The Ethics of Scanslation

[BlackAeronaut]

The Ethics of Scanslation - A Treatise by BlackAeronaut​

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0.) Preamble​

I've done what I can with regards to research for this article. That said, if anyone has any information that contradicts what I present here, please do say something. I will amend the article to correct anything that is misinformation, or just plain outdated. However, I will need a source for citation - meaning you can't just base your argument purely on whatever you heard through the grapevine. BUT. If what you have to say is compelling enough, I'll include it in the article as a counterpoint, with the caveat that this information cannot be confirmed at the time.

Also: Keep in mind MD's Section 4 rules, especially Rule 4.1, which I will quote here so you don't have to go looking for it.

Don't engage in objectionable behavior towards others such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious discrimination, personal attacks, particularly distasteful jokes, and so on, at the discretion of moderators.

This is supposed to be a discussion of the issues that I feel are having the most impact on scanslation on MD. As such, I will be especially quick to report personal attacks to MD's staff. Please do mind your manners.

Also, note that due to the constraints the forums have on character counts, I've had to break this up into multiple posts. If you're reading this now, please hold all comments until Section 5.) Conclusion has been posted. Many thanks in advance!

 

[BlackAeronaut]

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And so, without further ado...

1.) The Basics of Licensing​

Here, we will cover what Licensing is and the broad strokes of how it works.

1.1.) Copyrights​

First and foremost: Licensing is all about copyrights. The most important thing to remember is that there are differences in National Copyright Law, and International Copyright Law.

Basically, National Copyright Laws apply only in the nation in which the copyright is filed.

International Copyright Law is completely rooted in international treaties.

That said, if the country where the original copyright was filed is a signatory nation of these treaty agreements, then the copyright is automatically carried over beyond their borders.

HOWEVER, these copyrights can only be applied outside the originating nation's borders in accordance with the applicable treaty. If the originating country wishes for protections not covered in the applicable treaties, then they have to register that copyright with other countries, and those copyright protections will be in accordance with that country's copyright law.

This ultimately means that copyrights held by Japanese publishers are more or less respected by other countries in accordance with the treaties these nations have signed.

And this means that scanslation is an automatic legal no-no, because even if you have altered the original copyrighted materials by translating the text within to another language, you are still reproducing and distributing that work.

But here's the caveat: It is completely up to the publisher that holds that copyright to pursue cases of infringement. And while only the protections under the applicable treaties applies, legal action in and of itself can only be applied under the laws of the country in which the person committing the infringement resides.

This is why copyright strikes against Mangadex are done under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of the USA - MD is mostly operated by residents of the USA, so legal action typically takes place under the USA's judicial system.

1.2.) Licensing​

Licensing is simply a formal authorization, in the form of a written contract, to reproduce and distribute someone else's copyrighted material within a specific jurisdiction, such as, for example, the USA, or Canada, or the UK, which all have their own variations on Copyright Law.

But here's where things get muddied.

We all know and understand that a license for an anime title and a license for a manga title are two seperate things, because one is audio+video media, and the other is print media.

But did you know that merchandise requires it's own license? As well as marketing materials (aka advertisements)?

Or that licenses for anime and manga can be limited by what medium has been authorized for distribution? For example, some manga are only licensed for digital distribution online, but not for print. But some are licensed for both. And some anime are licensed for online streaming and Blu-ray releases, but not television broadcast.

Here's some key terms to know about licensing.

Minimum Guarantee​

This is typically the up-front payment to the original production/publishing company. Amounts vary depending on how many volumes/episodes there are, and the estimated popularity. It's typically paid up-front because this is basically the base cost of the license.

Adjusted Gross Revenue​

This is the one that so many people have misconceptions about. This is basically the share of the profit that comes from the sales of the licensed media that is owed to the original producer. And by "profit", we mean the money that is left over after all the costs of translation, production, distribution, and marketing have been factored in.

The actual amount can very wildly, because that share is a set percentage that is negotiated, and also largely depends on how successful the licensed title is projected to be. This percentage typically ranges from 15% to 30%, with 20% being the norm. If the title is a flop and costs outweigh the sales, then the original copyright owner gets nothing.

This is why Japanese media companies DO NOT factor in sales figures from other countries: because making any profit from these sales is ABSOLUTELY NOT GAURANTEED.

Term​

In essence, how long the license to produce the licensed media is for. This is typically for 5 to 10 years, with 7 year terms being the most common. However, for some simulcast anime and simulpub manga, this can be as little as one or two years. Keep in mind, this is only for the right to produce a translated version of the copyrighted media. Which is where we roll into...

Sell-off​

While "Term" also includes the right to sell, Sell-off is the right to ONLY sell - meaning after the limit of the Term has been reached, further production is no longer permitted. However, selling copies of a licensed media that have already been produced is allowed during this "Sell-off" period. In other words, the licensee has the opportunity to sell-off any remaining stock they have left after the limit of the Term has been reached. Six months is the standard term for Sell-off periods.

Territory​

This is the one that sticks in the craw for just about everyone here on Mangadex - the territory (countries) in which the licensee is authorized their right to produce and sell copyrighted materials. Reason being? They've got the exclusive rights, meaning no one else does. And if the licensee region-locks their website? This can be detrimental for people in other countries that don't have a translation of a title in their language, and whose Internet service does not allow VPNs.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

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2.) Scanslation And Fansubbing - A Very Informal History​

I won't go into specific dates or even what years events took place, just the progression.

It originally started with anime when people twigged to the fact that they had "cartoons" in Japan, and some of them were pretty damn fun to watch. But the problem is that Japanese is a tricky language to learn, with it hinging far more on conext than most other languages out there - you absolutely have to know what they're even talking about before you can even begin to get an accurate translation. (And this isn't even getting into Japanese wordplay, which can be extensive and tricky because they have a limited set of phonetics, so you get a lot of words that are homophones, rhymes, or alliterates. These rarely translate well, and usually require a translator's note for clarity.)

So, the first fan translations were printed transcripts with time stamps, made by the very few native English speakers who happened to 1) be fluent in Japanese, and 2) had sufficient interest in anime that they wanted to share it with other likeminded people.

Most times, these were provided with copies of the anime made on VHS cassette tapes (or Betamax cassettes if they were really discerning). Though some people were able to come by the original media, either by having a friend in Japan ship it to them, or by purchasing it during a visit to the country. And often these weren't kept permanently, but shared between friends. Of course, some made copies of the copy, but this was considered sub-optimal because the new copy often didn't have the same fidelity of the original.

But then, someone got the great idea to put subtitles into the video instead of just having a translated and time-stamped transcript. Granted, this was an incredibly tricky process that mandated expensive video editing equipment capable of superimposing text on a video feed. So you can imagine that in the early days, this sort of thing was very rare.

Enter the American Broadcast Industry. Someone got wind of this and decided there was a market for this kind of thing. Except they didn't want to use subtitles. After all, these were just cartoons, right? Little kids can't possibly bother with reading so much! So instead of subtitling, they went with actually dubbing.

Of course, this ran into issues with translation quality, and also people bowlderizing the hell out of some of this stuff - something that persisted throughout the 1990's and even the early 2000's! The Japanese sense of what was appropriate for children most certainly did not jive with what Americans thought was appropriate. Not to mention the cognitive disconnect that Americans had about animation. Americans by and large felt that cartoons are just for little kids. Wheras the Japanese had names - actual proper nouns instead of just age brackets - for the different demographics they'd market anime and manga to.

One of the absolute worst offenses was Robotech by Harmony Gold, where they went as far as to take THREE entirely seperate anime titles in Japan with entirely seperate stories, completely rewrote the scripts, and kitbashed them into a single series they called Robotech. The only things they had in common was that they were all science-fiction/fantasy titles from the same production studio in Japan.

Another example was the utter horror that was Warriors of the Wind, an early English dub of Studio Ghibli's Nausiscaa of the Valley of the Wind. It was so terrible that it's not a stretch to call Studio Ghibli's reaction "traumatic", and they did not permit another licensing of any of thier titles for a long time.

(This led to what is, by far, one of the most outrageous stories in the business to this day, when Miramax Pictures got the green light for the English dub of Princess Mononoke. Once they saw that Princess Mononoke wouldn't fit into the usual run-time of a feature-length animated motion picture, they inquired to Studio Ghibli about the possibility of making cuts for time-compression. In reply, Studio Ghibli sent them a sword. Yes. Really. An actual fucking katana. Seriously, Google it if you don't believe me. And it wasn't just some wall-hanger piece, either, it was the real goddamned deal. Because they wanted to make it absolutely clear that they were not budging on this - this wasn't just "Fuck around and find out", this was, "I will fucking destroy you and all of your loved ones." And along with that sword was a very simple and terse note that said, "NO CUTS".)

Another example is the No Need for Tenchi mangas by Hitoshi Okuda, where the licensee made extensive use of Americanisms and pop cultural references to localize their translation. The translation was accurate enough, but reading a direct translation without localization is a very different experience from reading the "official" translation.

It was here that fansubs and scanslations proved to be superior in just about every which way. This was largely because fansubbers/scanslators were not at all interested in making money. Instead, they were entirely focused on sharing something they loved with others. Thus, the translations were typically of much greater quality. And on top of that, they were on the cusp of going mainstream with the rise of broadband internet connections.

Eventually, production and publishing companies in America realized that anime and manga were starting to go mainstream, and not from the utter dreck they shoveled onto us. And then anime and manga in America utterly exploded in popularity.

At first, fansubbers and scanslators were largely ignored. This was mainly because at the time, these businesses recognized it for what it was: free advertising. Also, they got critically needed clues as to what would be successful among American audiences by tracking what titles were most frequently downloaded.

And for a while it was a great relationship. Fansubbers and scanslators were largely left alone because the people who downloaded the most were usually the best customers. And for others it was absolutely wonderful to be able to watch anime with a reasonably faithful translation, and all dubbed into English.

But then came the lawyers.

Legal departments, which handled the details of writing out the contracts for licenses, began grumbling about intellectual property - that if they didn't pursue legal action against fansubbers and scanslators, that they'd effectively lose the rights granted in their licenses. Mind you, that is "effectively" - no where in any licensing agreement ever has it stated that a licensee absolutely had to do this or else the contract would be in breach. (At least, not to my knowledge.) It was simply assumed that the licensee would take measures of their own accord to assure their little monopoly.

And really, "Monopoly" is the right word here. While no one company has ever held the licenses for all anime and manga in the USA (except for the very first one to do it), they were gauranteed exclusive rights for specific titles in their region. Again, the example of Robotech and Harmony Gold - they have fought tooth and nail to maintain their exclusive rights to all titles in the Macross franchise in all of North America, and all because they did not want Macross competing against their kitbashed universe.

And the relationship was further damaged by the fact that, once crowdfunding and online payment systems went mainstream, some fansubbers and scanslators started taking donations. At first it was just to cover the cost of getting ahold of media to translate. But then, some people realized they were actually making money, so they began to do it for profit.

And so, things continued to devolve, and it was completely and entirely all about money. Too many fansubbers and scanslators were aiming for a profit margin, and would try to translate as many titles as possible, even going as far as to let the translation drop in quality. (Of course, this got even worse as Google Translate and DeepL got better at handling Japanese, but not good enough.) And too many US companies were aiming to "protect" their investments, not understanding that they were in essence playing an elaborate game of whack-a-mole with these groups. As soon as they shut down one group's website, they'd pop up once again with a new website, sometimes even under a different name. The only way to effectively kill a group for good was with the threat of a lawsuit being filed against the group's members.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

3.) Ethics - Your Mileage WILL Vary​

So, here we begin to get into what is certainly my opinion on the matter. And where I remind you folks that, once again, all violations of Rule 4 will be reported. I know some folks feel very strongly about this stuff, but that's no excuse to be rude or ugly about it.

So, here's my opinion:

3.1.) I feel that no one should be accepting payment or donations - none whatsoever - for fansubbing or scanslation.

Now, let me explain my reasoning behind that.

I can understand why some people do it. Some say they're stuck taking care of a sick or terminally ill relative. Some are trying to pay their way through college or university. Some just need a bit of money to purchase the raws they need for scanslation.

But here's the thing: the publishers don't see it that way.

In fact, some of them would be perfectly willing to pull the plug on your sick family member, or get you expelled from school, or even have you locked away for copyright infringement.

Yes, these people really are that nasty.

How do I know?

The Boeing 737 MAX.

I know, this seems like a tangent, but just follow along here.

Boeing is not a privately held company - they are owned by a vast collection of shareholders. And these share holders are only concerned about one thing: making money. They don't care how, they just want the money. They want it so much that they'll dump their shares in Boeing the moment things aren't so rosey looking, and invest elsewhere - even their direct competitors.

This places a lot of pressure on the company. The company's officers, for one thing, are no different from the share holders. In fact, they're usually shareholders themselves. As such, they will gaurantee themselves exorbitant salaries and extremely generous "Golden Parachutes". And all while grossly underpaying their most essential workers. Just so they can have a larger share of the pie that is the company's payroll and employee benefits.

As such, they will find ways to cut costs in every which way possible.

In the case of the Boeing 737 MAX, the completely fly-by-wire control system relies heavily on various airflow sensors at various parts of the aircraft. On one subsystem, known as the Manuevering Characteristics Augmentation System, it was felt they could save a bit of money by reducing the number of angle-of-attack sensors to only one.

And to further save money, this subsystem had no way to deal with a failure of this sensor. There was no redundancy. No graceful degredation. No failsafe mode. No telltale to indicate a failure. Not even any documentation or training. The moment this senor would fail, the crew would have seconds to try to understand what happened to their plane, and how to work around it, while the eroneous data from the angle-of-attack sensor caused the plane to nosedive into the ground, literally like a lawn dart.

They even went as far as to gain permission from the FAA to remove documentation about this subsystem - the FAA approved it because it was a "supplemental system" intended to improve and optimize the flight characteristics of the aircraft. The idea was that the subsystem would allow the plane to have the exact same behavior in flight as the previous 737 Next Generation, so pilots would be able to transition from the Next Gen to the MAX without any simulator training.

It was felt that the savings would be justified.

Instead, in less than five months, nearly 350 people lost their lives in two high-profile total loss accidents involving 737 MAX airliners. The MAX was subjected to the longest grounding order in aviation history. Boeing was subjected to $20 BILLION in fines, legal fees, and compensation. They lost a further $60 BILLION from 1,200 orders for the 737 MAX being cancelled.

And this is to say nothing about the losses from the value of their stock plummeting and the share holders dumping their shares in Boeing as quickly as they can. The share holders literally took the money and ran.

And this was all so that they could save just a few dollars for every 747 MAX they sold. Everyone knows you do not make an airliner that has a completely fly-by-wire avionics system without any sort of redundancy or failsafe mode. But they did it anyways.

Let me be abundantly clear.

CORPORATIONS. DO. NOT. GIVE. A. FUCK.

They are perfectly willing to gamble with lives like Boeing did. So they are perfectly willing to fuck over someone if they feel motivated to do so. They are all owned by share holders who have absolutely no liability, save for those who are corporate executives.

They only care about short-term gains, heedless of any potential long-term losses. If it makes them money "now"? They don't give a shit about "later".

This is why I feel that it is in everyone's best interests that no group that posts their scanslations to Mangadex should be permitted to ask for donations, or use paywall systems like Patreon, nor should they have a stand-alone website where they publish their scanslations for the sake of using advertisments to generate revenue.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

3.2.) Furthermore, I will also state my opinion on the idea of running a website outside of Mangadex. It is idiotic and foolhardy. And I will state why.

1.) You need to pay money for the domain.
2.) You need to pay money for the webserver on which your site is hosted.
3.) You need to pay money for the storage space your scanslations need.
4.) You need to pay money for the database that organizes everything.
5.) You need to pay money for the bandwidth.
5.) You need to design and maintain your website, or pay someone else to do it.

Mangadex already does all of this, more-or-less for free, and even has these forums to comment and discuss releases, as well as other interests.

Granted, there are hosting services that have all-inclusive services - domain registration, web server, storage space, database service, a set amount of bandwidth, and sometimes even site design tools. But the fact of the matter is that you're still paying for it, QED.

The only thing you could conceivably need a website for is to post blog entries about what your group has been up to lately. And you can whip up a weblog in fifteen minutes on sites like Wordpress.

That said, corporations may not like losing a small amount of potential customers to piracy. But what they like even less is someone profiteering with that piracy. And if they can't nail your group directly because they know you'll just pop up again at another website? They go after you indirectly.

They will do so by alerting your crowdfunding and payment system providers of your scanslation. They will alert the advertising services you use of the same. All of your accounts will be frozen, you will be banned from these services, and as many payments as possible will be reversed.

This has already happened to more than a few scans groups who were profiting off of scanslation - most notably among them, Platinum Crown, Setsu Scans, and I think it also happened to Soseki, Flame Scans/Comics, and Mangasushi. It even happened to Nerisa's Barely Competent Jailbird Scans, much to my regret - Asphyxia's got a tough lot in life and I honestly do feel bad for her.

And lastly, they'll come after Mangadex, because they know that MD will capitulate and immediately remove everything they make a copyright strike on. And that hurts everyone.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

Now, here's where my opinion does a 180.

3.3.) I strongly believe that scanslation should continue, no matter if a title has been licensed or not.

Reason being? Well, I mentioned before that thing with licensees region locking, and then not translating for all the languages in that region. That's the big one right there.

Once again, corporations don't care about you. They only care about making money. And they feel that the best way to make money is not by providing a service or a product that we pay for. Instead, they believe the best way to make money is by maintaining a monopoly - an exclusive right to sell a single product or service, with no other competitors to undercut them with a better product or service.

And if that means that there is a niche market that winds up getting shut-out in favor of the larger market? Then they'll gladly do that, because serving a niche market costs money. And all for the sake of having that larger market all to themselves.

Now, in this case, by "product" and "service" I mean specific titles of manga or anime that have been translated into another language. And as far as the North American market goes? No one else but Yen Press is gonna be publishing new copies of A Certain Magical Index. And no one else but Seven Seas is gonna be publishing new copies of ToraDora!

But do they translate these titles into Latin-American Spanish? Pffft! Fuck no. That's an expense they don't want to bother with. And never you mind that the market down in Mexico has been enjoying slow, but steady growth since the 1990's. They could hardly care less. They want the monopoly on the North American market, and fuck anyone else who speaks a language other than English, like Latin-American Spanish, or Cajun and Québécois French.

Even worse is that because of region locking, they automatically shut-out readers from countries outside of North America where no one is translating a title into their native language, but they know English well enough to enjoy reading in that language.

And it isn't just other countries where English is widely used as a second language, but also other Anglosphere nations like Australia and New Zealand.

But the publishers don't give a shit. Why? I'm not sure, but I strongly suspect that it may be a quid pro quo in the licensing agreement - that they region lock a title in order to encourage publishers in other distribution territories to acquire their own licensing deal. This way, the original publisher makes more money.

What's more is that lately there has been evidence of some of these publishers trying to cut corners on their translations, using Large Language Model AI to do the translation for them. Or, even worse, turning the tables on scanslators and using their translation!

"But surely the publishers back in Japan noticed? Surely they'd do something about it?"

Hah-hah-hah-NO.gif

First of all, most of them hardly know any English, so they wouldn't even know, even if someone else pointed it out. In fact, there have even been times when they insisted on grammar and usage in English that is just plain wrong.

Secondly, even though there's been an up-tick in quality assurance coming from the Japanese side, most of them don't really care all that much. Otherwise, publishers here would not be able to get away with BS like using AI for translation. Besides, they know that most of us are smart enough to know that there was likely a translation error, so that's all on the licensee's side.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

3.4.) Furthermore, and to be quite frank, the entire business model is trash. On both ends.

Everyone loves to talk a big game about supporting the mangaka, right? And quite a few people out there seem to be under the impression that buying the licensed version somehow benefits the mangaka.

Well, there's several issues with that.

First of all, there's the fact that unless a mangaka goes for self-publishing, they are utterly beholden to the publisher they sign on with in Japan. And remember: corporations only care about money and nothing else. So if a title isn't doing better than breaking-even? They'll ax that title with absolutely no remorse whatsoever.

Now, I know that you're gonna say something about the Japanese publishers getting a cut of the sales. And this is where I remind you: they don't get a cut of the sales, they get a cut of the profit.

The difference is that profit is what results after all the costs of publishing are taken out of the sales revenue. And then, the Japanese publishers are usually only getting something like 20% of that.

That's hardly anything at all. In fact, it's so little that they don't even count the sales figures from overseas. It's just a nice little bit of extra jingle in their pockets, and nothing more. The real ticket for them is that initial Minimum Guarantee - a one-time cost that is paid up-front per term (which is seven years on average) in the licensing agreement.

That said, I did do a bit of digging on what mangaka typically make... and it's not a rosy picture at all.
https://anime.stackexchange.com/que...angaka-profit-from-anime-or-merchandise-sales

To summarize, a new mangaka typically gets about $500 per chapter (full-length, at least 20 pages), and then about 10%-15% in royalties from sales, which amounts to about $0.50 per tankoubon sold. If their manga is successful enough to get an anime adaptation, then they can expect to get about $650 per episode, which on a full single-cour season, can net them $8000... However, they don't get a royalty cut because that money all goes to the sponsors and publishers.

From this, it's easy to see that mangaka will not see a single penny from overseas sales.

But if, by some miracle, they managed to squeeze in a clause about getting a royalty from that? You can be sure that it'll be a cut of the publisher's cut from the overseas profits.

And there's that word again: Profits. For licensed titles, the original publishers are only getting a cut of the profit, not the sales revenue. And the mangaka's royalty cut (10%) will come out from the publishers cut of the profits (20%), which means that their cut is just 2% from the profits made on foreign sales. And they will only get that if the title is successful enough to generate profit in the first place. (And don't forget that it's not very likely that they got that as a part of their contract with their publisher.)

Now, let's have an example of how this would play out, given if a mangaka managed to get in a proviso regarding overseas sales.

Let's say, in theory, there's a title licensed by a US Publisher, and they were able to maximize their profits from the sales revenue... Let's assume the usual price a volume of manga typically sells for here in the US: $12.99, but to make the math a bit easier we'll just say $13.

First, the retailer takes their cut from the sale price of the book - usually about 35%. That leaves us with $8.45. And then there's the cost to actually make it - the manufacturing cost per book - which is usually in the neighborhood of $4 per book, which leaves us at $4.45 of profit from the sale. 2% (the mangaka's 10% royalty cut out of the publisher's 20% cut of the profit) of $4.45 is roughly $0.09 - much less than what they get for the same being sold in Japan.

But again... Seeing as they don't make any royalties off of anime, it's a pretty safe bet they don't get anything from licensing. And in a sense, it's fair if you factor in what the licensing process costs - international lawyers, international contracts, back-and-forth on cover designs and translation, quality assurance, samples... these things add up.

Which is why I say: Don't delude yourself. Only the most successful mangaka could possibly reap any benefits from licensing. And by "successful" here, I mean like Osamu Tezuka or Leiji Matsumoto or Rumiko Takahashi or CLAMP. You gotta be a Big Fucking Deal™.

And at that point, you'd be better off supporting a mangaka by buying the merchandise associated with one of their titles. This is because not only does merchandise sell internationally, it's also the biggest money maker of all. (Remember the film, Spaceballs? That Yogurt guy wasn't just talking out his ass about merchandizing. He was dropping straight-up facts, on God.)

But again, merchandise is strictly the province of a mangaka who is already successful. And the mangaka you folks typically wanna support are the little guys, right? The underdogs who have to work a job on the side to make ends meet, right?

Right.

So, ultimately what this means is that a mangaka is best supported by having people purchase their manga through the original publisher, and not a publisher who has licensed a title for distribution in your territory.

In fact, buying from licensees does absolutely nothing to promote a manga, except maybe to make it more well known outside of Japan. Because in the end, the original publisher isn't going to care about those overseas sales. Their main concern is the sales of the copies that they themselves publish.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

4.) And this is where my opinions all come together...​

1) Do not panhandle or attempt to profit off of scanslation.​

- It paints a target on your back for the publishers.
- It ruins things for everyone when the publishers throw out copyright strikes against Mangadex.

2) Don't bother with trying to run a website.​

- While the costs for everything else might be affordable, it's the bandwidth where they always get you.
- Mangadex already does everything a website does, and for free.

3) Scanslate anything you want, even if it's been licensed in your region.​

- Mangaka typically make nothing from licensing agreements.
- Those sales tend to profit only the licensee, and profits for the original publisher are absolutely negligible.
- So long as you're not making money or taking donations, the publishers typically leave you alone because it's not worth their time.

4) Instead of taking donations, ask people instead to purchase the titles from the Japanese publishers.​

- Japanese publishers DO NOT record any foreign sales.
- It helps boost the sales figures in Japan, and lessens the likelihood of a title getting axed.
- It gives the mangaka a lot more money than buying the licensed versions (if they get anything from it at all).

Mangadex already provides links to the sales pages for the original publishers. Amazon.co.jp is a good one because not only do they have most titles in hi-definition tankoubons, they also usually have the uncensored versions of the erotica titles, too. If you want physical copies, they'll do international shipping with few and rare exceptions.

You do not always need a VPN with Amazon, but if you do? Just using TOR is actually overkill, but it's the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way (FREE!) to go about it.

You just need to provide a mailing address from Japan. Don't worry, you can use practically anything as long as it's an actual address over there. And Amazon never follows up on it, just like how Youtube never checks to see if a copyright claim is legitimate.

(This would be a good place to do a Japanese version of the classic joke about using Wrigely Field as your home address. I use the Japanese mailing address for the main office of the US Navy's 7th Fleet because I actually was in 7th Fleet.)

Once you have that, you're set! Forever, even, unless you get a new account. Order whatever you want, just have whatever you order (if you're ordering physical copies) shipped to your actual address.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

5.) Conclusion​

I know this whole thing is gonna fall on some deaf ears. Others are gonna get up in arms about their ideals about having the freedom to do whatever they want in order to make money. Others are gonna say that this is the only way they can make money.

But facts are facts. Publishers don't care about your circumstances, they only want you as a paying customer, period. And they will come after you if you're making money off of something they have the rights to - it's not a matter of "If" but "When". And it's not fair to the rest of us when your actions causes harm to the scanslation community as a whole.

Please do comment and give us your perspective on the matter. Just please be civil about it.

EDIT:
I guess it does help if I provide some primary sources.

Most of my information came from the following articles on ANN:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-06-11
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/lexicon.php?id=115

The trouble with this subject is that you have to sift through a lot of various sources to get bits and pieces of information. The articles on ANN have been the best so far, but they're already pretty old by today's standards. That said, if you see anything more specific you'd like to see a source for, then please do let me know. I'll try and find a good source for you.

 

[Angry_Panda]

Some good points. Will mull this over for a day or two.

(1060 W Addison, home of 'Joliet' Jake and Elwood Blues. I've used the address of the hometown AAA Iowa Cubs for years when I need to test an online form for work - 1 Line Drive, Des Moines.)

 

[undeed]

It would be great if you could provide some evidence for your claims, tho.
I've been fortunate enough to meet a few people who turned out to be actual mangaka (only artists so far), but I don't think their manga are licensed internationally.
And we only met in-person once, so obviously I'm not privy enough to ask about their sales figures and all that.

Some good points, but I do find some of your claims are a bit overblown.
(as with most claims in general, I guess)
I'd love to respond to each of your opinions (some of which I really want to),
but definitely not on a weekday like this.

 

[bakkoi]

we live in a post authorship world these days, idc
im not reading all of that, so im sorry that happened or happy that it did

 

[mangadexjp]

 

[Angry_Panda]

Random thoughts.

--

Concerning the sell-off - my experience in print is on the periodicals side, where unsold newsstand copies are returned (or, at least, the covers are torn off and returned) for credit by the vendors. In this arena, a 1/3 sell through (that is, 1/3 of the copies printed and distributed end up sold to consumers rather than being returned) is considered 'good'. Many magazines can afford this because the advertising is paying the bills, and the subscription base is also offsetting the cost of printing somewhat.

Entering the 'some speculation on my part' zone: This works less well for book publishing or other merchandise that doesn't have advertising revenue tied to it, hence the existence of 'remainders' - books (or, presumably, other merchandise) sold under cost to a distributor or store in order to recoup some of the money that was already spent in printing (manufacturing) them. The catch is that, unlike normal merchandise that may not sell and can be returned if it doesn't, remainders are non-returnable - if a distributor buys a lot of 500, they're stuck with all of them. My suspicion is that most if not all licensees remainder the balance of their stock just before the sell-off date hits in order to get all the inventory 'sold' and not have to take a total loss. This may also explain some of the 'perpetual clearance' mentality of some storefronts.

--

I can recall talking to some of the folks from both Funimation and ADV at cons in the mid '00's, and the approach to localization would vary widely between series even at that point - light comedy series in particular tended to get more rewriting to try and keep the 'feel' of the series at the expense of strict accuracy, even while the push to get away from that in more serious works was in full swing. IIRC, ADV at one point would do on-screen notes as one of the subtitle options - I think my copy of Excel Saga has these. (Speaking of that series, the Viz translation of the manga was one of the early examples I remember of really good end notes for some of the more subtle cultural references.)

I have this nagging thought in the back of my head that the near-total meltdown of the US market in the late '00's may have played heavily into the pivot toward cracking down.

--

In general, any industry built on 'platforming creatives' takes advantage of them - it's the cost of getting the works to a wider audience. Marketing isn't cheap, particularly on a wide scale.

Japanese publishers have largely demonstrated their contempt for the non-domestic market (and some of the better known creators saying things like 'don't adapt the art form for an overseas audience' shows their opinion seems to align with that). AI doing automated translation unsupervised is not the answer, and we'll see how long it takes them to figure that out. Their allowing Korean publishers to take the lead in a lot of the recent crackdowns also shows their contempt, and would suggest that they're not going to throw huge resources at any but the very top tier of properties.

--

I do essentially agree with the 'don't scanlate for profit' thesis. There may be a few instances where trying to get hands on an obscure older work ends up running up against a financial barrier, in which case asking for a donor to step in and help get through that is the only way to get the source material, but that's a very limited exception to this, and I would think that would be better done as a limited appeal to the existing audience for the team rather than a wide-ranging 'gib monee plz' approach.

Thanks for taking the time to collect your thoughts on this and present them in an organized fashion!

 

[Manko-sensei]

Years ago I read how the whole process of selling books in Japan went and it was quite silly. Essentially, no one gets paid until retailers sell the products, unlike many (or most, if not all) of the countries you may be from. This makes the logistical part take the highest burden (distributors operate by themselves) since they are putting their own money to deliver the volumes to the stores, only get paid as the volumes sell and if there are returns they receive nothing from it and have to return them to the publisher without compensation. All this usually made distributors to accept work if there were guaranties it would sell, and for guaranties it essentially means author and publisher prestige. So yes, this makes life of new authors that are not affiliated to big publishers quite hard so they need to resort to conventions and online platforms to make themselves visible at least. And, knowning Japan, I doubt they've approved any reform to address any of these issues.
Maybe you want to make some research about that point to include it later, but returning to the main point it's all about money, so scanlation should always be free of profit. Scanlation/fansubbing is a hobby, you need to afford it, those who want to help by simply providing material have their own name: raw providers. The only thing a normal person can't do is hosting an entire website with all services, and honestly copyright holders don't care how it is funded, just the fact it exists.​

 

[OisE]

3) Scanslate anything you want, even if it's been licensed in your region.

I didn't read everything that you said, but I don't agree with this point.

Maybe, you don't even know, the author doesn't get a penny from you buying the manga in your region, but :

1. the author is not the only one who needs to be supported, I like some publishing companies in my country
2. the japanese licensors with this money can employ the same author again or employ new authors

I think I am just less cynical.

Would be good to have the bibliography tho...

 

[BlackAeronaut]

I didn't read everything that you said, but I don't agree with this point.

Maybe, you don't even know, the author doesn't get a penny from you buying the manga in your region, but :

1. the author is not the only one who needs to be supported, I like some publishing companies in my country
2. the japanese licensors with this money can employ the same author again or employ new authors

I think I am just less cynical.

Would be good to have the bibliography tho...

Part of the problem with citing an article like this is that it requires a lot of sifting through various sources. ANN did do a detailed breakdown, but that was years ago, so the information there is likely outdated. For example, I'm pretty sure that no one does HD cassette tape master-copies anymore. In fact, other sources I've seen say they now do this with solid-state drives, which provides a perfect fidelity copy, and no moving parts.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-06-11
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/lexicon.php?id=115

 

[BlackAeronaut]

It would be great if you could provide some evidence for your claims, tho.

Most of my information came from these articles on ANN:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-06-11
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/lexicon.php?id=115

I'll go ahead and append these articles as primary sources in the conclusion section. But if there's anything more specific you'd like me to cite, please, by all means let me know.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

Concerning the sell-off...

Well, this is a bit different. I don't have any primary source for this, but reading between the lines, the contract is between the licensor, and the licensee. The retailers are not the licensees, the publisher is. So Sell-Off only really applies to the publisher. This means once they've sold the stock of their licensed translations, then they're in the clear. Meanwhile, the publisher is left with that stock, and they can keep it on the shelves for as long as they wish - it doesn't matter because the letter of the contract has been fulfilled by this point.

But again, this is just me reading between the lines. If there is a quid pro quo about retail sales, then I haven't seen anything about that.

I can recall talking to some of the folks from both Funimation and ADV at cons in the mid '00's...

THis is very much true. Japanese comedy is extremely difficult to translate. While there are some idioms in English that have analogues in Japanese, they don't crop up all that often, unfortunately. This is something that I don't really hold against the licensees too much because of these difficulties, but in general I do kinda prefer to have the joke delivered straight-up and then explained in the notes. This way I get more of a feel for Japanese culture.

I have this nagging thought in the back of my head that the near-total meltdown of the US market in the late '00's may have played heavily into the pivot toward cracking down.

Yep, Pretty much. This all coincided with the burst of the Dot-Com Bubble that built up in the mid-to-late 1990's, and then popped early-on in the year 2000. Of course, corporations being what they are, they were quick to point fingers at something - anything - other than their own mismanagement, and scanslators and fansubbers were simply the most viable target.

In general, any industry built on 'platforming creatives' takes advantage of them - it's the cost of getting the works to a wider audience. Marketing isn't cheap, particularly on a wide scale.

Once again, pretty much this. Although I think that most things aren't really marketed much at all. Web novels that really take off will probably get a bit of advertising about an LN adaptation, but mostly on the site the WN is hosted on. And then same for light novels being adapted into manga - advertised in the books they sell and at the book stores they are sold at, but little elsewhere.

And then there's that new craze of the manga adaptation being the marketing in and of itself for a light novel. Which is a horrendous tease if you ask me.

It's only when a manga gets an anime adaptation where you'll see the big marketing push. Then you'll see a lot of marketing about which voice actors are being picked out for the cast, what studio and distributor is taking it, who the executive director is, and interviews of all the involved parties to help hype the anime release.

Japanese publishers have largely demonstrated their contempt for the non-domestic market (and some of the better known creators saying things like 'don't adapt the art form for an overseas audience' shows their opinion seems to align with that).

Ugh. Yes. This. While I can jive with the desire to keep it as close to the original content, the general sense of contempt is absolutely palpable.

GATE, for example... From what I've heard, the original web novel for GATE: The Day The JSDF Fought Back was utterly horrific in how much jingoism was present. I even heard that the author was so toxic that he even managed to squick some of the "Hirohito Did Nothing Wrong" types on 2-chan. As it progressed from WN to LN, and LN to manga, and from manga to anime, they progressively filtered out the jingoism with each adaptation. But it's still there in the final product, and they didn't pull any punches at all with the adaptation from Japan to the Anglosphere.

AI doing automated translation unsupervised is not the answer, and we'll see how long it takes them to figure that out. Their allowing Korean publishers to take the lead in a lot of the recent crackdowns also shows their contempt, and would suggest that they're not going to throw huge resources at any but the very top tier of properties.

Yep. Like I said, corporations don't really care and they'll cut corners in every which way. Granted, this is mostly on the licensee's side. But really, I wish that more of these publishers in Japan were just as stern as Studio Ghibli is in matters like these.

Hopefully they'll start to realize that who they allow to buy licenses for their properties speaks much about their company in general, and will start to change their tune. That, or more aspiring mangakas realize that corporations tend to screw them over, and use self-publishing platforms instead.

EDIT: Whoops, I hit that reply button too quickly! Sorry.

I do essentially agree with the 'don't scanlate for profit' thesis. There may be a few instances where trying to get hands on an obscure older work ends up running up against a financial barrier, in which case asking for a donor to step in and help get through that is the only way to get the source material, but that's a very limited exception to this, and I would think that would be better done as a limited appeal to the existing audience for the team rather than a wide-ranging 'gib monee plz' approach.

Very much this. Getting ahold of raws is the only area where I would fully condone requests for money. And even then they could just ask that someone kindly provide the raws so they don't have to ask for money. I won't argue - life is tough when you're broke!

Thanks for taking the time to collect your thoughts on this and present them in an organized fashion!

And thank you kindly for taking the time to write up this response. It helps keep the thread visible for more people to take notice of it.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

Maybe you want to make some research about that point to include it later

This would be an interesting topic, but it's probably better left for another article. That said, I'll look a bit more into it. Knowing more about how things work on the Japanese side will probably be helpful in understanding what gets published, what doesn't, and (most importantly to us) what's just marketing for the LN and what gets axed.

but returning to the main point it's all about money, so scanlation should always be free of profit. Scanlation/fansubbing is a hobby, you need to afford it, those who want to help by simply providing material have their own name: raw providers. The only thing a normal person can't do is hosting an entire website with all services, and honestly copyright holders don't care how it is funded, just the fact it exists.

True this. But I think that, ironically, those of us that actually treat this as a hobby will be relatively as long as there are fools that paint targets on their backs by trying to profit off of scanslation. After all, the publishers will always prioritize going after the profiteers first and foremost.

Thanks for responding!