Sayonara Mangadex, putting down our rose colored glasses.

[crazybars]

@Acolytus

You will not change how we as members of scanslator groups think.

We defend our independence fiercely and by any means necessarily because our work is super easy to steal and the art doesn't belong to us remember?


The possibility being remote and the accuser being a terrible Scanslator group does not mean we as scanslators can take Holo at his word saying the possibility being remote.


*edit: Whoops, bad wording, taking Holo at his word was ripe for people to meme that one.

 

[Istvan90623]

@crazybars The fact that they would go legit if the possibility presents itself was never a secret. Even I, as a simple user knew that. Also the picture you posted is cropped out of context, so reposting that is just as fair as bring a pistol to a fistfight.

 

[Arashi89]

@MellowV2 I really don't see the hypocrisy here, it's not up to the readers to support financially the scanlators, if the latter group feel that keeping a site and a reader is too expensive they can simply shut it down. There are many free alternatives they can use to share scanlations on the web.

 

[Teasday]

_{@crazybars posted:}

Let's put it this way. Holo and Mangadex are planning on monoplizing scanslations, and then going legit to kill fan scanslations completely.

I'm really confused as to how this cartoonishly evil scheme would work or be beneficial to MD. As soon as MD "kills fan scanlations" (Daiz sends his regards), a Batoto mk. 3 is going to pop up, this time probably several after less than a week because people have had time to prepare. Going legit would obviously strip us pretty much clean of content because hosting unlicensed scanlations would be impossible, in which case this same evil plan would be actualized when we're not able to keep the site going on anyway due to a lack of donations or whatever.

Even if the entire site was taken down tomorrow, I really don't think that would spell the death of fan scanlation. We've survived worse.

 

[Wafgar]

@Fuko
the delay is on each group setting , so it depends on the uploader. anyway they can also wait 1 week more before upload if per say your wish come true to make it 2 weeks back again

 

[Rapeman]

As a superior scanlating ubermensch™ that despises Fakku with a passion after they made their riches by being a pirating aggregate site, only to go 'legit' and then fuck over the sadpanda and the community there, I can still understand the need for money to, if nothing else, host the sheer volume of shit on sites like this. Bandwidth is not cheap, and for now at least, they are the only aggregate that allows uploaders even a modicum of control while also not drowning readers in malicious ads, (even if there are certain 'content restrictions' on comments/uploads, which if the process of legitimatising ever gets serious will doubtlessly increase, gotta keep advertisers/publishing partners happy). ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

But as long as the process of going legit doesn't involve DMCA'ing everyone else up the ass with/without the help of the Jap publishers, after happily hosting illegally TL'd shit for years the way Jewcob did, it's a noble enough goal so will hold off judgement till then. And tbh fampais I honestly doubt it'll happen anyway, individual Jap publishers seem to have wised-up and are doing their own English e-releases now, and CR already took a slice too. They don't need another middle-man, and if it by chance does happen anyway, just abandon ship then and move to the next least-shit aggregator.

 

[Istvan90623]

@MellowV2 It wasn't an issue for most readers that certain groups profits, even though it's illegal. Hosting free is under a grey area, monetizing on something you don't have the rights to is not. Readers have a problem with them because their obviously bitching because of money issues, and doing the martyr act like it's about something else, and most people see through this. Also they expect this basically publicity stunt to cause an influx of people to wander to the their sites, and not using aggregators, which never gave a shit about them, and even monetizing, ergo taking away that profit from them which they are hell bent to protect as it seems. But the thing is, the general reader like convinience, so ultimately, they just slapped themselves on the face.

 

[MissMystery]

Hmm... 🤔

 

[Acolytus]

@crazybars Do as you like, I'm just telling you you are overreacting since the possibilty is not just remote but nearly impossible since there is no way you can both go legit and keep the same degree of freedom and availability of content that the site currently has.

But if the mere fact that they would be interested in something like this makes you want to leave, then you are free to do as you like, I just wanted to make sure that was your reason and not thinking that Holo is about to hit the secret "GO LEGIT" button and turn this into CR 2: Electric Publisheroo.

 

[8lacKy]

All of the groups being on Patreon is actually making me laugh out loud atm, LOL.

 

[Fuko]

@Wafgar indeed 2 weeks max delay is pointless, it only causes aggression towards the scanlator

 

[Keledor]

@Holo
Where can I donate? Could find any info.
@MellowV2
Have they started linking chapters?
The worst part about MU(other that design) is the whole quest to find those chapters.

 

[saphirekosmos]

While this sucks, I read more than a few series that one of these groups does, all it does is mean that I will add a few more series to my Tachiyomi (spelling?) app. I use MD because I like having a single spot to read, and track, my manga. The fact that I don't have to deal with paywalls, ads, and other BS is icing on the cake. Hell I pay for a few different subscriptions but till use MD to read the series form them because it is way more convenient, and usually a better experience. (I am looking at you Crunchyroll. )

Nothing I have seen from @Holo or @Zephyrus comes across as overly disrespectful/rude/etc. Anyone can be made to be an asshole if you take their words without context, which the OP obviously did. Even if Holo was being a dick-weasel not showing the context of their words is pretty disingenuous and makes it seem more like a smear than a discussion. Only reason (IMO) not to give context is if you are trying to control/play a narrative.

I find it funny how many people are accusing MD of being money grubbing or whatnot, when in the end traffic doesn't matter for MD. They don't make money off of clicks, or visits, or ads. As far as I can tell they only make money off of donations. Considering how much traffic they have to support, and how big the library is, that is pretty impressive. While the groups leaving have every right to bail, it isn't going to do shit-all to MD since they don't rely on traffic to finance themselves. Even if they did there isn't anything wrong with it, nor is there with them having a merch shop. It takes time and effort to run a site like this, just like it does to scanilate manga. IMO both groups have every right to ask for donations or to sell merch so long as they are not requiring it to access their content.

 

[Parnifia]

At the end of the day, this will in all likelihood have a minimal impact. The most popular series will get sniped by people either upset with the groups leaving or looking to steal their thunder, and many readers will go to other aggregators for everything else. The "wanting to go legit" thing was never a secret, is almost universally acknowledged to be naught but a pipe dream, and has no short-term implications for users, hence all but a relative handful of people will disregard it and won't change their browsing habits. It's obvious what the groups wanted to achieve by shining a spotlight on this "exodus," but I doubt they'll get their desired outcome.

 

[ninjadork]

@MellowV2 Dunno about other people, but you're strawmanning the shit out of my complaint. Which is;

"If you want to make money off of what you are doing,
and "going legit" (if it ever happens) comes with a contract that gives you approximately the same arrangement you have (or had immediately prior to all this drama),
why are you complaining about the possibility of getting a much more steady, and potentially greater, revenue stream for the same service you already provide?"

Is there some terrible backstabbing shenanigans nobody's talking about? Are you concerned about something that nobody has yet mentioned in public?

And don't bother referring to the "evidence" in the original post; it gives absolutely no usable information to a random reader with some scanlation exp like me.

 

[crazybars]

@Teasday

Idk, Teasday, I used to Fansub Anime. A lot of us did, then one day it died for reasons

There's a lot of fears from us who work on scans that idiots donation skimmers like Champion scans who harass other groups with "how dare you SNIPPPAAA" will become the last scanslator groups standing.


Holo's saying that is a Super big deal to scanslators, it's scary. Jamin box and those guys know that.

 

[_yuri]

As a long time reader of manga, and a long-time scanlator myself, it's amazing how many people take for granted how easily it is to read scanlations nowadays, either on MD or some other aggregate. 15 years ago, when many of MD's detractors ITT were either very young or not even born yet, you couldn't even read the manga online. You had to download it, either from an aggregator like StopTazmo or NarutoFan (which was for profit, and is essentially what aggregators other than MD do today), or download them directly from the scanlators' websites or IRC channel. If you haven't already, check out Inside Scanlation's history page, specifically https://www.insidescanlation.com/history/history-3-4.html which details the rise of online readers which predated MD by about a decade.

In other words, what is happening is that some scanlators who signed on to this exodus want things to go back to the good ol' days when it was harder for readers to actually read manga. As I said, aggregators have always been a thing, and will always be a thing, so pulling out from the only legitimately not-for-profit aggregator on the internet is really only benefiting the pirate aggregators and ultimately hurting the readers.

Readers simply do not care where they read manga, but they do care how easy it is to read manga. You can talk about reader loyalty all you want, but most readers aren't even loyal to the groups they follow. I know, since I've had series I've worked on snipped right from under me, and most people are appreciative that they can read a chapter any way they can, even if it wouldn't quite be up to the same quality as what other groups can do.

Besides, even if MD went legit (which is highly unlikely, going by the comments from the admins), that's not to say something like MD wouldn't pop up sometime later. Back when Batoto died a year and a half ago, there was a scramble from several people talking about doing Batoto's successor. Holo and his team just did it faster and better than anyone else back then. So if MD went legit and stopped hosting scanlations, there will probably be a successor to MD to fill that gap, but it would inevitably be far inferior to MD, at least from what I've seen historically. MD is, in essence, the head of gold of Daniel's statue, so I would suggest to be a little more appreciative from a reader's perspective, which obviously makes up most of the traffic on this site.

 

[appledog]

@ZeroMomo

Yes exactly. The scanlators are idiots and have zero analytical brain prowess thinking that this move will be good for the bottom line in only positive ways.

 

[Fuko]

TL;DR some of the scanlators prefer ad infested aggregator sites which rip their credit pages to mangadex which provides an info page for them to edit

 

[TheGTF]

@crazybars You keep harping on and parroting that bullshit about a monopoly...please explain how you think that could happen in a venue where anyone is free to leave and the platform will comply with their takedown requests? Where is this hegemonic control that would be needed to maintain a monopoly coming from in your vision of the future? As a glorified bookmark? That's what mangaupdates is for.

How does this place even hypothetically intending in the mythical endgame to become a legitimate publisher threaten this illegal activity? You know, licensing is a thing and to be a legal publisher Dex would need one for every series they have. Do you actually believe Dex could become a legitimate for-profit entity translating and distributing manga and still maintain a library of pirated content on the same venue? Dex becomes a real business and all the scanslators would have to leave to some new venue- it doesn't stop them from doing the illegal activity they were already doing. Surely you understand that one of these protesting groups wouldn't be allowed to stay at all should it ever come to pass- the licenses to nearly all their series- at least for North American distribution, pardon my ethnocentrism on that, trying to keep this simple- are controlled by Viz? I harp on that because you can't even raise the argument that Dex licensing series shuts down scanslators in face of that- countless groups here do not honor the legal claims Viz, Yen Press, Udon, etc have, honorable thieves is a bullshit argument in this context.