[X] My Assistant

Well, seeing as how people scan, upload, translate and retranslate their stuff, and yet they still keep up the good work. I don't think it's as bad some people make it out to be. Not A-ok, but I doubt they're going hungry using their tears for ink.

This post has been edited by Super Shanko: Oct 7 2011, 23:31

I think it's too subjective to say what is best. If the artists want to share their works for free, they can and sometimes do. But I think it's on them to decide what's best for their personal interests. No one is doing them a favor by uploading their works without permission, simple as that. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but it isn't our call to make.

No quite so. I don't know about dojins, but in the book market, more than half of the books published do not cut even, they are a net loss to the publisher. Thus, they are almost never reprinted (rare exceptions include author becoming bestselling later, and demand for his old works skyrocketing).

So a lot of the book authors don't really care if their books are pirated; it's not like they were able to make a profit on it in the first place. You are not taking food from their mouths if their work generated no food in the first place.

Instead, you are potentially creating a market for them; as through online distribution, people may become aware of the author, and start buying his new works. That's assuming he is still publishing; in some cases he may not (could be already dead). Yet legally, his works cannot be distributed for many generations, to protect... whom, exactly?

You say it is not our call to make. I disagree. It may be illegal, but IMHO it is a form of civil disobedience, bringing works of art to a wider audience, with a potential to benefit some authors, just as (for example) lending a book to a friend who may later buy another work of a given author would be.

Did you know that few decades ago, big media tried really hard to ban videotapes, to prevent people from recording tv shows? They said it would hurt them, and that it was not the viewer's right to keep a copy of what the TV has aired...

Well, seeing as how people scan, upload, translate and retranslate their stuff, and yet they still keep up the good work. I don't think it's as bad some people make it out to be. Not A-ok, but I doubt they're going hungry using their tears for ink.

Actually, few artists of any kind make good living. Unless you are in the top 5-10% of bestselling authors, you "make do", at best. But I have yet to see a reliable source that online piracy dampens the profits of anybody - show me such a claim where I CANNOT counter with the argument that all those people "stealing stuff" (i.e. copying it) would never bought in the first place anyway.

And with not buying doujinshi, it's even less likely for westerns to begin with. Piracy is always morally grey, but in these cases, there's not much you can do, they must be scanned and shared because not everyone will have the same access to them. Even if they're printed 2000 copies, that's only 2000 global people will be able to buy the physical product. Compare to any given professional publication, which can be in print forever.

As far as I care, my mind is made up for doujinshi in particular. Magazine and tankobon publications, as well as DLsite material, is another matter entirely.

Hi I'm new on this forum, but I want to post my 2 cents...

I'm a huge Japanophile and I'm into everything from J-Rock to dramas, idols, and (of course) doujinshi and hentai. I just discovered this site and I'm really excited about how much content is available.

I live in the US, and normally do not have access to doujinshi, and without sites like this, anime and manga probably never would have reached its current level of popularity in America. I'm sort of a purist when it comes to Japanese media... I enjoy reading (or trying to) them in Japanese, because I studied Japanese for 3 years, and it's a good way to keep my language skills up. I have a huge preference for subtitles over dubs in movies, because many times a lot is lost in translation. However, sometimes it's great for me to be able to just read the scanlations because I don't have to concentrate as much and I don't have to continually look up kanji.

That being said, having RAWs floating around the internet probably cuts into authors' profits. However, the majority of doujinshi authors are not established, and I'm not sure that the exposure to a much wider audience isn't actually a positive thing for them. Hopefully, most people will realize that it takes time and effort to create these things, and without financial support, it becomes a lot harder for authors to produce their works. I don't think that doujinshi has reached saturation outside of Japan, to the extent that someone without access to the RAWs would be able to feasibly buy them instead. So in my view, having an active community of translators (with access to RAWs) will eventually lead to more demand and make it economically viable for authors to export their works to the rest of the world.

So I can understand why scanlation groups would opt to only post translations of doujinshi instead of the RAWs, because it helps spread interest without potentially stealing an author's hard work. Like some people have already said in earlier posts, most of us want to support our favorite authors, and will when we have the chance. When I had a chance to go to Japan in 2006, I went to Comiket and spent around 30,000 yen on doujinshi, and felt great about being able to feed the starving artists!

Anyway, I think that's about all I have to say..

wow. This guy is so similar to me, it's scary (the only difference I can think of is that I spent 10s of thousands of yen at Comiket in 2010). Yeah, I enjoy viewing the raws, and it ticks me off when those are never posted, especially when the only thing available is a questionable translation or, at the very worst, a rewrite (not even a parody, but an ernest attempt at some god-awful rewrite). Hell, a while back, I had to post a bounty just to get the raw for a doujin that was already translated.

I'd have to imagine there's a difference between physical scans and stuff that goes up on places like DLsite. Physical releases for some groups are gonna do bank at Comiket or other events, maybe even sell out completely. And that usually means a decent profit for the circle/artist, and any possible online revenue is just extra.

Like with recent Bitch Bokujou I released, I think he does physical releases initially at the events, not that I've ever seen one, but pretty much everything we've been able to work with has come from dlsite. And since we've only released the English for now, we're not stopping the Japanese from buying the version they can understand. What's more interesting about this specific case is that his releases don't come out on the English side of DLsite, so we're definitely not cutting into any profits for the translation we did. And even if they did, like with those Amatsukami releases I also did, they're never translated anyway.

it's worth noting that, regardless of several doujinshi not appearing on the English DLsite, they're still available on the Japanese DLsite, and it accepts foreign credit cards (as well as MelonbooksDL). People may be restricted by language (I REALLY need to get around to making that tutorial), but they're not restricted by their location, which is one of the main problems with importing physical doujinshi. In these cases, the author was nice enough to sell their work through a globally available outlet (albeit, it might not've been intentional if some of them don't even know how far DLsite can reach), and because of this, I too have some qualms with pirating works sold on DLsite. Given, some sales will expire over several years (Studio Kimigabuchi's works have all disappeared from there recently after a few years of inactivity), or be pulled by the circle itself, but so long as it is being sold on one of these sites with the makers themselves benefiting, we should support them.

Well, seeing as how people scan, upload, translate and retranslate their stuff, and yet they still keep up the good work. I don't think it's as bad some people make it out to be. Not A-ok, but I doubt they're going hungry using their tears for ink.

Yeah, because it's a hobby. I don't think most artists rely on doujinshi as their primary source of income. I'm sure there are a lot of commercially published manga artists who don't rely on manga as their primary source of income, especially if it's hentai. If they lose money, it's more likely that they'll do something else instead of starve.

And to Red, like I've said, it's subjective. You can't state say how things will work out with certainty, and I can't either. Aren't the artists in the best position to say what's best for them? Not to mention that their values may be completely different from yours. Maybe they hate digital copies and think doujinshi should only be distributed physically. Maybe they just enjoy selling doujinshi even if they don't make any money, but fear pressure from piracy would reduce their meager sales to nothing.

But I have yet to see a reliable source that online piracy dampens the profits of anybody - show me such a claim where I CANNOT counter with the argument that all those people "stealing stuff" (i.e. copying it) would never bought in the first place anyway.

That's silly. Show me a claim where I CANNOT counter that they would have bought it. No one can say what someone would or wouldn't have done under certain circumstances. We can only guess, and I think the guess that online piracy dampens profits is a valid and perfectly reasonable opinion. Other valid guesses are that the publicity would make more people buy it or that the people who pirate it wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

I'm not against scanning doujins. People like me who don't have easy access to them would never read them otherwise. But I don't think it's selfish for someone to want to respect the wishes of artists by not scanning and uploading their works.

They may not be going hungry, but the more their doujins sell the more of their life they'll focus on doujins - and I'd definitely like to see my favorite artists drawing more stuff.

if you ask me if people can decide what to do with their own copys its their cohices upload or not,in the other hand you can see lots of comiket materials raw here but they are not the original uploader (including myselfy) (most of people think otherwise),and i am not sure yet i know little (gp hentaiverse can help it)why this site getting popular for uploading here early before other sites forums

This site's popular for uploading because it's the most complete collection of Hentai on the Internet. Very useful resource.

Let this commentary from a well-known blog express my thoughts: [www.techdirt.com] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111009/...ic-detail.shtml

What? That WIPO article is a load of bull. Most scanlators don't make a single penny for their work. We host things on depositfiles and put ads on our websites to pay for operating costs. The website's not going to host itself you know....

WIPO misrepresenting the facts? No way!

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Oct 13 2011, 06:22

My point is, manga authors and publishers could have made much money by providing the content themselves instead of sitting on their asses doing nothing.

Here you have an article about old newspapers, recognizing - surprise - that they can make money releasing their old content on the Web even if it's available elsewhere for free: [gigaom.com] http://gigaom.com/2011/10/11/planning-a-pa...-books-instead/

Why should we help mangaka sit on their asses, if competition from scanners can make them see both they, and their public has much to gain if they release the things officially. However many scans there are, it can be made clear some of them are artist-endorsed, and supporting the artist ( see here for the reasoning behind it: [questioncopyright.org] http://questioncopyright.org/creator_endorsed ) - if only the artists release some.

I agree, but that's more of an international issue than a Japanese issue. Sure, international publishers have really mismanaged the boom in manga. That's not to say it's the fault of the Japanese publishers, who have always offered a wide selection of manga cheaply, in addition to releasing manga digitally. And you can't really say it's the fault of the artists, either, when publishers do something stupid with their work.

But it's all moot, because no one wants to publish adult manga outside of Japan. There aren't any publishers to have mismanaged things. It's all just ignored. (except for Icarus, that's the only one I know of)

On the positive side, though, DLsite is getting bigger.

Yea, but it's a shame that they don't have nearly as much as the international online retailers. Or that they don't offer digital downloads as the alternative to not being able to ship overseas or at least have an english equivalent like DL

This post has been edited by Super Shanko: Oct 13 2011, 20:30

DLsite, while inherently good, is still not preferable to actual scans because of the butchering they do with adding the mosaics. I'll always prefer a physical copy to a digital when that happens, even if it means a loss in quality.

As for EH and raws, there is no other site for easily browsing and obtainment of raw doujinshi and manga. No idea what I'd do without this site when new events role around.

Does DLSite put mosaics over stuff that already has black bars?

Does DLSite put mosaics over stuff that already has black bars?

I wouldn't think so, but it wouldn't really matter since they'd slap a mosaic over it whether it had a black bar or not.

I've seen a few doujinshi off of both DLsite and scanned (as well as a couple I own physical copies of). I guess the censorship will vary with the doujinshi, but from what I've seen, manga that used bars will use mosaic in their place (though it doesn't look like they put mosaic over the bars so much as the bars get replaced altogether). Also, I noticed one doujin I have puts mosaic over the girls' anuses in the download version, whereas they're left uncensored in the physical version (I can't help thinking the author was a little paranoid there, since I've seen plenty of downloadable products leave that particular orifice alone).

I managed to buy Studio Kimigabuchi's Red N^2 shortly before all of his products expired from DLsite. Usually, I'm against distributing the stuff from there, but since it's no longer available, I wonder if I should upload it. Of course, we already have scans, but this would mainly be for purposes of comparison since this is one such example of the censorship differing in the DL version.

If they don't add a mosaic, they'll add more black bars.

Black bars don't matter, youcan deal with those with simple editing (if you wanna go the decensored route), but mosaics are a real pain in the ass.