267 replies to this topic

[Toasty Warrior]

I was just on MangaFox this morning and already I saw that Viz Media has licensed Bleach and Naruto which means I can't read it on there anymore, this means we possibility won't be able to read our manga online anymore!

Edited by Toasty Warrior, 26 July 2010 - 05:49 PM.

[Dreamer]

I was just one MangaFox this morning and already I saw that Viz Media has licensed Bleach and Naruto which means I can't read it on there anymore, this means we possibility won't be able to read our manga online anymore!

Hopefully MS, Mangareader, and, Havenreader will stay up. Oh well, looks like i'll be getting a subscription to OpenManga when it's finalized.

[Prime]

Sakura Blossoms' points were quite valid. Manga is being pirated and publicly made available, thus the powers that be finally decided to take steps to curb the issue. Naturally, they were well within their rights to do so. She was also correct in that allowing a website like One Manga continue is not the only way of exposing the material to a demographic such as the American audience. There are other options and strategies that can be utilized.

It's interesting how you site various analogies such as the music industry and that the ratio of revenue artists take in, favors merchandise and concert sales. While that may be true, it does not take away from the fact music artists are losing potential revenue due to the ease at which one can obtain pirated music from the internet. In fact, the revenue ratio also reflects this. CD sales are being directly affected by the internet sharing of pirated music.

I question your contention that "very few major companies directly profit from the product they put out" and the implication that the action against One Manga is futile because of that. Regardless of direct or indirect profit, if one of the reasons why overall sales are being affected are because of issues of internet piracy, then their course of action is quite clear. The situation needs to be contained or at the very least the attempt should be made.

Inversely, if the powers that be are sitting around wondering how to increase market share in demographics outside of Japan, one does not come to the conclusion that the product should be unconditionally distributed free of charge via the internet. I understand your point about the effect websites like One Manga can have in overall exposure to potential readers in areas where the material is not readily available. It cannot be denied. However, to leave it completely unchecked can easily be counterproductive to the publishers. Most, if not all will follow the path of least resistance. Therefore, if one can enjoy manga without cost, why should they look elsewhere? What is the incentive? If your point is taken to the extreme, how can these questions be answered?

You can argue that in the long run, closing One Manga down will have negligible effect on manga piracy. You're probably right. We certainly saw that the law suit against Napster all those years ago did not deter music piracy. It was however, a catalyst for companies to come up with new business models. Napster is now a pay site. Itunes was born. This event with One Manga may just be the first step in many that will lead to curbing piracy and still utilize the internet as a vehicle of exposure, while obtaining a revenue stream. It seems someone has already begun the steps with Open Manga.

You are correct in that viral marketing via mediums such as You Tube are extremely powerful tools. But that's all it is - a tool. The business models surrounding that strategy still hinges on actual sales, regardless of whether it's from the link on You Tube, direct from Itunes, or from an actual brick and mortar based store. Those companies don't make money directly off of marketing. Marketing is an expense. The intended result is an increase in sales based on the marketing campaign. Only advertising companies actually make direct money from the marketing process. It should not be confused with merchandising, which are products developed based on the brand and pushed via a marketing campaign.

On the topic of merchandising, I found it interesting to note that while searching for manga products on Amazon, it appeared the vast majority of the merchandise were based off of anime titles being televised in North America. It would seem that there is, in fact, another method of exposure.

Ultimately, I do share the same sentiment that manga publishers need to consider new strategy to further the exposure into non-domestic markets. However, a plan with the intention to make reading online pirated manga more difficult is a valid one. One that is not completely at odds with increasing market share if they consider past examples.



Unless it's a non-profit organization, companies exist to make money. All things being equal, the choice will always be that which increases revenue, protects it, or recovers it. The great thing about the free enterprise system is that if the company in question does not cater to its customer base, well the competition suddenly becomes an attractive alternative.

The notion that "the customer is always right" is fairly outdated in an age where consumers are more savvy and an increasing number of managers act more like psychologists. You will never find that particular ideal in any mission statement. Instead, there will be something along the lines of: our goal is provide a satisfying and enjoyable experience for our customers. Something I find more fitting since, as dl316bh nicely put, keeping to the literal sense of "the customer is always right" will eventually result in exploitation.

It's unfortunate there will be a portion of readers who buy the printed works that will be affected by this and subsequent events. However, it would just be implausible to undertake such action while identifying who actually purchases and who doesn't. It should not be taken personally.

No see what you don't understand is they did not fix any issue at all. Taking down OneManga does not fix anything , there will ALWAYS be pirating on the internet and you CANNOT work against it. You cannot setup a smaller market inside of a large market and try to charge money when the larger market is FREE it does not work. There is no way you could go inside walmart , put up a stand and sell something for 5 dollars if they have it for FREE that is the situation manga is in in the united states because there is NO physical market. What other strategies do you plan on them using? Making a TV channel dedicated to only manga? Showing Manga commercials on what channel? The food channel? You don't understand there is NO physical market for Manga in the USA PEROID.

Sure album sales are effected by the internet , but that does not change the artist money that is NOT how they are paid. They are paid a flat amount to release so many albums , they do not make anymore money if there album sells 10 million copys or a trillion and that is also how Manga artist are paid. They make more money off marketing on the internet then they ever will selling albums and they like it that way thats why every major company has every artist with free music on youtube. You really don't understand what companys pay to advertise there junk do you? My friend , a small time youtuber has a video with 40,000 hits do you know what google paid him to advertise on his video? $6000. This is on a SMALL scale compared to what these big companys make.

You make it sound like a company is just becoming deathly ill over internet piracy when probably 5% of the revenue is from physical sales of Manga. The only one that ends up being hurt is the consumer because there is just no market for manga in the usa. This is NOT because of the physical manga sales , this is a copyright issue , they do not want ANYONE making money from a ad service like google off of the manga they have a copyright on.



Yes it should be free of charge via the internet , that is how EVERY major company makes money have you ever been on youtube and saw VEVO? Do you know who VEVO is? It's Sony/Universal/Abu Dhabi Media Company. Do you know why they made the VEVO channel? Because they make most of the money off marketing , do you know who they share the money with? Nobody else but youtube and do you know who youtube is??? GOOGLE. It is in NO way counter productive at all , people have ALWAYS made more money off of marketing and services like concerts and they always will. Do you understand why? Because Piracy have ALWAYS been there.

Do you know what the #1 profit for apple is? The iphone.... Wait just kidding , no its itunes and do you know what on itunes makes the money? Not the music or the movies. Do you know what does though? The advertising , of itunes itself being world known. People pay money to itunes to put there music on there or there iphone apps. Also maybe you play xbox 360 or playstation 3. Do you think they make money off the consoles? No they don't , in fact for the first 5 years most companys LOSE money per console they sell. The true money is almost NEVER in the product they directly sell.
t
You don't understand how marketing works do you? Marketing is not expensive , you can pay a million dollars for 10 seconds on tv and get increased sales , but who do you think makes the most money because of the sales? Not the company producing the product but the companys that are selling it. It's like companys that sell beer , budweiser sells it's beer so cheap to bars and liquor stores they only make about 20 cents per 12 pack. You think that they live off of 20 cents a 12 pack? No it's because to buy there beer you have to pay a FEE to get it. Every company pays for marketing and has its own , and it always pays itself off and the money trickles down to the next person marketing and lower and lower and lower and lower until you reach the end , do you know what the end is??? THE CONSUMER.

Yes Amazon does have Manga on there , and they make money off the marketing , because there amazon people will look there. They only money they make is the fee people are charged to put there stuff on there and it's a lot , I know because I sell on there and Ebay but do you think that the person selling the Manga is making much off of it? Of course not.

Yes money makes the world go around , but it's much much more complex then what people think it is. People that have no education in business still have this idea tha used to be hundreds of years ago " Buy for less!! Sell for more!!" Sure that works , but thats a small small tiny fraction of what companys make. The 100% best business is still the service business you will always make more money doing a basic service for someome because it simply has no cost.

Yea buisness is not really what is used to be , it used to be on a small level with mom and pop shops just being ok with giving you that special deal because you're a local shop and well they were just ok with that. But now huge companys don't want to give small time business a chance , or the consumer a chance they always want to speak of free market bascally saying " We should be able to do what we want!!" but when people are like yay go free market lets do what we want , lets get it for FREE!!! company's are like.. "ok thats not cool , copyright and ban everything!!" and for a while a very short while , that was the thing to do. But now they are so used to it they don't even need to and in fact support free viewrship. You don't understand that this company its not in any struggle because of pirating online or they would already be DEAD.

To be honest if I had a place I could locally go to with lots and lots of Manga/Anime for cheap I would go there and buy , but because there is no market and these companys producing the product do not sell it themselvs in the united states it's just to expensive. If they want to make money off of the product they have to not try to take away peoples ability to aquire it for free , but give people a reason to want to aquire it locally and right now there is not that want because there is just no phsical market for it. Maybe they should give bubble gum with it or something...

[Insurrection]

You know if you could build a strong case and take it to the Librarian of Congress and Copyright office, they can make an exemption under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Jailbreking is now legal through the same process.

Also it seems the Former VP of TOKYOPOP shared some of our ideas.

http://www.sfgate.co...manganation.DTL This article is six years old, think they've listened? (Because I don't)

Edited by Insurrection, 26 July 2010 - 08:23 PM.

[dl316bh]

That is true. I can not deny that, but do you also think it is not right for companies to screw the paying customers? Some companies do screw the paying consumers like myself and yet they think they can get away with it. Now not every company does this, but a good amount does. So don't anyone think the companies always play ball.

No, I don't think companies should screw their customers. Companies should be held as liable for their actions and screwing people over as much as the customers need to be held liable for their actions. And, well, there are ways for a screwed consumer to make a company pay. Dearly. If you want to look at it closely, technically manga publishers are doing the same, only through the options available.

With manga people seem content to perform illegal acts and just explain them away. Which, you know, whatever; but I feel people shouldn't bull**** themselves as much. I find the notion from some people that "keeping the internet free" seems to mean "keep me from having to pay for stuff" just odd, frightening ways of thinking.

The buck's gotta stop somewhere, but lately it seems like the customers feel they can do whatever they want. The physical aspect is removed from internet theft, so people don't think about it as much and even try and defend themselves by saying it's not really illegal, etcetera. So then it's a self perpetuating cycle, complete with a lot of delusions and bull****ing themselves; I mean, no one wants to be wrong, but the lengths some people go to try and justify illegal actions just because "it's the internet" or to make it seem like they're doing the companies a favor is almost frightening. Entitlement culture at it's "finest", eh?

I dunno, sometimes the behavior of some people just kind of grates on me, you know?

This article is two years old, think they've listened? (Because I don't)

That article is actually six years old.

Edited by dl316bh, 26 July 2010 - 08:18 PM.

[Kag19]

Why doesn't VIZ media release the newest Naruto manga chapters online in English for free just like they do with Rumiko Takahashi 's Rin-ne series? I've been reading the series online for free since the first chapter was published on Rumic World. Viz publishes a new chapter every week. It's currently the only manga Viz is releasing simultaneously with Japan. The latest chapters are available to read for free on their website every Wednesday and then after a few weeks they are removed. Then, the older chapters are published in a bound volume and sold to the public. I think this is the best way they can resolve the whole licensing problem.

The publishers want their manga to be read online. Manga being free to the public is hurting the manga/anime industry sales so the companies are fighting back by releasing the newest chapters of their manga online for free on their websites. Before the newest volumes get published/released to public, the latest manga chapters are removed from the site so if readers want to reread the chapters, they have to buy the book.

If Viz tried this method, Naruto would get published in English and Japan at the same time and the manga would be available to the public legally. The companies wouldn't lose profit cause they would be translating the newest chapters and not the scanlating websites. Then, after a month or so, the newest chapters would be removed and replaced with summaries of the chapter. Afterwards, Viz would give readers the chance to purchase the latest volumes from their site. So we would still be able to read the latest Naruto chapter but eventually we would have to purchase the manga if we wanted to read the chapter again.

The first few chapters of Rin-ne are available to read online for free as previews. If you want continue reading the rest of the older chapters, you have to purchase the manga.

Take a look at the site to see what I mean: http://www.shonensun...rinne/?trwredir

[TheBugNinja]

...because people pay to read Naruto, and so far Rin-Ne hasn't caught enough attention yet.

When there's some sort of legal alternative to onemana and mangafox, viz will have naruto ready to read online, along with all of their other titles.

Edited by TheBugNinja, 26 July 2010 - 09:15 PM.

[ShippudenGirl]

I buy the Naruto manga, and the episodes (lol, I'm actually dowlaoding 6 new ones from iTunes right now) but they take SO long to translate them! Yesterday I just bought the new SJ magazine and there still only at Danzō vs. Sasuke. And I'm also waiting for Volume 49 which isn't gonna be out till October... <.< Hope your happy SJ/VIZ! Now I'm (my mom) gonna go buy every Volume there is so they shut up lol don't arrest me!

[Dreamer]

Um people do know they're not doing this because of the people who only read Naruto and Bleach right?

Many people that use Onemanga don't even read Naruto and Bleach. They mostly read seinen or series that are unlicensed. I have no idea why suddenly it's all about the Naruto and Bleach fan. It's like people think there weren't other series on there or something.

That may be true but many people still enjoy reading SleepyFan's translations of the big three.

Edited by Uzumakikage, 27 July 2010 - 01:59 AM.

[BlackLightning]

Well, another source of manga down the drain. I did tend to buy mangas when I was still in Indonesia, but considering mangas over there doesn't even cost 6 dollars a volume and quite easy to find really (Just go to any major book shop and you're bound to find some) but now here in Australia, thats no longer an option, finding mangas here are hard at best or just downright impossible even at the biggest book store around, its that ridiculous. not to mention that they charge over 20 bucks a book, I'm definitely not buying them.

[BlackLightning]

*sigh* Repetition, sorry just a REALLY BIG pet peev I have. Can we discuss something more expansive please because I feel like we're going in circles.

Considering the real purpose why the copyright infringement thing going on against online scanlation is that it reduce the revenue for the official ones? Unlikely. The thing is that the official publishers KNOW that they are inferior compared to the online scanlations and by purpose too. I mean, have any of you wonder why the official publishers takes so long to publish mangas compared to the online scanlators? considering that they have way more resource, monetary, skill, power and whatnot? its not because they can't but because they want to milk the series as much as possible, thats just how business is.

By withholding their releases, they are trying to maximize the sales of the volume even by only 1 unit. Online scanlations especially those that are on time with the Japanese volume are definitely a hurdle for them coz it makes people going to the internet and read them already as well as reducing the chance they gonna go and buy their official copy when published coz of a very simple fact that they already know whats inside.

[Cloud]

Well going by that logic. Why should people buy books then when they can read them at the library for free? If online manga reading is illegal you might as well make libraries illegal too.

Because most libraries contain old books? Hardly any new ones right off the shelf go to libraries. Plus half the books @ libraries are donated, and the other half probably purchased and put there by government funding to encourage reading.

Why is this relevant to the conversation?

Online manga reading is illegal because nobody is paying for the scanlations online. No one is giving a cent to publishers and writers for the manga, therefore its illegal. I suppose sampling music at a music store is illegal too by your argument too, then?

Library books are old, and already paid for. The money already went to the publishers and writers. Now the government or whatever small group is providing reading for free. It's not like somebody stole the books and put them in a place for free reading.

Not to mention, libraries let you borrow. Online manga lets read/download @ no cost.

Libraries, if you lose or damage the books? You pay a fine. Late return? A fee. Somebody's getting paid to maintain and update libraries with books.

Edited by Cloud, 27 July 2010 - 03:16 AM.

[Nikko]

I think this piss me off because most of what I read has very little chance of getting published in America. Now if a site was to go to a pay to read format it'd has better be a flat fee, limiting my access or amount of reading would no get any money from my wallet. But what this will lose out on is I wont be able to discover new series. I do buy manga for series I like when they get published in the US, but that's few and far between. So the less I can discover, the less I'll buy. Trust me, we have a massive amount of manga, and our purchase amounts did drop sharply with sites making it easy to read online. I still want to buy manga, I just can't afford $10+ for a book I'll finish in 30 minutes. And yes I do mean 30 minutes, I fly through books. It costs far to much for me to do that with print volumes. It's annoying, but I've started to keep a list of translation groups that go comics I like and bookmark their sites. Most groups stick with a certain type of manga and most of their titles will be along the same lines (shoujo smut for me~).

[dl316bh]

Well going by that logic. Why should people buy books then when they can read them at the library for free? If online manga reading is illegal you might as well make libraries illegal too.

Libraries aren't just handed that s***. It's paid for. Either someone pays for it and donates it or the library purchases it. This is why the "well the online scanlations are just like a libraaaaryyyyyyy" excuse is total bull****. It's the same reason the "rental store" argument was always retarded from the 90's on in gaming debates. Those copies are purchased. If it's an especially popular game, several are purchased to keep some around to rent out.

No dice homeslice.

Edited by dl316bh, 27 July 2010 - 03:21 AM.

[Insurrection]

Libraries are a Public Institution, you pay taxes to get libraries.

Edited by Insurrection, 27 July 2010 - 03:32 AM.

[Nikko]

Sadly lots of libraries are very reluctant to get manga on their shelve. Why? It walk out and never comes back. People steal them all the time and libraries aren't in the business of just giving away books for free like that. Sure their getting them in, but in some area's they are starting to refuse to get again if it's stolen. Since their also paper back books they get damaged very quickly, which is adding to the "We got it once and they ruined it in a month, we're not getting another in."