I was wondering how does a scanlation group function...Mostly concerning the copyright issue or author's permission. Putting aside Japanese raws, how does one translate korean webtoons or chinese manhua? Do the groups get the author's permission through social medias or translating right away (If no other groups are working on it) and only crediting the author. If so, how do they get the raws from the manhuas?

If they send you a cease and desist, then cease and desist. If they're not online free, then buy them.

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First thing first: most group picks up a series to translate into certain language as the series aren't officially available in the reader's language / country and the readers have no means of getting/understanding them. IMO, In a way, it helps the author by making the series more recognized since a lot of series don't get the chance of being serialized in English. You'll realize that some group will encourage readers to purchase the raw if they like the project.

I'm not too sure about the copyright thing, but for the scanlating process, from what I have observed, it depends on the group.

For original raws, most of the group will buy and ship the manga/manhua to them, dissect it, and scan the manga page by page into their computer. (happens more for manga since Japan is very strict about the copyright thing and so the raws are hard to find online.)
By using this method, Quality are usually more assured (Scans found randomly on internet often have subpar image quality / missing pages etc.) IMO, it also gives the author some sort of respect.

So the process usually goes something like this:


There are also group that do re-translations
(eg. Manga that are already translated from Japanese > Chinese by some Chinese group and are uploaded to the chinese websites, they just grab them and translate the manga from chinese to english.)

For re-translations, quality are often greatly sacrificed (Poor image quality and translating a translation leads to an even more inaccurate translation). This method usually don't give the author as much respect, but some group do it anyway ( mainly because there are a HUGE shortage of Japanese > English translator in the community & people think it's fine as long as the readers get to read it in their language.)

I've also seen groups that insist on seeking the permission of the author before they start on the project (Happens more for webtoon). But it is very uncommon as the chance of them getting back to you is really low. They usually just scanlate the series then stop & remove the releases once the series gets serialized in that language (usually English) or when they have been contacted by the Author/publisher etc. to take them down.

But I've never been a leader of any scanlation groups. These are just my observations and so it might not be 100% right.

Last edited by Chinensis at 10:50 pm, Mar 9 2017