Solaris-SVU

I understand how there are 50 bazzilion (so says the interweb) laws on licensing and scanlation. But I have a probably already stated but still brilliant idea. Why not attempt to work with the people who have the licensing. With fan scanlations, they can already have a concrete base with which to work on the $$$ versions, and also, even when they have a license, they usually don't release the manga nearly as quickly as the translators do.

So, what if we could work with the licensing groups, or atleast get them to allow us to continue fan translations so long as we phase out the material that is currently available from the licensers.

I don't get your meaning.

I guess what i'm trying to suggest, is that the fan scanlation community should be able to continue making chapters even when the mangas get licensed, so long as the licensed offerings aren't as far as what's being scanlated (within 1 to 3 volumes relatively). Also, that the licensed manga makers could come to the scanlation community to get info on new series that show promise, or to get a jump start on their translations of the mangas. That's what the basic idea is, even though I need more time to iron out the exact details.

They'd never do that. There are a lot of people who wouldn't buy licensed manga if they've already been able to read it for free. It would be like them agreeing to make less money.

Also, the people that work for the companies that license and translate mangas probably already do frequent places like mangafox or onemanga, or if not at least visit every so often and read some manga. (Because I would think that one would have to like reading manga to work to translate and publish them.) The problem is the people that lead the companies. They want the most money with the least hassle. The would, unfortunately, scoff at your idea.

True... But consider the fact that they basically get free translation and editing. I should have said this in the last post, but whatever chapters are currently licensed won't be available for free. Only those chapters that are far ahead (for example, the bleach manga) from the licensed versions would still be available for free. Not to mention that people may like reading them, but they will HAVE to either buy the "official" licensed copy, or break the law, and be general arsehats, and steal it from the free hosts page by page. However, considering what everyone has said, I guess I will close my spamtastic idea... for now...

This sounds like the same idea that MangaHelpers was floating a couple weeks ago, and supposedly even approached one of the companies to try and sell. Idea was for MH to become for Manga what CR is for Anime. However, while CR and the studios pay for the subbing, MH would simply be serving up the work done from the community. It was about as well received as your suggestion even though I suspect they had a somewhat better chance of pulling it off.

My .02 on the whole thing is that such a thing COULD work if a portal took the money it got from a monthly subscription, shared it with the owning company AND the scan groups (based on number of reads of a title), and still had enough left over to keep growing their site. Biggest advantage there is that the owning company could easily provide clean raws that would make the scan groups lives easier, and so would be competing with a better product rather than just by threatening to harass and sue folks.

But I don't see that working any time soon either.

Bottom line is that we do not own the copyright of the works that we do. Since most people are perfectly content with getting their manga fix for free even if there are licensed alternatives, we are and will be considered as money draining parasites in the eyes of publishers. And the minute someone brings up an idea of teaming up scanlators with publishers will be meet with dejection in both fronts, as readers might feel that scanlators have sold themselves out, and what used to be free will cost them money now. On the other side, publishers might feel that they are caving under the pressure and had to make a deal with devil (scanlators, in this case) hence setting a negative precedence.

Am I in favor of scanlators working on licensed series? No, but my way of thinking has become an old view. And I still don't buy people's "I don't have money for manga" excuse. That's just a bullshit. Mangaka are not doing what they do for free, and scanlators disregarding license aren't doing the creator a favor. Pretty soon, we might see one of mangaka ranting about "foreign scanlation" on one of index page of manga magazine, like one of them did about Winny few years back.

There's already enough terrible work out there by people who are just trying to grab a little 'internet fame' or whatever you'd call it, can you imagine what would happen if people thought they could make money by doing it?

And I still don't buy people's "I don't have money for manga" excuse.

QFT... If you like it enough, you would find the money... If you can't, go to the library, most of them have some manga these days.

I don't have money for manga.

Gari wrote:I don't have money for manga.

You seldom have money for food... ^^;