[X] My Assistant

That's the most obvious thing, yea. BUT! Out of some sort of courtesy and decency that we all like to participate in. It's kinda being unsporting to purposely not share a RAW while at the same time (and you know they do) using everyone elses RAW to do your translations.

What's the debate on using a higher res version of something that was used for a translation. Like if someone has a translated doujin with a HQ scan, and I happen to have a script of any language. Would anyone complain if I used it for my own use? Or should I ask or something?

Perhaps not everyone has the same exposure I have, but in mainland China, there are LOTS of raws because various chinese companies simply reprint the japanese manga, games, and even artbooks. I know because I have seen many items in these three categories sold. The chinese companies even graciously help microsoft out by copying microsoft products including the hologram seal and distributing them at super low prices for everyone to enjoy.

So, surely, mainland chinese distribution is full of graciousness. When I returned home from my trip, I was shocked by the ungenerous people here. While people in this thread criticize the chinese for not spreading raws, I find the opposite atttitude in the USA. For example, my microsoft corporate friends are actually angry at the generous spreading of microsoft raws all over china. Similarly, I suspect the Japanese publishers are also angry at the spread of professionally printed low cost raws in China. Who'da thunk westerners and japanese are actually the ungracious ones at the spreading of raws. RAW ... . RAWrrr...

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Anyways, from their viewpoint, why should the Chinese groups spread their raws? Is there a benefit for them to do so? Does spreading raws prevent a penalty to them? Certainly, if raws are given to a competing scanlation group, that would be a disadvantage in addition to the insult of having their own raws used against them. As for their comments about their use of e-hentai as a free and self-maintaining file and info resource, there are chinese sites that act as "front ends" or "search engines" into e-hentai. Those sites also have lots of advertising in addition to active forums. They are able to do this due to the predictable and rigid way e-hentai presents its data. Chinese sites are thus able to make money off the e-hentai bandwidth. In doing so, they indirectly used as their involuntary staff the e-hentai volunteers, vigilante crew, and other people who adopt and/or take care of various segments of the giant e-hentai database.

It feels sort of like the chinese-owned mangafox at work. Only it's not the scanlators being taken advantage of in this case.

That naturally doesn't include all westerners, good sir.

It feels sort of like the chinese-owned mangafox at work. Only it's not the scanlators being taken advantage of in this case.

OT, but I've seen a lot of scanlating groups express anger at Mangafox for taking advantage of them, and I don't really understand why. I mean, sure Mangafox is making money off the scanlations from ads, but as long as the translations are freely available (not like certain paysites I could name), I don't see what the big deal is. Or is there something else I'm missing?

If they bought the book and scanned it themselves to make their raws, they can do (or not do) whether the hell they want to do with their raw scans. No one is obligated to upload them and no one is entitled to see them. If you want them so damn badly, buy your own copy and make your own scans and upload them (or not) yourself. They spent the money to get them, you didn't.

Echoing what SS said. Of course no one is under any obligation to share. But by refusing to do so, and at the same time partaking in our community - whether as pure leechers (I am talking about those who could scan but refuse to do so) or as translators who refuse to share raws, is rather hypocritical. I don't believe for a second that those who refuse to share RAWs also do not download them from us (and other sites) when they can.

What's the debate on using a higher res version of something that was used for a translation. Like if someone has a translated doujin with a HQ scan, and I happen to have a script of any language. Would anyone complain if I used it for my own use? Or should I ask or something?

I am not sure I understand your example.

OT, but I've seen a lot of scanlating groups express anger at Mangafox for taking advantage of them, and I don't really understand why. I mean, sure Mangafox is making money off the scanlations from ads, but as long as the translations are freely available (not like certain paysites I could name), I don't see what the big deal is. Or is there something else I'm missing?

I don't know that much about it, but I believe they have the issue with mangafox adding watermarks, and hosting their stuff without asking for permission first. Then making a lot of advertising credits, which (unspokenly) I am sure some of those groups would like to have for themselves.

I can sympathize with them; at the same time as most if not all of those translation sites do not work with the mobile manga readers I am familiar with, as an end reader I have little choice but to use mangafox. The scanlation/translation groups should create their own alternative, with big collection and working with ereaders, instead. Then I'd be happy to switch to their site.

As for their comments about their use of e-hentai as a free and self-maintaining file and info resource, there are chinese sites that act as "front ends" or "search engines" into e-hentai. Those sites also have lots of advertising in addition to active forums. They are able to do this due to the predictable and rigid way e-hentai presents its data. Chinese sites are thus able to make money off the e-hentai bandwidth. In doing so, they indirectly used as their involuntary staff the e-hentai volunteers, vigilante crew, and other people who adopt and/or take care of various segments of the giant e-hentai database.

It feels sort of like the chinese-owned mangafox at work. Only it's not the scanlators being taken advantage of in this case.

Links?

I am not sure I understand your example.

What I mean is, if there's a RAW doujin here that has an average sized scan and an HQ scan that was uploaded trans/edited (by someone else obviously), would I be breaking any unspoken rules if I were to use it for my own script? I asked the person who was comissioned to translate it, and they said it's a fat chance the RAW owner would share it.

What I mean is, if there's a RAW doujin here that has an average sized scan and an HQ scan that was uploaded trans/edited (by someone else obviously), would I be breaking any unspoken rules if I were to use it for my own script? I asked the person who was comissioned to translate it, and they said it's a fat chance the RAW owner would share it.

Since we don't ask raw uploaders for permission to use their raws in our translations in the first place, I don't see why we should ask anybody else if the raws are not available. Don't let someone's selfishness hurt the community anymore than it already had. Use the best RAW possible, that has always been the rule I've followed. IIRC in the past at least once I asked the editor to work with a Korean translation because it was HQ compared to the Japanese raw we had.

Echoing what SS said. Of course no one is under any obligation to share. But by refusing to do so, and at the same time partaking in our community - whether as pure leechers (I am talking about those who could scan but refuse to do so) or as translators who refuse to share raws, is rather hypocritical. I don't believe for a second that those who refuse to share RAWs also do not download them from us (and other sites) when they can.

What you call "hypocritical" is merely your greed unfulfilled. You should really leave them alone lest they say, "Fuck these ungrateful bastards", and just quit scanlating, which helps no one in the end.

I am not sure I understand your example.
I don't know that much about it, but I believe they have the issue with mangafox adding watermarks, and hosting their stuff without asking for permission first. Then making a lot of advertising credits, which (unspokenly) I am sure some of those groups would like to have for themselves.

Yep, those evil bastards at MangaFox are making tons of money from advertising, exactly like Tenboro is doing with all of EH's vast advertising income. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) It's expensive as all fuck to run a very popular image driven website like MangaFox or E-Hentai. As for not asking permission before uploading or obeying waiting periods is kinda like, oh, I don't, maybe E-Hentai.

I can sympathize with them; at the same time as most if not all of those translation sites do not work with the mobile manga readers I am familiar with, as an end reader I have little choice but to use mangafox. The scanlation/translation groups should create their own alternative, with big collection and working with ereaders, instead. Then I'd be happy to switch to their site.

Back in the Dark Ages, I had to go to one scanlator site after another to read manga using Manga Jouhou. No thanks, I prefer a centralized location like MangaFox or Mangaere.

If they bought the book and scanned it themselves to make their raws, they can do (or not do) whether the hell they want to do with their raw scans. No one is obligated to upload them and no one is entitled to see them. If you want them so damn badly, buy your own copy and make your own scans and upload them (or not) yourself. They spent the money to get them, you didn't.

He gets it. I choose whether or not to upload my raws on a case by case basis. Recent stuff that's still available I usually choose not to on the basis that I don't want to reduce the sales of an artist I like. Stuff that's rare or out of print I'll usually upload so that more people can experience the greatness.

With regards to translating from other's raws being hypocritical: I don't judge what other people choose to do. If people choose to upload raws, more power to them. Once the cat is out of the bag, there's no going back and I'll happily translate a good book into English so that more people can enjoy it.


I don't see why people turn all this shit into moral discussions. Just do what you think is right for you, and leave off judging others.

He gets it. I choose whether or not to upload my raws on a case by case basis. Recent stuff that's still available I usually choose not to on the basis that I don't want to reduce the sales of an artist I like.

Which is reasonable, to a degree. But it's not always easy to judge when a dojin stops being available.

If only the artists would have PayPal/Google Money accounts or such. Then we could link them from our galleries and everyone would benefit.

Which is reasonable, to a degree. But it's not always easy to judge when a dojin stops being available.

It's very easy. When you can't buy it.

It's very easy. When you can't buy it.

I learned that the unfun way. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/anime_cry.gif)

It's very easy. When you can't buy it.

How do you determine that you really can't buy it? Perhaps it's still sold in some shop in remote region of Japan, with no information about this on the Internet whatever? Or perhaps among those who bought it there are still people willing to resell it to you? In these cases you can still buy it... I think you meant when you can't get any of this money to creator through these means?

And even when no channel through which you can buy it would pass on any money to the artist, if the artist has something like PayPal button, there are people willing to donate after reading scans.

Let me stir the waters more and argue that not making the scans available HURTS the artists.

This is not a typo. Yes, I am not convinced that making something free online HURTS THE SALES. If you think I am making no sense, please check the following links:
* [blog.taleist.com] Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has embraced piracy on the basis that it has helped his sales
* [paulocoelhoblog.com] Same argument made by Paulo Coelho
* [web.archive.org] Eric Flint, another bestselling author, explains why putting many books online for free boosted his sales in a detailed essay
* [www.forbes.com] Cory Doctorow: "I've been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money."
Not convinced by writers' testimonials? How about some academic data?
* [quod.lib.umich.edu] from an academic study: "This study examined the financial viability of a religious publisher that put free digital versions of eight of its print books on the Internet. Over a 10-week period, these books were downloaded 102,256 times and sales of these books increased 26%. Online sales increased at a much higher rate. Comparisons with historical book sales and sales of comparable titles indicate that that this increase may have been connected to the free books being available"
* [www.digitalbookworld.com] another article: "we believe that this data indicates that when free e-books are offered for a relatively long period of time, without requiring registration, print sales will increas"
* I'll end this list of links with a Wikipedia article on a book dedicated to the subject, containing some critical and positive reviews: [en.wikipedia.org] Free: The Future of a Radical Price
While I do not have any numbers on trends on dojin sales (if you have it, I'd love to see it), I am seeing no signs of impending crash of the dojin market. As you well know, 99% of raws that are translated are shared online, and a large amount of dojins in general are (I don't have numbers on that, if you do, again, please share), but I expect that it is significant at least. If those dojins would hurt artists, you'd see the entire dojin industry going out of business. This has obviously not happened. Instead, I expect that the available of dojins is boosting dojin sales. So I could even make the argument that your attempt to help the authors by not distributing the raws is hurting them (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No, without the numbers I cannot PROVE that posting raws is helping the sales, but it is certainly a possibility, based on what I've been reading about the ebook and book market over the years. Hence, I fully believe that uploading RAWs (or translations) to our site HELPS the mangakas. To put it even more simply: if you share a RAW, you help to market manganaka's work and BOOST HIS SALES.

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Mar 8 2012, 20:53

Not to inappropriately butt in here or anything but, isn't there one big issue that makes this situation a bit different than a couple of other scenes such as gaming or e-books (as mentioned in RP's post above)?
That would be, of course, availability of the content.
I can very much see where the authors are coming from in those articles, but one disconnect here is the availability of their content to the target audience in question. I can say from my own personal experience that there are several books that I have not purchased for a few reasons:

a.) between the exchange rate and shipping costs, normal-priced books can get quite expensive, and I have to worry about eating food every month, which takes priority
b.) the only available format is hard, real-life material, and I personally prefer to read things in a digital format using my computer or another device and I think that the books usually end up looking better once digitized, too
c.) there is a version easily accessible to me either through P2P or our very own galleries

I can say with utmost confidence that if there were a digital distribution that I could gain access to, I would (and have in the past) buy a copy. On the another side of things, there's an argument in those articles that people in the regions where piracy of their books runs rampant would not have bought copies of those books anyway, so giving the book away for free doesn't lose them any sales, but that it then gets them fans who will possibly buy future releases: while releasing a raw here, for example, will certainly increase an artist's fanbase, I'm not sure that more than 10 of those new fans are in any position to purchase future releases for the reasons that I mentioned above.
On the other side of things, I have purchased multiple books that have been scanned practically since their release date, and continue to do so if I really like the author and just want a physical copy to keep almost like a collector's item. The issue here is that I don't feel that supports your argument because I would have done so whether there was a can available online or not. (Although I can't speak for other people who may not be quite as dedicated)

Long story short, if artists' works were more readily available to the English-speaking markets, I think your argument would be stronger, but as of now, when you have to jump through figurative hoops or pay out the nose to obtain works by artists that they like, so it's really difficult to tell just how it affects the market. I personally feel that artists will always have a passionate fanbase in their home country, and there's nothing that can take that away from them outside of ridiculous severe bans of the media. If I had to vote either hurts or helps, I'd vote hurt until the situation on the internet changes. Without solid evidence to back either side It's still pretty vague, though.

Kage, I think that those of us outside Japan are only a tiny drop in the market, for those very reasons you explain. I am waiting for the time the Japanese authors have PayPal/Google Money or such, and I'd hope we would add a link to that from our galleries ASAP. By not doing that they are missing on a lot of goodwill (and money) from their Western fans.*

However, my argument above should apply to the Japanese market. Our site (as well as the numerous other dojin hosting sites) act as free marketers for the Japanese readers, who frequent Comiket and similar events, and have easier access to the Japanese-focused DL sites. Considering how significant the Internet penetration in Japan is, and how many dojins are available as RAWs, if the piracy hurt the manganaka's, the Comikets would collapse years ago. In fact, the Comiket alone keeps attracting half a million people, and I have no reason not to believe that the dojin sales aren't booming, likely helped by the fact that the Japanese fans have access to RAW scans, and then go to acquire the works of their favorite artists in a printed format (or buy them from DL sites); artists who they often wouldn't be aware of if not for the Internet and the scans.

(Just in case you have not read all the articles I posted, Eric Flint and Cory Doctorow both make the cases for boosted sales of their works in the English market, which has a stronger copyright protection than Japanese, not weaker, like Russia).

*how much money? well, recently [www.guardian.co.uk] a webcomic artist was able to attract a million bucks for reprints of stuff available free on his website.

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Mar 8 2012, 21:50

How do you determine that you really can't buy it? Perhaps it's still sold in some shop in remote region of Japan, with no information about this on the Internet whatever? Or perhaps among those who bought it there are still people willing to resell it to you? In these cases you can still buy it... I think you meant when you can't get any of this money to creator through these means?

And even when no channel through which you can buy it would pass on any money to the artist, if the artist has something like PayPal button, there are people willing to donate after reading scans.

Don't be a moron. If I went around offering a thousand dollars for a book, SOMEONE would sell it to me. By that argument, it would always be available.

Why pick a seemingly simple English statement to pieces to further your argument? You know exactly what I mean.

Kage, I think that those of us outside Japan are only a tiny drop in the market, for those very reasons you explain. I am waiting for the time the Japanese authors have PayPal/Google Money or such, and I'd hope we would add a link to that from our galleries ASAP. By not doing that they are missing on a lot of goodwill (and money) from their Western fans.*

However, my argument above should apply to the Japanese market. Our site (as well as the numerous other dojin hosting sites) act as free marketers for the Japanese readers, who frequent Comiket and similar events, and have easier access to the Japanese-focused DL sites. Considering how significant the Internet penetration in Japan is, and how many dojins are available as RAWs, if the piracy hurt the manganaka's, the Comikets would collapse years ago. In fact, they keep attracting half a million people, and I have no reason not to believe that the dojin sales aren't booming, likely helped by the fact that the Japanese fans have access to RAW scans, and then go to acquire the works of their favorite artists in a printed format (or buy them from DL sites); artists who they often wouldn't be aware of if not for the Internet and the scans.

(Just in case you have not read all the articles I posted, Eric Flint and Cory Doctorow both make the cases for boosted sales of their works in the English market, which has a stronger copyright protection than Japanese, not weaker, like Russia).

*how much money? well, recently [www.guardian.co.uk] a webcomic artist was able to attract a million bucks for reprints of stuff available free on his website.

Yes, you certainly make a valid argument, I just think that it's a difficult question to answer. There are a lot of factors, and we're looking at the situation from a cock-eyed angle making it very difficult to say one thing is a certain fact and another is not. I just wanted to state that it is of my personal opinion that the spreading of raws has an overall, all things considered, negative impact on the market, but that impact is shallow enough that it's overshadowed by a combination of factors including expansion from increased popularity. Also to bring up the point that the standard of availability (in all markets) is in physical form, which is decidedly less convenient for all parties. Japan is also getting increasingly tough on piracy laws and this will most likely affect the spreading over P2P etc. This could go on and on as an argument, but I'd rather have a discussion. I've taken away from this thread quite a lot already, and it will be helpful in me forming a more definitive opinion, as it should be for anyone else who reads it.

I agree that we cannot claim any certainties here, but based on the links I've posted above, I am seeing evidence that sharing books / comics boosts sales. You say that you are not convinced. Could you provide any evidence to the contrary?

While [www.dailyfinance.com] the dinosaurs are ranting about piracy, the data shows this is not happening ([productivewriters.com] book sales in US in 2010 increased 3% compared to 2009); [dickinsonpress.com] same for a three year period). Now, the [activitypress.com] market is changing, but that only means a shift from print sales to online sales, which in fact may be beneficial (from the same report: "Owners of ebook readers read more than they did as print book readers."). Again, I see nothing to justify a claim that free ebooks (dojins) hurt the authors; rather, I think that the free marketing makes the fans (who can) buy more of their stuff.

So unless somebody can show a proof that dojin sales are crashing, I remain convinced that sharing them boosts their sales (particularly in Japan).

A final question. Out of those of us who own printed dojins (or have bought DL content), how many of us learned about the existence of dojins in general (and their favorite manganaka's in particular) through the stuff available free on the Internet? (Yeah, I know dojins existed before the Internet in the dinosaur era, but back then the entire dojin market was much smaller than that today anyway ([en.wikipedia.org] Comiket attendance begun in 1970s at ~500, in the 1980s was about 10,000, today it is 500,000), so if you owned a dojin before you owned a computer, you belong to a tiny group of respectable pioneers, and I am addressing this question to majority of modern fans who likely got into the hobby in the 90s or 00s)

This post has been edited by Red_Piotrus: Mar 8 2012, 22:24