15 replies to this topic

[Gioraid]

I have read several manga writings that told to go on batoto to read the first episodes of naruto, Minamoto etc ...

sometimes appeared as a stamp with the text watermark courtesy to parasite sites like mangahere and mangafox ..

What I want to know is what makes a website parasite? is there a way to stop them? how do you know which is truly a site like this?

[WillTell]

Since I don't read that much manga I can't say anything for certain, but what I've been told is that some sites try to make money off of scanlations and that's isn't tolerated as it hurts all the scanlation sites. Not using them is a good way of stopping them. As for knowing which are the bad ones, I guess you just have to find that out. I hope this is in the same direction as the question. No expert... but better than nothing I guess.

[Ander0072]

The basic definition is those who upload manga without the scanlator's permission.

In theory one could call mangavolume, mangareader, & et cetera parasites.

Though the primary site "parasites" watermark their releases, that doesn't necessarily define them as a parasite.

[In a heirchy sense, those whom put watermarks are certain "parasites"]

Anyways the only sites that wouldn't be would be the original scanlator site's, those whom they've granted permission to upload stuff [ex. Batoto]

 

And in truth, some sites, like manga trader, are good, because I do know of some scanlator sites that are dead. The domain is gone along with their releases, so sometimes one does need such sites and other related sites as a sort of archive for the past.

 

[Also, not being vindictive but might not necessarily be the right place to have this thread o: ]

 

-Would like to add that some scanlation groups add their own watermarks cause said "parasites" have pissed them off too much.

 

-True, their actions could be viewed as illegal, but  at least someone they know, or one of them bought it (though some scanlator's dont do such); but then one can state that since time is money, and the only reason money & et cetera has value is because one uses their time, in theory since they've put so much time and effort into translating it, the "translated" substance is their creation.

I guess what I"m trying to say is that the "english text" that appears on the screen when you view it would be considered their prop.

 

And though personal thoughts may cloud all of our thoughts, it can be said the trouble of cleaning & translating was on the translators behalf, and the drawing in itself and the kanji were on the mangaka's behalf.

My main point  would be that we have no place in that since we did not do work, nor take time do do anything.

Edited by Ander0072, 05 April 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[Christine Guinn]

Since the whole practice of scanlation is illegal anyway, what difference does it make?

 

Scanlators publishing illegal scans of a manga complaining about other's "stealing" their work, when they are stealing the original mangaka's work?  Rediculious!

[WillTell]

Since the whole practice of scanlation is illegal anyway, what difference does it make?

 

Scanlators publishing illegal scans of a manga complaining about other's "stealing" their work, when they are stealing the original mangaka's work?  Rediculious!

the main problem in that is licensing. Even if it's illegal, they aren't doing any harm and actually are promoting the manga, since there is no company that has taken up translating it. But you can't make money from it. Well, at least that's what I'm told.

[Mordenheim]

Since the whole practice of scanlation is illegal anyway, what difference does it make?

 

Scanlators publishing illegal scans of a manga complaining about other's "stealing" their work, when they are stealing the original mangaka's work?  Rediculious!

The scanlators are doing this for free and in most cases they buy the manga in question to translate/upload it on net. However, some sites are (have been) *stealing* their work to make a money out of it, either through member fee or simply ads.

 

This caused huge uproar back in day among the scanlators and it's one of the reasons why the Batoto exists.

[Sociopath Espher]

The scanlators are doing this for free and in most cases they buy the manga in question to translate/upload it on net. However, some sites are (have been) *stealing* their work to make a money out of it, either through member fee or simply ads.

 

This caused huge uproar back in day among the scanlators and it's one of the reasons why the Batoto exists.

my own opinion is they're doing for free , sacrificing their's own time for what? For some it's just their's otaku passion , which they want to "transfer" their's reading experience to other non-japanese speaker . BUT SOME OTHER  just do it for .....fame (like attention whores) they demand to be praises and shjt like that ...... i'd rather not read manga that's so ... Unpassionate by them .......... I myself have been a long time translator (from English -> Vietnamese) , i don't feel the need for 24 hour delay , or watermark .

[Delcatsifron]

All this is only second hand information:

 

Websites monetize off of embedded advertisements, and sometimes subscription.

Scanlators are in a similar vein to Youtube gaming playthrough commentators.

The material they use is largely not their own, but they add their own content to what is already there.

Monetizing off of copyrighted material without expressed permission is illegal, and some companies force Youtubers with such content to remove the videos.

Regardless of what content the Youtuber adds.

However other companies choose to react differently, by either:

-ignoring the issue

-permitting the use of their material, for the sake of publicity

-adding general conditional permission and claiming ownership (and monetizing off) of videos that fail the conditions

 

Similar concepts also occur with mangas that become serialized in the Scanlator's country.

 

But what is being talked about here, with parasites etc. is an additional layer of the underlying issue.

Sites that use the combined material of the original manga and the Scanlator's editing and translation, to draw viewers to their website, in order to monetize off of adverts without the permission of either party. Taking the original issue one step further.

 

Yet sites that add their own watermark to the pages of the material are effectively plagiarizing.

 

However because the Scanlator hasn't received expressed, documented permission from those that own the manga and copyrighted the added content. The plagiarism is not prosecutable.

 

One means of deterring 'parasites' etc. is to encourage a community of viewers to not visit those sites, decreasing the site traffic.

But it is only effective if the viewers make that decision.

 

There are other means, for example.

In some circumstances the company from which the website loans/rents the server from may have it's own set of user conditions.

If the website breaches those conditions then a Scanlator could technically request that the company, do something about it.

But the company may not offer a favorable response, after all, they too are making money.

 

Some methods however are malicious. Certain individuals may choose to aggressively attack the website. If they have the knowledge and resources to do so.

 

I believe there are also methods to create flash documents that only display the content if the site, they are embedded in, is whitelisted in the document.

Known as domain locking.

You could potentially upload those documents instead of image files. Effectively allowing only whitelisted domains to display the content. Making it much harder for other websites to extract the images and republish them on their site, at the cost of extra effort on the part of the Scanlator and the host site.

They could even go a step further an find a method to protect against screen capturing.

 

But really, from the Scanlator's view, they were cheated out of credit for their work, and viewers for their own website.

[omnipwnage]

The above poster has most of the information about 'parasite' sites down, but I just wanted to clarify some things that were mentioned earlier:

 

Scanslaters do NOT generally do this for free, as the advertising on their websites do honestly pay them. With this being said, proceeds go to Raws (if there are no free scans available), server costs w/ bandwidth, some of them pay their translators, and sometimes site maintanence (not everyone will do it for free). So while the groups may not be doing it for free, it's also not a For Profit venture either, as they put in generally what they're getting (also why Scans sites usually ask for donations, even if they get ad revenue.)

 

What makes groups want to upload here is that Batoto promotes scanslator sites by allowing them to use their site ads on their own content (which allows the scanslators to generate revenue even if it's hosted elsewhere) and it also allows the groups to control how their content is delivered and what content is delivered. The best examples are groups that no longer want their content on Batoto (all of their uploads are removed) and sites that place a delay on their releases (Webtoons Live has a 24 hour delay from when it's released on their site until it gets to Batoto.)

 

What makes groups not want their content read elsewhere is because most of the other readers will strip out the credits pages, remove the watermarks, and remark them with their own (mangareader is pretty notorious for this.) In addition to this, because they are not giving the groups ad revenue, they get to pocket every last cent in advertising traffic for their sites. And because Users upload most of the content, they get to pocket all of the money with very little work. And as a leecher, if you're not picky where you read your stuff, the groups that actually do this for the fans may up and quit, seeing as they don't get partially compensated and receive no acknowledgement. Just saying.

 

Also, this definitely doesn't belong in this section.. 

Edited by omnipwnage, 10 June 2013 - 09:51 AM.

[Grumpy]

Posting in response to outstanding report. (though a bit while ago)

 

Try to stay on topic of Minamoto-kun Monogatari. I understand some issues are related but discussion is going in another direction. If you wish to continue the subject, I suggest to do so in general (with linking to this thread).

[M.A.D]

The above poster has most of the information about 'parasite' sites down, but I just wanted to clarify some things that were mentioned earlier:

 

Scanslaters do NOT generally do this for free, as the advertising on their websites do honestly pay them. With this being said, proceeds go to Raws (if there are no free scans available), server costs w/ bandwidth, some of them pay their translators, and sometimes site maintanence (not everyone will do it for free). So while the groups may not be doing it for free, it's also not a For Profit venture either, as they put in generally what they're getting (also why Scans sites usually ask for donations, even if they get ad revenue.)

 

What makes groups want to upload here is that Batoto promotes scanslator sites by allowing them to use their site ads on their own content (which allows the scanslators to generate revenue even if it's hosted elsewhere) and it also allows the groups to control how their content is delivered and what content is delivered. The best examples are groups that no longer want their content on Batoto (all of their uploads are removed) and sites that place a delay on their releases (Webtoons Live has a 24 hour delay from when it's released on their site until it gets to Batoto.)

 

What makes groups not want their content read elsewhere is because most of the other readers will strip out the credits pages, remove the watermarks, and remark them with their own (mangareader is pretty notorious for this.) In addition to this, because they are not giving the groups ad revenue, they get to pocket every last cent in advertising traffic for their sites. And because Users upload most of the content, they get to pocket all of the money with very little work. And as a leecher, if you're not picky where you read your stuff, the groups that actually do this for the fans may up and quit, seeing as they don't get partially compensated and receive no acknowledgement. Just saying.

 

Also, this definitely doesn't belong in this section.. 

 

That's not completely accurate... 

 

As of a few years ago, when scanlation was on the raise and there wasn't any of this scanlator vs aggregator garbage, the credit page is basically never removed from an uploaded chapter, because pay-by-click advertisements means that even one page would still contribute significantly to site traffic, and profit. Even now, you rarely see it removed on MangaFox, the leading antagonist in this conflict. And it's all due to profit that we're having this discussion in the first place. Scanlator groups had known about their money making scheme for a long time, but that was simply accepted as part of the scanlation process, just so that their beloved manga is delivered to the populace. And it had worked, to a certain degree, because hosting sites at least show a little respect towards scanlators. That's what made MangaFox the most popular reading site back then, the very same reason Batoto is now, because it has a tolerating and promoting policy towards scanlators. All the credit pages were in tact, request from scanlators such as allowing only their member to upload is accepted, and they did have a list of series that were specifically requested by scanlators not to be hosted on their site. Well, they still put their own link at the bottom of a manga page, but you can't have everything. It's all for the profit, really. But as time passed, one kind of arguments rose up after the other, until it turned into a massive war wherein MangaFox's mother company decided that they'd just to as they pleased and **** all of the scanlators. And that's how their backs were turned towards MangaFox. Other sites were simply just got caught in the crossfires. 

[PROzess]

Mangafox started as any other online reading site (like onemanga). There was nothing wrong with it, except that they rezised images from the very beginning.

After onemanga died, all traffic moved over to mangafox and NOEZ noticed how much $$ they can make. That's where it started to go downhill.

At the beginning, Mangafox had a section for scanlators where they could ask for a delay policy or no hosting at all. But once too many scanlators requests there, NOEZ then started to ignore the request and in the end even deleted the whole forum section. Shit only got worse from then on.

NOEZ ignored all wishes from scanlators, even removing credit pages and adding their own waterpage to the page. Upon that scanlators (specially myself) went on the barricades. With the huge flame war ongoing, NOEZ feared it's profit and decided to go along with a few request, therefore credits pages were left intact and the watermark text changed into what it is now. But on the other hand, NOEZ also started other sites like Mangahere to draw the annoyed mangafox-haters to that site instead, still seeking profit.

Most of the true facts aren't even available to leecher anymore, since whole forum sections have been deleted. As someone that took part in it, I can say you, mangafox aka NOEZ isn't scanlator friendly at all. We might not be able to take down mangafox, but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate everything. Our protest at least achieved some results, but it's far from perfect for an ideal scanlation community.

Sadly enough no reader really cares about that, and batoto gets flamed as "shit" because it follows scanlators' wishes and doesn't host certain series.

The lazy leecher then complain that they can't read all their series in one spot, and thus batoto becomes "shit" while mangafox/mangahere gets praised since it just hosts everything, who cares if the scanlators want that or not.

[Passerby]

The ones who say "Since this is all illegal anyway, what difference does it make?" really frustrates me to no end...

[Edoc]

Since the whole practice of scanlation is illegal anyway, what difference does it make?

 

Scanlators publishing illegal scans of a manga complaining about other's "stealing" their work, when they are stealing the original mangaka's work?  Rediculious!

 

scanlating is not illegal in most of the world as long as you don't profit from it, and it is also protected, even in the US.

 

scanlators do not steal from anyone as long as the work is not licensed there, and even if it is, they are still not stealing their work, just their profit.

[Beelz]

Its a weired because for a long time i was unaware of the ongoing war persay and the reason i found out was a water mark that actually led me to batoto and for the most part i've used here ever since. Its not the most conveinent place to read scanalated manga but its probably the place with the most respect for the people who translate it for the rest of us to read... I just can't understand why mangafox where such dicks they basicly thanked the scanalators by kicking them in the nuts.

[syockit]

scanlating is not illegal in most of the world as long as you don't profit from it, and it is also protected, even in the US.
…

Works produced from scanlations are considered derivative works. The right to produce such works still belongs to the original copyright holder. Therefore, if done without authorization, scanlation is illegal, AFAIK, in USA, Japan and many countries that abide by Berne Convention (e.g. the European Union). (refer to page 207 of the book International Copyright)

 

In case it's authorized, scanlations are copyrightable; the text of the translation, the various photoshopping, etc. belong to the one the making scanlation. 

 

…
scanlators do not steal from anyone as long as the work is not licensed there, and even if it is, they are still not stealing their work, just their profit.

Copyright is automatic, thus the copyright holder still has the exclusive right to republish the work in any other countries that is party to the Berne convention.

 

The word 'steal' always causes confusion when discussing copyright, because most people think it means 'theft', whereas it actually refers to the "stealing of an idea", instead of a material thing.

 

What about fair use?

Copyright laws has concessions for using a little part of copyrighted works in certain purposes (mostly educational) such as case-in-point demonstrations, reviews, etc. Using the whole work rarely gets to fall under fair use.

 

 

So what do we have?

 

Is scanlation legal? If copyright owner allows, then yes. Else, no.

Is scanlation fair use? Since it involves showing the whole work of the author, maybe no.

Is it okay to republish scanlations? This is where it gets tricky. In case of authorized scanlation, the scanlator owns the copyright to the portion produced by the scanlator (the text, the cosmetic changes).

In case of illegal scanlation, it depends on the law of the land. E.g. in USA, scanlator doesn't get the copyright on the scanlation, but in UK, it seems to be protected.

 

So in countries like UK, scanlators may take legal action on sites like Mangafox which republish their derivative works without permission.

In USA, they can't; it's up to the copyright holder to take action or not.

 

…

 

The scanlators are doing this for free and in most cases they buy the manga in question to translate/upload it on net. However, some sites are (have been) *stealing* their work to make a money out of it, either through member fee or simply ads.

Some ask for donations to buy the manga though. I see that as "doing scanlation so that I get to read for free!"