On the morals of fandubs, scanlations, and copyright: A response to the use of copyrighted materials
This began as a response to a concern about using small samples from copyrighted works for a weekly "Japanese←→English translation challenge" event we are trying to start over at japanese. I started replying to the concern with my own opinion on the matter, and then after I was writing for several hours I realized what a huge tangent I had gone off on.
( Read more... )
I would love to buy my manga - honestly! I used to collect comic books (Asterix and Obelix, Archies, X-men)and such, so I would LOVE to have the manga. Just a small problem. I would have to sell my spleen to get the distributors in Barbados to bring in ANY manga. Not even the one comic store I used to frequent will bring it in. I can't even ship it in from Amazon unless I want to drop a massive chunk of change (1 volume @ US$9 and US$20 shipping and 30 day shipping = no joy).
If I buy something like One Piece in the US and bring it back to the Caribbean, I'm 1. a smuggler, even though it is all for my personal enjoyment, 2. Damned impossible given how low weights are going on international flights.
Hard subs make me want to hurl - killing all sorts of nuances that I'm slowing learning from watching stuff, plus the joy the original seiyuu voices usually give me.
Anime here is still stuck on DBZ. A friend of mine finally organized the first AnimeKon in the country and it got hogged by the gamers. Despite a huge, hungry market, we can't get manga licensors to make a deal with a local distributor (I lookin' at you, Brydens) and we are forced to the web :(
Personally, don't know what to do. I have literally begged bookstores to bring the stuff in and they just...don't. Not even if I beg for special orders.
Of course, I went into a popular bookstore the other day and asked where their sci-fi section was, only to be led t the elementary school science books :(
And it's not to say that it isn't possible - I saw fsckin' Bell and Twilight and about 7 different vampire romances in the same store, but they don't have a sci-fi section for Tad Williams. I must ship it all down in a barrel and probably pay import tax, as it won't be a book, but a comic, so not exempt from duties.
So when sites like OneManga exist - oh happy day! I at least get to read the manga, even if I can't keep it.
But I want to give ODa money and I can't. And it sucks.
Reply
O.o You'd be smuggling bringing your own possessions to the island? Are you saying that if you are a citizen of Barbados, and you go on a trip, and come back with things you bought in the US, you have to pay money to bring them in?? Is it different depending on what country you're bringing things from, or just depending on the item? Because when you go to another country from the US you can bring in anything that isn't illegal, that's for your personal possession, and you don't have to pay a single tax or fee, as long as the total value of the items is under $800. Most of the manga collection I have, I brought back with me from Japan (well, actually, I sent most of it in a box from Japan, but same diff--I only had to pay shipping, not import, because it's personal items. Although if Japan didn't have sea mail, like the US doesn't, I probably would have found cost restrictive again. As it was, I only had to pay about $100 to send home about 20kg worth of manga, in the form of tankōbon and 3 months of Weekly Shōnen Jump. Sure it took several months to get it, but hey...if floating it home in a very large barrel works...)
Distribution systems really are fail, and I hate how businesses seem to regard country borders as limiters, when really, there are no borders on media anymore, except the ones that short-sighted people put there. Of course, this is not just a problem of the choices businesses make, because countries set up rules and regulations that are restrictive as well, especially for physical distribution.
I'm not interested in a world government or anything like that (I think that would be an exercise in madness, actually), but when you look at it from the perspective of the internet, the international economy is too slow and too fail on one too many levels. Even in rural El Salvador, a freaking third-world country, I was able to get on the internet and access a world of information. (Check e-mail, check facebook, read some updates on fanfiction.net...whatever!)
And yet print media is almost non-existent in that same location. I bet there are some people there who would also like very much to have some copies of a manga or two, because they know how awesome it is from the internet. The stupidity of a a business having a willing buyer that they can't even distribute to or don't have a way to distribute or don't find "worth it" to distribute to for whatever reason is teeth-grind worthy.
So, I'm not yet impressed by the supposed "international" nature of the world economy. It won't be international until we have an unrestricted flow of information across country borders--legally. As of now, unrestricted flow is not happening, except with technically illegal web sites (ie, the "black market").
By being too slow and hulking to keep ahead of the rapid changes in the Information Age, distributors, and by extension, creators, are loosing out.
It's really unfortunate. :(
Reply
Leave a comment