OneManga closes

[Druid_Elf]

Indeed IRC is a good source for such things.
On the other hand, banning scanlations from the net is a bit short sighted. If I wanted to buy a new series I would first look for the first chapter in scanlations to check out the story and the art.
If it was any good, I would buy the manga. But I can understand the ban, not everybody buys the series after having the scanlation

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This could actually be looked at in a positive light, as indicating that eBook sales now constitute such a significant proportion of the marketplace that unlicenced distribution can no longer afford to be overlooked by the publisher.

i've never seen much of digital manga...

The day manga publisher publish the translation sooner than than one year afterwards....

[athlonkmf]

The real problem is, well better said, the reason why scanlations are so popular is because they are fast (popular manga gets scanlated within days) AND have extreme good translations.

The translations even takes cultural aspects into consideration or give out extra translator notes (TN) to explain. This is better than any official commercial translations.

That's why a new evolution has been born. http://openmanga.org/

manga artist can enlist the help of these scanlators and publish their work themselves. Effectively cutting publishers off.

Just hope this embryo won't die unborn.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This was a blantantly illegal site.

It depends on what you mean by illegal. Since a copyright holder must complain for the law to be able to be used you can argue that if the copyright holder does not complain (implicitly allowing) then it is not illegal.

[Big Shirley]

Are they still posting or not posting, or maybe posting some things but not others? I am not versed in the subtleties of 'scalation' et.. My son reads this so I am interested enough to ask, but hoping not to be excoriated for my ignorance
Anyone up for posting a layman's translation for a middle aged lady?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Big Shirley

Are they still posting or not posting, or maybe posting some things but not others? I am not versed in the subtleties of 'scalation' et.. My son reads this so I am interested enough to ask, but hoping not to be excoriated for my ignorance
Anyone up for posting a layman's translation for a middle aged lady?

There is a massive amount of manga published in Japan. Manga could be equated to comics, but the range of material published is much wider than is typically available in western comics. There are different types of manga aimed at many different groups of people, and they are seen as much more mainstream than comics.

Most of these manga are never published outside of Japan, only the most popular make it across to the west, and they tend to be several years behind the Japanese releases.

Scanlation is a composite of the two words scan and translation. A scanlation group would be made up of several types of people. The scanner will be someone in Japan who buys new manga releases and scans the pages in to JPG or PNG files. These are known as raws. (Raw scans).
The translators then go through each page and translate the text that appears, both conversations, signs on building, sound effects, and so on.
Editors then take the translated text and the raw scans and modify each image to remove the Japanese text and put the English text in its place. (The digital equivalent of using white-out on the Japanese and then writing over with the English).
These modified pages will then be released as the scanlated version of the manga.

There are then various sites that distribute these scanlations, to make them available to a wider audience. In most cases they have no connection to the scanlation groups. There are a large number of scanlation groups, who tend to focus on one or two manga each, but only a few large distribution sites.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

There is a massive amount of manga published in Japan. Manga could be equated to comics, but the range of material published is much wider than is typically available in western comics. There are different types of manga aimed at many different groups of people, and they are seen as much more mainstream than comics.

Most of these manga are never published outside of Japan, only the most popular make it across to the west, and they tend to be several years behind the Japanese releases.

Scanlation is a composite of the two words scan and translation. A scanlation group would be made up of several types of people. The scanner will be someone in Japan who buys new manga releases and scans the pages in to JPG or PNG files. These are known as raws. (Raw scans).
The translators then go through each page and translate the text that appears, both conversations, signs on building, sound effects, and so on. Editors then take the translated text and the raw scans and modify each image to remove the Japanese text and put the English text in its place. (The digital equivalent of using white-out on the Japanese and then writing over with the English).
These modified pages will then be released as the scanlated version of the manga.

There are then various sites that distribute these scanlations, to make them available to a wider audience. In most cases they have no connection to the scanlation groups. There are a large number of scanlation groups, who tend to focus on one or two manga each, but only a few large distribution sites.

Do scanlation people just do it for love of manga, or do they make money? Both?

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

Do scanlation people just do it for love of manga, or do they make money? Both?

I doubt any significant percentage of fan translators (for any medium) see a penny of profit from it, and many of them (the ones buying the original copies, the ones hosting the files) are sinking anywhere from "some" to "tons" of their own money into it.

For instance, there is a guy who calls himself "DJ Waffles" (won't post a link, but it'll be the first google hit) who spends $300 a month hosting his (live action TV) files-- Paypal donations are accepted, but they don't cover the expenses and has already spent over $3000 out of pocket.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

Do scanlation people just do it for love of manga, or do they make money? Both?

For love, or for fame/notoriety, depending on your point of view.
I'm not aware of any scanlation groups charging for their work. It would be pretty pointless, as another group would just take over.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I doubt any significant percentage of fan translators (for any medium) see a penny of profit from it, and many of them (the ones buying the original copies, the ones hosting the files) are sinking anywhere from "some" to "tons" of their own money into it.

For instance, there is a guy who calls himself "DJ Waffles" (won't post a link, but it'll be the first google hit) who spends $300 a month hosting his (live action TV) files-- Paypal donations are accepted, but they don't cover the expenses and has already spent over $3000 out of pocket.

Cheers for people with a passion.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I doubt any significant percentage of fan translators (for any medium)

Just to highlight this point about medium.
While we have been talking about fan-translated manga, in exactly the same way there are groups that release fan-subbed versions of anime. (If manga -> comics then anime -> cartoons)

[Ravensknight]

However, to add to this conversation, OneManga is NOT a passion driven individual.
They are a group of people who created a website, took whatever digital manga they could [with or without, usually the latter, permission from the manga-ka, or scanlators] and then got money from ads.

I agree with others about little known manga getting some face time from scanlators. However, what MangaOne did was not that [ie, they had one piece pretty much up to date, even though it was coming out here in the US about a book a week to catch up to the Japanese releases].

So, I'm glad it's being closed down.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

However, to add to this conversation, OneManga is NOT a passion driven individual.
They are a group of people who created a website, took whatever digital manga they could [with or without, usually the latter, permission from the manga-ka, or scanlators] and then got money from ads.

They were merely following the example set by the scanlation groups in that respect - taking other peoples' work without permission.

[etherspin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This could actually be looked at in a positive light, as indicating that eBook sales now constitute such a significant proportion of the marketplace that unlicenced distribution can no longer afford to be overlooked by the publisher.

is manga distributed in many reader friendly forms yet ? particularly in english ? I'd love some on cybook, at least some manga has large enough speech bubbles for the text to be legible on my gen 3

[Logseman]

Originally Posted by etherspin

is manga distributed in many reader friendly forms yet ? particularly in english ? I'd love some on cybook, at least some manga has large enough speech bubbles for the text to be legible on my gen 3

Right now manga is distributed primarily in compressed files like ZIP, RAR or their equivalents CBZ and CBR. There are converters for getting it into ebook friendly formats, but the distribution is made in unfriendly ones.