To much surprise, this letter actually had an impact on the scanlation scene in the west. The website, Raw Paradise has already removed their website, forwarding any visitor to Shueisha’s main page. Though this was probably not done because they felt bad for what they did, but because they were frightened by Shonen Jump’s message, since raw paradise’s scans are heavily watermarked.To all our readers -
There are now many people unjustly posting copies of manga on the internet. These unjust copies are inconsistent with mangakas' feelings. They are also distorting the authors' intentions of "I want the work to be read this way". The actions of posting these unjust copies on the net, into which the mangakas have poured their hearts, are not only hurting mangakas in real life but are also against the law, even if done in a light-hearted manner. Every time we discover such "unjust copies", we talk to the mangaka and consider every possible countermeasure. But the number of inconsiderate people is great, and at present we cannot deal with all of them. We have a request for all our readers. The unjust internet copies are deeply hurting the manga culture, mangakas' rights, and even mangakas' souls. Please understand once again that all of that is against the law. Also, the mangakas and Shueisha will severely deal with any unjust copies found on the internet. We ask that our readers please continue to support us.
~Weekly Shonen Jump editorial department
I also believe this message was directed toward the Japanese fans rather than our scanlation scene, since it is with these fans that they make the most money. This is a big development in the scanalation world, but not the cure some fans have been waiting for. No matter what the industry does, scanlations will always exist. Regardless, Shonen Jump did the right thing by just asking fans to help them out rather than jumping down our throats with threats and lawyers.
[Via Mangahelpers]
:(
Nerd Rage.
No ,it's not, they are not asking people to not consume or in this case read their product they are asking people not to take their product and give away free copies to others instead of buying it. a Perfectly reasonable request.
Also Gia, your comments make me think of cockroaches 0_o Which is about how I feel about scanlations.
Think about cartoonists rights before your own selfish impatience folks!
It's good for you, even if you don't like it.
INB4 FoxxFire posting another rant that is tangentially related to the newstory.
*Since, unlike older anime series, most older manga don't get re-licensed unless they're by Osamu Tezuka. Black Jack & Astro Boy? Sure. Fist of the North Star? Not bloody likely. This also means that despite all of my efforts to build up some positive buzz around Outlanders and Cosmo Police Justy by reviewing the old Dark Horse and Viz (respectively) releases of the manga on Bureau42, they're probably not going to get re-licensed.
EDIT - Note: For the record, if someone re-licensed and put out all of Justy, or Outlanders, or Area 88, I'd get it.
Ok, seriously.
The japanese manga industry is making the same mistake as the (worldwide) music industry did a few years ago.
You just cant curse the internet for stealing away your work, you have to create a platform where fans from around the world can buy your product.
I would pay a small fee to dowload a translated chapter shortly after it has been released in Japan, but the manga industry does not offer this service. This means there are potential customers, but no seller.
The music industry made the same mistake by first cursing the internet for giving away their songs for free, but then decided to use the internet to sell their songs. Of course a lot of songs still get downloaded illegaly nowadays (just as there would still be illegal scanslations if you could buy chapters online), but at least the music industry can profit from the internet and gave the consumers the chance to stop doing illegal things and still use the internet.
"Shonen Jump did the right thing by just asking fans to help them out rather than jumping down our throats with threats and lawyers."
I agree.
I live in England and cannot get SJ in any form, the only way I have been reading manga is through the books that they release slowly. I admit at times it has been tempting to just not bother buying them and reading them online, but just because you hate the system doesn't mean you can ignore it. I will continue to to buy the manga I can get and pray that something is done to help me get manga easier which also is fair for the mangaka.
And it is nice that it just seems to be a nice please stop stealing from us. Though the internet can never be stopped.
This is a step in the right direction regardless and they made this request in a much more respectable way that they could have. Also if you really want this kind of model adopted i suggest you start supporting things like the vampire hunter D release on the PSP because if experiments like that fail you can bet they wont be encouraged to try other ways of adapting.