PWCW has information on Vertical’s long-hinted-at new manga line, which will feature a more modern, but still eclectic, selection of manga.
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From ANN, Genshiken will be getting a TV series that picks up where the OVA left off. Finally, we get to see more of Ogiue! Mmmmmmm.
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Discovered via GGY, Atsui Con in Houston, Texas will be holding a “hentai” cosplay contest. For some reason all I could imagine is a bunch of guys in kaiju suits.
Can’t wait for the first con report on this one.
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Precocious Curmudgeon finds an unusual article about Taro Aso, Japan Foreign minister, urging French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal to read more manga after she criticized manga as being violent and pornographic. MangaBlog links to commentary at Shochaku East.
For the record, I would like to state that I find all manner of French cheeses to be smelly and rotten. I’d also like to announce my candidacy for Grand Puumba of the proud nation of Francophobia, and would appreciate your vote.
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An intriguing question from Journalista… horror manga blog Same Hat! Same Hat!! is actually publishing their scanlations in print format at the APE, and Dirk Deppey wonders whether this crosses an ethical line.
The difficulty of this question is that it essentially asks us to make a judgment on whether the Same Hat guys are good or bad people, with so many unknowns and subjective moral goal posts that are easy to manipulate and justify in any number of ways by people on either side of the scanlation debate. (For example, I’ve seen our own publications scanned, and the best reason given to justify it [when the poster bothered to give one at all] was that our books aren’t available in Europe.)
I can’t make that judgment, but if the Same Hat guys did not have permission from the authors to do this (and they may have, rendering this entire post moot), then I don’t think such a publication exists in a legal grey area at all, and I hope it doesn’t set a precedent for others to follow, and conventions like APE certainly shouldn’t base their policies on such nebulous concepts as scanlator codes.
Getting permission isn’t easy… it may even be impossible… but being “ethical” is doing the decent thing even when it’s hard, is it not?
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Publishing scanlation, and selling scanlation are sort of different, right?
I’ve heard of fans who print out scanlation for christmas gifts (note, the printed material comes from the reader and not the scanlator themselves), but they don’t sell it, so I don’t feel it’s violating any copyrights. (And too bad the picture links are no longer valid. Those books looked amazing! Leather Cover + Engraved Title + gold trim and all! I can’t even imagine how much it would cost to do that. >
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(Second half of comment didn’t show up)
Toriyma World has tried to charge for scanlations (but were boycott by people) in their much earlier days (we’re talking about 7+ years ago). In the end, people are just unwilling to pay for unauthorized digital copies of books (heck, 7 years ago, it’s even considered obscure to be buying authorized copies of ebooks)
I’ve never heard of people selling printed copies of scanlations (at least not on this side of the globe. Maybe in Indonesia or something or maybe I just don’t now the black market of manga. :p) I’ve wanted to release scanlations in 300dpi in the past (since we all have nice huge monitors now), but I was warned against it, since some people may take advantage of it and make printed copies of them to sell. ^^;
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I agree. Promotion versus profit seems irrelevant in this case. I’m just uncomfortable with the idea of unauthorized copyright product being sold so openly, and the fact that it’s being sold in APE make it sound like they’re doing it legitimately.
Perhaps, they should have asked for permissions from the authors (or maybe they have). If not, they (the authors) may not refuse, since it seems very unlikely that any of the Same hat! Same Hat!!’s titles will ever be picked up and licensed by any publishers in North America. So they (the authors) may just be happy that their stuff is being known in the US.
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I€™m just uncomfortable with the idea of unauthorized copyright product being sold so openly, and the fact that it€™s being sold in APE make it sound like they€™re doing it legitimately.
But APE is all about small alt press. [or at least, that's what it's supposed to be about.] On that tip–wouldn’t Comiket be similar in that, it’s about small print run sales. Did Kodaka really get permission to print and sell her 1000+ print run of FMA yaoi doujinshi at last winter€™s event? Small press is fueled by €˜fanbase€™ be it your fans, or the fans of something bigger, that an artist adapts in order to partake in the €˜fandom.€™
I think the lines are blurred for some, because, it’s original copyrighted material–material that publishers would normally have to pay enormous fees for in order to lease for translation –but the difference is, SameHatX2 didn’t print 10,000 copies and distribute to Direct Market and bookstores. They printed for fans, as fans. Their customers were fans of what they were printing, not just cash carry manga junkies. I bet you a blood-filled donut that the boys made enough to cover their table, pay off their printing, and travel–and still had to wait till they got home to eat something decent, because they had no money left. ^_-
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I agree scanlation isn’t the same as doujinshi at all. Scanlation is, well, piracy, more or less (well, I’m leaning toward the “more” side).
While doujinshi, at least in Japan, is usually acceptable by the author him/herself (even though they don’t always give verbal/written persmission to the doujin groups… there are cases when then they do though, like the last Negima doujinshi event was co-organized with Akamatsu). Plus, if we compare it side by side… scanlation steals the art + text — everything, pretty much — while doujinshi just “steal” the character design (depending on how good/bad the doujinshi artist is, this may not even be true)
Making a profit or not is irrelevant, i think. As long as it (unauthorize publication) enters into a commeercial market, which APE is, it becomes a sort of piracy. I would even argue that it is piracy before it gets that far (printed and sold), since whether copyright is violated or not depends entirely on whether the commercial value of the product is affected.
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You guys didn’t read carefully what I said. I think the lines are blurred for some, because, it€™s original copyrighted material€“ [...] I didn’t say anywhere up there that is was the same as fan-doujinshi, I just implied that, playing with copyright like silly-putty, is at the very heart of Comikets appeal–so, the moral argument is interesting.
As long as it (unauthorize publication) enters into a commeercial market, which APE is Calling APE commercial is like saying everything at Comiket has a barcode on it. :/ Again, this was printed for fans, by fans, and unless you’re actually looking for this particular genre’s scanslations–mainstream manga fans were not the target market€”if anything, if they hit every manga-con with more copies€¦then they€™d be crossing the line. 0_o
Again, I’m not condoning what they did, I’ve always been against scanslations online, because while many decry that they are free, they load their pages with AdWords and banner drivers, and collect revenues on work that€™s not theirs! [in order to pay translators...who should be translating for free because, they're fans? Or for webspace] Honestly FS, I have less of a moral issue with SameHatX2 printing up, on their dime, a tiny run of translations for titles, they know only horror fans will enjoy, and selling them at a small revenue outlet like APE [sorry but, APE is far from the big time!] than I have with some sites practically leading readers to scanslations with detailed info on the scanslators and their scanslations, while collecting a pittance via AdWords. 0_0.
Smiley Face – am not trolling.
Tina -
Again, not judging these guys, just saying that the whole idea of printing scanlations gives me hives. It€™s going somewhere we don€™t need to go. This is how I feel about most BL scanslations these days. Seriously, with all the titles being picked up and the market being catered to the way it is, I think their time has come. Of course, the fandanista in me says–all scanslators who once posted those BeBe licenses and took them down, go ahead and put them back UP!
LOL! When you get right down to it, CPM is still selling their ‘own translations’ of old Biblos work; and the mangaka aren’t getting paid? Are they? I wonder…
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Fansubbers and scanlators have been doing ethical gymanstics in order to justify what they do for more than twenty years. Every year the technology makes it easier for them to do what they do, and harder for them to justify. But there’s always the justification of last resort: “Everybody else does it.”
(Personally, I’d hate to see the day when CPM becomes the scale against which corporate ethics are measured.) -
Over at SameHats blog, they admit they printed only about 30 copies at a cost of about 180 some dollars, and half those copies they €˜gave away€™ to friends. I hardly call this a huge ethical quandary€¦ -But oh well, to each their own drama I suppose. ^^;
All true. But as someone who trains young artists (and future copyright holders), I’m happy to jump on any opportunity to poke at the consciences of scanlators/fansubbers, just to remind them that what they do is problematic. I know that they are sincere fans who genuinely want to spread the manga/anime gospel, but that doesn’t give them the right to screw around with the intellectual property of artists they claim to admire. If they are truly confident that what they do does not negatively affect artists, and indeeds benefits artists, then why don’t they contact the artists, explain their intention and point of view, and ask for the artists’ blessing? (Answer: Because they know what the answer will be, and “No” is not an answer they are ready to accept.)
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I know that they are sincere fans who genuinely want to spread the manga/anime gospel, but that doesn€™t give them the right to screw around with the intellectual property of artists they claim to admire.
So basically, those of us who make fan doujinshi are all morally ambiguous and wrong. That’s kind a harsh. I am aware that Nightow owns at least two of the books my circle put out, and I’ve yet to get a cease and ‘decease’ order from him or Dark Horse [they also have copies of my circle works]. I know we’re talking about scanslations–but the statement you made there just seems to apply to all of us who enjoy making fan doujinshi. I don’t make a living on fanworks–nor do I advocate that, but being told that, expressing myself as a fan via making fanbooks, is “screwing around with the intellectual property of an artist I admire”, just seems like scolding, to me.
^^’ One of the reason I jumped to their defense, and I explained this to Simon privately, was due in part to them having a finger wagged at them by a poster who is part of a site that seems to glorify the entire scanslation scene-and while that in itself is no moral issue, the meager funds generated by AdWords on their site [everyone know AdWord revenues are marginal] is about as salacious as SameHatx2 printing 30 copies of their scanslations, passing them out to friends, and selling the rest–at a financial loss to them.
Like I said, I’m not advocating what they did was ‘right’ since they didn’t get permission, nor was is ‘technically’ fan works, but my leap to their defense was motivated by the old adage… glass houses>/i>.
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