Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Government Plans to Ask Net Providers to Block Unauthorized Manga Sites
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catandmouse
Posts: 219 |
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I'm nor going to sit here and say I've never used **other** sites to read manga, but I am not opposed to buying either. My physical manga collection has over 350 volumes and growing. Lately I stumbled upon a webcomic on one of those sites, but I followed it all the way to its legit reading platform and now I've been watching like a million ads to have enough coinage to buy new chapters, but I find their prices reasonable. For about a $1 I can buy 3 chapters.
My problem is, I've checked other legal digital manga sites and they can be expensive per chapter. There's this manga I found on one site, but it's $1 per chapter to "rent" and $2 to buy. From what I've gathered, there are already 23 chapters out in Japan, that could make this series more expensive that a physical manga book (depending on the amount of chapters per volume). It would be nice if there was a site that sold "whole" volumes digitally as well as the chapter by chapter. |
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1144 Location: Indianapolis |
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I dont think there is ever going to be an agreed upon fair price for buying a manga per chapter. I dont think a seller or content creator wants to see a chapter of their manga sell for 20-75 cents (actually I guess its less if we use 6.99$ for a manga volume and it has 10 chapters, thats literally 69 cents a chapter) |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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The Shonen Jump "phonebooks" sell for around $5 in Japan. It comes out weekly and each volume contains around 15 chapters (probably closer to 20) or 1 for each title running in the mag. That'd price it around $0.30/chapter. The US releases are more expensive, that's debatable how much it's necessary. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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400 billion yen? If you are going to make up numbers to grab headlines (and readers) better try next time with 400 trillion yen, people which support the argument of "reading raws online will destroy the industry" will support said figure just the same; no questions, proof or grade school maths asked.
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Tenbyakugon
 Posts: 797 Location: Ohio, United States |
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There’s no cost when you haven’t lost what you never had to begin with.
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Paulo27
Posts: 400 |
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>CODA: piracy inflicted 400 billion yen worth of damage to Japanese copyright holders from September-February
I suggest they give a $32 fine to everyone in Japan to make up for the losses, because that's what'd need to happen. For only half a year! Everyone in Japan would have to pay around $64 each year so these copyright holders wouldn't starve because of all these thieves! |
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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And yet the pirates whine and cry when the freebies go away! I am immensely skeptical of the "ethical pirate" who insists they will "Buy everything they ever downloaded", they also make the excuse of, "unless I hated it." How many Naruto pirates are actually going to get an extra bookshelf and fill it with Kishimoto's manga? Not many, they'll come up with some other excuse. |
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CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
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Its a grey area and hard to prove, but strictly speaking, in actual studies done, piracy is either a wash or a net plus. One of the major reasons why, the majority of pirates don't need what is being pirated, and can easily move from one source of consumable to another. Hence, nothing is lost because the majority of those pirating would never have bought it either way.
The plus comes from some people being apprehensive, consuming it through pirating and then deciding, hey I like this, let me buy it. Obviously, to some degree, there are some people that would buy something if they couldn't get it for free; but when you factor in that Anime Manga and JRPG gaming are niche, most of the consumers are collectors and people who buy the stuff anyway. There is this need to own. Especially with manga, some people want to buy it and have it on their shelf, but the product is so fragile, they dont want to damage it, so they buy it keep it sealed and then read it on a site. As a copy right owner, they have the right to police the works as necessary, but honestly speaking the anime manga industry probably suffers more from things like their structure (ie the committees, the way the profit it distributed, rarely to the artist), rising competition from Asia , especially China, and various other factors, more so than pirating. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Huh, first time I heard such promise and I have been visiting boards (were called newsgroups before) since before the internet went public. Are you sure you did not made that up?
No one (and I mean it literally) buys everything they watch or read (japanese related or otherwise). It is no different than expecting that just because you flip an magazine or book at at store, you must buy it (even if you read it completely, that changes nothing), in one word, it is unreasonable. You do not need to "hate it" to not buy it, you buy it because you liked (or loved) it. |
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SWAnimefan
Posts: 634 |
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Yes, the Japanese have the right to go after pirates. At the same time, I wholeheartedly believe that the industry wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for pirates. They helped to introduce manga and anime to the world far more effectively than it was prior to the internet.
These Japanese businesses need to embrace the internet more and open up both new and old titles with fair prices. One that welcomes new customers from all over the world, who had to resort to piracy due to the lack of a local distributor. So come on Japan, don't push away these people, embrace them! |
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Lord of Fire
Posts: 16 |
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I bought (and still buy) manga, anime, merchandise and even figurines after having read or watched them on pirate sites or through torrents, respectively. And I'd spend more if my income would allow for it and if I didn't have other priorities to worry about (for example, I need my bike for work, repairs are usually very expensive, and they can blow a huge hole in my monthly budget). And before you go "anecdotal evidence" on my ass, studies show that piracy can increase music sales, despite the industry's claims. With statements of other people saying the same thing (and not regarding music), is it really that far off to think there may be a bit of truth to it, even if the result appears to be relatively small? As for publishers going belly-up, that's not automatically a sign that piracy caused it. Maybe they offered low-quality products, or have bad customer support, or failed to deliver on their promises (i.e. sitting on a license and not do anything with it). Heck, maybe the publisher merely suffered from mismanagement and burned through all their money. Wouldn't be the first time that happened. And how come other publishers manage to stay afloat, despite the "rampant" piracy? Can piracy impact sales? Sure, but to claim it's the cause when a publisher goes bankrupt, or when an industry seems to be making less money than before without taking into account other mitigating factors is (IMO) dishonest. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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I am no scientist, but a paid study does exist. https://juliareda.eu/2017/09/secret-copyright-infringement-study/
Is it? From my perspective, sales of manga are bound to decline in japan due to declining birth rates and the advent of the internet (everybody is reading in their smartphones nowadays) and the CEOs will always ask their executives to "do something about it, we are paying you" and the easiest thing to do is to play the piracy card "But boss, those damn websites are stealing our sales". It is as inane as newspapers blaming the TV for decreasing sales four decades ago. The simple truth is that it has been nine years since crunychroll went legit and the results are clear to see. Many other similar websites now offer anime streaming all over the world and anime production would have declined considerably without the extra income. Have pirate webstreaming disappeared? Of course not, but that does not mean there is no money in it. But instead of manga going the same route, they resist to go digital (when even newspapers have already have) and reap the benefits (inside and outside japan) because of fear of change. They reap what they saw, don't expect me to fail into their moral blackmailing. |
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#881434
Posts: 2 |
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How nice. Too bad the Pirates will just fire up the VPNs and then what next? The Diet escalates and introduces a VPN Ban?
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13597 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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This is probably a reason. They might not want to sound hypocritical. Going with the helping sales angle, sometimes a series may tank in Japanese home video sales but do well in sales for a foreign country. "Panty & Stocking" was a flop in Japanese sales, but sold well in the U.S. Piracy may have had a slight hand in this. |
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