Tokyopop to use scanlations? | Comic AG 109 now printing

December 3, 2009 in Comic AG, Comics Conundrum, Manga Minutiae, Release Info | 19 comments

Damn it, I need to remember to catch these Tokyopop Webinars.

Tokyopop is apparently considering partnerships with fan translators on certain manga.

I’m not sure what this means exactly.  Does Tokyopop simply want *free* translations?  (The difference between a “fan” and a “pro” translator, in the strictest, most technical sense, is that one is paid for the work, while the other is not.)  And might the scanlation site Levy alluded to be Manga Helpers?  I hope someone who actually attended the webinar would shed some light on this.  The way the article is worded right now can be interpreted any number of directions.

Sure would like to get the viewpoint of a few professional translators too…

Edit: Here’s a live-blog plus summary of thoughts, although neither mentions scanlations at all.  Perhaps the plan, whatever it is, is still in its embryonic stage.  (Spotted via MangaBlog, who also notes that translators are already poorly paid.  If this is a cost-saving measure, how much would it really benefit Tokyopop?)

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The decidedly more community blog-like Comics Journal website is online.  The impressive and varied roster of contributors ensures the redesigned website will have something to offer comic readers of all stripes.  For example, here’s a couple of articles relevant to my interests: a deeper look at the themes of Hernandez’s Birdland (most can be forgiven for missing the subtext amid all the naughtiness), and sweet, sweet snark from Anne Ishii.

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Spotted via Robot 6, the official Playstation EU blog has details on the PSP Digital Comics reader directly from one of the developers, including a partial list of confirmed publishers; Disney and Marvel are both on-board, while DC is not (yet).  Also conspicuously absent is any manga publisher of note.  The complex web that is international licensing complicates matters, but surely Viz or DMP are able to cut through such red tape.  And let’s not forget manga publishers that have original offerings, such as Yen, Del Rey, or Seven Seas.

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Missed it… Jog continues his intimate examination of Manga the anthology, an odd and unique chimera of Japanese mangaka fused with Western sensibilities.  A very enjoyable read, if you can set aside a good hour to properly take it all in.  (Caught it at MangaBlog)

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Comic AG issue 109.  We’re getting close to the end, folks…

A special note on Tuna Empire’s comic: unless you’re a fan of J-Drama, don’t bother trying to understand it.  It’s a parody of a show called Kinpatsu-sensei… if you must, imagine this as a parody of Lean on Me or every other teacher-transforms-inner-city-bad-apples inspirational movie ever made.

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  1. Masamonkey on December 3, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    I’m actually warming to the idea of a PSP reader a lot more, it’s not as expensive and if it sucks as a reader, I can still get games out of it. I’m glad to see they kept manual movement in there though. The idea of ‘undocking’ a panel from a page and laying them out in a line makes me hiss like a vampire girl jumping to the ceiling when she meets a werewolf.

    Do you have any idea how much Sony actually has to do with any of this or are they only providing the network? It’s hard to say how they might be able to handle digital manga localization.

    Reply

    1. Simon on December 3, 2009 at 8:52 pm

      I don’t know about Sony’s or the publisher’s level of involvement. Don’t have a PSP or DS… I intentionally stayed away from handheld consoles because I knew they’d eat up too much of my time. ._.;

      Reply

      1. Masamonkey on December 4, 2009 at 1:43 am

        I usually just play my DS when I go to bed and it helps me fall asleep…..unless the game is too interesting, then it ends up keeping me awake.

        Reply

    2. Humberto Saabedra on December 4, 2009 at 8:03 am

      Sony is only involved on the platform and licensing end, they will not handle content directly.

      Reply

      1. Masamonkey on December 4, 2009 at 4:11 pm

        Ah, I see.

        Reply

  2. Randall Fitzgerald on December 3, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    I’ve tried comics and stuff on small screen devices and I just can’t get into it. Hell, I don’t even really like them on my eReader and that’s the size of a book. Haha.

    As for the whole Tokyopop thing, and I said this on Twitter (which SIMON NEEDS TO JOIN, JUST SAYING. LEVERAGE THE SOCIAL NET OMG), I really think it’s just going to be Tokyopop looking to leverage stupid kids on the internet at the cost of paying for talented translators. It’s win-win for them, especially if you consider the last post. They get cheap, good-enough translations, fix a few grammar errors, and they get it on the super cheap. Best part: They don’t have to pay people what they deserve for the translations since they were doing it for free anyway! YAY TOKYOPOP! BUSINESS ETHICS!

    Reply

    1. Simon on December 3, 2009 at 8:50 pm

      Technically, TP doesn’t even need the permission of the scanlators to use their translations. Since all translations are derivative works, Tokyopop as the designated rights holder already owns them. @_@

      Reply

      1. Randall Fitzgerald on December 3, 2009 at 9:28 pm

        Well, beyond that, tons of the people who do this work exist outside of the US so it wouldn’t apply to begin with.

        And likewise, they probably couldn’t afford/fins lawyers to get in on an international case that they’re only about 10% likely to get any sort of positive judgment out of anyway.

        But fuck the scanslators, my point was more that Tokyopop is doing it to fuck over people who are trying to make a living at a legitimately skilled profession. Which is shitty. It’s this same marginalization of decent workers that turned skilled mechanics into $8/hr oil changing illegals. It’s not better, it’s just cheaper… but at the expense of people being able to earn a living.

        RANDALL IS AGAINST SUCH THINGS!

        Reply

        1. Simon on December 3, 2009 at 11:37 pm

          Again, we’re not quite sure what they’re doing yet. Are they replacing their in-house translators with scanlations? Or are they forming a partnership to legitimize certain scanlation sites? We just don’t know…

          Reply

      2. Thomas on December 3, 2009 at 10:52 pm

        There’s something kind of poetic about the idea of Tokyopop ripping scanlations of the internet, printing them, and making money off of someone else’s work. Karmic justice.

        But I agree with Randall: good translation takes work, so it’s not something to be trifled with.

        Reply

        1. Simon on December 3, 2009 at 11:00 pm

          Well, let’s not be too hasty. We don’t really know what TP is intending to do. Which is why I’m hoping someone who attended the lQA session posts a more detailed report first.

          Reply

          1. Thomas on December 3, 2009 at 11:24 pm

            Just to be clear, it’s not that I think that’s exactly what Tokyopop would be doing. But it’s just an interesting scenario for teaching some groups the meaning of intellectual property. Just to hear the cries of “But it’s not faaair!”

  4. William Flanagan on December 4, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    Did somebody call for me?

    I’ve never worked for TokyoPop, so I can’t confirm this, but I’ve heard they pay very low rates to start with, so cutting out the last bit of it wouldn’t surprise me.

    Actually, TokyoPop does not own the translations of scanslators. They simply control the rights making sure the scanslator’s translation can never be legal. So the translator still owns his/her translation, but can’t legally do anything with it. The fact that they’ve been doing things illegally with it doesn’t make it revert to any of the legal licensees automatically. My guess is that TokyoPop will pay the scanslators something to secure the rights, but it will probably be nothing more than a token payment.

    Where I get the nasty chills is if their little experiment works. I know Viz was envious of TokyoPop’s low overhead even back in 2003 & 2004 when I worked there. I could see a good number of the publishers following suit and lowballing the freelance help even more if they can get fan translations for next-to-nothing.

    I love freelance translating of manga, but even at the present rates, I’m slowly being pushed out of the business. Whatever TokyoPop intends by its experiment, I don’t see it as being good news for freelance translators. Must remember to brush up my resume.

    Reply

    1. Simon on December 4, 2009 at 10:49 pm

      Thanks for sharing your insight. =)

      >Actually, TokyoPop does not own the translations of scanslators.

      I had a long, long discussion with a lawyer (granted, who does not specialize in IP) about this, and the conclusion was that once the fan translator *puts the translation out in the wild* (this is key), he’d have absolutely no realistic legal recourse if the rights holder decided to use it.

      1. Copyright and authorship cannot be claimed or defended anonymously.
      2. The legit rights holder cannot infringe on his own copyright.
      3. Publisher is not required to pay for services rendered “voluntarily.”
      4. If the wronged fan translator decides to pursue a case, he’d be putting himself in jeopardy for copyright infringement, which carries far greater financial penalties than anything he could come up with against the publisher.
      5. She also said something called “in pari delicto” may apply. Apparently, the courts *can* decide that two wrongs does make a right.

      Really, I am as shocked as anyone about this, but I don’t know how one would argue against those points.

      >I could see a good number of the publishers following suit and lowballing the freelance help even more if they can get fan translations for next-to-nothing.

      Again, I don’t know what Tokyopop is really planning to do, but I certainly hope that would not be the outcome. I’d also imagine dropping sales has far greater influence on everyone’s salaries. That’s really the root cause, isn’t it…

      That said, now I’m curious what everyone is paying right now. @_@

      Reply

      1. William Flanagan on December 5, 2009 at 12:20 am

        That’s a very interesting legal interpretation, and looking at it that way, I’m sure it’s possible for TokyoPop to make use of a scanslation translation for free. Actually, if publishers actually stole fan translations, it might possibly put a dent in the impetus to do fan translations (on the other hand, it might give fan translators more bragging rights).

        But I doubt they will. It’s still safer for them to use it with the fan translator’s consent. So I still predict they will send the fan translator a token payment in return for all of the rights to the translation from that moment on into perpetuity.

        Sorry. I’m not going to discuss what I get paid on an open forum. Catch me at a con sometime and buy me a drink.

        Reply

        1. Simon on December 5, 2009 at 1:26 am

          >But I doubt they will. It’s still safer for them to use it with the fan translator’s consent.

          Oh, absolutely, I’m not advocating this at all. Just pointing out that scanlators have no more protection from this, than they do against for-profit scan aggregators that already exist, hoard scanlations and charge fees for access. The lawlessness cuts both ways.

          >Sorry. I’m not going to discuss what I get paid on an open forum. Catch me at a con sometime and buy me a drink.

          Oh, I wasn’t asking, merely stating my curiosity. I certainly wouldn’t share the rates I pay in a public forum either. Don’t think my freelancers would appreciate that…

          Reply

          1. Randall Fitzgerald on December 5, 2009 at 10:40 am

            I do remember reading some legal stuff about how the fan translator has rights to their specific works on the translation as a matter of it being able to be argued as an artistic interpretation of the original script, but it’s flimsy anyway.

            Speaking of everyone’s salaries, I wonder what the C-levels at Tokyopop are making these days. Must be really hurting for cash.

            And lastly, as to fansubbers losing the impetus from Tokyopop stealing their scripts, I sort of feel like, more than bragging rights, it’d just make them feel like what they were doing was that more legitimate, since a major industry player taking and using fan scripts looks a lot like they’re condoning the work those people are doing.

            Hence why you’d more likely see Tokyopop paying for scripts and getting them to sign shit saying that they won’t distribute. That way they’ve got names of people to sue if the groups release the scans net-wide.

            BUT THEN! I will be the sexy man who brings up that fact that there are a severely large number of people who download scans/fansubs who live in countries with no licensing authority or reasonable way to access official copies of their favorite stuff… that is unless they want to pay import fees to support American companies for no good reason.

          2. Simon on December 6, 2009 at 2:43 am

            Well, I spoke to my lawyer friend again, and she recommended that anyone with any doubt about this to google “Davis v. Mendenhall.” If a derivative painting can’t be transformative enough to be copyrightable, then translations surely would not.

            The only translations that would receive a new copyright are those derived of non-copyrighted works, and parodies with substantially transformative qualities. The idea that a scanlation is copyrightable is another scanlator myth, just like the whole “non-licensed books are okay to scan” argument.