OneManga shutting down

[Valles]

Interestingly, I'm one of those individuals who caught part of the Negima anime in fansubs for an episode or two, then decided not to pursue it. Speaking just for myself, the likelihood of my acquiring the first disc or two of it as a 'blind taste test' without that first experimentation are effectively nil. My budget is tight enough that a US$20 DVD is a significant chunk of the monthly total, one that I refuse to gamble on something that I have no idea if it will be worth it.

Your arguments in this matter have accordingly so far failed to satisfy the burden of proof in my mind. The evidence advanced by Eric Flint and the other contributors to Baen's Free Library Palavers have.

Regardless. Bob, could you put on your Moderator Hat for a moment and transfer this thread to Politics, please?
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Epsilon]

Interestingly, I'm one of those individuals who caught part of the Negima anime in fansubs for an episode or two, then decided not to pursue it. Speaking just for myself, the likelihood of my acquiring the first disc or two of it as a 'blind taste test' without that first experimentation are effectively nil. My budget is tight enough that a US$20 DVD is a significant chunk of the monthly total, one that I refuse to gamble on something that I have no idea if it will be worth it.

Your arguments in this matter have accordingly so far failed to satisfy the burden of proof in my mind. The evidence advanced by Eric Flint and the other contributors to Baen's Free Library Palavers have.

Regardless. Bob, could you put on your Moderator Hat for a moment and transfer this thread to Politics, please?

So... you've never gone to see a movie in the theatre? Never rented a video from Blockbuster? Never gotten a Netflix account? Never checked a book out of the library? Never gone to a bookstore and read the first chapter of a manga?
When I wanted to go read a copy of Negima to see if it was for me I went to Chapters. They actually have comfy chairs on site. They encourage people to read before buying. I read the first chapter, decided I didn't like Negima and checked out about five more books before settling on one I wanted to buy. All perfectly legal and didn't require any scanlations. I can do similar things with books at my local library (I read all Stephen Kings work at my local library before I bought the four books of his I really enjoyed for example).
I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.
Now as to your argument that offering work for free increase sales. Let's put this to the test. Thankfully we have a really large sample size to compare: Free webcomics (where the authors give away all the material for free and you can pay for collections) and commercial comics.
Now, tell me: is there a major motion picture being produced for... say, Sluggy Freelance? How about PvP? No?
Well, maybe comparing the webcomic artists to people like Jim Lee and Frank Miller is bad. After all, Jim Lee and Frank Miller are comic superstars. People who do purely indy comics can't possibly make as much money. Well, unless your Bryan Lee O'Malley, who does an entirely indy comic that netted him a major motion picture deal due out this summer.
Here's the thing: I will admit offering free samples improves sales. But it is by far not the only way, nor neccesarily even the most successful way of doing so. If a company decides not to offer free samples of their work to you, that's their right. There are a lot of ways for you to preview before you buy, after all.
------------------
Epsilon

[Valles]

So... you've never gone to see a movie in the theatre?

Average of once a year if that.

Never rented a video from Blockbuster?

 Including other media like video games, I can think of perhaps three or four times in the last twelve years or so.

Never gotten a Netflix account?

Nope.

Never checked a book out of the library?

Less and less, these days. I find that their selections tend to be limited - which, given shelf space costs and such, I blame them not at all for.

Never gone to a bookstore and read the first chapter of a manga?

Both an inadequate sample size - the first volume of Negima, for instance, didn't grab me to speak of; I needed longer than that to really pick the story up and start caring - and, to my mind, discourteous to the seller, given the wear-and-tear it imposes on as-yet-unsold product.

I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.

And I do not, will not, and have not attempted to make that argument. I'm taking issue with what I find to be an unwarranted assumption that the practice harms either the legitimate owner of the property - the original creator - or their legal assignees, including publishers.

Now as to your argument that offering work for free increase sales. Let's put this to the test. Thankfully we have a really large sample size to compare: Free webcomics (where the authors give away all the material for free and you can pay for collections) and commercial comics.
Now, tell me: is there a major motion picture being produced for... say, Sluggy Freelance? How about PvP? No?
Well, maybe comparing the webcomic artists to people like Jim Lee and Frank Miller is bad. After all, Jim Lee and Frank Miller are comic superstars. People who do purely indy comics can't possibly make as much money. Well, unless your Bryan Lee O'Malley, who does an entirely indy comic that netted him a major motion picture deal due out this summer.

I would be very interested to see a falsifiable or detailed natural experiment on the subject, showing that those selfsame webcomics would, in fact, have received film publicity and so on, but this is too general to qualify.

Here's the thing: I will admit offering free samples improves sales. But it is by far not the only way, nor neccesarily even the most successful way of doing so. If a company decides not to offer free samples of their work to you, that's their right. There are a lot of ways for you to preview before you buy, after all.

They do, indeed, have that legal right. Just as I have the right to regard their attack on a practice I find to be rather commensal to be both laughable and in bad taste.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Morganite]

We have been over this repeatedly, depending on assumptions the ideal length of copyright for a book, from a purely economic perspective, is somewhere between 6 and 2 years. Current copyright tends to be upward from 80 years, which means that it is too long by an order of magnitude.

Personally, I'd have no objection to Disney holding the copyright for Steamboat Willie until the sun explodes, as long as it's always possible to buy a copy at a fair price.

Of course, under this principle, when a work becomes unavailable for sale (or when they refuse to sell it to a population), they lose the ability to prohibit non-commercial distribution. (I want to say "immediately", but I suppose it's really better to have at least a three month grace period.)

Doesn't quite cover all the bases, but I think that would strike a nice balance between allowing creators to benefit from their creations, and ensuring that works which are no longer economically viable don't fade from existence in the long term.

Why do you have to read the manga scanlations to do that. I can find spoilers for series without ever going to a scanlation site. I follow Bleach and Fairy Tail up to current releases without once downloading a scanlation.

Because of course reading a summary provides the same experience and entertainment value as the actual work! Why, I'll never have to pay for another movie ticket again, I can just read the summary on wikipedia instead!

He asked for a case where availablity of fansubs killed a market.

... Who asked?

You mentioned that in a reply to me, but I didn't ask about that.

Though, again, if fansubs have a discouraging effect on bad anime, that's actually a plus in my book.

I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.

Not sure anyone's saying it's the only way, full stop. It is, however, pretty universally effective, in that it works for manga that haven't been released in your region, or for people who only have bookstores available where they frown on such extensive browsing, or the store doesn't have the title you're interested in...

... Okay, so. Bob reads some scanslations of Negima online, decides it's awesome and spends a couple hundred dollars on the official releases. Alice goes into a bookstore, thumbs through a few volumes of a few different things, decides Negima is awesome and spends a couple hundred dollars on the official releases. Who is being harmed by the choice of one set of actions over the other? Maybe whoever bought the stuff Alice looked through and didn't buy, if she didn't wash her hands first.

-Morgan.

[Epsilon]

Morganni wrote

Personally, I'd have no objection to Disney holding the copyright for Steamboat Willie until the sun explodes, as long as it's always possible to buy a copy at a fair price.

Of course, under this principle, when a work becomes unavailable for sale (or when they refuse to sell it to a population), they lose the ability to prohibit non-commercial distribution. (I want to say "immediately", but I suppose it's really better to have at least a three month grace period.)

Doesn't quite cover all the bases, but I think that would strike a nice balance between allowing creators to benefit from their creations, and ensuring that works which are no longer economically viable don't fade from existence in the long term.

My personal favorite idea is to make copyright universal for X years (i prefer 25, but would accept terms like 10 or 5), then after that you start charging a liscencee fee for each additional year you want to keep it out of public domain. IP is like land title, you don't own it forever, you keep it in the public trust. So we should tax it like we do real estate. You have to pay tax based on the suggested worth of the land, even if you aren't selling it. Thus you incentivise either allowing things to go into public domain or keeping them commercially available (to pay the tax).

Why
do you have to read the manga scanlations to do that. I can find
spoilers for series without ever going to a scanlation site. I follow
Bleach and Fairy Tail up to current releases without once downloading a
scanlation.

Because of course reading a summary provides the same experience and
entertainment value as the actual work! Why, I'll never have to pay for
another movie ticket again, I can just read the summary on wikipedia
instead!

Or you could download it instead! I'm never going to have sympathy for any argument which amount to "I want it, I will take it."

He asked for a case where availablity of fansubs killed a market.

... Who asked?

You're right, it was Morganni who made the claim that the long term benefits has never outweighed the costs. Sorry.

I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.

Not sure anyone's saying it's the only way, full stop. It is, however,
pretty universally effective, in that it works for manga that haven't
been released in your region, or for people who only have bookstores
available where they frown on such extensive browsing, or the store
doesn't have the title you're interested in...

... Okay, so. Bob reads some scanslations of Negima online, decides it's
awesome and spends a couple hundred dollars on the official releases.
Alice goes into a bookstore, thumbs through a few volumes of a few
different things, decides Negima is awesome and spends a couple hundred
dollars on the official releases. Who is being harmed by the choice of
one set of actions over the other? Maybe whoever bought the stuff Alice
looked through and didn't buy, if she didn't wash her hands first.

Everyone is being harmed.
I believe in the social contract. That is, we all agree when we become members of society to abide by the Social Contract. Part of that social contract is agreeing to abide by the law. This is why theft is bad. It's not because it deprives people of their possessions (because otherwise taxation would be bad) but because it violates the Social Contract. Once you start violating the social contract you begin to break down society as a whole. Doug may pay for the original work, but by endorsing fansubs and scanlations he is supporting an entire subculture who does NOT endorse those actions. For every Bob that reads every issue of Negima at Onemanga and buys the releases religiously there are dozens, hundreds of people who do not buy the original work. There are people who are selling the product of Negima without giving a red cent to anyone involved in its production (and this is definite because Onemanga sells ads to their site).  He is harming the value of the Negima franchise, he is putting money into the pockets of IP pirates, he is using up bandwidth and energy that could be used for other purposes, he is draining money from the advertisers to support pirates. There is LOTS of harm going around, but you don't see that because its all externalized. None of it hurts Bob directly, but it does hurt.
If Bob goes to a guy in an alley and buys a copy of Haruhi on DVD for a suspciously low price, who is he harming? He fully intends to buy the whole series (if he likes it) so the fact he's supporting someone who is illegally copying and selling works without compensating the creators is OK, right?
This isn't comparable to the bookstore read or the library read because we have agreed, through the social contract, that those are acceptable ways to gain access to materials. If the bookstore owner doesn't want you reading his work, he'll say so. And I find the idea that I'm going to catch some horrible disease from the person who touched a book before me absurd.
-----------------
Epsilon

[Morganite]

He asked for a case where availablity of fansubs killed a market.

... Who asked?

You're right, it was Morganni who made the claim that the long term benefits has never outweighed the costs. Sorry.

... Okay, you're seriously confusing me now.

It's late enough that I'm not going to respond to anything else tonight, except for one point: my comment on hand washing was in relation to *dirt*, not disease.

-Morgan.

[Epsilon]

Post #16, and sarcasm.
You claimed that the benefits of filesharing far outweigh the costs. Well, in one case the benefit was "nothing" (as usual) and the cost was "these people lost money".
--------------------
Epsilon

[robkelk]

If Watchmen had fallen out of copyright earlier, would the movie have been made any faster? (I recall the biggest problem they had was in getting the rights to make the movie.)

Breaking my rule just to make one factual correction here.
%[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_of_Watchmen]You are incorrect. The rights were acquired in 1986, in fact.]

According to that article, the rights were acquired in 1986. Then they were acquired by a different studio in 2004. Then they were acquired from the second studio by a third studio in 2005, who had to negotiate a deal with the first studio - which took three years.

If the title had gone out of copyright before 2005, the movie could have been out two years earlier than it was. (Production was taking place parallel with rights negotiation.)

Now, tell me: is there a major motion picture being produced for... say, Sluggy Freelance? How about PvP? No?

How about http://www.newsarama.com/film/090922-we ... awake.html]Wide Awake?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[WengFook]

I believe in the social contract. That is, we all agree when we become members of society to abide by the Social Contract. Part of that social contract is agreeing to abide by the law. This is why theft is bad. It's not because it deprives people of their possessions (because otherwise taxation would be bad) but because it violates the Social Contract. Once you start violating the social contract you begin to break down society as a whole.

Ok pardon me for this is actually the first time I've heard of the concept of the social contract. (Learn something new each day! I think I've got the gist of it from Wikipedia so correct me if I'm wrong. Essentially the social contract is a set of unspoken rules or code of conduct that govern an individual's behavior in regards to other members of society to prevent people from harming the self-interests of other people in society.
I have a couple of questions then. If the law is used to determine what harms other people then what happens when the law is amended to suit a new situation?  Does one then have no objections to the new status quo? Also what happens when people exploit the letter of the law but do not break it?
If this was say a slightly different situation, like a group of local food wholesalers objecting to international aid workers distributing food away for free in a disaster situation what does the social contract say about the people claiming to be harmed then? 

Doug may pay for the original work, but by endorsing fansubs and
scanlations he is supporting an entire subculture who does NOT endorse
those actions. For every Bob that reads every issue of Negima at
Onemanga and buys the releases religiously there are dozens, hundreds of
people who do not buy the original work. There are people who are
selling the product of Negima without giving a red cent to anyone
involved in its production (and this is definite because Onemanga sells ads to their site). 
He is harming the value of the Negima franchise, he is putting money
into the pockets of IP pirates, he is using up bandwidth and energy that
could be used for other purposes, he is draining money from the
advertisers to support pirates. There is LOTS of harm going around, but
you don't see that because its all externalized. None of it hurts Bob
directly, but it does hurt.

I suppose I can understand your point of view about how the system should work except that the subculture you describe does bring benefits to the industry. Say for the sake of the argument that fansubbing did not exist in the first place. I think what you'd end up with is the pre-anime boom community in America. Very small groups of people that have limited contact with people outside their immediate group that share the same interests and almost zero interest in sharing what they already have. Which if I'm not mistaken translates to a drastically smaller market for anyone involved in this already niche industry. Ok I'll go another step further down hypothetical lane. Say fansubs were totally wiped out tomorrow. What would then keep the prices for this hobby in check? Other competitors? Maybe. After prices have soared to double or triple to what they currently are. It would then up as an even more exclusive hobby for really the really well to do people.  
The part about dozens or hundreds of people that do not buy manga is true, but assuming that this only harms the industry isn't right. Just because one hasn't bought any products doesn't mean that the situation might not change later. From another point of view this group are customers that haven't happened yet. I'll try to explain that a little more. Say for example you see a commercial for a drink. From it you've gained the vital information about the product but have not spent any money on it. So at this point the drink company has actually lost money because they've put the message out there. Later on one does indeed pickup the advertised drink. Cha-ching. Customers that haven't happened yet.    

This isn't comparable to the bookstore read or the library read
because we have agreed, through the social contract, that those are
acceptable ways to gain access to materials. If the bookstore owner
doesn't want you reading his work, he'll say so.

Please explain to me the difference here. It is an acceptable access to materials because... Nobody has thrown the legal hammer at libraries yet? At what point does the creator of the works put into libraries get to have their say?
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Bob Schroeck]

Moving the thread per request.

Epsilon, I'm about halfway through writing a response to you but Peggy's pushing me to get out of this chair and drive us to her Mom's. Probably for the best, as I suspect I'm snarkier than I want to be in what I've already written. I'll give it a onceover and edit/complete it when I get home.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Black Aeronaut]

Arrrrrrgggghhhh...
Okay, knock it off.
First of all, let's just agree to disagree here.  Some of us feel that it is horribly bad and wrong and savage and all kinds of ugly to download copyrighted content, even if you later legally purchase the hard copies... and some of us think that's the cat's meow.
Chill and move on with life, please.  NEEEEEXXXXXT!
I've got issues about the companies that produce hard copies of English-translated manga here in the US.  In no particular order, they are:
Availability
Demand vs. Cost
Timeliness
Quality
Let's start with the availability issue - something that just kills me, really.  I see something that is available here in Japan.  I can't read it, but it looks DAMN AWESOME.  naturally, I want to be able to read it!  So what do I do?  I go and check on it's availability.  For certain, I'm gonna go for a Scan first.  If I love it enough to plow through the whole series or keep up with it until it's conclusion, then I'm gonna get myself the printed product...  Only come to find it's not available in English dead-tree format.  F***ers.  Well, the publishers only have themselves to blame then.  Especially if they license something in the allusion of gaining a lock-down on the title and wait years before bothering to publish.
That leads to Demand vs. Cost.  Publishers simply won't publish something because there is not enough demand to warrant the cost of publishing.  Note that I say "publishing" and not "printing".  Printing is cheap.  Publishing is not.  So, titles like Ushio and Tora are left to languish in obscurity, perused only by those that happen upon the scanslation sites and the few interested Americans here in Japan (which is not very many at all).
Timeliness is a big issue for me.  If the publisher can't be bothered to get something out on the market in a timely manner then they deserve to lose business.  (Seriously, time is money.  In the old days of rail transport, conductors of trains that ran even thirty-seconds late got sacked.)  This business of waiting months and months for something that has already been published in Japan is retarded, especially when a scanslation group has it out within days.
Finally, quality.  This is something where you might think the big publishers have an edge.  Most of the time they do.  But now and then you get someone who goes cheap on you and then you buy something you thought was gonna be good... but the publisher changed translators and now it sucks... and your the sucker.  I know, it doesn't happen often, but it does at times.
A few other points I wanted to argue...
Don't you dare pull the whole Learn Nihongo thing on me.  I'm working on it and while the spoken language is easy, the written form is absolute murder.  There are three written forms of this language - think of it as having three alphabets - and none of them look anything like English so there's nothing to relate to.  And dare I mention that they tend to use all three in combination?
Oh, and just so you know...
Hiragana - 30 character syllabary.  Usually used for day-to-day things that don't have commonly recognized Kanji.
Katakana - 300 character syllabary.  Usually used for foreign-borrowed words and sounds.
Kanji - 3000+ characters.  The Japanese equivalent of hieroglyphics, and based off of the written language of the Chinese.  Hard.  As. F***.  Lemme tell you, my girlfriend, a college graduate with a degree in Japanese Literature, did not ace the test for Kanji they have here.  There are actually quite a few Kanji that she is not familiar with and she grew up here!
Oh... and the whole thing about 'piracy' increasing sales?  Oh.  My.  God.  Dude, the anime/manga industry in America would not exist if it were not for fansubs and scanslations.  Enough said.  It started that way, let it end that way.  (Hell, to me the publishers are all the intruders, stealing something good away from everyone else.)
So, that's my thoughts on the argument.

[Epsilon]

I have a couple of questions then. If the law is used to determine what harms other people then what happens when the law is amended to suit a new situation?  Does one then have no objections to the new status quo? Also what happens when people exploit the letter of the law but do not break it?
If this was say a slightly different situation, like a group of local food wholesalers objecting to international aid workers distributing food away for free in a disaster situation what does the social contract say about the people claiming to be harmed then? 

The social contract actually goes deeper than law. One segment of it is "obey the law" but that's only one segment of it. There are lots of other parts of the social contract that are not purely legal. "Don't cheat on your spouse" is a part of the social contract in most modern western countries, for example. It's not illegal to do so, but when someone cheats in such a manner we tend to think of them as something of a slimeball for breaking the contract.
This means that sometimes the wider precepts of the social contract and actual law come into conflict. It's a complex situation when that happens and there are no simple answer to such a problem. That's why they are dillemmas. The example you give of food aid in a disaster is spurious, however. Almost no social contract maintains we must protect someone's profits, especially in a case where lives are at stake.

I can understand your
point of view about how the system should work except that the
subculture you describe does bring benefits to the industry. Say for the
sake of the argument that fansubbing did not exist in the first place. I
think what you'd end up with is the pre-anime boom community in
America.

Nope. Sorry. There were plenty of anime fansubs for, like twnety years before the big anima boom. The big anime boom happened because of the success of Pokemon and Dragonball Z, which proved to North America media companies that imported Japanese cartoons could be massive money machines. This lead to more anime on TV, which lead to more exposure, which lead to more anime being brought over and so on and so forth.

What
would then keep the prices for this hobby in check? Other competitors?
Maybe. After prices have soared to double or triple to what they
currently are. It would then up as an even more exclusive hobby for
really the really well to do people.  

Yeah, I really doubt this would happen. Your railing against a hypothetical worst case that isn't going to happen, ever.

The part about dozens or
hundreds of people that do not buy manga is true, but assuming that this
only harms the industry isn't right. Just because one hasn't bought any
products doesn't mean that the situation might not change later. From
another point of view this group are customers that haven't happened
yet. I'll try to explain that a little more. Say for example you see a
commercial for a drink. From it you've gained the vital information
about the product but have not spent any money on it. So at this point
the drink company has actually lost money because they've put the
message out there. Later on one does indeed pickup the advertised drink.
Cha-ching. Customers that haven't happened yet.   

The problem is that we are teaching our society that IP has no value, especially the children of society. The more we support illegal filesharing the more acceptable it becomes the more common it becomes the more we support it and so on. Once again, look at societies like Taiwan where there IS no copyright law, or China where there is no respect for software patents. If we don't respect IP law pretty soon people will (gasp) stop respecting it. Actions have consequences.
Not to mention it encourages the Me First, Instant Gratification consumerist society which is at the heart of many of our current problems. The resources to produce and distribute media are NOT free. We do not live in a post-scarcity society and we should not be encouraging people to think that.

Please
explain to me the difference here. It is an acceptable access to
materials because... Nobody has thrown the legal hammer at libraries
yet? At what point does the creator of the works put into libraries get
to have their say?

Libaries are part of the current social contract. It's basically like me lending my copy of Final Fantasy X to Ayiekie (which I just did). It's my copy, I can do what i want with the copy (even resell it). I can't. however, COPY it (thus Copyright). Similarly a Library has a copy (maybe multiple copies) of a book. They can lend those copies. They can't copy them however.
----------------
Epsilon

[Epsilon]

First of all, let's just agree to disagree here.  Some of us feel that it is horribly bad and wrong and savage and all kinds of ugly to download copyrighted content, even if you later legally purchase the hard copies... and some of us think that's the cat's meow.

Listen, I don't really care if you download stuff illegally. I think its morally wrong. But I think its morally wrong in the same way not tipping your waiter or smoking in public or passing in the right lane is wrong. It's something I don't do and find vaguely annoying but its your life. I would be happy if it went away, but I am not delusional and never expect it to.
This thread isn't about whether copyright should exist or not. This thread is about Onemanga. Onemanga is a site that distributed currently liscensed and financially available manga and charged a price for this service (in the form of ad revenues). They are no different than a bootlegger selling pirated DVDs of Titanic in a back alley. I'm glad they are gone.
-----------------
Epsilon

[robkelk]

Once again, look at societies like Taiwan where there IS no copyright law,

Taiwan has copyright law; it just doesn't match what's in the rest of the world.

(For example, Victor can't legally release many of their anime soundtracks in Taiwan because Son May released them first. The fact that Son May did so without a licence from Victor is irrelevant; it was legal under Taiwanese copyright law. Note that this doesn't mean Son May CDs are legal outside of Taiwan...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[WengFook]

This means that sometimes
the wider precepts of the social contract and actual law come into
conflict. It's a complex situation when that happens and there are no
simple answer to such a problem. That's why they are dillemmas. The
example you give of food aid in a disaster is spurious, however. Almost
no social contract maintains we must protect someone's profits,
especially in a case where lives are at stake.

Yeah okay I'll give that it was a pretty thin example but if this isn't about protecting someone's profits then where is the conflict?

Nope. Sorry. There were plenty of anime fansubs
for, like twenty years before the big anima boom. The big anime boom
happened because of the success of Pokemon and Dragonball Z, which
proved to North America media companies that imported Japanese cartoons
could be massive money machines. This lead to more anime on TV, which
lead to more exposure, which lead to more anime being brought over and
so on and so forth.

Thats cool but I doubt that the industry today sprung forth solely on the backs of two titles just like that. In any case I was trying to point out that without fansubs, a portion of the market would never have existed in the first place.

Yeah, I really doubt this would happen. Your railing against a hypothetical worst case that isn't going to happen, ever.

Which proves that I never studied economics or business.

Libaries are part of the current social
contract. It's basically like me lending my copy of Final Fantasy X to
Ayiekie (which I just did). It's my copy, I can do what i want with the
copy (even resell it). I can't. however, COPY it (thus Copyright).
Similarly a Library has a copy (maybe multiple copies) of a book. They
can lend those copies. They can't copy them however.

But the end result is the same isn't it? Hundreds of people would have read the book without ever paying the original creators a single cent for their work. And if libraries paid the original creators to host a copy of their book online for the public to read then is it any different from what a site like onemanga was doing?
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Ayiekie]

No, because I'm well and truly hooked.  But the question is, would the publisher have gotten my money without the scanlations' existence?  Nope.  I never would have bothered looking at it on the shelf (because I rarely check out manga on the shelf).  But because I got a chance to get involved in the story via the fansites, I've ended up spending no less than $250 so far on the extant volumes, and plan to continue buying.  And if the publisher can't work out the ROI there, well, that's their problem.

Once again, you post your anecdotal evidence like you think it means something. You spent $250, whee! That means what, precisely? The total profit the company got from that probably couldn't pay a translator for a single day's work. You are utterly insignificant on the scale of money that even the modestly-sized anime/manga companies function at. Your experience doesn't mean anything. Only the experience of the overall population of manga fans is relevant. You are not Joe Everyman. You are not the norm. Your anecdotal evidence is worthless. Literally every single anime fan I have ever met has downloaded stuff they could have bought and then not bought it, including several on this forum. I don't bring this up as some sort of debate masterstroke because it does not matter because that doesn't prove anything about how the entire market works.
So could you and every other piracy apologist stop bringing up "B-b-but I bought X because of piracy and without it I'd never spend any of my money on anime or manga ever!" as if I or any publisher is supposed to care? It just shows your ignorance of economics, statistics and basic logic, which does not speak well for your ability to judge how piracy affects the market.

Because I don't want to wait a year or more when I can have the latest stuff now.  I'll gladly pay for it -- and read it again -- when it gets to North America, but I want to know now how they get out of the Lotus Eater Machine, for example.  If I have to, I'll wait, but if I have the option, I'll take it.  The publisher gets my money either way.

Did you seriously just argue that you have some moral justification to illegally take a product against the wishes of its creators and legal license holders because you want it?
Well, gee, Bob, maybe I might respond to this devastating argument with the daring concept that your desiring something doesn't make it your god-given right? Not that I actually have an issue with people who download stuff and then always buy it, only with the concept that most people do this (they don't) or that the existence of pirated products is good for the industry (this is absolutely untrue for fansubs and very likely untrue for scanlations). But seriously, how exactly can you end up sitting there arguing seriously that "I want it!" is a justification for taking it, and still think you're on a side with any moral high ground?

How convenient that I've lost my job and I can now devote my all time to learning one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to acquire, so that I may have the moral high ground with which to enjoy my mass-produced foreign pop culture.
Sorry, Epsilon, but you make it sound like it's just a quick afternoon's study and a little effort later that evening and Shazam! Instant mastery.  No.  I know people who've got degrees in Japanese who struggle with some of the stuff in manga.  Remember that we're talking about entertainment here.  Once it becomes a chore, it stops being entertainment.

And here's the same argument again. Bob, if you're not willing to put effort into it, why do you deserve to have it, exactly?
And by the by, manga is almost entirely written for children. Your people who have degrees in Japanese that struggle with reading it are less fluent than Japanese children, which says more about them than it does about manga. To be broadly fair, I suppose they might be having trouble with slang, colloquialisms, or archaisms (all of which are frequent in manga), but all of those are legitimate parts of understanding a language.

What a curiously arrogant question.  Would I have the right to follow it immediately if I were borrowing a copy from a library?  I mean, it's functionally the same -- one entity buys a single copy and makes it available to a theoretically unlimited number of other readers.  (And before you object that the two are not the same, allow me to point out that there are -- admittedly extreme -- elements in the publishing industry who, following the model of the RIAA, gripe audibly that lending libraries are piracy, pure and simple, and should be somehow regulated or controlled so as to prevent/recover lost revenue.)

I know "strawman" is overused in internet debates, and yet that is still such a blatant strawman - you quite literally put someone else's argument in his mouth - that it's hard not to point out.
Libraries are not Onemanga.com, either legally or in the eyes of any sensible person. To note just two pretty major differences - libraries buy the books they have (often in quantities and/or at a premium), and people who borrow copies of books from a library don't get to keep them forever. Your bringing that up is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.

It's a curious thing... in large quantities anecdotal evidence becomes somehow ennobled and becomes marketing data...

Yes, Bob. In large quantities, showing the differing experiences of large quantities of people. I understand this, which is why I don't quote my anecdotal experiences as some sort of evidence in a debate about the economic impact of scanlations.

You will, of course, have to find honest and verified statistics about losses first... as multiple threads (with linked references) over in Politics have shown in the past, just about every financial claim about the "cost" of piracy has turned out to be at the very least grossly exaggerated and at worst completely fabricated by industries that have a vested interest in a two-hundred-year-old distribution system.

That is because the vast majority of those threads include the usual self-satisfied intellectually dishonest bullshit that is rampant in online piracy discussions. The arguments in this thread are an excellent example of that, being as they are completely identical to arguments used to support fansubs, software and music piracy. And really, mentioning the industries' vested interest but not the internet crowd's vested interest in continuing to be able to take free stuff whenever they want is typical of that as well. Not to mention the fact that, of course, the industries opinions are based on their economic self-interest and well-being (rather than their desire to get free stuff), and often formulated by people who are actually educated in things like statistics and economic theory that Joe Internet knows jack about.
It is demonstrable that software sales do suffer because of piracy. The world's largest market is unequivocal on that fact. The best argument anybody has come up with that scanlations do not harm sales of manga is that an extremely limited selection of sci-fi books had an uptick of paperback sales due to being released for free online. You and others ignore the fact a billion people averaged out show an overwhelming predisposition to replace legitimate sales with pirated material (except, very notably, in the case of MMOs where this is not possible), but leap on the Baen Free Library as if it's the Holy Grail. I suggest that shows your considerable intellectual bias in the matter. Moreover, the piece of evidence, while interesting, is hardly conclusive of anything.
1) Manga and books are not identical. Manga takes a lot less long to read and is more visually oriented than novels; it is therefore more easily replaced by a digitised equivalent. Many - I would say most but can't prove that off-hand except by pointing to the Kindle as obviously filling an existing need - people do not like reading books from a computer screen, but I see no evidence of a similar large-scale aversion to manga, even given that I count myself as a person who actually dislikes reading manga online (which is why I'm not following Rin-ne). Most fans seem to prefer a dead-tree version but have no real objections to reading manga online; this is absolutely not the case with novels. Therefore, in the most important and relevant area (does the pirated copy replace a legitimate copy?), the comparison falls completely flat.
2) The example given is of an extremely limited number of sci-fi novels. I have actually no problem with acknowledging that could increase sales (due to the above), but that is hardly a demonstration of what would happen even on a large scale for the book market, let alone the rather different manga market.
To convince me that scanlations are overall helpful for the industry - and I'm more open to that than you probably think, in the sense that I think there is a slight possibility that a Baen Free Library type system could actually benefit manga sales, whereas anime, software and music very demonstrably would only be hurt by it in the large scale - you actually should be trying to present evidence that manga is more like books (people do not by and large consider the digitised version a substitute for a legitimate version) than software, music or anime (the digitised version is basically equivalent to a legitimate version for most people). But while I would agree there is SOME effect of that sort (most people would consider a real manga a qualitative improvement over a scanlation), I don't see any reason to believe there is any significant real aversion to reading online as there is for books. I see this in your own arguments - sure, you prefer a real copy, but you have so little problem with scanlations that you continue reading dozens of chapters ahead rather than wait for the real copy to come out. Of course, that too is anecdotal! However, in the overall anime community I'd say the same opinion prevails, and it is true on a pure numbers game that a hell of a lot more people read scanlations than buy the product (further proving that scanlations are desirable as an entity unto themselves, whereas there is not nearly as large a community for pirated novels).

And let me just remind everyone that yes, I am a published author, and yes, for every "pirate" copy of one of my works out there I have theoretically been robbed of anywhere from 25 to 50 cents -- assuming said pirate would have ever bought a copy in the first place.  Even so, I can smell the bullshit as it wafts from the office towers in NY and LA.

And that means you know what about economics, exactly? You're arguing from authority without claiming any facts other than your worthless anecdotal evidence. Piracy apologists love harping on any creator they can find in their midst, but ignore that the vast majority of creators do not support their views. Why should I care you're a published author, Bob? Lots of published authors don't approve of piracy. Do you change your views because of that? Does anyone?

[Ayiekie]

I think that Ayiekie's point of piracy = hurt sales may be (and probably is) true for software.

But books are not software, and there are distinct benefits to having a physical copy over a digital copy (even if I sometimes forget that).

But Ayiekie requested evidence, so here is what I can find:

Baen (previously mentioned)

Scientific study of 41 books and how free ebooks affected sales (hint: they went up)

And several authors have also tried this out and found it works:

Nathan Henrion, Peter Watts and Cory Doctorow are just the ones I can remember. I'm sure there are others out there that I don't know of.

By the by, thank you Sweno (and a shoutout to Wengfook as well) for acknowledging that piracy hurts software sales (well, at least conceding it as a "probably"). I'm not being sarcastic - I have been in enough of these debates that I was honestly startled to see somebody acknowledge that rather than blithely ignore it.
I do really think you're onto something with books, Sweno (at least until Kindles or equivalent are so widespread that ebooks are equally desirable to regular books). The problem is that I can't really see manga as being equivalent to books; the advantage to having a physical copy is there, but it is so much smaller than that of having a scanlation (and scanlations offer their own advantages, notably a faster release schedule and being able to easily grab everything that's available, as well as, obviously, it being free) that I do not believe it overcomes the overall tendancy of people to pirate and not buy.
Taking your evidence into consideration I'll admit that the impact of scanlations may be less than (for instance) fansubs, but I find it difficult to believe it would actually help the industry, given both my posted reasoning for why there isn't a strong aversion to scanlations as a product unto themselves and the real-world marketplace performance where manga sales in both America and Japan have collapsed in the past several years (and in Japan's case, this does not correlate with the global recession for certain; I'd have to check when the massive decline of American manga sales began). On a smaller scale it's worth noting that several series' that were popular in scanlation (Bo-bobo-etc. springs most readily to mind) absolutely tanked in official release, further indicating that scanlations |= sales.

[Ayiekie]

Arrrrrrgggghhhh...
Okay, knock it off.
First of all, let's just agree to disagree here.  Some of us feel that it is horribly bad and wrong and savage and all kinds of ugly to download copyrighted content, even if you later legally purchase the hard copies... and some of us think that's the cat's meow.

And some of us fall into neither of your positions, such as myself.

Oh... and the whole thing about 'piracy' increasing sales?  Oh.  My.  God.  Dude, the anime/manga industry in America would not exist
if it were not for fansubs and scanslations.  Enough said.  It started
that way, let it end that way.  (Hell, to me the publishers are all the
intruders, stealing something good away from everyone else.)

LOL. That is at best a massive exaggeration, and at worst a laughable crock. The industry, in the most generous possible estimate, still owes an order of magnitude more to Dragonball than it does to every fansubber that ever lived. You lumping in scanlations - a johnny-come-lately practice that was only popular long after the industry took off - with fansubs is even more absurd.

[CattyNebulart]

This is mostly a reply on the social contract stuff.

Please remember the reason behind copyright law, it's an necessary evil to 'promote the useful arts and sciences'. Modern economic theory and studies can tell us what the ideal length should be, and they don't all agree but they do tend to suggest an order of magnitude less exclusive control. Some people have also suggested to break up the monolithic block of privilidges we call copyright and give different terms to different rights. eg eternal right to be credited, but only 4 years of being allowed to charge for derivative works, and 5 years to be the only one allowed to sell copies, with extensions that cost a lot for each year, and whose price goes up.

The social contract goes both ways, you surrender some rights for a benefit, in the case a limit on your ability to copy stuff for the benefit of having more artists and enabling them to live of their work. So an artist who is no longer creating new works shouldn't get paid anymore, just like a bridge builder who stops building bridges wouldn't be paid anymore. However it is a balancing act, and at the moment it is way, way out of balance. there is actually an economic theory to explain this and it explains most of the inefficiency in government, basically if everyone has to pay one cent to Joe every year Joe will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way or even raise the amount, and everyone else would rather see it eliminated but they don't get so worked up over it because it's just a single cent. When such a concentrated interest meets such a diffuse one the balance will tend to tip in favor of the concentrated one.

Cultural artifacts should never be under copyright, imagine the mess if the catholic church had copyright on the bible. the protestants would be in deep trouble (in many ways this is one of the big problem with Scientology). The happy birthday song is still under copyright, somehow. The solution to this is again shorter copyright terms, since it takes time for something to become an cultural artifact.

Also it's a myth that without copyright artist wouldn't do art, as exhibit A I give you fanfiction.net. It's a very human drive to make art, without copyright however it would not be distributed in books because it would be too expensive for no gain as another publisher could publish the same material and try to undercut you.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Ayiekie]

Why should an artist who isn't creating new works not get paid for it if people are still paying for and enjoying the work they did create? Did they somehow magically not create it anymore after five years and no longer deserve recompensation?

I believe copyright should be until death-of-the-creator plus 25 years (the latter number is negotiable but 25 years is as good as any). It seems reasonable and fair. People in many other fields not only profit from their endeavours through their lifetimes, but can leave the fruit of their endeavours to their children. I do not see why artists should be treated differently. I certainly don't think the rights of people who didn't create anything should outweigh the rights of those who did. Any artist who feels differently is free to release their work into the public domain - the vast majority do not, of course.

[Epsilon]

I'm not going to debate the length of copyright terms and what the ideal is. I'm not here to discuss that. If you want hear my opinion on optimum length I posted them upthread. I'm here to talk about scanlation sites like Onemanga and how they are harmful to the industry in the same way back alley bootleg DVD pirates are.
--------------
Epsilon

[CattyNebulart]

Why should an artist who isn't creating new works not get paid for it if people are still paying for and enjoying the work they did create? Did they somehow magically not create it anymore after five years and no longer deserve recompensation?

I put that in my stuff about the social contract but let me be more clear. It goes against of the purpose of copyright to make more. If an artist is good we want to encourage them to make more, not retire after one album. There are other reasons but that is one of the big ones.

I believe copyright should be until death-of-the-creator plus 25 years (the latter number is negotiable but 25 years is as good as any). It seems reasonable and fair. People in many other fields not only profit from their endeavours through their lifetimes, but can leave the fruit of their endeavours to their children. I do not see why artists should be treated differently. I certainly don't think the rights of people who didn't create anything should outweigh the rights of those who did. Any artist who feels differently is free to release their work into the public domain - the vast majority do not, of course.

Yes my children are entitled to my wages after I die. wait what, that isn't right.
Let me try again, artist are paid for their work essentially forever, I don't see why we should stop paying a bridge builder as long as the bridge is still in use.

You can leave the money you earned to your children, and the 7 houses, but not your job, unless it is a family business, in which case you don't leave the job so much as your possessions which allow you to do the job. Why are artist treated differently?*

*well in some cases you do leave the job to your childern, for-instance if you are the king and die your job passes to your child... but that is a bit of an exception, most jobs don't do that.

Anyway by that argument copyright should extend into infinity since once the artist created it it doesn't somehow switch creators at any arbitrary later date. That is why some people argue the right to be credited for a work should be separate from copyright, and I agree.

Remix culture isn't new, it's how the Arthurian legends where made, which would be impossible with copyright. In fact that used to be the default for human creativity, and it can be convincingly argued that it still is, just obfuscated due to legal necessities.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Ayiekie]

I put that in my stuff about the social contract but let me be more clear. It goes against of the purpose of copyright to make more. If an artist is good we want to encourage them to make more, not retire after one album. There are other reasons but that is one of the big ones.

Your premise is flawed, because I do not agree at all that that should be the purpose of copyright. The purpose of copyright should be to reward artists for making works of lasting interest and value. Harper Lee deserves profits from To Kill A Mockingbird more than you do. I find the concept that artists should be blackmailed into trying to make more commercially successful works by taking away their right to their own work as reprehensible and selfish.
If you create a company from the ground up you can remain a major stockholder and continue to receive profits from it long after you retire. You can then pass that down to your children (and indeed, them to their children and so forth). Any sort of real estate you own is passed to your children as well, and so on and so forth. I do not see why an artist should not be able to bequeath the fruits of their own labour to their children. I think that their desires supersede those of the public, who did nothing to earn the right to do what they want with the work. And no, since I specifically said "life plus a certain amount of years to provide for children", that does not form a basis for copyright to be extended indefinitely.
I won't bother dignifying your "bridge builder" analogy except to note that it would only work if every member of a movie's crew got royalties forever.

[robkelk]

Let's try a more apropos analogy, then.

How long should a sculptor be paid for creating a statue? Does it make a difference if that statue ends up in a private collection or a town square? Does it make a difference if the statue is transitory (for example, made of ice and placed in a wedding reception hall)?

How long should a singer be paid for creating a song? Does it make a difference if that song ends up never being played or on the Top 40? Does it make a difference if the song is transitory (for example, only sung once and never recorded)?

Current opinion is that the sculptor is paid once, while the singer is paid repeatedly for decades. Why? What makes one type of artist more deserving of being repeatedly paid for a work than another type of artist?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Foxboy]

Ah but the corporate tendency to conflate Trademarks and Copyright is a bit of a bum go, innit?

Trademarks are supposed to be "as long as you defend them." While copyright is SUPPOSED to be finite.

Which further muddies the waters when you realize that corporate copyrights last longer than private copyrights.

Private individual A has a copyright on "Art Novel." Corporation B has the copyright to "Crap Novel" due to work-for-hire.

Art Novel's copyright expires close to 90 years after publication or death of A plus X years, depending on WHEN Art Novel was written.

Crap Novel has 120 years of copyright, unless Corporation B has ruthlessly Trademarked the whole thing.

So, Crap Novel™ is effectively "Neener neener, can't have it!"

I may have the term lengths wrong, but they are still ridiculously long. I seem to recall a mention that Bono wanted it to be FOREVER but that was declared unconstitutional. With an immediate rejoinder by then-RIAA head of "How about forever less one day?"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll