JManga is shutting Down

[pdurrant]

JManga, a site that offered digital versions of Japanese Manga books is shutting down.

Users of the service lose all access to their purchased content at the end of May 2013.

Since users were never able to download their purchased content, this represents a complete loss of access.

News from The Digital Reader

Original announcement

[HarryT]

The Digital Reader analysis is rather flawed, to my mind. This isn't about DRM. This site didn't use DRM. Online viewing isn't DRM.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Online viewing isn't DRM.

It restricts access to a single account, and to a single method of viewing.
It prevents backing up your content, converting it to a different format, or transferring it to a different device.
The content provider can prevent access at any time, and if the content provider closes down you lose all your content.
How is that not Digital Rights Management?

[HarryT]

Online viewing is not generally regarded as being DRM. Eg the BBC News web site doesn't allow you to download news articles, but not many people would regard is as a site which employs DRM. But it all depends on how you define "DRM", I guess. If you define online viewing as DRM, that's cool.

[fjtorres]

I'm with Harry.
If you were never able to download files then all you were buying were "online viewing rights". Akin to a subscription to a paywalled magazine site, say THE ECONOMIST or the WSJ.
Or a Netflix subscription.

And, even if it were a DRM issue, it would be a case of DRM used *poorly*.
DRM is just a technology toolkit that can be used wisely (as in, faciliating library ebook checkouts) or unwisely (the Sony Librie expiring ebook "sales"). Don't blame the tech for what unscrupuous operators use it for.
That's like blaming torrent tech for piracy.

[JD Gumby]

Requiring an online connection to access the content is a digital rights management scheme - just DRM people tend not to notice 'til they have trouble with their 'net connection, or the company has server problems or, as in this case, goes away.

DRM isn't just encryption - it's anything that is meant to enforce the will of the provider of the content when it comes to access or distribution.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

DRM isn't just encryption - it's anything that is meant to enforce the will of the provider of the content when it comes to access or distribution.

That is true.
In general, though, Paywalls are considered more along the lines of access control since, once you have authorized access to the content you can do as you wish with it; copy, save, even download. So they don't really control distribution.

But yes, access control is a DRM feature and a Paywall is a form of DRM.
So are undocumented formats that are only usable one a single app, when you get down to it. (iSilo comes to mind.)

[johnnyb]

I'd feel entitled to download all my content I paiid for from somewhere else now...
That's just hypothetically, but I guess what will happen if one of the big vendors of ebooks goes down, a steep rise in piracy...
As regards DRM: this is DRM just like Kindle books have it, user paid license wrapped in technology... Onyl difference ist that Kindle eBooks are "commodified" in several layers of tangibility: they are file-entities in the context of traditional file system metaphors (file names on devices, progress bars etc), are available on material carriers like ereaders, tablets, phones etc and are presented in the context of physical goods (buy-buttons, "books" etc), the implication is possession, however subconscious that may be...
Where they're all the same: if the company providing the content goes belly up, the content is gone because it is not useable without the company's infrastructure...

[frahse]

Pursuant to the guidelines for the forum, I won't talk about HOW customers can protect themselves from losing access to things they have purchased, except to say,

they SHOULD PROTECT themselves!

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by frahse

Pursuant to the guidelines for the forum, I won't talk about HOW customers can protect themselves from losing access to things they have purchased, except to say,

they SHOULD PROTECT themselves!

In a case like this, though, it's not likely that they can. At least not without a LOT of trouble, such as going through each title page-by-page taking screenshots (if it's a Flash reader) or saving each page individually (which can be a pain on browsers like Firefox, which doesn't save files under their actual names in their temp directory, so you have to right-click and save individually instead of just going to your cache to retrieve them).

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

In a case like this, though, it's not likely that they can. At least not without a LOT of trouble, such as going through each title page-by-page taking screenshots (if it's a Flash reader) or saving each page individually (which can be a pain on browsers like Firefox, which doesn't save files under their actual names in their temp directory, so you have to right-click and save individually instead of just going to your cache to retrieve them).

The technique is called screen-scraping. There are tools that automate the screen caps but even that way it is an absolute pain to run hundreds of screen-caps into a single document. And it should not be necessary for a commercial product.
Given the approach they took, top to bottom, they *deserve* to go out of business. (Though I'm somewhat sorry for their customers.)

[secretsubscribe]

Sadly, this issue (and my desire to support my local comic shop) keeps me from completely going digital with monthly comics. Its just seems like, regardless of what the Terms and Conditions of a given distributor might say, that when you pay hard-copy or near hard-copy price for the digital copy of any "work." Access to it should be guaranteed.
I feel like this issue will eventually be ironed out via some kind of class action as we move further along in a digital economy.
Many of us here own a lot of digital goods and depends on access to them; depend on our local hardware to keep them safe and our cloud-based backup services to keep them safe.
But their loss isn't treated with the same weight as the loss of a physical item.
I feel like that will eventually change as more people wake up to their stuff just being gone.

[VaultBoy]

My brother will be peeved to hear this.

He used JManga like it were going out of style. And, now it is, apparently.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

At least not without a LOT of trouble, such as going through each title page-by-page taking screenshots (if it's a Flash reader) or saving each page individually (which can be a pain on browsers like Firefox, which doesn't save files under their actual names in their temp directory, so you have to right-click and save individually instead of just going to your cache to retrieve them).

I heard that somebody created a bunch of scripts to automate the process.
You leave the computer running overnight automatically creating screenshots page after page.
I wouldn't be surprised if users organize themselves to pool the resources. You make screenshots of one of your manga and get access to other screenshots ... and content producers will have another opportunity to whine about the pirates ... sigh.

I will not go into further details, because:
- I am not interested in Manga in and comics general,
- I would never pay for such access to the content and
- we can't discuss such techniques on Mobileread anyway.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by frahse

Pursuant to the guidelines for the forum, I won't talk about HOW customers can protect themselves from losing access to things they have purchased, except to say,

they SHOULD PROTECT themselves!