Apparently the publishers are pissed because they're "merchandise" is being distributed for free instead of them making money off of it. So they're going around shutting down manga sites which host scanlation. Which causes a problem for us manga fans, since it limits our access to manga.

I thought of a solution that could satisfy both parties.

Have the manga publishers create their own "free" online reader.

Since they're the publishers they have access to all manga including licensed manga. Which means they're not bound by the same restrictions as other online readers such as mangafox which removes manga once its been licensed.

If they kept it open to scanlation submissions they wouldn't need to spend anything on translation or production costs since scanlation is done by fans for fans. All they would need to do would have a quality check. This means theres no longer the problem of the english translation being miles behind the japanese version, since popular mangas are kept current in regards to scanlations.

They could also sell japanese copies of the manga online. This would give scanlators access to manga they might not be able to obtain otherwise and also help keep japanese raws offline so japanese readers won't be getting it for free.

That coupled with potential profit from ads and possible membership fees imo solves things quite nicely. Since rather than trying to extinguish the scanlation community it makes use of it.

Feed your head.

ohh, well THERE's something to think about!!! 😃 how would they get this idea tho?? although i do think that manga publishers are trying to think of SOMETHING that wont make the online manga community even more frustrated with them...

[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.

At this point I'm not sure how willingly scanlation group would be for posting them on publisher sites.

That aside I'm not sure if they would even have it free.. There would be a cost somewhere and I doubt their model would include ad revenue putting up 100% of cost/profit.

I bet those "evil" manga publishers want a solution for those evil manga pirates too lol. 😀

Yeah, I'd just be worried that the scanlators wouldn't be getting paid for a job that takes up much of their, I don't know much but I guessing what is, FREE TIME, which is limited by jobs & school & such. I doubt so many would go out of their way to just make money for others.

If they decrease the cost on the english takobon as a result I'd feel the publishers cared in that respect, but I seriously doubt they would drop their prices a dollar at most, if any. 😔

I might be getting this whole "online" thing a little wrong. Would they still have translators doing the sold copies or is this in hopes we get rid of those(which I wouldn't want because I like to buy them, too)? 😕

I care waaaaay too much... 🙁

[img]http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/6540/picsmaller.png[/img]

But how wouldn't they make more money if people payed? They wouldn't get much if it was "free" but if they will likly have to puts fees on some although they might have several "samples" or "free manga." But they forget they are fighting the internet.

well, i dont know if you guys know that there is being made by MangaHelpers a legal online reading web called OPENMANGA where publishers and mangakas will get their share of money and provide us with manga online at extremely cheap prices, that's for what i know from the info they have provided so im putting my LAST hopes in that

Ore no Riaru to Netoge ga Rabukome
To Love-Ru Forever.

Quote from darknova42

Apparently the publishers are pissed because they're "merchandise" is being distributed for free instead of them making money off of it. So they're going around shutting down manga sites which host scanlation. Which causes a problem for us manga fans, since it limits our access to manga.

I thought of a solution that could satisfy both parties.

Have the manga publishers create their own "free" online reader.

Since they're the publishers they have access to all manga including licensed manga. Which means they're not bound by the same restrictions as other online readers such as mangafox which removes manga once its been licensed.

If they kept it open to scanlation submissions they wouldn't need to spend anything on translation or production costs since scanlation is done by fans for fans. All they would need to do would have a quality check. This means theres no longer the problem of the english translation being miles behind the japanese version, since popular mangas are kept current in regards to scanlations.

They could also sell japanese copies of the manga online. This would give scanlators access to manga they might not be able to obtain otherwise and also help keep japanese raws offline so japanese readers won't be getting it for free.

That coupled with potential profit from ads and possible membership fees imo solves things quite nicely. Since rather than trying to extinguish the scanlation community it makes use of it.

first off, as i've mentioned in the MangaToshokan thread, i'm all in for a single online reading site under the publisher's jurisdiction with some sort of fee, but just as much as i preach it's effectiveness, i still see some major questions that needs to be raised especially if scanlators are involved. by your suggestion, you'd have them work for the publisher's for free? they may be fans doing all this for fellow fans, but for whatever reasons they do it, it is still a hobby. put an authority figure over their heads and they'll have to deal with strict deadlines and quality check. where's the hobby in that? pay them? then it'll just becomes a job. many a scanlators will most likely take this opportunity of getting paid, but what of all the reputation scanlators built up over the years as the Robin Hoods of manga? and through the paying of these scanlators, what's stopping from a new greedy generation of scanlators doing a quick and sloppy work for the overly impatient, making a profit for themselves alone? you heavily overestimated the scanlators; most are still students. not all of their times are focused on scanlating, having to deal with work, friends and family. a future in the manga industry? not exactly a very promising future with the current state it's in.

and what of the US publishers and unlicensed materials? there are hundreds, if not thousands of series that are unlicensed, you can't exactly ask them to license everything. licensing costs money, and you can't ask the japanese publishers to just hand it over to the US under reasons that the site is a joint venture, the profits split equally. there'd be some objection under reasons of the country of origin the series is from, prompting a fee for licensing rights to the other side. by your suggestion, scanlators should do these unlicensed materials. how would this differ from licensed projects? lower quality in translation and a cheaper fee? but what if the material formed a huge fanbase, one that publishers wants to take advantage of for profits? there's bound to be some protest on the price hike, bordering boycotting.

and should all of these questions be resolved somehow, there is one more thing that really needs to be done; you see, it's not exactly a revolutionary new idea telling publishers to host an online reader on their site or a single site. their common retort is the low return they would be getting, despite ads and lowered production cost in printing. if they're gonna make this proposition REALLY work, they'll have to do what they are currently doing; shut down every other ILLEGAL competition. how else would you expect them to make profit, when some other site offers the same thing free? you can say you'd sign up, but can you honestly say the same for the majority of the community, as in 75% and above, among our population? tyrannical you say, regarding their actions? not when they're still acting under the limits that the law allows them to against something so illegal....

..... which bring me to my second topic; "Evil"? do you honestly believe publishers are just a bunch of fancy suit wearing Wall Street Scrooges without any considerations for people other than themselves, or are you just being sarcastic? if it's the latter, ignore the upcoming wall of text, otherwise; unless you haven't exactly realise, what we're doing by the public's, not the community, view is illegal, like it or not. we don't have the luxury to use some self-righteous word as "evil" towards people still working under the limits the law imposed them to.

we all jumped on the scanlation bandwagon for various reasons, ranging from sincere to down right inconsiderate selfishness; it's free, for previewing, not available in your area and/or language, they butchered the localisation, etc. now that last one prior to etc., i can relate to blaming full heartedly as the publishers fault, but it's not exactly a crime to be an idiot, unfortunately in this case. but none of these will justify your actions in court, unfair to you as it may be. a guy will still get arrested, and deserves to if he committed robbery, even if his reasons are sincere and sympathetic. the judge is gonna feel sorry, but you're still gonna have to pick up that soap. and considering how our situation isn't exactly THAT big a deal, the judge and the publishers aren't gonna feel sorry for you.

it's not so much that they're being inconsiderate towards you as it is them caring for others that need and deserve it. has it ever occurred to you that these publishers are doing all this for the author, the mangakas well being? the very same people you should be thankful for and respect for their work? if they had intended their work to be some form of charity, they'd uploaded it in their blog and such. while publishers and authors may have their differences, and some authors may see scanlation in a positive light, but all in all, it's all about money. they are running a business and that's what businesses do. they may not show off as being greedy, and they're not (most of the time), but authors do want that money, and if you had enjoy their work, they deserve it. and then there are those working under the publishers, the lower and middle class workers; did you forget that there are people working under those publishing companies that have a family to feed, or are you just ignorant? would you like the idea of your dad and/or mother getting laid off because their company just got shut down due to bad sales originating from piracy?

you might be thinking they are still better off without you buying, just as the music and movie industry survived despite piracy, but you'd be very wrong; the music and movie industry unlike manga is relatively huge and popular, and even then, they still have their fair share of suffering. tours gets cancelled when sales turn out bad and this does happen regularly, and of course no matter how good the movie, the chances of a sequel is low if sales of tickets and dvds are bad. but they'll survive right? yes there is a chance they will. the same can't be said of the manga industry though. it's small and relative new, in the US anyway (the 80's may have been ages ago, but by industry standard, it's just been a short while), and a 20% drop in sales in 2009, following a 15% drop in 2008, and a number of companies getting bankrupt is a VERY big blow. and with Japan facing a historic 6.6% drop in manga sales last year, they either take action no matter how futile, by targeting scanlation, the easiest and most likely cause of this problem, or do nothing and disappear.

as for unlicensed materials, that still does not justify our actions; to us, scanlating them may seem as a ways to introduce a series to those who don't understand japanese, eventually forming a fan base, pushing their local publishers to license the series. but japanese publishers sees scanlation as a sort of pesky bumps on the road for them making any real profit in the foreign market. not available in your area, or it won't ship there? don't understand japanese? they still won't care if they ever get their hands on you. it's unfair, but procuring manga freely online is the least of your worries among other important things. you read online to know more about a series and what happens next, so you can choose whether to buy it or not? it is EXACTLY because they don't want you to know more about the series that they are doing this; they want you to be curious, they want you to buy those volumes and find out. one of greater incentive of pushing sales is curiosity itself. why else do thousands of people line-up for an iPad, if not curious of what form of experience the contraption is capable of bringing to the table.

now take away that curiosity. what incentive does anyone have to pay to experience that product if they already have it in their hands (save for the idea of having multiple copies)? as with manga, if you already know how good it is and what happens, why should you buy the manga if you already know how it goes? even more so, if you forgot the plot, you still don't have to buy the manga. while the sensible ones do buy them when they come out, not everyone is like that. people are selfish and greedy by nature, publishers and readers alike. you may tell me your real life friends do buy the manga, but i doubt they make more than 10% of the overall community. you can ask numerous people on dozens of forums, but with the anonymity of the net, lying to save face ain't all that hard. and don't start on the argument of of borrowing/lending among friend vs. sharing for thousands to see. one involves a small group of people and is capable of increasing sales just for the "me too" factor.

it's expensive? at 7 - 10 US dollars for most of them, that seems rather right. there's production costs to be considered, though with the printing industry slowly declining, a price hike is to be expected. and let's not forget to take the licensing fee for bringing a series from the other side of the world into consideration. and finally, maybe a dollar or two, three at most, for company profits and assets, because, hey, they're a business, they expect profit. now, if they were as "evil" as you described them, they'd had charged you in around $15.

and don't give me that We Are Otakus bull****. if you are so intent on using a foreign language used to describe a hardcore fanatic, then follow the godd**n example by buying your manga just like real otakus, in japan, the country of origin of the word, do. it's not available in your language? learn japanese then and buy the tankobons/magazines to prove how hardcore you are, because otherwise, while i myself declare that i am not an otaku, i neither respect nor abhor those who do, one thing i will say is this; you're no otaku, just like me.

as with the radio, xerox, cassette tapes, printer, and mp3, you might think we would win if this was brought to court. maybe, but it's always better to prepare for the worst, and say; most like no. there has always been a delicate balance between piracy and the companies these pirates steal from. as with the xerox and the printer, the equipment, ink, and maintenance were expensive limiting piracy but to a small few. by the time it cheapened, just buying the damn book was a lot easier. the rest, was easily exploited by the companies for profit. iTunes store, anyone? but scanlation, online reading to be more specific is different. with scanlation being so widely and easily accessible, there doesn't seem to be any room for profit unless they close down every free online reader, as i mentioned earlier. sure by the time these companies open their own site, they won't be getting as much online readers as when it was free, some dropping out of the community for not bothering to learn how to search and download manga and incapable for paying the fee, but the companies are at least making some money.

and it would all be the online reading community's fault, or to be precise, the ones who set it up. this is not loathing. this is truth as you see it now, because we were warned about this years ago before the online reader boom by old guard scanlators (though i admit i was ignorant of the subject back then, as i only cared to download everything, then and now). scanlators, the old guards that i'm assure of anyway, realize more than anyone that what they are doing is anything but legal, whether their project were already licensed or not. they'd rather keep themselves and the community under a low profile to avoid detection from officials, and the "complexity" of downloading via irc helped deterred many a person from joining the community, forcing them to buy instead. it wasn't so much about keeping it as some secret society only a chosen few may join, as it was more on keeping things in check; publishers still get many a loyal readers, while the community's population stayed low, avoiding any attention. trying to get as many fans of their group as they could were never a scanlators primary aim. they did it as a fan, for the fans, in hopes of spreading out the series' popularity leading to localization as a fan should.

but that changed with online readers. sure, it helped introduce many people into the world of manga, but it was a double edged sword; it made us susceptible under the publisher's radar. with easy accessibilty, anyone could come in. with free of charge, publishers lose their current readers and potential readers. the community grew by folds, eventually turning into a beacon for officials to home at. the larger a group that tries to hide, the easier it is to be spotted.

now i ask you, are the publisher's still "evil" here? are they to blame? to say yes would be to admit that you have no respect for the author here, whom you enjoy their work from, making you the larger evil here. and to call the publishers evil then would make you a hypocrite, and very inaccurate. i'm not asking you to buy all that you read, and if you want to, you can download as much manga as you want, i won't criticize. boycott these companies, if that's what you want, go ahead. if you're feeling disappointed and angry on the events that happened, i can't tell you not to feel otherwise. but to accuse these companies of wrong doing is just, well, wrong.you, me, and anyone who has download/ read online manga and have yet to or have no plan of buying all that they've read, only one word, a profession, best describes us. no matter what pretty excuses you may want to cover it up with, by the court of law, and most of society will still associate us with this profession, but at the very least, honour still exists within it;

We are thieves. admitting so is the very least we can do to respect the authors.

@Sybear: Well, scanlators scanlate manga because they want to right? I do some redraws for a manga I like because I want to read it. If no one does the redraws it doesn't get released. So its not about whether or not scanlators are getting paid for their work. Its about whether or not scanlators will be able to keep doing what they're already doing, just in a more authorized way.

@Ueki_kunn: Thats assuming the same amount of people who would view it for free would also pay for it. Not everyone is willing to or capable of buying manga online. Also, you'd have to question the quality of the product. How censored is it? Is their english version up to date story wise or is it far behind?

Also, you're forgetting japanese version sales. Scanlation teams need raws to scanlate anyway. They usually get them through a raw provider. That raw provider still needs to buy them anyway. How many hundreds of scanlation groups are there? Don't you think at least some of them would be willing to buy from that kind of site. It could provide a much easier access to the raw manga than they have already.

@Diokhan: Free online readers not run by the manga publishers host manga thats been submitted by registered users. No one has paid the scanlation team to scanlate the submitted manga. However, due to the traffic on the site the online reader can still make money, although indirectly, from that manga from ads on the site.
My suggestion is keep the same system. The publishers can create an online reader where registered users can submit their scanlations. That user isn't paid and whether or not the sumbission is accepted and 'hosted' by the publishers online reader is up to the publishers. They can do whatever quality check they want and if its rejected then its rejected.
There doesn't have to be any deadlines. Popular manga, like naruto etc, are usually scanlated shortly after its released in Japan.

As far as I know, US publishers and Japanese mangakas etc joined forces to take down online readers and the like have they not? MangaHelpers, mangatoshokan and recently onemanga. Betting on their greed, if theres money to be made, I'm sure they'd come up with some kind of deal. Maybe, profits from unlicensed materials and licensed materials are delegated to their respective license holders?

In regards to competition, if both sites offered the same service for the same price, I would more frequently go to the site with the best selection. Also, I would be more willing to pay a minimal fee proportionate to the increase in selection. Since manga publishers hold the licenses of the mangas, they'd be able to legally host licensed manga. Something an online reader, such as mangafox which removes manga once its been licensed, won't do. Which means they would inherently have a much larger selection of manga.
Even among free online readers, I frequent mangafox more so than onemanga simply because mangafox has more manga on it.

My "evil" comment was meant as an exaggeration and wasn't intended to be taken seriously. However, most corporations regardless of reasoning are usually interested in "the bottom line". While greed itself I don't think is inherently evil, you can't say that it hasn't been the motive behind at least a good portion of the world's evils.
Also, we scanlators and "free readers" aren't 'sinless' either.

Feed your head.

Quote from darknova42

Also, we scanlators and "free readers" aren't 'sinless' either.

that was all i asked from you and many others. my apologies if i were too harsh in my nonsense.

Quote from Diokhan

Quote from darknova42

Also, we scanlators and "free readers" aren't 'sinless' either.

that was all i asked from you and many others. my apologies if i were too harsh in my nonsense.

No need to apologize. Quite refreshing actually, seeing as how most people due to bias would more than likely just agree with my sentiments and give me an "asspat".

The only reason I'm upset is because online readers and scanlations are the only access I have to manga. They don't sell it around here, and if they do I'm sure the selection would be ridiculously small. Since its more of a "specialty".

I anime is only shown late at night on saturdays and mondays. There are some others but they're the more kiddy kind like pokemon or beyblade. I already subscribe to my cable providers "anime on demand" but the selection is far smaller than I thought it'd be. (Library of anime my ass -,- )

Feed your head.

Evil? That's a little unwarranted. Publishers are trying to stay alive, while most people are just mooching off the works they put out online.

The way I see it, if you leech and actually can support the industry but choose not to, you don't deserve jack shit.

man... this is so hilarious 😀 robin hood of the manga lol... 😀 pal u made my day. Its fun how we try to clarify we are doing wrong for the goodness in it 😀 .

" kinda like Lets kill the jews they are bad".
or "kill those infidels".

Sadly who's wrong or right will be decided by the side that wins.

I don't think its fair to start blaming the mangaka's for shutting down the sites, they spend so much time and effort creating good manga for us and we repay them by reading it for free online. I'll admit I also abused the free hosting and i'll miss onemanga but tbh we had it coming. I think they should start selling online scanlations like netcomics; everyone would be able to access it and it would be cheaper overall.

Well, for once i will talk about me. To get me buy a manga it must be imposible to get it for free (black lagoon earlier books) and i bet there are MANY like me so... If thats wut they find out we pirates are screwed. 🙁 btw... if someone mind selling me those books cheaper than amazon 😀 i need vols 1-9 😀