And jumping back to the original subject of Tokyopop closing up in the US, a blog post by a (former, apparently) translator about Tokyopop, the start of the manga and anime licensing world in the US, and the company fizzling out... The Tokyopop Effect
As for the discussion that's come up about fansubbing/scanlations... I don't have any easy answers for the legal issues. All I can say is I really wish there was a win-win answer to the situation. I do recall though, back in the late 90s or else very early 2000s running across a site where someone was translating Inu Yasha. I recall comments on not being satisfied with the Viz translation of the first few issues, so it would have been after they started. But what I'm really recalling here is that the person doing it also commented that they were intentionally keeping the resolution of the scanned pages they posted low. Their position being that their goal was translating for their own benefit first, and offering people already reading the manga an alternative to the original, but that it wasn't their intent to provide something that would serve as a substitute for actually owning either the original manga or an officially licensed English printing.
Whenever I see anything from current fan translation groups I tend to think of that, as few of the ones I've been pointed to seem to do the same, "This is scan is only being provided with enough quality to see what's happening, if you want to be able to really appreciate it then buy it."
I do think the most workable long term solutions will come less from trying to stop people from copying and instead from making it as simple and convenient as possible to be able to pay for a copy. I'm reminded of a proposal I saw from an engineer in the early 90s for ebooks, that did include DRM, but with one big difference from what we have on DRMed ebooks now. There would be no attempt to keep you from copying the file. Instead the publisher would decide on a portion of the book to leave unencrypted and the file would include sufficient information that if you liked the free sample portion you could simply click a button, make an online payment, and receive (a good for your particular ebook reader only) decryption key to read the rest. It actually went further by potentially allowing passing along information on who provided you with the copy so they could get a commission of money or other perks (Hey, twenty people you've passed our books onto have gone on to pay to read the whole book. Here's $5/coupon for a free book/invite to publisher author luncheon at nearby convention/etc).
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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.
As for the discussion that's come up about fansubbing/scanlations... I don't have any easy answers for the legal issues. All I can say is I really wish there was a win-win answer to the situation. I do recall though, back in the late 90s or else very early 2000s running across a site where someone was translating Inu Yasha. I recall comments on not being satisfied with the Viz translation of the first few issues, so it would have been after they started. But what I'm really recalling here is that the person doing it also commented that they were intentionally keeping the resolution of the scanned pages they posted low. Their position being that their goal was translating for their own benefit first, and offering people already reading the manga an alternative to the original, but that it wasn't their intent to provide something that would serve as a substitute for actually owning either the original manga or an officially licensed English printing.
Whenever I see anything from current fan translation groups I tend to think of that, as few of the ones I've been pointed to seem to do the same, "This is scan is only being provided with enough quality to see what's happening, if you want to be able to really appreciate it then buy it."
I do think the most workable long term solutions will come less from trying to stop people from copying and instead from making it as simple and convenient as possible to be able to pay for a copy. I'm reminded of a proposal I saw from an engineer in the early 90s for ebooks, that did include DRM, but with one big difference from what we have on DRMed ebooks now. There would be no attempt to keep you from copying the file. Instead the publisher would decide on a portion of the book to leave unencrypted and the file would include sufficient information that if you liked the free sample portion you could simply click a button, make an online payment, and receive (a good for your particular ebook reader only) decryption key to read the rest. It actually went further by potentially allowing passing along information on who provided you with the copy so they could get a commission of money or other perks (Hey, twenty people you've passed our books onto have gone on to pay to read the whole book. Here's $5/coupon for a free book/invite to publisher author luncheon at nearby convention/etc).
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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.