Why pictures on manga pages are so small now? Even uploading better quality they are still small?

I was wondering about this, too. They've gone back to the size they were about 8 or so years ago, I think?

Same here, whatever Posters I've uploaded became smaller. Is there any particular reason?

The site recoding wasn´t 8 years ago but the size seems similar to that time. If not worse as one that didn't change recently due to a lock looks as squished as all the others. See, lockdown summer of 2015: https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=166


Edit: It's actually much worse. Same page in 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110623053921/http://www.man gaupdates.com:80/series.html?id=166

Let´s wait for the coding to be done. This can´t be it.


Last edited by residentgrigo at 9:57 pm, Feb 18 2020

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

We unfortunately had to make this change due to DMCA take down notices. In order to comply with Fair Use, copyrighted images need to be sufficiently low resolution as to fulfill the intended purpose (in our case research) but not able to be reproduced. If we did not make this change, our host would have deactivated our account.

Our image sizes are now more in line with those of other websites, such as IMDB.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

IMDB has fullsize posters if you click on the thumbnails. Also, how can posting the COVER to a series, that's used in every single form of advertising and promotional material, cause the site to potentially be subject to a DMCA notice?

Also, wasn't there some court ruling that came out not too long ago stating that you can not request a DMCA takedown of image that are freely available on the internet?

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So we have the same situation when the covers for some manga like Naruto went away. Its page is back to normal so there is that. Those select few covers went away in late 2014. The whole site was shut down for a hot second back then: https://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=48220&p age=1#post655124

Small images are better than nothing as this helps to spot if you are looking at the right entry or not. A complete shutdown of covers would fuck the site pretty hard though. Let´s hope it won´t come to that but MU always stood on shaky ground. Back up your lists once in a while you all.

Imdb is a bad example as its an official part of the Hollywood machine (that´s were Imdb Pro came from). PirateBay has no covers though. You now know why.

Edit: Lets actually explin this. Always worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_trial
MU thankfully doesn´t host stuff and group links went away forever ago so the site admins won´t have to dread prison if the roof comes down... Not that lawyers can´t work them over real good and this can only get worse over time. Not that we are in the right here or anything. Piracy is piracy. It is what it is and copyright/trademark law is a hellhole. I had to study it at university due to my job. (I have a media studies Bachelor.) There is NO winning this battle. These images are all protected and that protection won´t lapse in our lifetimes. Thx Disney/capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Ac t

The EU version of this is less shit but not by much. Japan is further really backward when it comes to stuff like this and MU is lastly a US site. Note the ".com".

Last edited by residentgrigo at 7:59 am, Feb 19 2020

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

What the fuck is wrong with DMCA law that even freely available pictures can be taken down?

The copyright holders own the copyright for the covers and every single page of their comics. The same can be said for every Joe Shmoe who decides to make original novels, comics and so on. You automatically have that right the second you publish your works, period. So the system isn´t just defending billion-dollar operations here.

The types of images MU appropriates can be (partially) uses for education, fair use cases (MU like the opposite of that) and other like-minded endeavors. Fansites/wikis and forums can thus use them in moderation without being swarmed by lawyers as they have better things to do. Some Japanese companies as Nintendo or Atlus still go after streamers and so on though.
Yet MU is and always was a site that advocates for the theft of protected IP and copyrights/trademarks need to be upheld and defended so we can´t even fault the lawyers for doing these things. The system is working as intended.

MU could give up on the updates related part of the site, delete all scanlation related info and become just another manga database like Comicvine or parts of MAL. It would then be left alone by the big scary IP holders as no harm is being done in that case but does anyone here want that? No? Then have fun with the covers for ants. Even those should be iffy but I would wait for further negative feedback by the server people/lawyers to do more. Unless the roof starts coming down but MU ain´t hosting stuff so a shutdown is the worst-case scenario and not prison time. Who knows if one could be billed for all of this though. Be glad that Disney ain´t after this site: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/04/us/lion-king-elementar y-school-250-trnd/index.html
Disney CEO Bob Iger ended up retracting this one after the PR shitstorm and donated to the school himself. (He is still a huge asshole though.)

This TED talk was brought to you by my college degree (my lecturer was a Prof. Doc. of copyright law) and all of this would still be going on even if the DMCA wasn´t passed in 1998 as it is based on even older laws. Not that the DMCA is great or anything. Messing with your favorite piracy sites isn´t the worst thing it ended up doing. Oh WikiLeaks. A church of all things went after them... 🤣 and many many more.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 8:33 am, Feb 20 2020

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

Well, it's a huge pity about the covers, but I'd rather have tiny pics or even no pics and still get scanlator/release info than the opposite. Hang in there, MU!

No pics would be bad as these help to spot what is what when fighting duplicates but a user script that isn´t part of the site could help with that if those really had to go. Just like the scan-groups link user script works now. I don´t know how to program any of that but I know that I can be done. Size and the censorship of nudity wouldn't need to be an issue either in that case but most people who use MU (or the web in general) would never install such things so its hardly a best-case solution. An idea for if/when push comes to shove as this is an ongoing problem that only grows worse as I linked above. But the IP holders/lawyers have a point. Their legally protected IP is being misappropriated. Can´t fault them there.

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

But sites like doujinshi.org seem to have no issues. I never heard of a resolution limitation. Even Amazon.com, alice-books.com, etc all have large covers at 1280 pixels or higher.

Amazon isn´t a database for piracy, one that brings together scan groups through pages like "Recruitment" no less, and they sell the product they got from the IP holders/manufacturers. They also officially partner up with publishers/manufacturers and produce stuff on their own. Meaning that they are a retailer and part of the supply and demand chain.

doujinshi.org is a database with just information (they also list regular manga) and they further link to retailers like Amazon. Comicvine, MAL, ANN, wiki(a) and most fansites all fall in the same category. That´s why IP holders would never send cease and desist letters their way if they use a copyrighted pic/clip... within reason. Well, mostly. All sorts of studios, especially one-person operation (hello Tommy Wiseau) cease and desist channels all the time on YT for showing negligent amount of footage but fair use is it's own impossible to pin down can of worms. MU is never ever protected under fair use.

The pic size has to be the next loophole the admins squeeze though to protect basic site function. Will it blend? We´ll see.

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

I agree