Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder Cheeky Angel in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: Are libraries unethical? They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Thats a topic for a new discussion, isn't it?

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in my opinion legally it is wrong but moraly.... not really. it depends on everyones situation. many people dont have certain mangas in there county/language. some people can't afford it.

For example: i dont have enough money to buy manga. #1 i cant get a job because im not old enough #2 i have no allowence

its not like people dont want to support mangakas, some just cant. if the mangas were cheaper i would buy them. ten dollars is a lot if you think about it. plus a lot of good series are at least 10 volumes so thats $100+. scanlations are a good source for people

Quote from Kaioh

Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder Cheeky Angel in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: Are libraries unethical? They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Thats a topic for a new discussion, isn't it?

It could be, but I was thinking that libraries are very similar to scanlators and I thought if we think that libraries are ethical... wouldn't that make scanlations ethical? They do basically the same thing (though libraries seem even less ethical to me). But I guess I didn't make that very clear. Am I still in the wrong? 🙁

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Quote from SirGir

Quote from Kaioh

Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder [i]Cheeky Angel[/i] in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: [b]Are libraries unethical?[/b] They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Thats a topic for a new discussion, isn't it?

It could be, but I was thinking that libraries are very similar to scanlators and I thought if we think that libraries are ethical... wouldn't that make scanlations ethical? They do basically the same thing (though libraries seem even less ethical to me). But I guess I didn't make that very clear. Am I still in the wrong? 🙁

I was trying to hint to you to make a new topic for that discussion, as you're clearly derailing the original point of this topic.

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just looking at the poll resutls currently not much people feel that its wrong, though i guess that is not surprising. if everyone did think it was wrong then this discussion would then be unnecessary

| One Punch Man | Noblesse | Nanatsu no Taizai | Gun x Clover |

Well I'll add my $0.2

Wrong? No.
Illegal? Yes.

Personally, if a manga is available for me to purchase in english, I will generally check out a couple chapters from scanlators and decide if I want to spend my money on it. If a manga is not available to me in English, then I have no problems at all reading the scanlated chapters and don't think twice about it.
Given that in the past 2 years I've spent well over $1000 on manga........I don't think I'm ripping anyone off. neh?

Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder Cheeky Angel in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: Are libraries unethical? They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Yeah, but you fund your local library with your tax dollars. The library uses money they get from YOU in YOUR taxes to buy the manga and other books, so it's okay.

To be plain honest, i'm not buying manga either. I got it all from P2P sharing >_<

Legally i think it is yes but on personal view i guess not. Because when you compare the prices between licensed and unlicensed manga. The licensed ones cost too much. Even my 1 month savings can't handle it >_< . Sometimes the free scanlations are HQ (accurate) on translations. And most of all its free 8D

If it weren't for the scanlations...there wouldn't have been fandom 😉

[img]http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9625/konnichiwascanlationsvs2.jpg[/img]

Legally i think it is yes but on personal view i guess not. Because when you compare the prices between licensed and unlicensed manga. The licensed ones cost too much. Even my 1 month savings can't handle it >_< . Sometimes the free scanlations are HQ (accurate) on translations. And most of all its free 8D

agree with you, no way in hell could I afford to constantly buy manga I want to read.

and as you said... it's FREE! so whats the point in buying if u can get it for free...

I say again... free free free free free free free FREE! haha 😀 .

Chances are someone's already said something close to my opinion (and God knows I haven't read them all), but I'll just throw in my two-cents.

Yes, it's illegal, but it's not wrong by my standards unless you're scanslating something licensed.

If it's licensed, scanslating it (or hell, scanning the books, a trend I've seen growing O.o) directly takes away from the pool of people who will buy it. Because, let's face it: if you can get it free, you will. I live in the USA, so the gray area where you have to pay a crapload to import English language manga doesn't apply to me (and thus doesn't factor into my opinion).

If it's not licensed, the amount of people who would purchase the book if you don't scanslate it may actually be less than the amount of people who will import the book when there are scanslations. In the non-Japanese speaking community, very few people will just randomly import manga they can't read. I mean, how do they know what to import? On the other hand, if a title is scanslated, people will know it and may purchase it (I've seen people who got hooked on a scanslated volume 1 go and purchase all the rest of the volumes in a series). That's actually helping the mangaka by providing a fanbase in the non-Japanese-speaking community.

Of course, only a small percent of the people who read scanslations will import the Japanese, but if it's an obscure title... that's probably more than would have imported it without the scanslations. And if it's obscure, the chances of it getting licensed (and therefore having your scanslated copy to take away from the sales) are pretty damn low.

In conclusion, I don't think it's wrong to scanslate non-licensed titles, especially if the titles are obscure and don't have a prayer of being licensed. You're not hurting any English company, and may in fact help the Japanese sales. Yes, it's a violation of copyright, but... hell, no one's come after me yet 😉

legal til proven legal 😀

[img]http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s302/warhound_11/canti2copy.jpg[/img]
Everyone has a plan till' they get punched in the mouth...

I'm one of those people who will buy something if they like it.. especially with manga, as reading it on the computer is a pain in the ass. But given how crappy a job translators can do with licenced manga, I'd say scanlated manga is more than alright.

So that's why while I still buy the Chuang Yi versions of Mahou Sensei Negima (among other manga) I also read the scanlations first.. just so I'm not missing anything (... or getting lame jokes thrown my way courtesy the Del Rey version 😉)

(not to say that scanlators don't do crappy jobs themselves sometimes, but you might say that I expect more (heck, sometimes just equal would be nice!) from people who I'm actually paying money to)

Quote from Imitorar

Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder Cheeky Angel in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: Are libraries unethical? They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Yeah, but you fund your local library with your tax dollars. The library uses money they get from YOU in YOUR taxes to buy the manga and other books, so it's okay.

Actually no it's not okay 😛 If you get gir's point then you would see that they are like scanlators in one important way

#1 Libraries buy a copy of the manga and that copy can be viewed by many people (who should have bought their own copy) Similarly scanlators attain a copy of a manga and in turn allow it to be viewed by many people. They also had to be somone at the end of the line who bought a copy.

So that in terms of thins point Libraries do almost the same thing scanlators do except scanlators produce a higher quality product generally since licencing companies suck 😛

Also we should make another thread for this. But I won't . My posts are all spam anyways 😛 😀

As a scanlator myself, I say it's not wrong in a moral sense, but legally - of course it is! points to copyright laws Of course, it helps one's conscience if one only works on unlisensced manga, but sometimes, people aren't exactly content with the English version, so they turn to scanlations, which have a more direct and to the point translation (they really butchered Renji's text in a couple chapters, he curses quite a bit, but all I got from Viz was "blast"). In the end, we help create fandoms for certain series, and sorta helping out the Eng version by collecting a base - of course, we can take away from sales too.

Personally, I always catch up to date with the scanlated manga, and then buy select volumes of the lisensced version with events that I want to read. That way, I get more of what I want from my dying piggy bank.

EDIT - On that library issue...let's say it's easier to sue/request to stop distubution from scanlators than it is to sue a library.

Quote from luisalirio84

Quote from Imitorar

Quote from SirGir

As I sit here with a copy of Tenshi na Konamaiki (or shudder [i]Cheeky Angel[/i] in English) volume 7 from my local library, I have to wonder: [b]Are libraries unethical?[/b] They seem a lot like scanlators to me, except they make works available for free that I should be buying instead; as opposed to the scanlators who make the unavailable available.

Yeah, but you fund your local library with your tax dollars. The library uses money they get from YOU in YOUR taxes to buy the manga and other books, so it's okay.

Actually no it's not okay 😛 If you get gir's point then you would see that they are like scanlators in one important way

#1 Libraries buy a copy of the manga and that copy can be viewed by many people (who should have bought their own copy) Similarly scanlators attain a copy of a manga and in turn allow it to be viewed by many people. They also had to be somone at the end of the line who bought a copy.

So that in terms of thins point Libraries do almost the same thing scanlators do except scanlators produce a higher quality product generally since licencing companies suck 😛

Also we should make another thread for this. But I won't . My posts are all spam anyways 😛 😀

Yeah, but the difference is that with scanlations, only the RAW provider paid. Whereas by a library, every legal citizen of America pays taxes (or at least should) and a part of all these taxes goes towards libraries. So as long as you contributed to the system, it's okay. Also, you have to give library books back or pay for them, so it's more like a friend who owns ALOT of books lending them to you anyway. With scanlations, you can keep them for as long as you want without having to contribute so much as one cent towards the purchase of the manga or books or whatever in question.