Interesting. (Recurring topic.)

[hungry_worm]

Japanese, U.S. Manga Publishers Unite To Fight Scanlations

“Go back 2 years and track these sites and you’ll find an inverse relationship between the rise of traffic on these scanlation sites and the decline in U.S. manga sales,” said Kurt Hassler, publishing director of Yen Press and a former graphic novel and manga buyer for Borders Books and

Comments

[dextrosinistral]

You know, I think you're definitely on to something. And I agree. It's something that I probably never could have articulated, but... well, at least somebody said it so I can be all, "THIS".

And I'll be totally honest. In the year and a half since I lost my job at the bookstore where I worked, I've only read about a dozen or so books. This compared to the probably close to 100 or more a year while I was working there. That's partly because of a really good discount -- 33% regularly, and 40% during "employee appreciation" days near Christmas -- and the fact that we could "check out" books from the store for two weeks to read without having to buy them. But I bought a boatload of books then, and now I really don't because I can't afford to anymore. I hate business politics.

[blackjedii]

I would not be into anime again had I not been able to read scanslations.

That said, I think crunchyroll has the right idea. I wouldn't be against paying for online manga scanslations if they were A) timely and B) accurate.