Tag Archives: piracy

Manga and the Problem of Discovery

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Manga as an industry has had a  lot of rough beats in the past few years. The market crash of 2007, fueled by mediocrity and the $9 trade paperback. The fall of Borders allegedly put TOKYOPOP out of business. Small publishers are relying on preorders now more than ever.  And piracy is as rampant as it has been in the past 5 years. Mangafox Manga aggregators like Manga Fox and Manga Reader are high on the list of the world’s websites (Manga Reader recently clocked in at site #720), with around 18-20% of all traffic coming from the USA.  Searching the term “manga” at Google or Bing brings up the Wikipedia article, two legitimate companies (Manga UK and Manga University) and 7  manga aggregators. Using some simple web tools, something else becomes apparent – that while search engines like Google are still the major source of hits for aggregators, the number of people accessing them from Facebook is increasing (7-9% of all incoming traffic in the past 12 months, and growing). MangaFox’s facebook page has 494,000+ likes, and cheerily states “Be sure to suggest this page to your friends!” There is more egregious behavior out there; the mere fact that MangaStream calls itself an “Arts/Humanities page” seems boldly offensive. And the sad fact is that none of these readers are paying creators while reading – but are consuming comics at a breathtaking rate. Mangahere

So manga itself – people out there get that. It’s become fairly common as the world gets smaller. Free is a great price. But manga as an industry, manga where you actually pay someone for a book? That is not so common. Onto the questions then: How to manga companies promote their existence?  How do we make paying for manga more appealing than piracy? How can we get new readers to discover manga in a way that is beneficial for the creators? I posed this question on Twitter and got an answer from Ben Applegate:

I think step one for publishers is to make an example out of a major manga aggregator and settle with the others. — Ben Applegate (@benapplegate) March 7, 2013

I agree in principle about aggregators – they’ve been making a profit by advertising for a long time, and their business model, if you can call it that, does not pay creators or license holders. Manga aggregators are the source of most of the market’s woes. But would people reading manga on aggregators today actually buy comics if their online hotspots for all things free and fun disappeared? Ben seems to think so, but I’m less convinced.

Many if not all of manga’s newest readers find it in a few ways:

  1. Randomly at a bookstore
  2. A friend convinces them to read a volume that he or she already owns
  3. Local library groups or library selection
  4. The internet

Assume you get into manga in one of the top three ways – manga is a physical product, a book that you borrow or buy. It’s an actual physical thing. But if you find manga through the internet, it’s a digital thing – and it’s free no matter what. If you were used to free (and had never considered manga a consumable, purchasable thing) paying for volumes might not come so quick. According to a recent twitter message from Vertical, they have 3,000 steady readers who purchase content. I am happily within that 3,000. But who knows how many people are reading the content Vertical has licensed on aggregators? It may be upwards of 100,000 (or more) readers a month.

So what else can we put on the table? Ben has a thought:

Other things I think pubs can do: Actually work to engage the direct market, which is woefully uninformed about manga.

— Ben Applegate (@benapplegate) March 7, 2013

While I don’t know all of what that would entail, it’s a broad suggestion that carries a lot of weight. I have a few thoughts of my own:

1. Free reading services for various chapters of books online from the publisher - a JManga7, if you would, for big titles like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece. I’m not talking “free preview” either. I’m talking 1 chapter a week, maybe older content, with easy access to current Shonen Jump. Pay X to view as many comics as you want for Y amount of time or buy the latest chapter of the series for $0.69 USD. This might help some readers who are into manga week by week, and digitally – but it gives you a platform to fight against the free. Pay artists to write digital only stories that can only be retrieved through the digital platform. Offer promotional materials and other extras that are hard to find in aggregators. Maybe have previews of a few panels that haven’t been published anywhere. In short, make it the digital platform of choice, because of availability, and because it is worth paying for. And, since I’m in a land of dreams, make it universal – all publishers on a single platform.

2. Increased access to physical copies at libraries - manga has a unique and compelling case to make in many different libraries, from school libraries to the monolithic library partnerships like CLEVNET. Manga is a popular borrowing item, but it doesn’t get a lot of time in the sun at these libraries. Publishers could work more with library representatives to create informational sessions about manga and comics for kids and parents. Increasing physical copy readership via the library increased manga purchasing in my local area (when I worked in the library business), and I suspect the same would happen on a larger scale.

3. Partner physical copies to digital ones - again, this is about building value for the paperback or hardcover book, but why not allow a person who has bought a physical copy to have a digital copy as part of their physical purchase? How many people with paperback One Piece collections are actually buying the same volumes on Viz Media’s app? I think that the benefits of a digital + print release has a lot of potential. This has a lot of different possibilities, from allowing book purchasers to be able to follow their favorite stories in multiple formats to giving multiple chapters of other similar manga to the physical copy purchaser.

Ultimately, the industry needs to add physical value to an otherwise digital world. If publishers make buying content easy and cross-platform, and make sure their customers know that they are delivering a quality product they can’t get anywhere else, the industry will do itself a great service. Aggregators aren’t helping the issue of the market,  but if 90% of manga readers are getting content online, manga publishers need to consider how to incorporate digital content, add value, and be responsive to the changes in reading habits. Until then? MangaFox will still have its thousands of fans, while manga publishers struggle to make ends meet.

Edit: After a discussion with Ed Chavez of Vertical today, I’ve edited some statements for clarification. My points still stand.

Not a Citizen, But a Customer – A Response

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If you haven’t already read Lori Henderson’s fantastic essay at Manga Xanadu regarding Viz Media’s digital comics initiative and her assertions that users not using the iOS platform are second class citizens, I encourage you to do so, since this essay is a response to her article. I respect Lori quite a deal more than most manga bloggers on the net (we both write for the manga review flagship Manga Village) and I understand (and somewhat agree with) her arguments, but I have a few points that I would like to bring up here in regards to that recent post.

Essentially, Lori brings Viz Media to task for treating those who would use their non-iOS digital services as second class citizens, stating that it isn’t fair that Android users and PC users don’t have the same download capacity that iPod/iPad users have.

One part of me agrees. I think that buyers should be able to OWN their content, so as much as I am excited about JManga bringing new material to the USA, I am also not that thrilled that I don’t have the ability to download it to my computer. At the same time, there are certain risks that are inherent in this delivery system. Giving someone a professionally translated pack of manga images on a PC where file manipulation is rampant and easy just seems like a losing bet when some 2-bit wanker can just get on the web and upload it to a scanlation site. It isn’t “fair” in the sense that iOS users can download their content, but iOS doesn’t have a way to easily pirate these images onto the web from an iWhatever. I think it is a matter of feasibility in that regard. Is it the best? No. But Viz has delivered the service to a platform rife with the problems they have to fight as an industry in order to survive.

And, although a very dedicated person could possibly capture the images from the iPad or iPod and deliver them to a MangaFox or OneManga, just like anyone could use screen captures to grab images off of the web-only portal, the amount of time and dedication to perform such an act would probably require more wherewithal than your average bear has. On PC, where downloading a file to your computer is pretty much an open door for instant sublimation to the various seedy and illegal aggregators, I can understand (even if I don’t approve of) Viz’s position in the PC market.

The bigger issue I want to get at here is that despite the fact that Viz has tried to accommodate as many digital markets as it can (I would bet that a Viz Manga app for Android will soon appear on the Android Market) it really didn’t have to. The fact that they have created this web interface is a step in the right direction, and for some people, that is certainly going to be enough. For me, since I am an iUser, I have no issues with the iWhatever experience or the website.But I understand those who don’t like the service of the Viz Manga site.

If you don’t like their current offerings, I invite you to NOT BUY. Don’t buy something you don’t want to support. You aren’t a citizen of MANGA OF VIZLAND, and nor should you consider yourself one. Don’t consider yourself a citizen, let alone a “second class citizen“ – you are a customer, a much more powerful position. I don’t think it is reasonable or expected for customers to support a business model that goes against their beliefs on financial transactions. and their disagreement with paying for what is essentially a license to read a book without actually owning the book.

Still, I think that this service, while not perfect, is a far cry better than the alternative, which is theft and non-support of great artists who deserve to get paid if people consume their work. Kept in perspective, the web-only service Viz provides is similar to DMP’s eManga and the new collaborative site JManga and at a price point that is comparable or better than these other services.

If you don’t like the pay-to-read service of these web-only sites, the final story on them is that you shouldn’t be paying for them. Use your “citizenry” (AKA money) to vote yes or no for these services.

Frankly, I am fine with voting yes.

Nick Simmons and the Entitlement Age

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As I so eloquently stated on Wednesday, Nick Simmons is a moron. My prowess at verbalizing my distaste in this whole plagiarism business notwithstanding let’s look at the facts, or, what we can assume are facts.

1. Nick Simmons, on the back of his father’s popularity, develops a comic book called Incarnate. Published by Radical Comics, the book’s illustration style has a lot of similarities to the generally perceived manga style.

2. Nick putzes around for a while, doing his thing, and Radical gets ready for a release of the first part of the series as a trade.

3.  People start seeing similarities between Incarnate and scanlated Bleach chapters. Let’s take a look at some of Nick’s “talent”:

That looks awfully similar. Let’s have another go.

The plot thickens. Or rather, comes to a stop at the corner of Stupid Street and Now You Fucked Up Avenue. (Many thanks to the folks on livejournal compiling these images. I shamelessly borrowed them from this compilation entry by karenai.)

4. Radical responds to the accusations by putting a hold on the project and by putting out a blanket statement about making things right.

5. The INTERWEB starts to really freak out. I mean really.

6. Nick releases a statement via representative that takes no responsibility for copied work. Surprise! (Remember, Nick’s car is still parked at the corner of Stupid Street and Now You Fucked Up Avenue.)

7. The NY Times prints a story on the whole debacle.

8. Fans continue to freak out.

9. Alex writes about the issue at Manga Widget.

10. People cool off over the weekend, and generally get back to their own little lives.

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My main thought about this entire business is: well, that really sucks for Radical. Nick can’t really be harmed here, because it is unlikely that Viz Media will sue over the plagiarism, and he’s already generated profit on content that wasn’t his. If the comic is canceled, well, that’s a shame on him. He probably won’t be able to do comic work again, or if he does, it will have to be drastically different, and he’ll have people breathing down his neck the entire time. Still, he’s lost something in the opportunity, but not in actual fiscal units. In short, his money is protected.

For Radical, though, the consequences are more severe. The publishing group was getting ready to release a hard copy of the first three books later this month (March 16th, to be precise). That means they’ve probably already gotten the books printed, which is no small expense, especially in hardback. Now they have content which they cannot sell, a series that cannot generate them funds, and a whole lot of cash sunk into what is now a dead project. I don’t think my fair reader needs an intricate understanding of rocket science to know that that’s an outcome that sucks big thrust engines.

Radical is a company that doesn’t necessarily get a lot of time in the sun, and especially when their main product lines compete with the Big Two (DC and Marvel), the room for error is slim. A mistake/grievous error that is not their fault could be the foot on the neck of the company. Radical’s only recourse is to sue the creator for the cost of producing a good that was supposed to be original, and was not. Let us hope that Radical can use this breach of contract to extract the cost of these books from the hide of the selfish, moronic Simmons. If you have a chance to stop by your local comic book store, take a look at some of the wares that Radical has to offer. Take a chance on a company that could use a little extra help right now. You might find something you like.

The other party that is damaged here is anyone that purchased Incarnate. These customers bought content that they expected to be original, and it was not. This is a huge breach of trust, and hopefully, Nick Simmons will no longer be able to find work in the comics industry.

According to the buzz around the internet (since I do not read Bleach, admittedly),  the plagiarized content was from chapters that have not been published in English. This means that Simmons is a thief in multiple ways. And to be honest, he’s just like many anime and manga fans here in the US.

Let me say that again. The idiot thief, Nick Simmons, is just like most anime and manga fans. Entitlement-minded. Granted, he may have been a little more extreme about it than other anime and manga fans, but his outlook is the same. I deserve, he says. I deserve to read Bleach scans without paying for them, he says. I love the comic! I am its fan! I love Bleach! Soon it becomes something more. I deserve comics for free. Again, it evolves. I deserve to have my own comic book. I’m a decent artist, I can make it in the comics industry. I deserve to have some fame in the comics industry. I deserve a mark of my own!  (And when he realizes he does not have the skill to make his wishes come true, he does the next best thing – he borrows someone else’s skill to make his own dream a reality.) It’s this (0r a version of this) entitlement mentality that plagues the anime/manga community.

Through my research for this post, I have become completely disheartened by the fans of manga and anime. This post especially shows the brazen arrogance and entitlement mentality of many anime and manga fans. As Matt Blind explains the basic concepts of entertainment, the author continues to claim a right to content he does not own or need. He merely wants it, and he’s going to get it. To hell with Gosho Aoyama, and the company that supports him.  The adaptation isn’t good enough, so instead of refusing to buy it, he just steals it instead. YEAH DUDE! STICK IT TO THE MAN!

Dear fanboy.  You do not have a right to entertainment. People have staked their lives on being able to get paid for creating original work that you enjoy. To steal from the authors and studios you love is to destroy them. By downloading this content, Aoyama-sensei and Tite Kubo don’t receive any compensation for their work, and your decision (in economic logic) tells these creators that their content cannot sell.  By stealing work, you promote the destruction of the things you love the most.

And please, do not come onto my blog to justify your theft. You are a shoplifter of entertainment, and there can be no justification for that. You do not need manga scans every week. You don’t need manga. You don’t need anime. What you need is a cold hard reality check.

That goes to you too, Nick.

Fast Track Misconceptions

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Earlier this week, I announced my “return” to manga commentary, and stated that I wanted to talk about something that may hit a little hard for some publishers – why TokyoPop’s acceleration of Gakuen Alice is a fairly ineffective gesture when it comes to retarding piracy.

For the purpose of developing a conversation with meaning, we will consider the noun “scanlation” to be equal to “licensed manga scans” which will eliminate that tricky grey area where people argue about whether or not it’s “right” to read scans of a non-licensed series. I’m sure that those who know me know my opinion on that slippery slope.

Publishers have been trying hard lately to put a stop to piracy. Objectively, every publisher has a mountain to “lose” from piracy. I put lose in quotations because we have no idea how much manga is not being purchased in lieu of free manga scans, and how much those free scans stimulate purchasing. What we do know is that scanlations are quicker, dirtier, and cheaper (as cheap as free) than an actual published book in the US, at least when it comes to getting the latest content of a series being published in Japan and then being translated and published in the US. Scanners can take a week to put out the latest chapter of a manga, where in the US, it might take years before the book actually has a licensing agreement and an actual copy on bookshelves.

This is a time difference that is too large to ignore. The Japanese Gakuen Alice, for example, is up to 20 Japanese volumes with the 21st coming out sometime in April. This means that right now, in Hana to Yume, volume 21 is being published on a weekly basis, and also, for that reason, it is being scanlated at this rate.  TokyoPop, which is now at book ten, will have to do a lot of work to get the series up to the current Japanese volume. This is at presumably a high cost to publish, since you are either putting off other projects to put Gakuen Alice up quicker, or you’re pulling a Naruto/One Piece a la Viz and publishing  two to three books per release period.

TokyoPop is not in the wrong here. Let me make that clear. They are trying to do something that promotes their intellectual property (if doesn’t protect it), and it’s a nice shot. Let’s be honest though, and think about things logically.

1. Increasing the rate of release on a “late” manga is not going to reduce the amount of piracy, or in fact, increase the amount of reads your book is receiving. I personally was put off by the Naruto/One Piece publishing waves due to financing, but let’s be even more blunt. TokyoPop, you are 11 volumes behind. Every pirate, or close enough to make the numbers irrelevant, has already gotten past where you are. You are not offering a service that can overcome the pirates. Speeding up a release, even to the point where you are publishing the tankoban at the same time as the Japanese company is still too late. They have already seen what you have to offer.

2. Free.99 is cheaper than 10.99.  Pirates are not going (again, this is a generalization that I think we can uphold) pay money for content that they would normally get for no cost. It’s not that hard to see that piracy is cheap, and the places at which these leeches can feed are many and varied.

3. Even the speedier releases have continuity gaps – some of my favorite manga are releasing at a brisk clip, but still are behind the Japanese release. Dedication to  a series can waver if the release intervals are toooo large, but let’s be honest – I’m going to buy the latest volume of 20th Century Boys if I have to wait until I’m 90 years old. I’ve devoted myself to the series. If you have a hardcore Gakuen Alice fan, this person is going to maintain their interest in the series regardless. The only way that anyone can directly combat piracy is by making it less convenient than the actual product – the Rin-Ne experiment from Viz Media’s Shonen Sunday is a prime example.

Woe is the publishing industry, right? Yes and no. These points are simple enough, but they lead to one big conclusion:

Publishers must find paying customers. This seems like a given, but we see publishers looking towards pirates as a way to increase their income. Let us be frank. Pirates are not going to buy manga.  They’ve already made their decision to not buy it. Publishers need to look towards current customers and find out their wants, their needs, and supply material that reaches that demographic. It is unfeasible and unwise to do anything else. Focus on the community that will pay for your product, not the community that are “fans” of your product.

TokyoPop, you will not find more customers by increasing the rate of release of Gakuen Alice. Fans of the series will wait for it to release, and pirates aren’t going to pay for free content. You will, however, incur publishing expense both in terms of monetary cost and opportunity cost, with the net result being more copies of Gakuen Alice in the market than it can probably bear, and no diversion of all that piracy traffic.  This is not an outcome you want or need. Be smart about publishing, and publish material and promote it in such a way that it excites your current customer base, not the pirates who steal your content.

Tokyopop on Digital

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ICv2 has a two part interview of Tokyopop’s Marco Pavia posted today, and it’s a spectacular read. Here’s a link to the first part, and you can access the second part from the website.

This interview hopefully sheds a little light on the current goings-on at the manga giant, and it’s good to see that the company is still running in the black. Marco has stated (and hopefully cleared up some nasty rumors) that none of Tokyopop’s series that are currently in print are being cut or cancelled. Rather, their printing schedule is being reworked from a quarterly or bimonthly release to a release twice a year. While this isn’t exactly great news, it’s better than the alternative.

One of the more interesting comments Marco made was about the effect of scanlations on book sales in the US. Marco has pointed out that Tokyopop does not have the time or resources to take on manga pirates and people who host scanlations of liscenced manga, and I think it’s fairly safe to assume that this sentiment is across the board. Piracy is going to continue to affect sales of all media, including manga, as time progresses. The best way to beat the pirate is to continue to develop a product that consumers are willing to buy, and digital may be a part of that.

Aside from pirating, but still focusing on digital, one thing that did interest me was a specific correlation between digital manga and manga sales:

On our site, we’ve run manga for free for a limited time and we’ve seen a spike in sales.  Two Fruits Baskets ago, we released a whole volume online for free for a limited time, and we actually saw a spike in that volume’s book sales over the first week compared to the previous volume’s book sales over its first week.  A few other series–Loveless–some of our original stuff–we’ve definitely seen a positive impact on sales when we’ve released something for free for a limited time as a promotional, marketing tactic. (Emphasis my own)

It’s an interesting correlation here; that free releases of digitized manga on Tokyopop’s website actually increases net book sales.  Whether it’s because of the ability of potential customers to sample the manga before they bought it, or the introduction to the series that doesn’t require a trip to the local Borders or Barnes & Noble, digital manga (in one form or the other) is having a positive impact on manga sales.

This is good news. The fact that digital manga is having an impact on the way consumers view, and decide to purchase manga is more evidence that digital manga may be part of the future of the genre. Marco even admits later in the interview that there may be a time when books no longer exist, and that digital will be the future of publishing:

[Digital manga is] definitely the future.  I’d like to think that books will be around forever, but realistically, that might not be the case.  [Tokyopop is] prepared.  We are releasing manga digitally across a number of platforms.  We’re looking at different models, whether it’ subscription, sponsorship-based, but it’s anyone’s guess right now what the model will be.

Like my discussions here on Tiamat’s Manga Reviews have indicated, it appears that the issues with the distribution and business model of the digital manga landscape are the major stumbling block for digital distribution. However, it’s good to see that Tokyopop is taking a vested interest in this form of publishing.