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Don't think of a library. Think of radio. We are not pirates when we hear a song for "free" over the airwaves. The recording industry uses the radio industry to market their songs, radio makes money off the music. It's not a partnership, but it is a mutually exclusive thing. One truly could not survive without the other.
As for Viz media, they have let the scanlation sites run rampant out there in the world because it benefitted them. THOSE SITES ARE FREE MARKETING. If Viz did a better job of using the interwebs, then these sites wouldn't exist at all.
There are a bunch of people claiming that reading the manga online stops you from buying it. But let me ask you, how many people can buy an up-to-date copy at their local store? And it's alway in stock, unfailingly? The answer is not many, as proved by the posters in this thread.
Viz knows this! The scanlation sites fill a gap they have had no interest in until now.
The scanlation sites are there because Viz (or whoever publishes it) does not provide easily accessible, up-to-date copies. In this day and age there is no excuse. In the time it takes to print off the copies of WSJ, someone could have translated it formally, put it on a paying site and none of us would ever look at these free, poorly translated things again. Why? We'd all be paying 99 cents a week for Naruto, or $5 for premium access to all the manga you could handle.
But Viz uses these little sites as a way to perpetuate their dinosaur print-only business model. Now someone at the top has gotten wind of it, and someone waaaaaaay lower down sent out some cease-and-desist letters. And honestly, I think it's probably a knee-jerk reaction to some lagging sales. It shows action within the company with the least amount of work. Is Viz doing anything to fill this need? Not that we know of.
The people who run hobby sites like onemanga do make money off the ads. But I doubt they make much, and if you wrap that into the cost of hosting and updating, then I bet some run them at a loss.
Take this site for instance, before you go comparing your shining conscience to someone else's because you don't read "pirated" manga, think about how much money you've contributed to this site. Someone pays for it, and we all use it too!
I'm sick of people blaming the end user for doing something wrong. The company is the one who has let down it's client, not the other way around.
The publisher has promoted a wildly popular manga, but then half-asses it when it comes to translation and distribution. They have broken the inherent promise of those promotions. Of course it's going to lead to enthusiasts filling in the gap that they refuse to fill.
I don't mean to be a hard-ass, and I'm not responding to one person in general. But this same scenario has played out in the music and journalism industries.
They want the most money while making the least accomodations to their users.
And only after there has been some pain — like Napster, etc., for music, and the demise of many middle-size daily papers that pay out for shoddy national coverage instead of doing the best job locally — do they change they're model.
(And if you support Kishimoto personally, then by all means send him a personal check. Don't delude yourself into thinking that buying the manga from Barnes and Noble is a good cause. It is an unfortunate truth that the creative person is often at the end of a long line of takers.)
Viz has the ability to publish mangas online, distribute them globally, immediately, with easy translations into nearly every language, as well as inflicting neligible impact on the environment, with the net result of more money from more people and while incurring less overhead, and yet they are slow to embrace it.... I make no apologies for reading onemanga. Ultimately they're doing me a disservice, not the other way round.
And if they feel a kick in the shin from the little guy, then good. It's time for them to change.
Shannaro.
edit: been writing fight scenes this morning. can you tell?
Edited by tricksie, 27 July 2010 - 06:22 PM.
