Manga Scanlation and Copyright Issues

Discuss the copyrights regarding anime and Manga, and other legal matters here.

The flame wars are going to be so big you'll see them from the Moon...

I'm pretty sure the conversation was a bit more... limited in scope than this.

edited 15th Feb '13 10:48:52 AM by burnpsy

I wonder if Chell and Wheatly, Princess Luna, and Asura and Augus could see them then..

edited 15th Feb '13 11:03:21 AM by Demongodofchaos2

How about we rename the thread title to "Anime/Manga Scanlations and Copyright Issues"?

Knock the anime off that, and sure. They're already doing as much as they can for anime, which is why we didn't really touch upon it in our discussion.

Manga Scalations/Copyrights Thread, how does that sound?

Alright, but who's "they"?

Already submitted a request for "Manga Scanlations and Copyright Issues".

edited 15th Feb '13 11:59:05 AM by MarqFJA

Remonikered

All anime licensors. I dare you to find a recent season with more than 1 or 2 shows that weren't picked up for streaming (last season had 0, IIRC). While Crunchyroll needs to start becoming consistently international instead of fluctuating so much on a per-show basis, they're already on the right path there.

In any case, now that the name has been changed, to the main topic of manga...

Should we just pick up where we left off?

edited 15th Feb '13 12:12:27 PM by burnpsy

Hit it.

Obligatory link to the thread page that started this, for clarity's sake.

There's also Jmanga.com, legal, reasonably priced...now (their initial offering was a bit spendy), own your access forever. It's also nearly worldwide, with some specific countries not allowed to access some titles.

The catch is that they translate by volume so it's not the "gimme new chapters the week before they're sold in paper form" service some of the younger generation is used to. Also, it's the series they could get with the budget they had, so it's mostly older or more obscure manga, not the hottest new releases.

But it exists, it's not bad, and maybe others will join it (or it'll make enough money to get some hotter series.)

(From the Negima thread)

You never said who these five were.

I will admit I read scanlations, but I'll buy any book of a series I read.

I'm kinda meh' about Jmanga. Their hosting a few titles I'd like to read, but I'm not comfortable with the lack of a download option.

I think I've said it before already, but I'll say it again: Ain't no way any manga are going to make it over here where I live. No market at all for any sort of comics, Japanese or not.^note For comparison, anime barely has any foothold in the Arab satellite TV channels, and it's always limited to children's cartoon channels, plus very liable to being horribly Bowdlerized by local dubbers (and it's always dubs, never subtitles).

So yeah, I have zero ability to even buy the manga hard copies if only as a gesture of support to its creators. Fan scanlations are the only thing I can afford.

edited 15th Feb '13 3:07:12 PM by MarqFJA

Have you checked the availability status for your area for Jmanga? I believe only hentai, yaoi and yuri are blocked for most of the Middle East.

The problem I have with Jmanga is that, while it may be a budding service, they should have spent their initial capital getting a smaller set of series and updating those weekly instead of (as you pointed out yourself) obscure or old series that they update by volume.

It speaks volumes that they have nothing from Weekly Shonen Jump, three series from Weekly Shonen Magazine, nothing from Weekly Shonen Sunday, nothing from Jump SQ...

They either need to get more relevant series with a faster update cycle, or they need a competitor that'll do that. Until then, they may as well not even exist.

edited 15th Feb '13 3:39:03 PM by burnpsy

...well, huh. I've been so busy exploring the old and obscure stuff that I hadn't noticed that their Naruto preview was never followed up on. (It's still available, though, just in case any of you have never seen the first chapter of Naruto.) But then I'm not exactly the hip happening up to the minute manga fan a lot of the pirate scanlators are catering to.

I have a feeling that their inability to secure Naruto is because Viz is already offering a better service for it - digital volumes and a weekly simultaneous release. Can't have Naruto competing with itself.

Doesn't explain why they haven't picked up other things from Jump that Viz has been ignoring.

edited 15th Feb '13 6:16:43 PM by burnpsy

I figure I may as well link this recent ANN article about law and fan-works to try to rejuvenate the conversation.

It's about anime, but a lot of it is also applicable here.

ANN: Never met a pair of corporate boots it wouldn't lick.

I'm not even talking about the piracy matter, really, where they would be justified legally. But when they even start putting the companies above the original creators, well...

I didn't see anything actually incorrect in the article, if you're accusing them of being biased.

It's actually standard practice for companies to own stuff made by their employees while working for them.

edited 16th Feb '13 6:16:37 PM by burnpsy

I'm just talking from previous experience, not commenting on the article itself. Knowing ANN, it'll probably say something about fanart being the devil work of copyright stealers and such.

Except that ANN had a lawyer write it instead of doing it themselves.

What they say about stuff like fanart is simply what is the truth:

edited 16th Feb '13 6:18:42 PM by burnpsy