Slashdot Mirror
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?"
The guy from Saturday Night Live?
Life in Orange County
While I belive in purchasing the works when they come out in the US. I do download and read manga. For the most part is purdy good, translations are purdy good and the work is done reasonably well.
I enjoy reading the manga after watching the anime myself, that way you get the little nuances and side stories in the manga that arent in the anime.
snowulf.com
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!
While there is a certain 'labor of love' comparison between scanlation and open source programming, and both involve alot of volunteer folks working on their own, that's about where the similarity ends. Open source is original work, and often it's an original idea. Scanlation is scanning in someone else's product and translating it. I think at one point translations were considered original work, but even if that were still the case, all of the artwork is still the publisher's property. Open Office is open source programming. Microsoft Office with a crack and a hacked translation into a new language is, while a labor of love, still outright theft. Anyways, where did I save that latest Trigun manga...
It is true that in both cases people contribute their talent and labor to a collaborative project. But unlike open source software, you are building off of and distributing someone else's work without their permission. That is illegal, and is exactly what SCO is claiming happens in OSS but it doesn't.
Not being able to read unlicensed work from other countries is a drag, and I don't particularly blame you for breaking the law when no-one is getting hurt. But it concidering how much FUD and confusion is already being spread by opponents of OSS, it really doesn't help for well-meaning people to muddy the waters with analogies like this.
I first read this as "Disturbing Manga", which makes sense, given that I've seen LOTS of disturbing manga!
Cmon man, this is slashdot! There's no place here for your opinions!
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
This will likely go against the slashdot majority dogma, but scanlations have all the copyright issues inherent in fansubs. After all, they do disribute copyrighted work. There are on the other hand comminities that translate manga and release translations of it; i.e. a traslated script without actual manga images.
You can buy japanese manga and with translations you can read it. Yes it's a little less convenient, but at least authors get paid for their work.
...I'm not particularly excited about these "Scanlation Communities". It's just yet another example of the Internet doing what it does best: forming small, highly optimized communities devoted to one thing, like the workers at DP proofreading public domain texts or the people at archive.org committed to putting new materials into circulation. Just because it's anime/manga/Japanmiation doesn't make it particularly special, but I'm sure it's just useful as anything else. This is what the 'Net is for.
BTW, if you happen across a little gem called Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, then go download it. It comes highly recommended ^_^.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Actually the shows/books aren't free to trade to begin with. There are international agreements on intellectual property and stealing Japanese works is just as wrong as stealing American. The only legeal difference is that US licensees may be better positioned to enforce the agreement.
From the moral standpoint, some believe that it's ok to distribute a fansubbed work until it's licensed in US, since this is the only way for people to access it (it isn't true - you can buy Japanese DVD/VHS and find scripts online for most of them). Once the shopw is licensed, the moral reationale is gone and distribution of fansubs becomes you plain vanialla piracy.
Interesting article. ^_^ I don't quite buy the open source "as Linux is to Windows" comparison, though... it's really apples and oranges IMHO.
I've been interested in anime for many years- I helped found an anime club and am currently serving a local anime club (where I met my wife). We both enjoy both anime and manga. She lived in Japan for a year through the JET program (and I got to visit her ^_^), and she has developed a fair-sized (Japanese) manga collection. While I can't read Japanese, she often translates for me. I am just floored by the proliferation of available titles in English, though. The article was even more eye-opening in that respect.
I haven't looked into the manga side (scanlations) so much, but I have been quite interested in the fansub legalities and ethics. I tend to view them in a similar light. Technically, they are illegal- but take a look at the flourishing doujinshi market and other fan-led efforts in Japan. They are very different types of copyright violation, but are technically just as illegal (debatable, but generally thought of as illegal through copyright and trade law)... That's an aside, though, I guess... ^^;
At any rate, I view open source as very different for a number of reasons- open source is a legal response to a proprietary mindset via the GPL. The publishing industry is a different beast than the software industry. Scanlations, and fansubs, serve the purpose of the sharing of the culture/art, but are likely illegal, while open source promotes the legal sharing of software under a certain set of circumstances. Open source is "bought into" by all of the participants in the development from the creator on (barring silly SCO arguments)- that's one of the big differences right there. The author and/or copyright holder of the scanlation is not usually a participant in "the community." Are scanlations bad? I don't always think so, provided they hold to some general ethics, but I don't think they have the legitimacy that open source does. I don't know if the comparison is fair to open source. ^^
The author should think in the posibility of publish their works under free licenses like creative commons. The use of this kind licenses on these publications could make easier to know the new works of unknown authors, so this would make a more dinamic market. This is a new place to bring the filosophy of the free software. So why not?
1. The manga industry is being outsourced. I don't know much about this, but it might be a good idea to keep an eye on this issue.
2. Manga on the internet is often fan-translated. This is usually a good thing, as often the fans have more respect for a direct translation, rather than throwing out any cultural jokes that wouldn't apply overseas.
3. Try to get manga for a good price. Manga is sold at ridiculously inflated prices in the U.S., so if you can, try to get a better deal.
That being said, it's also a lot of fun to actually buy the manga. There's something quite charismatic about sitting on the bus with a thick little comic book.
Still, if one walks into a Borders or Barnes and Noble, they'll find a large section devoted to manga, so the good thing is it's becoming more available.
Oh, and I would like to second the honorable mention of Naruto. I'm currently reading it, and it's a really great series, both the anime and the manga. I highly suggest it.
Fandom: The Barbarians at the Gate
- or -
Yes, I still like Ranma 1/2
(blantantly stolen without permission from here)
It is an unfortunate fact about fandom, whether it be gaming fandom, anime fandom, or Linux fandom that it goes through stages:
1. Stage One: A small group of people discover something that they like and think is fun and interesting. They form clubs based on it, talk to each other about references from it and generally enjoy themselves. Often, they will be persecuted by people who don't get it, "You're into that?!? How can you be into that?!?!" they'll sneer as they pass you in the street, at school or at work. This is also the evangelism phase, you try to convince people to become involved in the thing you are into. "The more the merrier" is what you think at this stage. In some ways, this is the best stage of fandom. There is a lot you have to do by yourself and normally a dearth of commercial support, but it is exciting.
2. Stage Two: Some charismatic people become interested in what you like, unfortunately, leading the people who were sneering at you to think, "Oh! He's into that? Oh, maybe I misjudged it then..." (You'll see why this is unfortunate soon enough.) More support becomes available, so you don't have to do everything yourself. Instead of third generation fan-subs, for instance, commercial tapes become available. Maybe not the ones you want, but still, maybe good in their own way.
3. Stage Three: This is the transitional phase, your hobby becomes well known enough that the mainstream media picks up on it, usually portraying it as a weird and evil sub-culture. Of course, this causes it to appeal to bored mainstreamers who want to appear cool by taking on the establishment (until they grow up to become corporate lawyers and/or investment bankers, natch.) These are the people who start showing up at your AD&D club meetings and when you suggest a game of Call of Cthuhlu for a change, mock you. They don't mock you because they know anything about CoC , but because "the name sounds goofy, man." You start feeling resentful as they try feeding your sixth level magic user to a gelatinous cube, and in my case you stop attending group meetings.
4. Stage Four: Congressmen start talking about the evils of the whatever-it-is that you like, of course making it more cool among mainstreamers . Although the thing you like is more readily available now from a variety of commercial sources, it has been rendered palatable for the mainstreamers . All the rough edges are sanded off, and you get accosted by people who don't know that you used to be really into the thing who try to tell you how cool their bland, pallid version of the thing you used to love is. The barbarians are at the gate! People are overunning your hobby with the same predjudices they had back when it wasn't cool. They accost you at conventions and say, "You are into that!?! How could you be into that?!? This new is so much cooler than that. I wouldn't be caught dead being into that." Note: As always, you are not trying to force your tastes on anyone. In fact, because the quality of people you are meeting has declined so much, you try to identify the bad ones and just "smile and nod" as they pass you by. You are just trying to "live and let live," but the mainstreamers only want to appear rebellious, even though by their very nature they are conformists. Because of this, they will seek you out and try to force conformity on you, basically forcing you to hide your interests within a hobby from them the same way you used to hide your interest in the hobby from them.
5. Stage Five: Everyone is into your hobby now... but it's become so palatable and mainstream that it isn't recognizable as the thing you used to love. You've since moved on to other things. Soon after this, it becomes uncool and people start dropping it. You still like the old things that got you into it in the first place, but you no longer mention it to
oh please, information doesn't want to be free, people want things FOR free. which isn't to say that what these people are doing is wrong, and that there aren't any communnities based around this. Information just happens to easy to "share" on the internet.
Scanlations actually act for Mangas, just like Fansubs for Animes, as a launchpad for Licensation.
I severely doubt that Naruto or Hikaru No Go would have become licensed, if they didn't already have such an big fanbase in English speaking countries - they might have disappeared into obscurity outside Japan instead.
The IP theft issue is not a real problem here - the artists like when their manga gets scanlated (after all, it shows how much it is liked). The publishing companies turn a blind eye to the scanlation groups, as they have nothing to loose (non-japanese Speakers wouldn't buy the manga anyways) but alot to gain (Getting alot of US fans = good chance that the manga gets licensed for the US) and most of the high-quality groups honor the request to stop scanlating licensed manga.
Finally, here are a few intresting links to Scanlation Pages for those that got interested in Manga:
Toriyama's World produced high-quality Hikaru No Go and Naruto Scanlations until they got licensed, now offers e.g. Hunter X Hunter
Snoopy Cool offers alot of intresting Scanlations, like Yakitate!! Japan - a manga about beaking bread(?!) and many others.
Enjoy
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
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.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
If you have actually looked into the genre, saying that you "hate this stuff" and are convinced it all "looks crappy," isn't sufficient. What about it is crappy? What is it that you hate that is common to ALL manga?
Saying "manga looks crappy" is like saying "comic books are for kids." There's no way that they are all alike or share a single esthetic; there's far more variety in Japanese mass-market comics -- in artstyle, storytelling techniques, intended audience -- than in the US product.
Unless you can lend some further depth to your remarks, you are simply a troll.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
For example, here's one paragraph:
Let's take another look at that in "translation":
"While scanlators operate somewhat outside legal boundaries -- the works they're republishing are copyrighted and proprietary, and there isn't a penny of licensing money exchanging hands -- their existence is tolerated by the commercial publishing houses because, frankly, scanlators play the invaluable role of identifying new titles that are hotly in demand."
Sounds like a justification, for every illegal form of trading to have come forward to this point. Where I will not fault, the folks for scanning and redistributing copyrighted material myself (..owing to glass house syndrome.) Theft is theft. Do BSA members, and all other software companies, learn which of thier titles are most popular, or are they robbed of revenues? Recording Industry? Visual Media Companies?
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
including exporting obscenity laws from less liberal jurisdictions
Don't do it!
Last time the US exported obscenity laws to Japan we got Tentacle Porn
I really don't want to find out what we would get this time!
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
I'm all for culture jacking and sharing of entertainment. It bothers me that people like the RIAA and Jack Valenti of the MPAA are so fierce about preventing the spread of entertainment to other countries. The MPAA in particular has been rallying foreign governments to crack down on piracy of movies that aren't even being distributed commercially in those countries.
If you're not selling your items in a certain area, does it really matter if there are pirated copies popping up in that area? It's not like it's cutting into your business if you're not even selling there.
Same goes for software, I say. If a company stubbornly refuses to release compatible software in other languages and devices, I'm all for people in those countries jacking up the software and making it work for them.
The only thing that's touchy with anime and other such things is that it COULD be slated for licensing and redistrubutors would be cutting into their revenue. In that case, I say nay.
But if a company says no to distribution in an area where there's demand, I'm all for consumers taking things into their own hands. Anime, software, and other forms of media are not expensive to reproduce. Technically, the "art" itself is non-existent - it's all just 1's and 0's on a computer disk or images pressed onto tape. Redistribution is harmless if it doesn't affect profits whatsoever while simultaneously spreading the art.
Companies who refuse to redistribute on their own while also refusing to allow others to redistribute in an area that does not cut into their profits are just being stingy. It's the equivalent of a kid refusing to let his little brother play with an action figure "just because," even though he's not playing with it either - it's just great entertainment gathering dust and not being sufficiently appreciated.
Now I'll probably be kidnapped by some secret military group controlled by big media, but I had to say my piece. Free the anime! Vive la revolucion!
Read Manga? I just look at the pictures!
Microsoft Office with a crack and a hacked translation into a new language is, while a labor of love, still outright theft.
Been listening to the boys from the RIAA again?
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS NOT THEFT!!!!
It's copyright infringement. That's different from theft. It has a different name too, so as not to confuse people.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I love that there is "A Manga Introduction to the Japanese Economy." Somewhat off topic, but from what I have heard, the Monty Python crew made short instructional films aimed at improving morale and efficiency in the office.
Does he have to know the difference between Masamune Shirow and Rumiko Takahashi to hold the opinion that he doesn't like Manga? Stop being so indignant about something so silly. So you don't agree with his opinion, but he still has a right to it. After all, it's your choice to invest your time in a monumental waste of time, and his choice not to.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
The comparison between this practice and open source is definitely not apt. It's exactly the kind of obfuscation that Ken Brown of the ADTI wants: this Manga distribution genuinely is samizdat.
My first reaction to this story was "apt-get manga"? Needless to say, this has been a long day...
Ah, but remember Anime Law #1:
#1 - Law of Metaphysical Irregularity
The normal laws of physics do not apply.
(For reference check the Anime Laws)
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
--
Evan "Artists? Being individualistic? Never!"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If you have no basis on which to rest your statements then there is no reason for you to read or post in this topic, other than to troll.
I trust mods will take note.
Do you realize you sound JUST LIKE "Comicbook Man"?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This sounds similar in spirit to what emulator and video game fans have been doing for years, only the video game translations are legal.
In the post-Atari era (but before the PSX started making it big), an American-made video game was a rare and often horrible occurance. The only way the video games got translated for release over here was if the company thought that it would make a profit on the game and if it fit an "American" audience, which excluded almost all role-playing games.
Once emulation of the SNES became feasible, dedicated bi-lingual fans began translating the games by themselves or in teams and provided binary patches against the non-translated versions of the ROMs. This can't be compared in any way to open source, as another poster compared the translated manga, because almost none of the translators ever released any of the tools or documents that they used in the translation.
Video game translation is still a thriving community today and is one of the best ways to experience some of the greatest games that never saw the light of day on these shores.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Anime, like any other consumable media, comes in three flavors:
1) Absolute shit served up with a marketing blitz
2) A valiant effort that self-destructs mid run (possibly because they ran out of money after the marketing blitz)
3) The overlooked gems.
I'm sure it'd be easy to make a similar list for any number of product areas:
Popular music, Reality TV, Feature Films, Websites, Taco Bell franchises, celebrity-sponsored hair care product lines, etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Please don't misrepresent the manga/anime fansubbing/scanlation community to those who won't recognize just how ignorant you are. I know you think in black and white because of the way the movie and music studios have treated "piracy", but the difference between anime/manga studios and western movie/music studios could not possibly be any different with how they treat p2p distribution of their work.
Fansubbers and now BitTorrent link sites(at least, the ones run by fans, not p2p-kiddies) usually have policies about licensed content; stuff disappears when it gets licensed for distribution in a country where the translated language is spoken. AnimeSuki for example, does not list a single licensed series, even if groups are making torrents available. Anime[mircx] has actually shut down until they are technically able to honor a request from ADV (a distributor) to not list ADV series, regardless of licensing. Many IRC Fserve operators delete series if their fansub group has a policy for doing so.
Only one group, to my knowledge, has publicly gone against the requests of a studio or distributor, and that would be AnimeJunkies, who had an extremely poor reputation already (mention "mass naked child events" to anyone who was a fan of Ghost in The Shell: SAC and watch them giggle- it was one of their more famous mistranslations). AJ is, consequently, now almost dead- fansubbing very little, and shunned by most. I can't begin to describe the amount of hate that many anime fans had for AJ after a studio employee posted on a board the conversation she had with an AJ leader.
Fansub groups also STRONGLY discourage selling of their work by putting in "NOT FOR EBAY, SALE OR RENT, FAN TRANSLATION" randomly into their works(ebaying CD-R/DVD-R copies of group's works was particularly popular at one point among sleazy individuals- profit margins are quite good), and they often include a message urging people to buy the DVDs when they come out- and from being on IRC channels a decent amount, a lot of people DO buy the DVDs, soundtracks, etc when they come out.
The studios and distributors respect what the fansubbing community has done for them; they're fully aware they exist and they have zero desire to "do" something about them. You simply wouldn't have seen films like Spirited Away, and much of the stuff on Adult Swim come into the US if fansub groups hadn't slowly been building a market (or at least appreciation) for Anime. Further- the fansubs actually create more of a market for the DVDs and trinkets...not less.
So, pardon me when I take serious umbrage at you stating that fansub and scanlation groups are thieves, because it's one of the most ignorant statements I've heard in quite some time.
Please help metamoderate.
I was over in Japan last month, I was astonished to see how things had changed over the last few years since I was there. I used to see everyone in the subways reading manga, now NOBODY reads manga anymore, they're all doing email on their keitai (cel phones).
I talked to some publishers, they admitted that the market for manga was collapsing, authors and inkers that were barely making money before the collapse are now getting out of the business.
What will the poor fanboys do when there are no longer any new comic books from Japan? Better start learning Korean. Too bad that Japanese you tried to learn was a big waste of time.
The creators are not losing money in scanlation. Because people who do not read Japanese would not buy the books anyway. I've never read them, but I've certainly watched fansubs. And as I said, they're not losing money. I wouldn't buy it in raw Japanese because it wouldn't make any sense to me. Further, after watching said show I buy the little bobbles, the posters, the pillows, the nightgowns, etc... So they're making money off me that they wouldn't have made otherwise.
Also, I was under the impression that scanlations and fansubs were not illegal when the material was not licensed for the US. Being not licensed for the US means 'no one has the rights to this material in this country'. It may not be legal, but I don't think it's illegal to do this sort of thing. There is no one to sue you because no one owns it.
Also, as noted, what are you supposed to do? Never read or watch the piece of work because no US distributor wants to pick it up? As others have said, US Distributors often choose what to license from what people are fansubbing. Do you think the creator of Naruto cares that it was Scanlated now that it's on the USA Today Top 150? It never would have been picked up if it was never scanlated.
And while some fansubs and scanlations are done rather shoddily, so are a lot of the US Distributed stuff. They'll stuff too many episodes on a disc and lose frames. Or they will not translate swears so they can market to kids. So you if you want to actually read, to the best of your ability when you don't know the language, what the creator intended, sometimes this is your only avenue.
And the people who do this stuff are not doing it for money. They simply want to expose people to stuff they love. They mostly do this stuff on their free time and for no money. I think villifying them and the people who patronize them is unfair.
I don't think they are doing anything wrong morally or illegally.
This is bullshit. Very few US releases of manga are edited for content - and when they are, there is a monsterous fan backlash that often bitchslaps the offending company back into shape. Take the recent example of "Negima," a series released by Del Rey in the United States. Originally, the manga was going to be edited to remove nudity and some sex-related jokes because Del Rey thought people would complain about the content of the book. Obviously, they had not read "Love Hina," another series from the same artist with rougly-equivilent content that was sold openly with no trouble.
Anyway, within hours of the editing being announced, anime and manga message boards (and the email boxes of everyone related to Del Rey's manga division) were flooded with screaming and bitching and moaning about their treatment of the series. Within a week, they caved in and agreed to release the book unedited (but shrink-wrapped and with a warning sticker). The same sort of thing happened when Viz began editing the Dragonball manga so they could sell it in toy stores and whatnot (although it took several months for them to cave and reprint the books).