respecting the rules scanlation groups make

[piranha]

backdated by a week to avoid having this pop up on my entire flist, since they don't care. :)

copied and slightly edited from a comment in free_manga which i then deleted since i didn't want to inadvertantly set off a flamewar. but i stand behind this 100%, and am reproducing it so i can link to it.

the issue is whether free_manga mods should delete posts when requested to do so by a scanlation group that forbids distributing its releases except for their own channels. the mods seemed amenable to that. this is what i said:

it's of course up to you, i am not gonna argue that. i only know that if this comm starts requiring we all check long lists, it'll stop being fun and become a chore, and people won't quickly upload something for a request anymore because they first have to check, and where was that damn list again, and they don't want to make the effort. that happens to me on aarin frequently enough. i guess we'll see how it goes; i might just be worrying too soon about the slippery slope.

we have to follow their rules or else some of these groups may stop scanlating.

ok, so this one i will argue. :) that sort of threat has ticked me off for a while now, and i refuse to be held hostage this way, so i am gonna rant a bit about it here (please don't take it personally). really, honestly, if that's somebody's attitude, somebody who is doing something completely illegal themselves (in which we all are complicit), then let them. it is entirely their choice as to whether they want to insist on their odd rules to that extent. that threat is nonsensical and obnoxious -- what, some random people broke their rules, and their response is to punish everyone who respected their rules? because we all know that somebody always breaks them; i see IRC-only-or-we-hunt-you-down groups' stuff out on the web 2 hours after the IRC release. always, always, always. it's an entirely empty threat; shouted loudly at the choir who then dutifully flutters about and prostrates itself. don't any of those people ever study economics? it's a standard black market scenario; it's unavoidable.

i am grateful for scanlations, and will happily give credit, praise, shoutouts, write reviews, send donations, join forums to write thank-you comments, buy manga to scan, heck; i'll send cookies. but i'm tired of jumping through super-special distribution hoops. scanlation groups disband for all sorts of reasons; somebody else will pick up where the last one let off. if somebody doesn't want to share their work with the world, keep it off general internet distribution channels from the start; show it only to your closest friends. once you share it with random people on IRC whom you don't even know personally, the cat is out of the bag for good. i think we should all stop even giving lip service to respecting those sorts of rules; they are futile, and all the yaddaing about them in a thousand places only stirs hot air.

ah, there. i've wanted to say since eop had a major meltdown on their website and fushichou's yahoo group got another lecture about respecting their rules, but i bit my tongue then. it had to come out; sorry. :) and now i get back to my japanese studies so i can scanlate my own. if i ever make up dumb rules, somebody please throw this post at me, tied to a heavy brick. [end of original comment]

and here's the follow-up comment i made since somebody did see the original before i deleted it:

i actually put a lot of thought into this because i like to ponder ethical dilemmas, and i want to be a person who behaves reasonably well ethically. i used to (actually still do, despite my ranting) honour scanlation groups' requests, no questions asked. but what changed my mind is that none of them ever ask for permission to scanlate in the first place (because they damn well know they wouldn't get it). and it feels weird to me to violate the will of mangaka who actually create the original work, while honouring the will of people who, after all, create merely a derivative work. that feels ... off. if i wanted to be strictly ethical about this, i'd have to stop reading scanlations. which isn't going to happen because i really like to share and share alike, to expose more people to cool stuff, because that's how i've found so much amazing stuff in my life. i know not everyone will buy afterwards, i know in fact that only a minority will buy, which is sad. but that's still more than would buy otherwise.

and that's primarily what i care about. create more opportunities for people to see cool stuff so they'll buy some of it, which in turn creates more of a means for mangaka to make a living of creating more cool stuff. scanlation groups play an important part in that sharing, but never a more important part than the mangaka themselves.

Comments

[daluci.livejournal.com]

My issue with your logic against the "scanlators might stop" argument is that some do. It's... very similar to iconist logic. Credit or I'll stop making them. And... while you're convinced that they won't, quite a few people don't want to take that stance, just in case they might.

Personally, I think requesting that people don't post things scanlated by groups that have specifically said "don't post here" is legitimate. It's rather unfair to say that just because it would take too much effort on the user's part that you won't listen to their rules.. And yeah, some hoops are... a little ridiculous. I've been to places that require you to read a whole page of jargon just to find the one secret word.

I think the argument that you shouldn't follow the scanlator's requests just because you're violating the mangaka's is a little... flawed, but that's me. (: I try to follow rules -- when I can find them -- and... well, I share music and videos and manga and all sorts of things, so I tend to group those rules somewhere else to keep my Jiminy Cricket quiet.

Sorry for the ramble~~

(I just noticed that the post on the comm got 37 comments, and had to jump in and see what on earth I was missing.)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

of course it's "legitimate" for free_manga to ask that scanlators' rules be followed; the comm is run by the mods and what the mods say goes; it's a dictatorship, not a democracy. scanlators can also make whatever rules they want -- but others can view those rules as stupid, and can refuse to follow them. this is what happens when there is no binding contract of any kind and no enforcement mechanism; behaviour will settle what ends up being "common law", not rules. most people will go the way of least resistance, sort of like you do -- follow some rules, totally ignore some others, however it's convenient.

i don't like rules that strike me as rules for rules' sake, and i regularly break them, even when they're made by governments who actually have some power to enforce them (i jaywalk with impunity, as a small but common example). when i follow rules, i like them to make sense. when i break them, i like to know why. bending them just whenever it's convenient feels too lackadaisical to me, ethically (for myself -- i don't really care a whole lot what other people do unless they're messing with me directly). i like to think such things through. i haven't distributed a single manga yet against its scanlator's wishes -- but when i do i won't do so secretly, all the while pretending i am ok with the dumb rules. i like to see such rules abolished, and one needs to flout them publically to get to that point.

i think what affects my attitude in addition is that i've volunteered my entire life, so i am not at all unfamiliar with putting out effort for nothing but thanks (if that) in return, and i feel making people jump through hoops is something of an insult to volunteers everywhere. this wasn't immediately clear to me, but after talking about this with a number of people, it's crystallizing as one of the major motivations i have. so, thanks for contributing to that. :) and don't apologize for rambling!

as to the threat -- i ain't seen it happen yet, which is why i call it empty. but even if it happens, i'll just shrug and wait for another 3 groups to spring up in its place (some started by members of the old one who didn't agree with the management). scanlation groups are not exactly an endangered species, and IME the best ones tend not to have dumb rules. funny how that works; they spend their time scanlating instead of fighting. i worry much more about good mangaka stopping because they can't make a living from drawing manga.

[daluci.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I thought a point in one of your posts was to request that free_manga not go down the route it seems to be headed on. Then again, I read all of the comments there and then hopped over here, so they probably blurred together.

Mm, when I volunteer, it's generally things that.. don't get credit anyway. (: Cleaning, helping with kids, etc. So... I don't speak from any of my own experience on the credit-stuff.

I don't... watch many scanlator groups. I have seen one disband because of crediting issues, but I cannot for the life of me recall who they were or what they scanned... ::sweatdrops:: Not a good point for my team, eh? And... yeah. That's how I've found it works overall. People who expect people to jump their rules always have people jump their rules, and it shows in their work ethic and commitment, too.

(Sorry for any late-night logic that might have crept in~~ I'm just about to go to bed.)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no, i wasn't requesting free_manga not go down that road, but i can see why you might have read it that way -- i was just warning them what might happen if they do, and i was saying that i wouldn't bow down to that threat. i like free_manga, and don't want it to change, and i figure it was a good time to voice that concern.

though while a comm isn't ever really a democracy, i think it's ok for people to disagree with mod decisions and ask that they reconsider. since a comm is made up of its members, keeping them happy is something mods need to keep in mind. i think the occasional thread where one can get an informal idea of how the comm members feel about something is a good idea.

i just don't like seeing impediments to sharing. the harder one makes it for people to share things, the less likely they are to do so. aarinfantasy makes up for having to check a list by using a point system and making it extremely easy to thank somebody for their contributions (one click is all it takes; i love it), and while the points are completely artificial currency, that sort of thing motivates a lot of people, *heh*. free_manga doesn't have anything like an extra incentive and is therefore in more danger. (though i don't think it's a huge danger either; the worst that will happen is that some manga won't get shared anymore, some people who can't be bothered will leave, and a splinter comm will appear that doesn't adhere to those rules and shares all manga -- that's a little annoying because splitting comms is wasted effort, but eh, no big deal in the end.)

crediting issues are a different problem, and i am completely on the side of the scanlators about it. if they credit the mangaka (at least all but a few bozos do), they should get credit for their work. i would come down hard on people who rip off a translation and pass it off as their own. that has happened more than once, and there are even people who sell other's scanlations to unsuspecting fans.

but limiting distribution doesn't stop that at all, so it's not a proper response. really, there is no proper response, because the act of scanlating is illegal to start with, and there's no way to enforce any punishment for rips. thieves have no honour, so making more and more rules simply doesn't affect them at all. one basically has to make one's peace with getting occasionally ripped off. in fact i think widely sharing one's scanlations exposes a lot more people to the scanlators' work, which makes them better known, and allows more people to notice if somebody is suddenly ripping off their work.

i think most distribution rules are just made to create little fiefdoms. i sorta understand (people would like to be praised for their work), but it annoys me because it's so artificial, and dull. sure, i'll join another badly designed forum with loud colour choices and make the requisite 15 posts before i can download, and i even make an effort to make real posts. but those forums are always deadly boring because most people don't care, and just make one-liner posts one-liners to quickly get the requirement fulfilled. and after the initial 15 posts, and a thanks when i download, i am never moved to say anything else because i have better things to do. one can't create real community that way.

oi. speaking of rambling... and before breakfast at that. :)

[daluci.livejournal.com]

Definitely understand the voicing-your-concerns point, and I'm glad free_manga is open enough that people will do that. (:

Splinter comms are never fun, speaking from experience. It sucks the life away from both, and often more time is spent bashing/complaining about the first one than actually accomplishing anything.

Augh, post requirements. Such hate, I have for those.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my comments, nn? I know far too many who will leave off as soon as the discussion finally gets somewhere. [And yes, this is a random thank you. I'm a random chick. (: ]

[vialia.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't have deleted your post from free_manga. What you've stated in it is written honestly, with no flames, curses, etc. This form shouldn't cause wars or something like that. Truth always should be accepted and not flamed.

Scanlation groups who threat to disband for distributing their mangas- I agree with you about this (as mostly with everything else). My first thought seeing this such threat is, someone else will pick up their unfinished projects, someone who will allow to share scanlations freely.

That being said, I'm thankfull to the scanlators, because without them I wouldn't even be planning to buy the mangas. I share mangas extremely rarely (due to lack of time) and I do respect their rules (about crediting, not removing the inserted group's pages, etc), but this request to not to share their works... It's too cruel. Plus, I never heard that some scanlation group was hunted down my some publishing company due to their scanlation of the licensed manga circulating in the internet. :/

In my eyes, scanlation groups are created to share the manga, to spread the yaoi/etc love. And no one will spread it beter that the readers themselves, because the more popular the story is, the more shared it will be.

Being a member of a scanlation team myself, I'm very proud and happy that our team allows sharing scanlations. :) I hope it won't change.

Side note. Sometimes it ticks me off when reading a scanlation mangakas name is nowhere to be seen. The group writes beautiful credit pages for their own work, include the recruitment page, yet somehow forget to mention who wrote the story. That is almost beyond my understanding. I understand that somewhere on their scanlation sites the name of the mangaka is written next to the title and the picture teaser, but they shouldn't forget to put it in the zip file, too. :/

And good luck on learning Japanese! :)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, i didn't think it was flamey, but since i was raised on usenet i tend to be much more careful on LJ, because strong wording isn't always welcome and i tend to be a bit too ... forceful.

i always follow the rules about credit and inserts because they seem fair and equitable to me -- of course scanlators should get credit for their hard work, and if they want to include 5 extra brightly coloured inserts promoting themselves, heck, fine by me (i only fix messed up numbering and wrong pages).

i've also so far not distributed any licensed manga, though i don't know what i'll do there in the future. it seems so north-america-centric to me -- there are people who live in countries where they cannot buy the manga at all, or only buy it severely censored, and to cut them off from scanlations just because people in the US can soon buy the manga at amazon seems unfair. i understand why scanlation teams stop; the legal threat gets a whole lot more serious, and i don't fault them for that. and not wanting to cut into the mangaka's income is also a valid concern. but i love to read licensed manga before buying it, so i am facing something of a double standard there. not sure how to resolve it yet.

oh ghods, i hate it when the mangaka's name is left out, or mispelled (not within normal romanization differences, but just plain mispelled). or the ones who replace the atogaki with their own ramblings. or stamp huge watermarks of their group name over the art (some chinese scanners do this too -- *arrgh*; like chinese prints aren't already crappy enough). it's like, don't they pay any attention to who really matters? *little grump*. i love the groups who go so far as to give me the ISBN for the manga in question, and who translate the atogaki (it's ok if they don't; not everyone can, but i love it when they do), or who tell me little details that can only be found on the mangaka's blog. i always want to do something special for those scanlators.

i'm thinking of joining a team myself, and their distribution policy will definitely be one of the issues. you're with afascinante, right (i just read itaike na bokura which is why your name rang a bell)? their policies seem totally sensible to me.

i love japanese! and i am learning it rather quickly, despite the innate difficulties, thanks to smutty manga and BL drama -- though what i am learning best isn't quite what i would need if i were to visit japan, *chortle*.

[vialia.livejournal.com]

Sweet talking should be banned when there's an issue that need to be cleared. People should voice their opinion freely. I welcome strong wording as long as it is based on something (and not just for the sake of "fun").

Mhm, I agree about the credit and inserts of the groups, too.

Heh, I live in a tiny little country in Europe, where are no mangas available at this moment. By the end of this year there will be only a couple of action/adventure manga available in English (which do not interest me).
People would laugh at me or take me for weird/etc, if they'd know I'm planning to spend more than 100$ for manga (including most of my family), and 90% of them would be horrified to know I'm interested in shounen-ai/yaoi.
*sigh* in short, scanlations are my only chance to know about the interesting mangas out there. It's like a free advertisement, the only one which is always welcomed. :)

Mhm, huge watermarks do bother me, too. Often they are too big and bright, which lead our attention being driven away from the storyline... I'm OK with the marks Love&Voice team leaves on each pic- it's quite small and is left in relatively insignificant places. ♥

Yes, the policy of the scanlation group is very important. It's also important if your tastes in yaoi/shounen-ai match or differ greatly, because depending on that you might be lazy to work on one project or really enjoy the other one...
Whenever I have more free time I end up puzzling if I should join a second group, but always decide against it simply because I'm not sure if the second group would be just as good or better as the one I'm in right now. Yup, I'm a member of afascinante and correct, I'm one of the cleaners for Itaike na Bokura. :)

So nice to hear you're learning Japanese quite easily. ^_^ Knowing that people learn it (and enjoy it) gives me more hope and determination to learn it, too. ^^ I plan to give it a try and grasp the tiny basics independently (thanks to the internet resources).
And it's good that you're learning not what's needed for tourism in Japan. ;p To be able to translate yaoi manga is much more important! ^_^

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

mmh, maruya kae icon. love maruya kae's art, so so so pretty.

ah, since you live in that environment, you understand why i am of two minds about licensed manga. that's exactly the sort of problem i'm thinking about.

yeah, aside from policies i do look at what sort of yaoi a group scanlates -- while i am not gonna turn down a plea for working on some explicit PWP shota in a pinch, i'd not enjoy that, and much, much rather work on serious stories involving actual men, for example.

and there is other stuff that i haven't made up my mind about -- such as whether or not i like replacing sound fx. i mean, i don't like it when it's clearly part of the art (as opposed to the many shlorpy sounds in sex scenes), i know that, but would i do it if the group decided to? that sort of thing.

then i was talking with a one-person scanlator who ended up leaving a couple of groups and working on her own because she has very strong ideas of how she wants to do things, and it just works better for her to do it all on her own. that makes me wonder too, since i am opinionated. but i'll probably have to be in a group or two to be able to tell. and i would really like to be in a group where the translators communicate with each other, because i do eventually want to translate, not just edit (though i love playing with photoshop).

i have two editing tests sitting here, i should just get to it instead of dithering. but i am sorta more inclined to work with a younger, smaller group than with an older, larger one like these two, yet i might learn more with the latter, so ... yeah, i'll dither some more. *snrk*.

i have a bit of a talent for languages (i speak several fluently), but i really think that some aspects of japanese are quite easy (pronunciation and verb conjugation, for example). i've only been learning it for a few months, and i understand the smex scenes in dramas quite well, and can occasionally read an entire bubble of text without having to look up anything if i get lucky and they use one of the 50 kanji i know :). other aspects might take a lifetime (the precise respect level and choice of words for specific social situations). but since i'll never live in japan that is of lesser importance; i just want to be able to read manga and novels in the original, and reading is easier than speaking. i'm mostly using internet resources; there is so much good stuff, and it allows me to structure my own learning to adapt to the materials i am reading. i am having a huge amount of fun, more than with any other language i've learned. i should have come upon the idea to learn from smut sooner!

To be able to translate yaoi manga is much more important!

i see we have the same priorities! :)

[whey.livejournal.com]

Yes -- to everything you've said. Except I've already jumped to the dark side over the moral dilemma of whether to share licensed manga. (And I believe this was directly influenced by my experiences with the uber-hypocrisy of some scanlation groups.)

After I finish having animediva's virtual babies, I'd like to have a couple of yours.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

really, i ought to offer to have YOUR v-babies, since you started me thinking about this in earnest. well, you indirectly -- the eop meltdown did; that was just too ridiculous for words. their behaviour directly affected a sea change in my own, and 180 degree from the way they'd want *snrk*.

thanks much for your lovely links, btw. you are so damn organised, it spurs me on to become so myself. :)

(is it just me, or are LJ's email notifications lagging terribly?)

[carsmash.livejournal.com]

Ooh, just spotted this, and I sincerely think you shouldn't have worried at all about sparking of a flamewar. It's a legitimate discussion point.

Anyway, I'm just a mere member mod over at f_m so I don't deal with meaty stuff. Frankly I think scanlation groups should provide easy access to their projects. If others decide to reupload their scanlations so that they can actually SHARE it with people who can't use that asjkhfghkksjhfg godforsaken device called IRC or the group only provides links on websites that most people outside those megacountries like the US cannot acces (such as MU), well, isn't that the point of scanlating? To share manga instead of to lord over it ("HOHOHO, THIS IS OUR SCANLATION SO WE HAVE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS OVER IT AND GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL IF YOU GO AGAINST US *disbands*")

With proper credit, I don't see the problem at all. People preach about "respecting the wishes of the scanlation group", but I'm not at all inclined to abide by a set of wonky rules I find irrational and... tyrannical, since I can't/won't find a milder word.

I hope you're not ticked off at the mods in charge of this matter over at f_m because I think they have a lot on their plates - what with being pressured by scanlation groups and their lofty ideals of distribution and posession and the members, who participate in the community because it is/used to be all about sharing new manga. Seriously, though, it is the internet, and the scanlation grops trying to police something they themselves have no legal grip over is just mind-boggling in so many ways.

I'm in a couple of scanlation groups myself, most of which have no qualms about others redistributing our scanlations, so I always get antsy when other groups start chewing the arses of re-distributors out. There is a world outside IRC. Making downloads IRC-exclusive is almost... begging for redistribution of their work. If they go "Okay, no redistribution outside our group, but here are shiny accessible links - direct links/multiple links.", that'd be fine with me. That is to say (I am long-winded, lack organisation skills), the main thing I'm harping on is ACCESSIBILITY.

I read through some of the comments on the other post and I do think that the support some of our current members are showing for the current "free-for-all" system f_m has in place is pretty heartening. I'd like for it to continue, honestly, but then, I'm not in charge of this matter and I certainly won't be forced to deal with the wrath of the many scanlation groups (i was initially surprised at how tense and brutal the "scanlation world" can be when i first got involved in it. it's a pretty dirty business XD). I think the very heart of f_m lies in the ability to share and request freely and to take the very core of the community away would sort of burnish the shine of the experience. I think that's why, even though I'm oer at aarinfantasy, I still stick so closely to this comm. Because it's not as strict as af, and there is a sort of dazzling advantage in that. I've lost count of the number of gems I've foun over in f_m which I never would have found over on aarinfantasy due to their strict rules on licensed mangas and their steadfast submission to scanlation group policies (which is not a bad thing, really. just... leaves me out of the loop about some of the more brilliant manga i'd never purchase the japanese originals for if I didn't get a good look at the story line and art. i'm picky and only buy japanese raws, mostly because I find myself frequently disappointed with the translation and editing work in US-licensed manga, for manga I find truly interesting. the rest are routine "scan through and delete")

I wish I could come up with suggestions that would more or less please both parties (scanlation groups & members), but... can't XD But that's how life works most of the time, eh. >.>

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh no, i am not at all ticked at the f_m mods -- nobody has to take up a particular battle just because i decided to. i'm not even a little peeved at them -- i understand the bad position they're in. but like you i was really happy with free_manga being truly free, and i am worried that caving in to one group will just open the floodgates to others until in the end f_m is just like aarin. and really, we don't need another "just like aarin" cause aarin does what it does very well, within its constraints.

but if that happens, i think i'll create a new comm myself if nobody else does, and engage in this particular battle. i'm not eager to fight anyone, but i rank showing the shiny to the world so they buy the mangaka's work higher than territorial pissing matches.

i do feel that keeping direct links restricted to a group as some special incentive for group participation is fine -- those chew up bandwidth in no time if they're made public, and i'd never do that to somebody. but aarin shows how much more effective it is to otherwise leave distribution to other interested people -- it's really rare that i can't get a working link off aarin on some file storage site; somebody will always re-up, and it actually takes a lot of work off the scanlation groups to not have to maintain lots of working links. if i ask on aarin for a re-up i get it within hours. in comparison i've now waited for a link from obsession for 3 weeks. (and obsession isn't even all that bad.) i know, the world does not end if one has to wait for a manga chapter, but inefficiency is so not elegant! *heh*. (i have a small fetish for elegant solutions.)

like you f_m has exposed me to some amazing stuff i would otherwise never have seen (i am simply not going to buy manga sight unseen, and especially not english ones because i don't trust them, and at their price point i can't afford to buy what might turn out to be crap). i don't want that resource to be lost. i occasionally buy english ones if the scanlation has stopped because the manga was licensed "too soon" (for my taste :). i get mildly annoyed at bad scanlations, but that's nothing compared to how i feel when i've paid $16 plus shipping for 200 pages of badly copyedited dreck that has lost all its japanese flavour. i could have bought 2 japanese manga with pretty covers and colour inserts instead, with all their original ambience intact.

if only i could absorb japanese faster by eating more pocky.