Scanlation: Distributed Manga

IronicGrin writes "Just alerting you to a story I wrote for SFGate.com about the emergence of manga as a cultural and commercial force in the U.S.; in addition to discussing the fact that manga has begun to appear on national bestseller lists (volumes of Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin both cracked the USA Today Top 150), I also discuss scanlation communities--that is to say, distributed groups that use the Internet to translate and distribute as-yet unlicensed manga works--comparing this form of culture hacking to other open source development efforts. Do you think the comparison is apt? How many of you guys read manga (as opposed to watch anime), anyway?"

Comments

Mainstream.

[TLSPRWR]

Definately manga has begun hitting hard.
I actually saw a girl showing off some manga books she'd just bought to her friends... who were girls!

Gateway drug

[base3]

As a parent and Slashdot reader, I'm concerned that the obsession over Manga, particularly that obtained by violating copyrights, is a dangerous trend among teens and young adults. Once drawn into the hobby (the name of which is an only mildly concealed anagram for "GAy MAN"), young people begin to look for bigger and better fixes, until they're caught in the grip (pun intended) of Hentai tentacle porn.

The U.S. Justice Department should use every means at its disposal, including exporting obscenity laws from less liberal jurisdictions as well as the new criminal copyright infringement laws, to see to it that as few youth are affected by this scourge as possible. Thank you.