86 replies to this topic

[cmertb]

And nothing of value was lost.

You aren't aware of all the implications I was hinting at:

https://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=51498

https://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=51528

[serriatian]

Man, really sad that these two teams had to shut down.  Red Hawk Scans was the group that pulled me into the whole "manga scene" in the first place.

 

RIP

Edited by serriatian, 19 November 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[Halo]

You aren't aware of all the implications I was hinting at:
https://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=51498
https://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=51528

Both groups stated "real life" as the reason. Though the arrests might have given them an additional reason, they can't spend their whole lives translating comics for free either. 7 years from Red Hawk (2052 releases) and 4 years from Imperial Scans (507 releases). That's more than enough.

[cmertb]

Both groups stated "real life" as the reason. Though the arrests might have given them an additional reason, they can't spend their whole lives translating comics for free either. 7 years from Red Hawk (2052 releases) and 4 years from Imperial Scans (507 releases). That's more than enough.

You don't quite understand how scanlation works, but ok... I don't want to divulge any additional info anyway.

[vapor]

I've always found it overly strange that Noez & Co has survived all the publishers and DMCA takedowns and whatnot. At this stage I wouldn't be surprised if Noez has made an agreement with several big publishers to share some of Noez's profits, as long as the manga reader sites survive. Think about it: publishers HATE scanlators (for good reason, but the fact remains). What better way to stick it to them by partnering with Noez, a company every scanlator hates, and earning money off their hard work on unlicensed manga? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, no?

 

It makes a lot of sense. And since Noez reaches all-time negative lows in their moral code every day, it only makes sense that they would do this because it's in both Noez and the publishers' interests.

 

Haha yeah, seems like a lot of sites get taken down but Noez is immune. I think a lot of that is just the entity formation and legal staff. If you're a large corporation with money you have attorneys on staff that can funnel things through the legal system, buying themselves time and also insulating you from bullying. If you're just a small outfit of translators who are just doing things for the love of it, obviously you don't have the money or staff in place, and you also don't want that stress to even deal with it. So the options are either be completely anonymous or just let it go. And nowadays it seems these larger companies also have access to the full spying and enforcement powers of the government, so they have that added layer of power that would just circumvent your legal staff anyway. So it's always about how much money you have, because that is what makes these other groups/the government respect you and not play games.

 

Ultimately most of the work is done by people that love this stuff and want to get out for others to read. I read a bit of manga back when I was in college myself, over a decade ago now, but it really didn't explode until the online readers started showing up and I'd say that was mostly around 5-7 years ago.

 

I too was on OneManga, and then Mangafox, and then came to batoto after seeing the complaints from the scanslation groups and I think MF also wasn't visible in the US for awhile (not sure if it still is or isn't). My manga reading has really dropped off in the last year or two, not that I'm necessarily very busy in real life, just it takes awhile to find good series and read through them, and especially with a lot of manga getting dropped or licensed, I don't have as much interest anymore in spending my time on looking and reading through things. Bato.to's search isn't always the best either (it'd be cool if we had a spotlight type feature and some good summaries by genre and covering a certain time period for when that manga first started) and doesn't always have all the chapters either.

[Aguirre]

I wouldn't worry, it'll all catch up with NOEZ eventually when legislation gets tighter and the blurred line between legal grey area and illegal comes into focus. He won't have a leg to stand on if he's monetizing copyrighted works.

[Fragile]

I prefer to target the community for these problems.

 

NOEZ is only taking advantage of an available market: The fact that the market exists at all is the fault of the community at large.

 

This is my bigoted opinion: Weeb is as weeb does. Enthusiasts who think of themselves as otaku but haven't made their pilgrimage to Japan more than once, if at all, want to surround themselves with anime merchandise for cheap, because they want to be an "otaku" and live wherever they live at the same time.

 

Edited by Fragile, 29 December 2015 - 07:43 PM.