Well, hello people!

I'm sure lots of you have noticed that Naver requested a certain scanlating group (the ones responsible for Tower of God and Kubera) to stop translating their webtoons (check this link to see their official notice about it: http://www.thcmpny.com/6091/naver-titles/ ). I don't know if they made requests to other scanlating sites, I just noticed this because I read Kubera and it has completely dissapeared from a certain online reader.

I'm also sure that you are all aware that now there's an official reading site from Line where the webtoons are translated on a weekly basis in a very... official manner, so to speak ( http://m.webtoons.com/ ).

So my guess is that Naver requested to stop translating their webtoons to english because there's now an official site to read them. Which is all good, or maybe not that good since Kubera is waaay behind The Company's releases so it will take a while before we can actually get new chapters, but hey, it's all legal so maybe (just maybe) it's for the best. Besides, Noblesse and Tower of God (Naver's greatest hits, I'd say) are all up to date so it's not that bad.

The thing that I really don't get is that all languages were erased (check it out: http://www.batoto.net/comic/_/comics/kubera-r25 ). My native language is spanish so reading the releases in spanish is not bad at all, but these are gone as well. So ok, no more english releases made by fans anymore since we have an official instance to read that... But how about spanish readers?

This leads me to think this isn't about the language it all. It makes me think that Naver just doesn't want anyone to access their webtoons, unless they give them permission for it. It kind of bothers me... But I'm not sure if it should. After all, scanlating groups are using their stuff without their permission. On the other hand, it's not like anyone is making profit for it and it's actually good for them, since most groups encourage people visiting Naver while reading the chapter and a lot of curious ones (me included) visit the site in order to have a glimpse of the untranslated chapters.

So, yeah... Should it bother me? Does it bother you? Any thoughts about it?

Most likely Batoto erred on the side of caution and just got rid of all languages, not just English. From most sources, it appears Naver's communication wasn't very specific about anything, so most people just wanna play it safe

A just ruler amongst tyrants

I see... That makes sense. It's still frustrating though 🙁 Is Naver somehow legally entitled to take measures against anyone who does not do what they ask with their scanlations? In that case it would make even more sense...
Ah, I can't help to be upset... Now we are gonna have to wait ages until Line catches up with Kubera's most recent releases... Does anyone know if it's also prohibited to use a javascript code like Oddsquad scans do with Cheese in the Trap? For those who don't know, they make some magical stuff with javascript (at least I think it's javascript, I'm not well versed in that kind of stuff) that allows users to read the translated webtoon directly from Naver's site... Maybe that could become a good option.

Egscans and Mangacow both received requests to stop as well.

However, they took one look at the 'official' translations, then ah... decided that they didn't want their previous' readers eyes to melt. Egscans in particular decided to only release chapters after the official version has been released (so those who want LQ fast scans will read Naver's first), to only host their chapters online for a very short time, then only make them available via IRC (though aggregators like Mangafox still steal them).

The Javascript overlay option should be legal. After all, readers are reading the scans from Naver's own sites, just with some new text pasted on top. Oddsquad specifically did this to go around the restriction of not being allowed to make scanlations of Cheese in the Trap. I hope The Company does this too, but there has been no news so far. 🙁

you may be right maybe they did so to prevent misunderstanding but the work they do and the quality they give is much more better so maybe it will be a better thing and it legal but scanlation to is legal if it not licenced into the language that you want to read it in. But they can still take legal mean to make it so that no body translate there work but that almost never work because people cannot buy it in that language yet so it not illegal to have a free copy in that language.

It the same for song and anime in amv people can use the video and the music it they tell that amv is not for profit.

I maybe wrong but that how I think it work so maybe webtoon in French (which is my first language ) or some other language translation will come back. There is more that 300 language on earth and in those 300, 7 are spoken by the majority of the world (English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian. German, Mandarin) but most of the time we get English translation that get licenced but not every one understand English out of all the people I know less than 10 % understand it. so why would they not have the right to get material they can understand.

In fact it all about profit if they see it as profitable they will get the right to sell it in a other language and it a that moment that free version are illegal.

exemple yen press got the right to translate and sale all of the really popular japoness light novel that have a anime version this year so a translation group like baka tsuki had to destroy all the translation that they did in the last 6 year. but only the English version of there work all of the other language translation are still there.

ugh, why cant they recruit the current scanlator to do those stuff. i hate the engrish.

Quote from whitespade

ugh, why cant they recruit the current scanlator to do those stuff. i hate the engrish.

Simply put, they want a complete monopoly of their works in the western hemisphere. It all goes down to money, money, money...

Can't blame them though, it's their business. . . 😐

Though if not for the noble scanlation groups, manga/manhua/manhwa as a whole won't be popular(worldwide) as it is today. 😔

Quote from dasnik

out of all the people I know less than 10 % understand it

Really? Here in Sweden 95% understand and can hold a conversation in English, shouldn't be much lower in central Europe.

Quote from D

Really? Here in Sweden 95% understand and can hold a conversation in English, shouldn't be much lower in central Europe.

You have to understand that Scandinavians are, in comparison to most non-English countries, abnormally skilled in English. I'm willing to bet, without having read any statistics on the matter, that Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are in the top 10 when measuring the overall capacity in English outside of the countries that have English as an official language.

The education systems, and the priorities therein, have some significant differences to them.

[img]http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/028/438/5700.necropost4kobf7.png[/img]

if webtoons.com layout is screwed up for anyone else (all the icons were missaligned for me and images always zoomed in) I made a greasemonkey script and stylish thing which work together to make it more sensible. The front page gets a little messed up but the reader is much better.

greasemonkey:

// ==UserScript==
// @name webtoons resize
// @namespace asdf
// @require http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js
// @include http://www.webtoons.com/viewer*
// @version 1
// @grant none
// ==/UserScript==

$('img').removeAttr('width').removeAttr('height');
$('.flick-ct').removeAttr('style');
$('#_viewer').removeAttr('style');
$('.viewer_updated').remove();
$(window).resize(function() {$('img').removeAttr('width').removeAttr('height');$('#_viewer').removeAttr('style');});

stylish:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document url-prefix("http://www.webtoons.com"), url-prefix("http://m.webtoons.com"){
#reveal-contents {
width: 700px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}

.main_header h1 .logo, .main_header .btn_menu:after, .page_area span, .page_area span.on, .main_banner .info .title:after, .title a:before, .title a:after, .main_banner .info .subj:after, .grade, .grade span, .btn_top:after, .downapp_area2 .lk_appdown:after, .slide_menu .search .ico_srch, .slide_menu .search .btn_del:after, .slide_menu .lst_menu a:before, .slide_menu .user .setting:after, .slide_menu .user .setting.on:after, .daily_tab a.comp:after, .detail_blue .likeList:before, .detail_blue .likeList.on:before, .detail_black .likeList:before, .detail_black .likeList.on:before, .detail_white .likeList:before, .detail_white .likeList.on:before, .sub_header .btn_prev:after, .sub_header .btn_share:after, .sub_header .btn_list:after, .sub_header.v2 .btn_menu:after, .sub_header.v2 .btn_sort:after, .sub_header2 .btn_home:after, .sub_header2 .btn_prev:after, .sub_header2 .btn_info:after, .sub_header2 .btn_fav:after, .sub_header2 .btn_share:after, .detail_info .btn_area .btn_episode:after, .detail_info .grade, .detail_info .grade span, .ly_share .share a:before, .ly_grade .grade_area .u_grade_b, .ly_grade .grade_area .u_grade_b2, .ly_grade .grade_area .u_grade_bon, .ly_grade .grade_area .u_grade_b2.u_grade_bon, .viewer_footer a.btn_likeit:before, .viewer_footer a.btn_comment:before, .viewer_footer .paginate .lk_prev:after, .viewer_footer .paginate .lk_next:after, .viewer_updated span:before, .comment_write_submit .btn_submit, .input_chk, .my_tool .delete .btn_del:after, .my_data_none .logo, .social_user.facebook:before, .social_user.line:before, .social_user.weibo:before, .search_history .btn_clear_history:after, .search_nodata:before, .ly_detail_info .btn_close:after, .ly_detail_info .info_update span, .language_box .slt:after, .login_sns .btn_sns.line:after, .login_sns .btn_sns.facebook:after, .login_sns .btn_sns.twitter:after, .login_sns .btn_sns.weibo:after, .login_sns .btn_sns.qq:after, .evt_popup .btn_close:after, .icon_area .ico, .ly_sort .sort a.on:after {  
background-image: url("http://webtoons.static.naver.net/image/mobile/spi_ipad_v5.png");  

} }