2 replies to this topic

[passcod]

Hey

I realise most manga sites don't like people like me (developer/hacker who likes to mod websites), as we sometimes bypass your revenue sources (although that can be arranged and mitigated if there's communication)... I was just wondering if you:

-> Have any kind of public API (so I don't have to scrape pages)?
-> Have a dev policy (i.e. what you'd prefer us not to do)?
-> Have licensing info besides "respect mangakas" and "don't host anywhere else", which are kinda vague and more etiquette than anything else. Anyone round here using CC licenses?

You may have to discuss stuff among yourselves or whatever, but I'd rather have you (and the scan/toon community in general) tell me what you absolutely don't want, rather than just ignoring me.

Oh and by the way: proper licensing and waving, esp. with well known/recognized licenses (such as CC-BY-NC) would make the fight against "stealing" by Mangafox/Mangareader a bit easier... you can then tell them they're violating the terms of the license, which is a bit more active than just asking they don't scrape stuff.

Just sayin'

Edited by passcod, 26 October 2011 - 11:05 PM.

[Grumpy]

-> Have any kind of public API (so I don't have to scrape pages)?
No. Not sure why you would want to scrape to begin with...

-> Have a dev policy (i.e. what you'd prefer us not to do)?
No. Just don't intentionally try to harm us.

-> Have licensing info besides "respect mangakas" and "don't host anywhere else", which are kinda vague and more etiquette than anything else. Anyone round here using CC licenses?
No. 1. Batoto does not set this, nor do we have the rights to. 2. Scanlators do not have the capacity to create CC licenses either. That requires full ownership. If you do see a CC license for non-fully transformative derivative work, it's invalid.

Also, I'd like to mention that CC licenses are one of the most misused licenses ever -- by far. People label them with CC without realizing the rights they already have. There's no ambiguity without it. Rather, there's more ambiguity with it as CC is about creating "holes" in what's allowed from a fully "not allowed".
The scanlation community DOES tell them directly not to rehost their series -- that they're going against their policies. However, they will not abide by it. That's the whole problem, not the uncertainty of licensing.

[passcod]

-> Have any kind of public API (so I don't have to scrape pages)?
No. Not sure why you would want to scrape to begin with...

Full chapter readers are generally what we dev, although there's also more minor stuff like manga mashups and visualizations as well as some obscure experiments like image-to-text/voice or dynamic post-cleaners and black/white inverters...

-> Have a dev policy (i.e. what you'd prefer us not to do)?
No. Just don't intentionally try to harm us.

Cool.

-> Have licensing info besides "respect mangakas" and "don't host anywhere else", which are kinda vague and more etiquette than anything else. Anyone round here using CC licenses?
No. 1. Batoto does not set this, nor do we have the rights to. 2. Scanlators do not have the capacity to create CC licenses either. That requires full ownership. If you do see a CC license for non-fully transformative derivative work, it's invalid.

Also, I'd like to mention that CC licenses are one of the most misused licenses ever -- by far. People label them with CC without realizing the rights they already have. There's no ambiguity without it. Rather, there's more ambiguity with it as CC is about creating "holes" in what's allowed from a fully "not allowed".
The scanlation community DOES tell them directly not to rehost their series -- that they're going against their policies. However, they will not abide by it. That's the whole problem, not the uncertainty of licensing.

Right, sorry. That clears up a few things. I'm more at ease with the software side of stuff, so I just thought maybe there could be such thing as a partial license or something (covering only the translation, for example) like there are in some addon/l10n/patch software situations... silly me.