smaller studios. They actually need the money, unlike most mainstream artists and companies. As for the latter, I need the money more than they do.

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"Now, everything is... just..."

writer | librarian | critic