Japanese-English Coalition Against Manga Sites

[Riku]

The original announcement has been found here.

Some people here I'm sure are probably already aware of Mangafox's large decrease in series'. Apparently, there is a coalition being formed among many of the Manga publishers based in Japan and America. The exact statement:

An international coalition of Japanese and American-based manga publishers have joined together to combat what they call the "rampant and growing problem" of scanlations, the practice of posting scanned and translated editions of Japanese comics online without permission of the copyright holders. The group is threatening legal action against 30 scanlation sites.

The effort brings together the 36 member Japanese Digital Comic Association—which includes such major Japanese houses as Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha—as well as manga publisher Square Enix, the Tuttle-Mori Agency and U.S.-based manga publishers Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Tokyopop and Yen Press, the manga/graphic novel imprint of the Hachette Book Group.

A spokesperson for the coalition said the effort shows that Japanese publishers—who license the majority of manga sold in the U.S.—are taking an aggressive interest in combating manga piracy outside of Japan as well as inside the country. The group charges that the former fan-driven practice of scanlating—begun in the 1970s to scan, translate and post manga online when it was difficult to find manga outside of Japan—has been transformed by "scanlation aggregators," heavily trafficked, for-profit Web sites that host thousands of pirated manga editions and offer them for free to readers.

According to a spokesperson, these sites are among the most heavily trafficked sites on the web attracting millions of visits each month while earning advertising revenues and even soliciting donations and sometimes charging for memberships. The group also charges that pirated manga is now beginning to turn up on smartphones and other wireless devices through the use of apps developed "solely to link to and republish the content of scanlations sites."

A spokesperson said that "we are left with no other alternative but to take aggressive action. It is our sincere hope that offending sites will take it upon themselves to immediately cease their activities. Where this is not the case, however, we will seek injunctive relief and statutory damages." The group is also aggressively reporting violations to the "federal authorities, including the anti-piracy units of the Justice Department, local law enforcement agencies and FBI." While the group has yet to file any lawsuits and has declined to name specific scanlators, sites such as MangaFox and OneManga have long been identified as major scanlation aggregators.

After several years of booming manga sales in the U.S. that drove the popularity of comics and graphic novels in the traditional book market, sales of manga in the U.S. have declined more than 30% from a high of $210 million in 2007 to $140 million in sales in 2009, according to pop culture news site ICv2.com. Many manga publishers and retailers who used to believe that scanlations actually attracted new readers, now blame the sales decline on the rise of giant for-profit scanlation sites that have allowed a new generation of fans to grow up reading manga for free online.

"Go back 2 years and track these sites and you'll find an inverse relationship between the rise of traffic on these scanlation sites and the decline in U.S. manga sales," said Kurt Hassler, publishing director of Yen Press and a former graphic novel and manga buyer for Borders Books and Music. Hassler points out that early fan-driven scanlation sites were aimed at making manga available overseas at a time when English translations of manga were rare. Indeed these fan scanlators would remove their online translations when the books were licensed for the English-language market.

That's no longer the case, said Hassler. "These sites are run as businesses and include direct scans of licensed English-language manga editions. Some even include our copyright notices. We don't want to have to do this but publishers are now focused on this problem."

I just thought I'd let you guys know ahead of time, in case you happen to discover this for yourselves and wonder what's going on, plus to let you discuss and talk.

 

[Taichi]

I discovered this yesterday when I went to Mangafox and saw that Pokemon Special, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece weren't there anymore.

It's so sad.

 

[Insane85]

I personally love scanlations, but I try to buy the mangas myself whenever I've got the money.

 

[Vernikova]

It's a wonderful thing that they're doing and I support it. It personally doesn't impact me since I don't read anything online and just skim through the books while at the store anyway.

 

[Esper]

It looks like they're trying to blame scanlators by saying that their revenues are lower because of piracy when it could just as easily be that people have less disposable income now compared to a few years ago or that the products aren't as good as they once were. Maybe everyone rushed to get their favorite series then stopped buying when nothing else appealed to them and that's why these companies are selling less. I'm not saying scanlators aren't in some fuzzy place between legal and illegal, but I can't imagine that they're solely to blame if manga companies aren't doing as well as they once did.

 

[Netto Azure]

Good lord, you know what happened to the Music Industry with DRM? ****.

Now if they can come up with an iTunes version of Manga and get us to read manga online for 99c a pop MAYBE that might be a good thing for us poor sobz in the fandom. >____>

 

[Shanghai Alice]

You can't suppress piracy. You just can't.

Torrents, friends of friends...

Aggregate sites aren't the only ways to get them.

If they take off Kill Me Baby, though, it's war.

 

[twocows]

Maybe if they start putting out half-decent translations, I'd consider buying.

Oh wait. No I wouldn't, because they're being jerks to people that can't afford their products. Screw them, the RIAA, the MPAA, and everyone else that attacks pirates. Not one of them realizes that their arguments rest solely upon the broken window fallacy. Or maybe they do, and they just get more money lying their way through court, suing people that can't afford their products, let alone lawsuits.

 

[Riku]

I seriously will start buying Manga, but only once I can actually, I dunno..... AFFORD it. I could understand them wanting to regulate scanlation sites or something like that, but I don't think they should just blackball scanlating completely. I agree with Netto: they should do a pay-to-read online service. They could do worldwide releases, too. A big problem for some people is that Japan is so much farther into a series than anywhere else.

 

[Lucy Lu]

Good lord, you know what happened to the Music Industry with DRM? ****.

Now if they can come up with an iTunes version of Manga and get us to read manga online for 99c a pop MAYBE that might be a good thing for us poor sobz in the fandom. >____>

That would be a AWESOME idea! Man...I would love it if iTunes got together with the manga industry and added some manga in iBooks and charge them $.99 to $1.99 a chapter. Or the retail suggested price for the volume. I will be all over it. I wish that could happen. Maybe in the near future...maybe?! *is hopeful*

But piracy is everywhere. You can try to stop it, but there is always someone else who will do the same thing. It is a cycle.

 

[Cherrim]

I'm not a huge fan of reading manga on a computer (it hurts my eyes far too quickly) but I was a bit disappointed to hear this. I wanted to read the Pokémon manga but I guess I should stop being cheap and buy the graphic novels. :<

I did notice this bit of news after seeing this thread earlier, though. It's apparently unrelated but I like the idea and I really think it could fly. :( And I hope it does so more publishers will hop on board with the motion. There are plenty of people who honestly just want a quick fix for their manga--read the chapter once with decent scanlations and then they don't care after that, so hardcopy books aren't necessarily a great investment for every series, especially some of the obscure ones.

 

[Harmonie]

Manga companies have every right to go after these sites.

I am not one who sees everything in black and white, but when it comes to the flat out law, these sites are going down.

I can say what probably set them off finally. Two things, all done by one single site (apparently) that went way over the top:

1. Creating an iPhone/iPod Touch application to charge people to read illegal scanlations.
2. Putting out Shonen Jump manga chapters several days before they're even released in Japan. (For example, posting One Piece chapters on Wednesday when Japan has to wait until Monday.) Said site also posted on Tite Kubo's (Bleach) Twitter "Congratulations on 400th chapter!" before it was released to the public.

But what I'm hoping is that maybe those didn't set them off as much and that they are actually just "making room" for legal alternative(s). Scanlations are illegal, but they've always kind of had their place - Manga that will never be licensed and for the most recent chapters. Now if only the legal companies would get over their "fear of the unknown" and take advantage of this. There is money to be made in "Simulcasting" manga. They've done it with anime, now they should do it with manga. They can charge a monthly fee, whatever. It's their call, but they need to make this available. It will make the fans happy and it will bring in the money. Win-win situation. Except for the pirates who always find their excuses to not support the industry. But you can forget about them, they'll just find their ways. You can't ever stop them, so you might as well just ignore them and at least cater to the people who still have some values left.

I mean there are "pirates" as I call them, but then there are people who just use the sites to read recent chapters and read unlicensed manga. The pirates, as I said, always find excuses. You will see them in every forum whining about how some legal company dared to take away the series that they were so (falsely) entitled to. But, as for the rest, they care about the industry and they will be the ones hurt by taking down these sites if there is not a legal alternative on the way.

I did notice this bit of news after seeing this thread earlier, though. It's apparently unrelated but I like the idea and I really think it could fly. :( And I hope it does so more publishers will hop on board with the motion. There are plenty of people who honestly just want a quick fix for their manga--read the chapter once with decent scanlations and then they don't care after that, so hardcopy books aren't necessarily a great investment for every series, especially some of the obscure ones.

1,000 plus series... Pretty impressive... But mostly "boys love"? xD

Either way it's a step forward and that can not be denied. In fact I think it's great that they're getting that many series, I'm hoping that digital distribution will allow for manga that would have never got licensed otherwise due to monetary risk.

 

[Giraffles <3]

Hmmm, I guess they have all the right to do this. But still, I will honestly never buy something I don't have to pay for and i'm pretty sure a itunes like manga thing will never happen and a lot of good series don't get translated into English or other languages and I honestly don't feel like learning japanese. Scanalations will never stop and they can't stop it, because we all know people stopped stealing music, right XD?

 

[Shanghai Alice]

Ehh, it's technically fair. Copyright laws and all.

Now if someone would level the playing field by getting libraries to stock the stuff. -_-

 

[Eucliffe]

Now if they can come up with an iTunes version of Manga and get us to read manga online for 99c a pop MAYBE that might be a good thing for us poor sobz in the fandom. >____>

I support this. Even if most my iTunes music was simply downloaded (some of the OSTs on there I actually own in real life), I would seriously pay $1.00 just to read manga on iTunes (or spend that much to download a track or more to download an entire album).

 

[Shanghai Alice]

Do you know what that would do to the print media?

I would actually be against it. I can't stand reading things on a computer. I love having a book in my hand. :D

 

[Riku]

It might not affect it too terribly. People still buy CDs, and the mp3 players have been around for YEARS now. Movies are the same way: you can watch them online or rent them, but people still go out and buy them. I don't think it'd be too terribly bad.

 

[Esper]

I did notice this bit of news after seeing this thread earlier, though. It's apparently unrelated but I like the idea and I really think it could fly. :( And I hope it does so more publishers will hop on board with the motion. There are plenty of people who honestly just want a quick fix for their manga--read the chapter once with decent scanlations and then they don't care after that, so hardcopy books aren't necessarily a great investment for every series, especially some of the obscure ones.

That seems like a very sensible plan. Use the internet to test the waters and see what appeals and what will sell. It sounds ideal for the manga fan who doesn't have the cash to keep up with more than one or two series a month.

Do you know what that would do to the print media?

I would actually be against it. I can't stand reading things on a computer. I love having a book in my hand. :D

If print media can't compete then it should make room for new technology. Reading on the computer isn't the best, but eventually everyone will have some kind of e-reader or kindle or whatnot and it will be almost like reading a book again.

 

[Shanghai Alice]

Umm... then what's the purpose of a kindle, if it's "Almost like reading a book?"

I know that you can store a lot of books. That's cool and all.

However, the joy of collecting a series, of keeping the cover clean, of arranging, and rearranging the books on the shelf... Even the joy of panicking when the edge gets slightly bent, the joys of being a bibliophile.

If new technology displaces that, then I believe that is when we'll become the ultimate crapsack sci-fi world.

 

[jigglyppuff8]

And it's people like you who will keep it alive. Kudos to you. Seriously. b''b

I hardly read manga online as it is anyway because most of the series I'm interested in are already licensed and scanlators are all "respect" and don't touch them (or they're too obscure and no one wants to :V). If I had money to spend on myself, I'd surely buy them and have a huge stack of manga lying around somewhere, but I don't so w/e.