I'm sure there are a handful of people out there who will insist they've never downloaded or read a bootleg comic online, and maybe there are a few who really haven't. But I think that comic books are right up there with any other media content among the most bootlegged, and where there is supply you can usually find demand.
Of comics book readers, I think manga readers probably bootleg as much, if not more often than anyone else simply because their books are imports. You can't go down to your local bookstore or comic shop and see what's happening in Weekly Shonen Jump, and as we all know fans want everything immediately. Combine lack convenient avaliability with the language barrier and you have some pretty good built-in excuses. Thus, we have bootlegs galore, and an entire culture of self-styled Robin hoods who, out of the kindness of their hearts and love for the material, bring these inaccessible Japanese books to the fandom by creating their own translations and putting them on the internet for the poor deprived fans to enjoy. It all sounds very noble if you listen to the fans who benefit from these bootlegs, or the merry men who produce them, talk about it.
They claim they are only doing it because those titles would otherwise be unavailable, and that they are in fact doing the publishers a service by creating new fan bases in new markets for their products.
Yup, it all sounds very nice, except that they are reproducing and distributing copyrighted material for free and without permission, not to mention defacing as they see fit when they touch it up to add their translated text. For some reason, some people think that the fact that it is not licensed for distribution outside Japan means that it is okay to take it upon themselves to do so. Many also claim they will stop if and when the given title is licensed. Never mind that by the time something is licensed - which, for you self-appointed distributors, means someone has to pay money for the rights – all or some of the product has already been illegally and irrevocably released. This is not a kid passing around a comic book to their buddies at school anymore; this is releasing it to anyone with an internet connection.
But that’s okay, isn't it, because the real fans will pay for a different translation of the something they've already read to support the work - or at least that's what they say. And almost everyone claims to be a real fan, don't they? The real fans will ensure that the people who should be paid, get paid, because real fans support the work they love. Right? So what's the big deal, right?
It’s all neatly set up so that even the pirates that have some sense of the fact that they are still stealing and may feel sort of bad about it can cleanse themselves with a reasonable sounding justification.
I'm being sarcastic, but the truth is I don't think it would be a problem if fans actually did pay for the stuff they liked and everything stopped at the above scenario. It would be great if we could get a full preview of anything we are interested in before we buy it.
The problem is that it doesn't stop there.
Books that have been licensed traditionally have taken forever to get released in other markets. The poor fans are forced to suffer and wait for their favorite comics, knowing that they are months, if not years behind the current issue. In some cases, the title is done in Japan but just starting everywhere else. If a scanlator or fansubber can whip something off in a day or two, why does it take these big publishers with all their resources months? That can't be right, can't it? So, the bootleggers and friendly neighborhood translators who want nothing more than to go legit were duty bound to step back in and serve the community once more. Three cheers for the noble pirates! They went back to work in order to force the publishers to speed things up so the honest fan could once again buy their books legit and not have to wait forever for them.
And they did it, too, to an extent, because books are coming out faster and are released closer to the original Japan releases than ever.
Hurray!
Now that more and more books are available、and faster than ever, the job would seemingly be done and the rebel alliance could go back to farming, feeding the underprivileged, or whatever it is that heroes do when there is no noble battle to fight. Right?
Wrong! There is still injustice and the pirates must struggle on to battle censorship, bad translations, and ensure that no unlicensed title is left behind!
It didn’t have to be this way, but the industry wouldn’t listen so someone has to fight for the rights of the fans.
The bootleggers do it because they love it too (the ads on their sites are just to pay for hosting expenses!) and they have only good intentions. It can't be their fault that some fans take advantage of the good they do by not going out supporting the content what they claim to love by actually buying it. The vast majority of 'real fans' will pay – provided they have deemed the product they just got for free worth their dime - and they will even order the originals of the unlicensed things to support the creators.
Yeah, of course they will…
Well, they might if only enough of them could see the contradiction in justifying stealing on moral grounds. Am I way off here, or is this a case of must be moral relativism? Because from where I sit on the fringes of the industry, I don’t see any moral justification at all for what's going on.
A lot of people have a lot of complaints, and I am usually one of the first to complain that the industry – especially in Japan – has brought most of their current problems on themselves by their aloof demeanor, indifference, and even sheer arrogance toward the fans who support them. The industry has a hell of a lot of problems to work on, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to rip off the creators or the publishers who bring you their work.
Before you bitch about things not being officially translated and released in real-time like the bootleggers do, remember that in the legit world translation isn’t the only factor in play. With the schedules that Japan works on, they can barely get their own stuff released on time, never mind foreign releases. Factor in localization, content regulations, editorial standards etc., on top of practical things like sometimes needing time to gauge whether or not a title will even sell before you spend the money to license it, and things get just a little bit complicated, don't they? If releases are to be simultaneous, as many an uninformed fan will demanded, Japan would have to do it themselves. That would mean domestic release delays they can't afford, massive overhead they can't up prices enough to cover, and logistical problems that they can't solve, not to mention the fact that they would have to throw all the importers, foreign publishers and freelance translators under the bus in even attempting to do so. Japan can’t afford to, and aren’t capable of, localizing and releasing all their content on their own, so they absolutely need their regional publishers (not to mention the licensing revenue they provide!).
All those things I just mentioned, and many more that I haven’t are, of course, more dubious justification for the black market to keep right on bootlegging, and for the non-paying ‘fans’ to keep not paying and trying to justify it on some moral ground that is shakier than the European financial markets.
The industry was tolerant of the bootleggers when they were making money. Why wouldn’t they have been? It seemed like free advertising, just like the pirates and many 'fans' themselves said was the intention in the first place. But the industry seems to have failed to realize that if you give a pirate an inch, they will keep sailing until they've robbed you blind and stripped you bare. Even more telling is that pirates have proven that even the ‘honest fan’ can’t resist a boat load of free booty. Don’t blame the aggregators for giving the pirates a bad name either, because if the pirates weren’t pirating, the aggregators would have nothing to aggregate! BitTorrent is just has a bigger pirate ship. Is it any wonder rival publishers are now joining forces and trying to strike back?
We all know the pirates won’t just go away because the industry doesn’t tolerate them any more. If anything, being targeted will just make them more defiant and probably even more obnoxiously self-righteous. And the circle goes round and round until we all get dizzy and sick and tired of listening to both the industry moan and blame the fans for all their problems, and the non-paying 'fans' rationalize calling scanlations and fansubs all kinds of things other than theft to avoid admitting they are thieves.
The botton line is this:
* If you're saying you won't pay for something because you don't like the translation, then you must be able to read the originals. Buy them!
* If you won't pay because you feel strongly about censorship in your country, then show some integrity to go with your beliefs and do without, or use that passion to learn Japanese and either move to Japan or import - i.e. Buy them!
* Don't like long delays? See above.
* If you are someone who gets bootleg material online but then goes out and buys the stuff you like, then good for you. Unfortunately your fellow 'fans' have proven that the honor system isn't working and we all have to pay the price. The 'free previews' will no longer be tolerated like they once were because advertising isn't supposed to take money away from the product it's pitching. Sometimes one bad apple really does spoil the whole damn bunch, and in this case we have a barrel full of rotten ones.
Maybe if the honor system worked, the publishers would have started releasing everything on their own for free and letting the honest people pay.
I'd love to see someone try that as an experiment to see if it would work as sort of an honesty litmus test. But if the scanlation experience is any indicator, it would just prove that what we all wish we didn't have to admit; that the honest fan appears to be in the minority.
I know people that are honest fans to the point that they will only buy certain things new because creators don't make a dime off resale. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.
In any case, you can't rationalize away the fact that online scans of entire books and magazine, scanlations, fansubs and so on are all bootleg. Wherever you may draw your personal line, or however much you may think the industry corrupt, it doesn't justify not paying for the content you enjoy.
You might steal something from a total asshole, but now you're an asshole for stealing, and you're a bigger asshole if what you stole wasn't really the other asshole's thing to begin with. Do you screw over a creator because you don't like their publisher? It's all excuses. All you end up with is an argument over who's more wrong, but the bottom line is still that you're still wrong!
I don't think there is anything ambiguous about this kind of theft.
By the way, writing reviews, blogging, tweeting, posting on forums and telling your friends doesn't mean you get a free pass either, unless you are working for the publishers, licensors or creators. Appointing yourself an ambassador doesn’t give you the right to steal. If you want free shit then get a job in the industry or convince publishers you are worth giving review copies to (which reminds me, I've a small backlog of comics to review!).
If you want free shit, then get it legit!
Now that the big publishers are banding together to mount a defense, I have to admit I'm rooting for them. Balance must be brought back to the industry because while it used to be next to impossible to get most stuff out of Japan, now you can get everything for free.
Whatever way you want to slice it, that isn't right.
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