[X] My Assistant

I can't go over this point-by-point as several topics repeat, so I'll try to just address your message in broad strokes.

Many things come as a package, and you don't get to pick and choose. You might only like four episodes of Seinfeld out of the total 180, but you can't buy those piecemeal. You either pay for whatever subscription service streams the show and watch them on repeat there, or if you're lucky and they're all part of the same season, maybe you can find that DVD and at least save some money. And realistically, that's probably a better deal anyway. I don't understand why you'd want to buy four chapters from a book at $3-4 each, rather than getting the whole thing with 10-12 chapters at $10. The money still goes to the same people, and I highly doubt you can enjoy 40% of a book and can't stand to look at the rest of it. Of course you can have favorites, but the style and themes tend to be pretty consistent throughout, to the point where you probably like most of it if you're a fan of the artist. I've done a ton of afterwords, and a very common phrase I come across is some variation of, "I hope you at least found one chapter you like," so not even the artists expect you to love 100% of the title.

Much of your concerns has to do with subscriptions as a whole, rather than something specific to us. Things might eventually not be available? Yes, that's the nature of licensing. It's part of the deal; you get access to a huge library of content for a very small fee, but that fee is reoccurring and only grants you access to an ever-evolving library. Most of the time, it's expanding with new content, but at times, some content will go away. Unless we grow to a size where we rival Disney and can buy up every publisher in Japan, that's always a possibility. Media leaves various platforms all the time, or they move to a competitor for one reason or another. You can even expand this reasoning to include everything if you really wanted: if Marvel shuts down tomorrow and don't sell off any of their IPs, there won't be any more Spider-Man comics. Telltell Games closed their doors without finishing their TWD series, although I believe that one was salvaged somehow. Point is, everything eventually ends, and to expect otherwise is unreasonable.

And I agree that the average consumer only consumes part of the content, but again, that's the whole point. Pay a small fee, consume what you want. Back when people still had cable packages, it was literally impossible to consume everything, because you had several channels airing 24/7. Streaming services aren't that different. People are obviously more than happy paying $10-15/mo for various services, as long as they feel like they get enough value out of it. You seem to have a very narrow and specific taste, in which case I can understand how library services aren't that appealing.

Finally, let me address this fear of supporting artists/works you don't like. I don't know the inner workings of our systems, but I'm fairly certain the algorithm isn't as basic as "if you read it, you love it." I imagine things like how much of it did you read, how long did you spend on it, did you read it multiple times, do you come back to it later, did you favorite it, and so on all play a role. You seem really concerned that if you accidentally read a chapter you don't love, the artist will get showered with money. It's obviously an aggregate, and if you quickly flip through a few pages of two galleries, it's not going to have a huge impact. If you religiously read every new chapter as soon as it goes up, and add them to your own collections so you can come back to them and re-read them later, that will.


I feel like this conversation went from "I'm not sure if supporting FAKKU actually supports the artists," to "I don't like subscriptions and want to buy/own my content." And yeah, that's a fair point. We have thought about making more of the subscription content purchasable, but it's a long-term goal that would require a lot of contracts to be rewritten and updated. If that happens, I hope you'll give it a shot and see if that better suit your expectations.

If you're doing scanlations in some capacity, you clearly have the means to do it. Yes, it requires work to put together an official release, but that's the way to garner good will from the artists. Show that you respect them enough to where you think they deserve compensation for their work, and you'll get plenty of respect in return.

All right, I thought about what you said quite a bit and I'll actually try to give it a shot. I don't expect it will go well, so if you have guidance then I'd appreciate it.

All right, I thought about what you said quite a bit and I'll actually try to give it a shot. I don't expect it will go well, so if you have guidance then I'd appreciate it.

I've never personally been involved with this side of the business, except assisting with some of the super early communication with the very first artists we worked with. That said, I can try to give a few pointers that I think are worthwhile.

1. Make up a road map and present that to the artist. Get the team together, a rough schedule (plan for delays), distribution model/platform, royalty splits, etc. The more you have confirmed ahead of time, the more confidence will be instilled in the artist when you approach them.

2. Whatever you do for royalties, be transparent and clear with the artists so they know what they're getting themselves into. Also, if you have any plan on growing the operations, do some research on what that entails (local business laws, taxes, etc.).

3. License fonts. You need a license to use most fancy fonts for commercial work. Start out with a few basic ones, or explore free for commercial use libraries—from trustworthy sources; generally track down the actual creator and see what their terms are.

4. Invest in a tablet (for the letterer). You don't have to buy a ton of fonts if you draw your own text. It's also a huge advantage if you have to do any redraws (don't expect to always get perfect, textless files from the artist). It's an investment and has a steep learning curve, but I think it's practically a necessity if you're really serious about it.

5. Do a decent job. This is more so directed at the public at large than you specifically. If you submit a shoddy product, it mostly likely won't get accepted on our site. Some of the most talented/passionate people I know come from the scanlation community, so I know that hobbyists can do great things. This is mostly just a disclaimer to any potential bad actors.

6. Finally, once you've done some of the groundwork and if you want to use our platform for distribution, contact us at contact@fakku.net. We've helped several groups/individuals get their start, so that way we can get you in touch with someone who's more experienced with this process than me.

>dozens and dozens of users actively and decisively hated on FAKKU invading their temple grounds
>after a few attempts and less than a month FAKKU gets the idea and makes a hasty full retreat

I actually am literally surprised, is this how an actual democratic society is supposed to work? Vive la Internet!

Though them DMCAing (and I don't really care who exactly did this) got me screaming "Not fucking again!.." for a few minutes while I searched the forum.

Anyway, it was a pointless affair, I'm just honestly really happy it didn't escalate to anything serious. Long live the site.


i_love_democracy.jpg

This post has been edited by MrGelar: Aug 24 2020, 22:38