OneManga closes

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by HarryT;

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

The difference is, a lot of escalation groups are perfecting the manga. Digitizing them, removing artifacts, even redrawing lost areas (double page spread). Basically making it last forever

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

The difference is, a lot of escalation groups are perfecting the manga. Digitizing them, removing artifacts, even redrawing lost areas (double page spread). Basically making it last forever

They are also violating copyright, if they are doing this without the publishers' permission.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They are also violating copyright, if they are doing this without the publishers' permission.

If it is only for sale in Japan I don't see the problem. People in Japan aren't going to want English translations, so it won't affect their sales in any way at all. Which is probably why the Japanese publishers don't care.

Viz is an American company that licenses Japanese publications for America. They may have the right to suppress the distribution of material that they own the rights to, but not anything else.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

If it is only for sale in Japan I don't see the problem. People in Japan aren't going to want English translations, so it won't affect their sales in any way at all. Which is probably why the Japanese publishers don't care.

Viz is an American company that licenses Japanese publications for America. They may have the right to suppress the distribution of material that they own the rights to, but not anything else.

Viz probably said they wouldn't license anything that's been scanlated. I doubt leaving the stuff up would have cut into their profits but it would have taken away some control over what gets translated and what doesn't. Plus businesses seem to run on the bureaucratic rules are rules and we must never even bend them a little or THE WORLD WILL END YOU DIRTY COMMIE mindset.

[Logseman]

Is Viz the only relevant publisher?

[Druid_Elf]

Is Viz the only relevant publisher?

Probably, as they are main source behind US manga / anime release.
And there are only 2 options if you want to read non-japanese mange. Buy the english version or buy the french one.
Since 90% of the scanlation is done in english, viz will probably have the largest profit lost from scanlation.

[Logseman]

And there are only 2 options if you want to read non-japanese mange. Buy the english version or buy the french one.

There are a lot of good Spanish publishers too. Glénat España, Norma Editorial and Ivrea tend to do a great work with the manga left to them.

[Druid_Elf]

Did not know there were spanish publishers for manga. Thanks for the info.
But won't do me any good as I don't understand much spanish

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by Druid_Elf

Probably, as they are main source behind US manga / anime release.
And there are only 2 options if you want to read non-japanese mange. Buy the english version or buy the french one.
Since 90% of the scanlation is done in english, viz will probably have the largest profit lost from scanlation.

Except that they were in the habit of taking down stuff when asked so anything viz licensed would have been removed anyway. The only way viz loses would be licensing something that was really unpopular as a scanlation.

Think of it like when movie studios don't allow film critics to screen something. They know it's so bad that no one will go see it if reviews are made public.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

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

Well... it's really more subtle than that. I know your position on copyright, and in general I agree, but the social norms among Japanese publishers are different in this area than what you might expect in the US or western Europe. The Japanese publishers really have been rather visibly turning a blind eye to both scanlation and fan-subbing, and as someone pointed out earlier, they actively encourage the commercial publication of fan-fiction manga (doujinshi). Regardless of the Berne Convention, I think we need to respect that if the Japanese publishers don't want to enforce this part of copyright law, there's no point in the rest of the world trying to do it for them.

Now, if the Japanese publishers are actually objecting to scanlations at this point, fine. But I suspect, as someone else has suggested, that it's actually American publishers such as Viz, and frankly, if they haven't paid for the US publishing rights, I don't see where they have a right to "enforce" copyright law in this area.

I'd like to hope that this really means that someone (e.g. Viz) is considering publishing emanga on a large scale. But I'm not that optimistic.