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Jun. 14th, 2010 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opusculus...Something that the current manga pirating issues brought to mind, that I'm really not sure how I feel about.
In a certain sense, companies that import anime and manga legitimately are parasitic on fansubbers and fan translators, because they're profiting on a market that was in large parts created by fansubbers and fan translators being willing to do the work they're trying to profit on, for free. I don't think anime and manga would have ever become half as popular as it is today if not for the fact that translating and bringing over stuff in another language for free falls into somewhat of a loophole where it's probably technically illegal, but no one gives a shit about prosecuting because no one's making a profit anyway. Except let that run long enough, and suddenly there's a profitable market that can be (theoretically, at least) sued into being properly compliant customers.
To be honest, in general, I dislike the extremes of both sides of the great pirating debate in general. No, I want content creators to be paid so that they are willing to keep creating content, and I find the whole argument that you're somehow entitled to all content ever for free morally repugnant. If you never pay for anything, you're essentially parasitic. On the other hand, no, the translation companies don't deserve to have fandom unhesitatingly hand over money to them. I...frankly find the practice of watching to see what manga are doing well in the scanslations, then licensing it and sending out C&Ds to the scanslators they were using as testing ground to be somewhat morally repugnant. Practical, mind you! But I'm not really seeing any moral high ground there.
But part of my problem with saying "oh, pirating manga is wrong" is...well, what have the companies bringing it over officially brought to the table? Crappy translations bound in cheap-ass paperbacks that fall apart after one read at $10 apiece? (Okay, so none of mine bought after Ranma 1/2 have fallen apart like that. That doesn't make me any less grumpy about wasting my money on those. ...Yes, this was over a decade ago so I really don't hold that much of a grudge.) Oh, and Tokyopop tries to screw their authors! How charming.
Plus, of course, taking away the translations removes the ability of all the English speaking people who don't happen to be in an area where the official translation is being sold to buy. I do think this is an argument frequently appropriated by people who just want to pirate their manga in peace, but I also think that it's important to remember that the US =/ the world.
If a company wants me to give them money? They need to make it worthwhile. Don't be years behind the scanslations, at very least. I mean, I sympathize with the problems inherent of trying to catch up, but ultimately I just don't care. That's not the customer's problem, dudes. Seriously, I would've bought so much more manga over the years if, when companies licensed it, they'd actually gotten to new material before I'd completely forgotten about the series.
Manga companies need to freaking improvise already. Make it available digitally, make it cheaper (sorry dudes, still not paying $10 for a manga that I finish in approximately 45 minutes. I'll buy a token volume or two if I really enjoy the series or think they have a lot of reread value, but I won't buy the entire series. I do not, for example, think Bleach is worth over $300. Seriously, who does?), and just...make it worth paying for. Make new content available that the translators don't. Translate the author's notes. Make the translation good. Make high quality scans available. Do something, because honestly, at the moment, I just don't see much reason to buy more than the occasional token manga, and...considering I'm deliberately trying to move a lot of my reading onto my iPad rather than clutter up my place with more books, I think my buying is going to drop below even the occasional token volume if they don't start selling digitally.
Honestly, and this is something I'm not particularly thrilled with myself, if I'm not interested enough to pirate, I'm not interested enough to buy. And I don't mean in terms of individual series (though there's some of that too). I mean the only time I buy music, anime, or manga is when I'm actively pirating stuff in that general genre, because otherwise...well, I have other hobbies, and those are probably what I'm doing in my spare time. Free stuff is generally the impetus to make my attention shift back, and so I assume, in general, that companies don't mind me pirating some stuff. I could be wrong! Companies could be happier with never getting any money from me than getting some money from me and me pirating the rest. I suppose.
I support giving money to the original content creators, and the official translators are the only practical way to do it. But I don't have any inherent loyalty to the companies bringing my favorite series over just because they're bringing it over. I'll give them a chance, but...I don't support them if they're incompetent and piss me off repeatedly, even if it means I can't finish one of my favorite series. (If you want to see me rant, get me started on MangaGamer bringing over Higurashi! That is one company I will probably never buy from again, barring possibly the second half of Higurashi if they lower the price enough so that I don't feel too screwed before it gets successfully pirated, and actively recommend against buying from in general.) I've never quite refused to buy from a manga company forevermore, though I've skated around the edges. But I do absolutely demand, as a customer, that companies give me something worth paying for. Anime's done better at that historically than manga for me, but manga's what I'm more interested in, so I generally end up buying not that much of either.
There's an underlying attitude in a lot of the more anti-pirating people that somehow the companies deserve your money that I'm really not fond of. They don't, always. There's plenty of series that I've pirated that I'd never pay money for. There's plenty of series that I deliberately pirated or bought used because the authors had offended me enough that I refuse to ever give them money. There's plenty of series I gave up on reading entirely because I was just that offended. I sympathize with that attitude, a little, because it strikes me as much about wanting to make sure the companies they like survive and keep bringing over the series they like as it is about establishing a position of moral superiority.
I don't know, really. Part of me wants to support the companies bringing over anime and manga, and I make a token effort to, but it's very much a token effort because in the end, they very rarely add any actual value to my experience of the series. Honestly, I would be so much happier if fandom worked to provide the translation alone, and you could just like, import the original DVD and patch it with the translation and avoid these problems all together.
In a certain sense, companies that import anime and manga legitimately are parasitic on fansubbers and fan translators, because they're profiting on a market that was in large parts created by fansubbers and fan translators being willing to do the work they're trying to profit on, for free. I don't think anime and manga would have ever become half as popular as it is today if not for the fact that translating and bringing over stuff in another language for free falls into somewhat of a loophole where it's probably technically illegal, but no one gives a shit about prosecuting because no one's making a profit anyway. Except let that run long enough, and suddenly there's a profitable market that can be (theoretically, at least) sued into being properly compliant customers.
To be honest, in general, I dislike the extremes of both sides of the great pirating debate in general. No, I want content creators to be paid so that they are willing to keep creating content, and I find the whole argument that you're somehow entitled to all content ever for free morally repugnant. If you never pay for anything, you're essentially parasitic. On the other hand, no, the translation companies don't deserve to have fandom unhesitatingly hand over money to them. I...frankly find the practice of watching to see what manga are doing well in the scanslations, then licensing it and sending out C&Ds to the scanslators they were using as testing ground to be somewhat morally repugnant. Practical, mind you! But I'm not really seeing any moral high ground there.
But part of my problem with saying "oh, pirating manga is wrong" is...well, what have the companies bringing it over officially brought to the table? Crappy translations bound in cheap-ass paperbacks that fall apart after one read at $10 apiece? (Okay, so none of mine bought after Ranma 1/2 have fallen apart like that. That doesn't make me any less grumpy about wasting my money on those. ...Yes, this was over a decade ago so I really don't hold that much of a grudge.) Oh, and Tokyopop tries to screw their authors! How charming.
Plus, of course, taking away the translations removes the ability of all the English speaking people who don't happen to be in an area where the official translation is being sold to buy. I do think this is an argument frequently appropriated by people who just want to pirate their manga in peace, but I also think that it's important to remember that the US =/ the world.
If a company wants me to give them money? They need to make it worthwhile. Don't be years behind the scanslations, at very least. I mean, I sympathize with the problems inherent of trying to catch up, but ultimately I just don't care. That's not the customer's problem, dudes. Seriously, I would've bought so much more manga over the years if, when companies licensed it, they'd actually gotten to new material before I'd completely forgotten about the series.
Manga companies need to freaking improvise already. Make it available digitally, make it cheaper (sorry dudes, still not paying $10 for a manga that I finish in approximately 45 minutes. I'll buy a token volume or two if I really enjoy the series or think they have a lot of reread value, but I won't buy the entire series. I do not, for example, think Bleach is worth over $300. Seriously, who does?), and just...make it worth paying for. Make new content available that the translators don't. Translate the author's notes. Make the translation good. Make high quality scans available. Do something, because honestly, at the moment, I just don't see much reason to buy more than the occasional token manga, and...considering I'm deliberately trying to move a lot of my reading onto my iPad rather than clutter up my place with more books, I think my buying is going to drop below even the occasional token volume if they don't start selling digitally.
Honestly, and this is something I'm not particularly thrilled with myself, if I'm not interested enough to pirate, I'm not interested enough to buy. And I don't mean in terms of individual series (though there's some of that too). I mean the only time I buy music, anime, or manga is when I'm actively pirating stuff in that general genre, because otherwise...well, I have other hobbies, and those are probably what I'm doing in my spare time. Free stuff is generally the impetus to make my attention shift back, and so I assume, in general, that companies don't mind me pirating some stuff. I could be wrong! Companies could be happier with never getting any money from me than getting some money from me and me pirating the rest. I suppose.
I support giving money to the original content creators, and the official translators are the only practical way to do it. But I don't have any inherent loyalty to the companies bringing my favorite series over just because they're bringing it over. I'll give them a chance, but...I don't support them if they're incompetent and piss me off repeatedly, even if it means I can't finish one of my favorite series. (If you want to see me rant, get me started on MangaGamer bringing over Higurashi! That is one company I will probably never buy from again, barring possibly the second half of Higurashi if they lower the price enough so that I don't feel too screwed before it gets successfully pirated, and actively recommend against buying from in general.) I've never quite refused to buy from a manga company forevermore, though I've skated around the edges. But I do absolutely demand, as a customer, that companies give me something worth paying for. Anime's done better at that historically than manga for me, but manga's what I'm more interested in, so I generally end up buying not that much of either.
There's an underlying attitude in a lot of the more anti-pirating people that somehow the companies deserve your money that I'm really not fond of. They don't, always. There's plenty of series that I've pirated that I'd never pay money for. There's plenty of series that I deliberately pirated or bought used because the authors had offended me enough that I refuse to ever give them money. There's plenty of series I gave up on reading entirely because I was just that offended. I sympathize with that attitude, a little, because it strikes me as much about wanting to make sure the companies they like survive and keep bringing over the series they like as it is about establishing a position of moral superiority.
I don't know, really. Part of me wants to support the companies bringing over anime and manga, and I make a token effort to, but it's very much a token effort because in the end, they very rarely add any actual value to my experience of the series. Honestly, I would be so much happier if fandom worked to provide the translation alone, and you could just like, import the original DVD and patch it with the translation and avoid these problems all together.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 02:44 am (UTC)I do think that a subscription model would give them a steadier cash flow, which can be as important as actual income if they're skating on the edge.