The war between manga publishers and scanlations
Originally published at PamHardy.net. You can comment here or there.
A group of Japanese and American manga publishers is threatening legal action against 30 manga scanlation websites. The sites haven't been named yet, but One Manga, one of the largest manga scanlation websites, is already making plans to shut down within a week.
I'm disappointed. My disappointment isn't necessarily directed at One Manga shutting down -- even if One Manga shuts down, there will still be other places to find scanlations online. My disappointment is more directed towards that group of Japanese and American manga publishers who don't seem to understand what their consumers want.
I understand that online scanlations are against copyright laws, but I believe the official publishers should take notes about what we readers like about online scanlations: that they are distributed digitally, and that they are translated into English shortly after release in Japan. Perhaps the fact that they're free, too, but that's perhaps a separate discussion.
This sort of tug-of-war between the publishers and the consumers reminds me of how the movie industry initially resisted VHS tapes, and how the music industry initially resisted digital music. Technology is moving faster than the big wig producers want it to. Consumers are rapidly transitioning to digital media, and away from wanting physical disks and books.
In the manga industry, it takes years before Japanese manga is translated and brought to the U.S. in official, purchasable, legal format. Fans are able to scan and translate manga into "scanlations" in a matter of days. Why is there such a huge time difference? I don't know the details, but I would guess a lot of the time goes into the actual publishing process of the manga books. Distributing manga in digital format would take so much less time and it would save money (at least from a consumer standpoint).
In contrast to the manga industry, the anime industry has connected with its consumers, and is starting to understand and give them what they are asking for. Anime is available shortly after airing in Japan with English subtitles on Crunchyroll. This is a start -- I would still like to see actual anime downloads available for purchase, in addition to being able to stream it.
What I would like to see is for the manga publishing industry to understand what consumers are asking for and to give it to them, instead of going on a legal crusade against the websites who are giving the fans what they want. Yes, these websites are breaking copyright laws. But at least they understand what the fans want.
Give us a legal option for digital manga translated into English shortly after release in Japan -- that's what the fans are asking for.