Monday, November 09, 2009

So says the "voice" of Mangafox.



http://forums.mangafox.com/announcement.php?f=301&a=33

Basically, the voice of MF says, "The hell with what the scanlators want. We do what we like."

1. Manga Fox will observe wait periods of up to 7 days.
2. MF will not host manga hosted solely by the group that scanlated it, but if any group uses an external host or affiliate, we will host their manga as well.
3. MF will continue its policy of providing manga free of charge,
4. MF will continue its policy of removing less-popular manga at scanlators' request when they are licensed so we don't hurt small publishers.
5. MF will continue its policy of never hot-linking images.
6. MF will continue its policy of never removing credit pages, and doing our best to assure scanlators are fully and properly credited.
7. MF will continue to remove manga at publishers' requirement.


The one important line I did not see is: "MF will continue to remove scanlations at the scanlator's requests."

For the record, he's saying that he will host scanlations at his discretion if it's on another host, and he won't remove them even if the scanlators personally demand it. If there is a waiting period, he will follow them at his own set target, and not follow the scanlators' requests.

Scanlation should not be about those things. It should be about bringing manga to fans.

I can tell you what scanlation ISN'T about. It's not about some control freak declaring what it is, that much I can say. Whatever scanlation is not to be about, is not decided by him alone.

Credit for your work and the thanks you naturally receive should be enough reward for the work.

Here's my credit and thanks for his hard work. PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!

Scanlation work is not endorsed by publishers, nor viewed indulgently. You only continue as you are by the grace of lack of prosecution.

Last time I checked, Mangafox hosted thousands of these unendorsed works. Exactly what point is this guy trying to prove?

There is no reason for scanlators to insist on being the sole hosts, save wanting to make money for their site, or for control and glory.
But if any group uses an external host or affiliate, we will host their manga as well.
Many groups try to claim they have noble intentions in demanding to be the sole hosts, but they don't. If it's not about money, it's about control and glory.


Mangafox always edit their picture to contain: "This image is hosted at mangafox.com." at the bottom. Mangafox also prohibits providing links to another Mangahoster such as Onemanga. Is this done for our own protection?

But that's their decision. Do you see me whining, "Why do put your website label at the bottom of the picture? It makes me unable to upload it on another site!" Or "I DEMAND TO BE ABLE TO POST ONEMANGA LINKS ON YOUR FORUMS!"

Whatever intentions the groups have, it's their intention. If you can't understand or respect their decisions, fine, just don't go around deriding it, and overruling your own reasons as more righteous than theirs. The nature of their reasons is for them to decide, not for you to judge.

If you can't comply with these scanlators' wishes of being the sole hoster or their wait period, maybe you should leave them well alone. I don't think they will complain about that.

SO WHAT IF THEIR REASON IS GLORY? Does it look like the rest of the world have a problem with that? Let me know when it does. If he doesn't think that the scanlators deserve any glory, then he can do it himself!

I admit it. I have my own agenda for wanting to be the sole-hoster. I want more attention to me, and I want more people to talk to. I'm an attention whore. Well, I guess this makes my reason invalid, and it makes me TeH eViL.

It makes me sick to see someone this obnoxious declaring that scanlation groups should only scanlate for the reasons he himself deems as valid. WHO MADE HIM KING OF SCANLATED MANGAS? Who is he to decide whether a scanlator has a valid reason or not for wanting to be the sole hoster?

It should be about bringing manga to fans.

And we can still do that, with or without Mangafox. I, for one, will still bring new chapters of Skip Beat to fans. With or without Mangafox.




Seriously, I like MF a lot. Or rather, I used to. I just think they hired the wrong staff for the wrong job. But maybe that's just me.

Of course, this is just entirely my opinion. Perhaps he really have the benefits of the readers in mind. (But somehow, I really doubt it.)

This is just my take on the matter. Perhaps his action would benefit readers more in the long run. Perhaps. What do you guys think? Is this ruling really for a good cause? Or is it done merely for a sake of convenience?

The truth is, I still believe in MF enough to say this. There has to be some kind of a mistake! It doesn't seem like MF at all to do something like this.

20 comments:

  1. Scanlating manga gives the scanlator's NO right to it. Just because you translate something, doesn't give you any proprietary ownership.

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  2. And it's actually ilegal. If anyone is making money off of their translations, it becomes a serious violation of copywite laws.

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  3. Well, I'm still fuzzy on the whole situation, but I would just like to say something.
    I understand that you enjoy mangafox, and so do a lot of us. But if there is a problem you would like to share, I'd be glad to hear it.
    It seems as though mangafox is being unfair, but if you think about it, the law is the law. Not every single speeder gets a speeding ticket, just keep that in mind. I think in this situation, yeah, Mangafox is being unfair. But I'm just fourteen (and a half) and I have to deal with the cruel reality of the world being unfair.
    If you are really not enjoying being on Mangafox, try onemanga or other major scanlation hosts. There are many to look at, so try not to talk about the cons of one website but just look for another.
    This is just my opinion, by the way. I don't mean to be un-constructively criticizing you in anyway. Sorry if I sound very annoying.
    Magicmelody2o2o (by the way, I love the video game translations)

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  4. The point here is that Mangafox will insist on hosting manga even if it goes against the wishes of the person scanlating it.

    But that's just me. If you guys don't think that this is a problem, then it probably isn't going to be a problem.

    For my case, if I do scanlations and decide to be the sole hoster, I will be the one to decide whether my reasons are valid or not.

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  5. Maybe I'm the only one overreacting to it. Possibly.

    But I've got a good reason to feel offended, considering if someone just tried to judge whether my reasons are valid or not.

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  6. I think there is a great deal of validity to your argument Mechgouki. While the copywright is not being observed to produce the scanlations, no one (should be) making money off of them. That makes it not as much of a problem for the artist.

    As far as the scanlators though... Since they can not claim that the intellectual property is theirs, there is no reason why Manga Fox CAN'T host as they receive the completed scanlations.

    The problem with that is that it will/could cause a stronger security of the scanlators' work. Think of Billwang and how tight and picky they are about their scans.

    Additionally, it can become a slanderous situation for the person doing the work like what happened to Mech (you) recently when someone else sumbitted a work that was never meant to be posted.

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  7. Good bringouts, but not my points at all.

    My point is that Seeliespright has no right to declare whether scanlators' reasons are valid or not. That is for each individual scanlator to decide.

    Furthermore, he appears to have a righteous cause, but he's merely using that as an excuse to how he can use scanlator's stuff without needing their consent.

    That's the way I see it. Apparently, I'm the only one who sees it as a potential problem.

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  8. It's irritating, but I guess nothing can be done about it. Even if he says he's taking the moral high ground as an excuse to do whatever he wants, what he says is true. So I don't really see how anyone could argue with him. I think his mind is made up anyway.

    I can see how it would make sense to say something like that some of the time. But I don't think it's one of those things that's black and white. There needs to be some room for exceptions, but I don't think they want to have to deal with it. I can see making a rule so everyone gets the same treatment. But it can create problems as well.

    I gave up trying to agree with whatever happens on mangafox. I used to keep going back for the forums, but their efforts to clean up the forums seems to have backfired. People who make unnecessary threads and post spam will continue to do so because they're too ignorant not to. And the fun people who would post interesting or funny posts don't post so much anymore. And when the mods do show up, they're trigger happy. Maybe they're justified, but still.

    Anyway, I went off on a tangent.

    Basically, I see their point kinda, but I see your point too. I guess if you want to post anything in "rough draft" form, you might want to stamp it as such. And add disclaimer pages, credits pages, etc as necessary.

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  9. Orrrr if you don't want your stuff posted at all, maybe put an advertisement for your site on every page. (Might be tedious, might look weird, but....) Then, if you can call your site a hosting site (maybe you could argue that it is since you're technically hosting scans), whoever posts it is breaking a rule too. So perhaps they'd have to remove it on the grounds of advertising. ;-)

    (I feel like that might not work, but I can't think of anything.) :-P

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  10. Actually Mech, I'm going to quote myself here:

    "As far as the scanlators though... Since they can not claim that the intellectual property is theirs, there is no reason why Manga Fox CAN'T host as they receive the completed scanlations."

    I guess I didn't explain my thought completely. This was/is to say that I agree with you that posting should be each individual scanlator's decision to allow, BUT there are no legal grounds for MF to NOT host it. Basically it's considered free material since no one but the author has any legal claim over it.

    Do I think the scanlator should have say if their work is put up? Definitely.

    Do I think Seeliespright is wrong to say what he did MORALLY? Definitely.

    Is there anything wrong with what he said legally? No.

    Overall, I think it's horrible because of the backlash it may cause.

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  11. Sigh..
    In my opinion is kind of mean?
    Cause like..
    If there's like this huge reason of why a scanlation can't stay up on mangafox and they aren't going to remove it...
    I think that it can cause a lot of inconvenience

    Like for example
    (is a bit on the extreme side but who knows)

    A scan group will get sued if they scans aren't removed from the internet

    Of course I don't think that mangafox people are that unreasonable but if something like that..
    Where the scan group would be getting into major trouble if their scans showed up on certain sites... then I think that the mods should listen to the scan groups and remove the chapters.


    As for a solution...

    Hmm...

    well

    Mechgouki-san

    You can always add a special watermark to each page and stuff!

    We'll help you make it if you want :3

    And in the last page you can write the whole

    "If this is hosted on any other site besides mine please remove it."

    Or something like that..

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  12. I think MF is probably just trying their best to deal with all the random demands. I disagree on some parts and agree with others.

    Main point: They will take it off if scanslators ask as long as its only on their own site.

    The 7 day wait period doesn't mean its free game after the 7 days. It's a good rule for places like Binktopia where their scans just get put everywhere (duh! they are doing One Piece and Naruto). If they wanted to try to keep it on their site alone for a while, then MF says we'll work for at least 7 days against all the idiots who ignore Binktopia's requests and upload it. By the end of a week, however, MF has done what it can but the manga is probably all over the internet so why should they bother trying.

    Now, let's say there is another site that does less popular ones such as Aendriea (can't spell it). It's easier to control and if Aendriea decides that they need people coming in to make enough money to support the site, then MF says, as long as you can keep it off most major sites, we'll do our best to keep your scans off. MF has done a good job complying with Aendriea (I know because I uploaded their scans once only to get it removed). They do a good control job.

    Sure, they are taking the managable route versus the moral high road but MF is huge. It's hard. You see very well on your own scans for SB that people ignore whatever your wishes are-- imagine MF's job of trying to get their wishes off.

    Any better solution I can think of is way too complicated.

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  13. (ftr, I uploaded not knowing the policy. Sometimes, you just miss things)

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  14. third comment: I would like to see a website where scanslators and scanslators alone can post their scans one day. The trick is getting it known enough that scanslators will bother uploading to them.
    MF succeds because it relies on ppl uploading what they like. it's smart and stupid as many great things with people.

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  15. “MF will continue its policy of removing less-popular manga at scanlators' request when they are licensed so we don't hurt small publishers.”

    I disagree with this completely, because hosting a manga on MF will increase its popularity. And if some one likes it enough, they’ll buy it. I very rarely buy manga that I haven’t read at least part of online. I have to make sure nothing irritates me. Nothing sucks more than buying a whole volume and then finding something you can’t stand. (For me it would be the guy being more experienced than the girl. Of course, haha…) Hadashi de Bara wo Fume is now licensed and the previous scanlator dropped it. Another group has picked it up and I will continue reading from them so that I don’t have to wait forever, but I like this manga so much I am willing to buy all of the volumes when they come out.

    Ugh… This is so stupid!!

    (But what do they mean by waiting period...? O_o)

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  16. I think waiting period is like...when the scanlation group first releases it, for a set amount of time (example: 24 hours) they want to make it exclusively available to dl from their site or irc channel. So in this example, 24 hours is the waiting period. I could be mistaken, but that's what I thought.

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  17. T_T I was writing a long long post...and then firefox crashed and it all disappeared.. Uguu...

    Either way, I agree with most of what you said, that person sort of seems like an idiot. Oh I was really interestred after reading the part where he claims himself to be a scanlator. Found one Tsubasa dj on Manga-Updates with his fugly nick on it and addition of two more (wow, what a boy..). In that part I also found his twitter (really silly). And livejournal. Okay, those scans aren't that bad and I actualy read those for Nabari. But only because there are not much of others D: They are not ugly (actually kinda good but I hate the special fonts he uses >_> he favors the unreadable. Plus the scans either suck or he overlevels it. Duh.) but nothing I would fall in love with.

    Waiting periods up till 7 days eh? Yeah, he forgot to note in little letters that this applies only to unpopular and unknown series. When it's more popular, they have sometimes even problems with 2-3 days. Geh. And I don't mean overpopular stuff like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece because..just because. Scanlators doing those couldn't even hope to have waiting period anyway thanks to oh retarded fans.

    "Furthermore, he appears to have a righteous cause, but he's merely using that as an excuse to how he can use scanlator's stuff without needing their consent."
    Yeah..exactly. And either way, he said they are running a business so they are earning money from it and basically makes whole his valid reasons post pretty much invalid.


    Kilimonian, dear.. Aerandria Scans isn't that hard to spell XD. Okay it is, but I lovem their releases enough to remember it. <3

    Oh and I would really love if it was only scanlators who could upload to the hosting site. That way they could decide if they want to use the site or not and everyone will be happy. If the fans would like the scanlation there, they could just go to the scanlation group to ask XD.

    Either way, I sort of liked mangafox but I lately read there only One Piece and first chapters of new series and then if I like it I will just track the groups.

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  18. Oh and! I only found your blog recently (looking for the game pictures haha...) and the walkthrough ish so awesome <33 I really wish I could play the game.. Anyway. afer I read through your whole blog, gonna keep eye on you :3 ..and well. I could help out with some editing for the chapters if you would like. Just some quick one to level it up nicely and typeset so it could still be released fast. (The Bilwang watermarks are terrific tho D:) I hope thanks to the new MF policy many groups won't end up like that...

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  19. I once uploaded at MF and they didn't even credited my name!

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  20. if MF really cared about getting the scantillations out to the masses instead of their own glory, they could just post links instead of stealing other people's hard work and writing their name all over it.

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