Scanlation, comic piracy and the future of comic distribution
An interesting discussion about piracy in the world of comics and the manga comic in particular took place at the San Diego Comic-Con 2010 last July. The "scanlation" plays a special role.
Similarities and differences between music and comic piracy
Jake Forbes (manga editor and publicist) believes that the comics industry is “slow to realize that it's no longer about picking and choosing individual items, or heading to bookstores and pulling a specific book off the shelf as a destination item. It's about access to these kind of channels, and the ability to for readers to satisfy their demand for volume. They're saying 'I want lots of stuff. I don't necessarily care about each individual movie/song/book, but want to be able to just browse and have background noise. It's always about having access to lots of content. But I just think that the ability to have content channels and the ability to browse and consume without having to know what you want, then be able to buy that item after sampling it is going to be key to making it work.”
Deb Aoki (manga editor of About.com) emphasizes that there is a significant difference between piracy in the music and the comic industry. “Everyone says piracy isn't totally killing the music business. But before we say that digital piracy helps make manga more popular and therefore, the creators benefit from it even if it's pirated, I want to point out how a manga artist's situation is different than a band's situation. For a lot of the manga content that is being posted illegally on the Net, the creators of these titles don’t have licensing deals that would generate additional income for them outside of their publishing royalties. So don't rationalize online piracy by saying 'Manga artists are rich, they don't need my money.' That’s really selfish and arrogant. It’s so frustrating hear fans rationalize comics piracy by comparing it to piracy in the music industry, because I think the business model is different.”
According to David Steinberger (CEO of the legal comics site ComiXology.com) the challenge is to put all the comic content out at once. “If I could do those deals, get them out there and present a real challenge to the torrents in terms of data availability, I would. But it does take some time. I think we’ve seen a lot of movement in the last six months towards having a greater availability. I think the next year will show a ton of movement. The challenge is, making it as easy to get a legitimate, purchasable, cheap enough or free, advertising-based copy as it is to get the torrent. That's a huge challenge." Recently the Iron Man comic was simultaneously released in digital and paper form.
Scanlation
The phenomenon "scanlation" (a contraction of "scan" and "translation", a synonym for an illegal translated, pirated comic) brings out dual emotions in the discussion about piracy. On one side these scanlations, often done by manga fans, make available to the general public a sea of otherwise inaccessible comics in foreign languages. But on the other hand scanlations deprive the comic’s original publishers of the opportunity to do translate and distribute the work, a right they have as rights holder to the comic’s copyright.
Competitive legal alternative
Asked whether the legal digital distribution of comic’s can compete with 'fast, free and inexhaustible’, Forbes notes that the problem is that many websites not even offer comics through downloadable torrents, but directly onscreen in a browser. “If you just type in the word "manga," the first sites that pop up are illegal scan sites. So it’s because these sites have taken away any pretence of doing something wrong, if you’re a minor, if you’re an international reader and you’re not somebody who actively knows that this is piracy, it looks perfectly legit”, says Forbes.
Recently several scanlation sites have been shut down. Aoki seems frustrated by some people “going off on those "greedy publishers.” They say stuff like 'These big, bad, companies are going after sites that are filled with nothing but pure intentions.' I want to say, 'No – let me tell you who's really being greedy here.' These scanlation aggregator sites are making money hand over fist that you, the volunteer translator; you, the volunteer graphic artist who cleans up the pages; you, the volunteer person who runs the forum -- none of those profits go to compensate you for all the work you do to make these websites so popular and profitable for these companies. And let's not forget who really gets screwed here -- the manga artists. The only people making money here are the scanlation sites, who make money off Google Ads revenue. That’s what really pisses me off. Why aren’t you giving the scanlation sites shit? Because they’re making money off of you and your free labor – otherwise, why would they be doing it? They're making money – don't let any of them fool you into thinking they're not-for-profit ventures. Their business model would fall apart if they had to pay people for the work it takes to scan, translate, edit the scanlated manga and manage their online forums, much less pay the artists a fair rate for their comics.”
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