Is there some reason this site bothers respecting "no rehosting" and "delay" policies? Don't scanlation groups have literally zero legal right to thei

[zerimas]

I can see the virtue of not hosting pirated scans from licensed translations. Those groups have an actual legal right to distribute the official English translation (though if I am not mistaken there are definitely licensed scans on here). But why do we even bother respecting the policies of scanlation groups. Chapters 1–24 of some manga I was looking couldn't be hosted here because they were done by Manga Stream. Who cares? Unless I am wrong I don't think scanlation groups have any legal means of restricting their content. It isn't like they are making an original, but derivative work like a fan fiction or something which to which the CC license could apply.

According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanlation is essentially illegal and a violation of copyright laws. Legal action is just rarely taken against scanlators. So why are we putting all this effort into respecting the wishes of scanlators who don't allow rehosting? Though they have put in the effort of translating things, at the end of the day it is still essentially stolen content. They have no reason to want to restrict the distribution of things unless they are somehow profiting off of it. The situation is such that are making money by infringing on the copyright of the original author.

I am pretty ignorant of how scanlating works, but I know it requires money to get the raws. A lot of groups rely on donations. That's totally fine. I don't expect a breakdown of their revenue vs. costs or whatever because it isn't that big deal. The credit pages usually have the relevant donation information and it isn't morally wrong to insist that those be included. However, there isn't a legal means of compelling anyone to do that.

Like unless rehosting or violating the policies a group has is somehow going to cause the scanlation group to go bust and put them "out of business" I don't see any compelling moral reason to follow them. From the point of scanlators I can see them not wanting things to rehosted because they don't want unscrupulous sites like Kissmanga or whatever to literally profit from their labour. I don't know what sort business model this site has or has it stays afloat, but it doesn't rely on ads. If this site is a non-profit venture I don't see why they should object to content being hosted here unless it somehow is at odds with their interests.

 

[421cookies]

@zerimas I bet there won't be any staff that would be bothered enough to answer your question lol.
It's all stated here:

Mangadex is made by scanlators for scanlators and gives active groups complete control over their releases.

It won't make MD any difference with shitty aggregator sites if MD doesn't put any respect for the scanlators.

 

[zerimas]

Oh. I see. I don't really see the benefit other than promoting good-will. I don't understand scanlators have to control their releases unless there is some gain for them. I think the expectation that you don't rehost their content or act in accordance to their policies is unreasonable. Why would you expect people to do what you say just because you say so? They don't have any legal claim to their content. Now, people might comply if it somehow allowed the scanlators to continue scanlating or somehow resulted in them getting more manga. There is a benefit to complying with their request. But I don't see how just complying with it every case is beneficial.

 

[Plykiya]

Is there some reason this site bothers respecting "no rehosting" and "delay" policies? Don't scanlation groups have literally zero legal right to their content?

@421cookies @zerimas
We don't respect the "no rehosting" policy, you're allowed to upload any scanlation groups' work if their group isn't locked. It would take too long to bother asking every group for permission. If the group is still alive and they have an issue with their works being on our site, they can come claim their group at any time and remove it if they want.

We allow groups to set up delays themselves because if it links back to their site and they receive ad revenue or donations, they may be more inclined to allow their work to be uploaded onto our site. We don't follow any kind of written delay policy, it has to be strictly set up on our site by them.

You're correct that scanlation groups don't have a legal right to the things they've worked on. It would be silly to obey things like "Do not rehost" forever like Batoto used to do. But we want to be a site that scanlators find friendly while trying to balance content so that readers continue using our site. Active groups (any release within 6 months) have absolute control over their chapters on the website, but after that anyone can request that their group be deemed inactive and all chapters uploaded with some exceptions (see: Rule 2.4). Eternal ownership would be a pretty unhealthy attitude to promote, there's no creative area that lets people maintain ownership over their stuff forever. Copyrights expire, IPs become public, it's just natural.

2.4 A group that is locked, has missing chapters, and has had no new releases on MangaDex or any websites affiliated with that group for a period of 6 months is eligible by the request of any user to become marked as inactive.

2.4.1 Upon receiving an inactivation request, MangaDex staff will attempt to contact and notify the group.
2.4.2 It is possible for the notified group to request becoming exempt from being marked as inactive [for a period of up to 2 months].
2.4.3 If the group is not exempted, it will be marked as inactive after 2 weeks from the initial notification.
2.4.4 If a group is not exempted, they may still request for the chapters of a certain series to be removed (such as if an existing official licensed version exists).

 

[zerimas]

@Plykiya
That seems like a fair compromise. I don't mind having to go to another site to read something, if everything is all linked on here and accounted for. I forget which manga it was, but they were missing chapters 1-24 because they were hosted on Mangastream. I just thought it seemed kind of odd that no one had uploaded them (it was written write in the summary description). It seemed weird to not rehost a series that a scanlator had obviously abandoned, so I was wondering if there was an actual written rule in place.

 

[Hounder]

@zeriman One thing about Mangastream is that they tend to remove chapters from their own site on ongoing series after a certain amount of time/chapters have passes (can't remember right off how many or how long it is right off). So, depending on the series, it may not be accessible anymore on their site someone would be forced to go to another aggregate bot-ran site (that shall remain un-named) to access the chapters. Not all active groups have this policy though.

 

[MellowV2]

Some groups do not allow rehosting because they don't want to stand out and be targeted by the original publisher. It's also easier for them to delete all traces of the manga if they were asked to take it down. This is the same reason why some doujinshi fan artists dont want scanlators to translate their work.

Although scanlators do not own the manga, I believe they have the right to their translations and editing. So rehosting or retranslating something that consist of their work without permission is kinda rude.

 

[ninjadork]

This sounds a bit like a general fair use principle should apply. If you haven't bothered to make your work available to folks in different languages, you don't get to complain when someone else does all the work to do what you won't.

Unfortunately, lawfare is alive and well in many places, so that's not likely to become a standard.

 

[Holo]

@MellowV2

I can understand that point of view from some groups, but I'd like to point out to them that surely hosting on MD would actually shield them a bit, since they wouldn't be getting letters, because we would be getting them, instead. So arguably, it's safer for them. And of course, if they want to take their stuff down, on MD they can do that.

 

[MellowV2]

@ninjadork Are you saying its the group's responsibility to TL into different languages so others can enjoy it? I don't agree. Just like how the Jp-Eng scan group has to scan, clean, redraw, translate, typeset, the other groups should do the same. (unless they have permission to use the psd files)

It is true that the group cannot sue because they're doing the same thing to the original authors, but there's such a thing called Scanlating Etiquette. Honor between thieves. News travel fast between scanlators, so if you're being a dick or something, people will eventually curse you out.

 

[Raycu]

It's not really an issue of legal ownership of manga, it's just how MangaDex helps promote a the health of scanlators. It's purely because actively disobeying the wishes of someone doing essentially free work for you seems a bit disrespectful.

 

[ninjadork]

@MellowV2 I'm moderately certain you completely misunderstood what I was saying, but I'm not sure where or if the disconnect might have happened so I'm going to try again.

What I'm saying is that if a manga writer sells the book in the Japanese language and then neither (s)he nor the publisher ever bothers to translate that work into English, they should have no right to complain when a scanlation group fills that niche and scanlates it to English. By the same token, if this hypothetical scanlation group only scanlates the work to English and doesn't bother to scanlate it to, I dunno, French or Russian, that scanlation group has no right to complain if a second group comes along and scanlates it to either of those languages, or any other. And so on and so forth.

But IP laws are frequently a crock of shit designed to enforce silly pissing match shenanigans, so it's not likely that this or something resembling it will ever be the standard.

 

[MellowV2]

@ninjadork No I get what you're trying to say, and my point is that there should still be honor between thieves. This might be a petty argument, but you sound like you're saying that scanlating manga into english or other languages is something very easy to do. It is not.

The publishers arent being lazy or "cant be bothered'' to scanlate. They have to pay for licencing, translating, redrawing, typesetting, printing, advertising, and hope enough people buy it to turn a profit. And if a lot of people are even reluctant to pay $3 for a Viz subscription, what makes you think they'd buy the official scans? The reason why fan scanlators can churn out chapters so quickly is because we aren't paid. So the entry barrier is very low. But the amount of work put in is still the same.

So scanlators do have the right to complain (not sue), because it still contains their work. Not the artwork, but the translations and editing. Just like how the official publishers have the right to sue and ask for a take down if they learn about it.

 

[ninjadork]

@MellowV2 I'm going to break this up more than necessary to help organize my own thoughts. First off, I am well aware of how difficult scanlation is. I haven't done it in a scanlation context, but I've done editor's work for a fair bit and it is really slow and complicated. I am quite aware of the difficulties in making a livelihood out of the production of art, and I respect that taking someone else's work and claiming it as your own (and the resulting proceeds thereby) is a form of theft.

That being said, I apologize if this comes across as rude, it's not my intention, but; why should someone else's unwillingness and/or incapability to do the necessary work be a hard barrier that ensures large groups of people will never have access?

If a scanlation group takes a manga that's never been translated to/published in English and does so (or any other language that the original author and publisher haven't), that is their work, which the original author and publisher had no part in. I think we can argue for quite a while over the exact weight of the contributions of the assorted involved parties. But if you truly believe that people have ownership of the work they do, then people who do adaptive work that others will not (whatever the motivations might be) have just as much right to the work they do as any other individual/group in this process.

Whether or not that work constitutes what might be recognized as a separate product is debatable; I'm leaning towards not myself, more of a collaborative effort. Similarly, if two people/groups want to do what is essentially the same project (i.e., both scanlating the same manga to English), then they have an obligation to try and work together on the project.