Yeah, ok, I understand. But has anyone ever heard of Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)? If not, I'm not surprised. It's pretty recent for the most part. You wanna know why it finally came from Japan to the Americas? Because people loved it so much online, they figured people would buy it once it came here, and they were right. Scanlation sites, in my opinion, are like one ginormous advertisement for manga that hasn't been licensed here. Normally the only reason I ever read manga online in the first place is to check out stuff that isn't in America yet. So how is this hurting the industry when it should be helping?

I personally believe that people wouldn't pirate as much if more manga made its way out of Japan. I mean, recently I saw Dance In The Vampire Bund in a local bookstore, I didn't notice any censoring, I was overjoyed. You see? Now I, and other Bund readers, know we don't have to resort to theft to read it, you see? I pledge to stop pirating anything the day High School of The Dead is in the US!

@:

Provided that the title you want to read is released in a country whose language you understand. You get it, don't you? We read it online because the US refuses to bring over the stuff we actually want to read!

@Ace:

Totally. I'm feeling that way particularity with Fullmetal Alchemist, which went from definitive release dates to "COMING SOON" and makes me go ":|" because I want to know when I can get the next volume. I do know we're particularly close to Japan at this point, but frig.

Chapter-by-chapter is mainly what the scan people have over the folks here who are releasing them in completed volumes. Lots of stuff is done monthly, and if we're caught up to a release, we're looking at another like, six month wait on things.

I think a part of why companies don't just do the online thing (supported by ads) is that, frankly, it's a bit of a scary jump. Sure, people will read it, but who will, really, buy it? I think that uncertainty is part of the impracticality. Frankly, it seems fans have been rather greedy and selfish, so I can't blame 'em for not doing it.

@Katana:

Yeah, I get the feeling I'm not voicing my opinion right. I never meant to say they should be providing the same free service just because I can obtain it that way illegally. I do, however, believe that it's a little ridiculous that pirates can provide better service for free than the people being paid to do the same job. If I have to pay for the same service from an official source, so be it, but there's really no excuse for the companies who are supposed to be making money off of these series to be years behind the Japanese release, especially when it takes six amateurs about twelve hours to translate twenty pages. If they want to stamp out piracy, all they have to do is provide the same basic service at a reasonable price.

That being said, theoretically it shouldn't be too difficult to make some money by providing certain series for free on an official website run on ad revenue. Not all series, of course, but they should look into it.

I have no honest idea on WHY they would be doing this. I mean, if there is a manga on one of the scanlation sites that gets popular, even if it's not on sale yet, shouldn't the publishing firms figure that if they sold that, they'd get more sales? They sould take advantage of the scanlation sites to bring in more money by testing out different series.

A long time, ago, one of the podcast episodes had a news article similar to this, though it was about anime fansubbing. One thing I remember Chigo saying (paraphrasing) was, "People think this is their inalienable right and don't care about anything else", and it's pretty much the same thing for manga. No matter which you flip it, this is a business, and in any business, the goal is to make money, no matter which party you are, distributor or manga-ka.

I get what Ace is saying, and I get what Sangome is saying. But I don't understand why it would suddenly be the company's responsibility to provide you with free entertainment because they took down the site previously providing you with it.

Let me cross my fandoms a bit. On YouTube, you can find pretty much every episode of MST3K ever made. This includes all the ones that have been released on DVD and the like, which at this point is about 72 (of 198) episodes. There are some that will never see the light of release due to licensing issues with the movies (akin to a manga you'd never see released Stateside for one reason or another), and then there are those that have the chance. Last year, all the videos were taken down due to Viacom, the owner of the channels that the show previously aired on, claiming copyright.

Yes, the fandom (and I) cried fowl and within a few months all the episodes were back online because fans are like that (take note, wary manga-scan-hounds). But it was a luxury taken away from me that I did not expect anyone else to provide for free. But it's amazing how companies can compromise, as Shout! Factory now has episodes - entire 90 minute episodes - on Hulu. You know, for "sampling".

Okay, uh...oh. What Timber brought up about YenPress is something I remember hearing about, but then I go "Wow, that's really smart". Yeah, go with that idea, I like that one.

Well this sucks. :/

I read off of mangafox and if I like the manga I buy it anyway. How am I supposed to know what kind of good manga's coming out?

@:

Yes, but my thought is that if they're determined to go through with this, they should be providing a comparable alternative. I agree that it's unfair that sites like OneManga provide free licensed manga scans at no benefit to the distributors, but more often than not, the official release is simply an inferior product to what people are providing illegally. Not through translation quality, of course, but because scanlators reliably and predictably release their translations months or even years before the official release catches up. If they want to get rid of fan translations, they should be making them obsolete rather than trying to stamp them out without providing an alternative. If there's a valid, legal source for the exact same material being released at the exact same pace, most translators won't bother. All they need is their own site run on ad revenue, which is what most of these sites already are.

And remember, copies stolen doesn't directly correlate with lost revenue. Just as plenty of the fans reading in advance will buy the official product, many others who don't wouldn't have bothered reading it at all if it wasn't available for free. It's not exactly accurate to expect that every single one of the people leeching off scanlation sites would have bought the product if they didn't have the alternative.

Also, anime nerds are notoriously poor, but that's neither here nor there. :p

Uh, DAYUM! Its on now.

Oh sonuva.....

:|

Hypothetically speaking, say they do shut down every single manga scanlation website and people actually start buying the titles, won't someone just scan them up and put them out on the computer? It's not that difficult to scan a book and even though that one person who put money down to get the book those scans can be multiplied infinitely still giving the creators only that much money that one person paid for it. It's like that now - the people who obtain the raws of these manga that turn to scans have to get them from somewhere right which means buying it from a source.

Also, if I may.. perfect example for why people may do this. LOVELESS.. I don't know who has read it and who hasn't, but I do and I was up on buying every volume that ever was released on the release day up until the day the creator stopped releasing it over in the States! Now who's fault for reading scans in this situation is it? Mine cause I want to know what happens or the author's? I don't know the exact reason WHY it stopped being released, but I'm still willing to buy it, but apparently the author and publishing company could care less..so.. there are perfectly legitimate reasons why some fans go to the scanlation websites and don't realize they're doing wrong when in fact, they're trying to hold on to their interest in the manga for the creator's sake.

Looks like OneManga and MangaFox may be forced to shut down! Now we wait to see if manga sales increase or decrease...(XD I'm guessing increase!)

lol, for a sec I thought it said the top 30 manga titles like Naruto/Bleach/FMA. I kinda freaked out. I'm kinda glad I'm wrong. x3
It's so hard to find the manga I'm looking for in stores.

Let's see.

OneManga
MangaToshokan
MangaFox
MangaStream (unfortunately the only one I know of that is actually up to date with Soul Eater)
And many mooooore....

If they're really determined to do this, they should make their own website with blackjack and hookers. The sites they're shutting down have run just fine on ad revenue, so what's stopping them? I personally don't see the appeal of buying something I can't preview first (though admittedly, no one's stopping me from cracking open a Tankobon in the middle of Borders. Except those ones wrapped in cellophane to hide teh naughty bits). At the very least, keep me up to date with the Japanese releases. I don't have much sympathy for companies who aren't willing to provide a basic service that pirates do for free on a weekly basis.