OneManga Shut Down

[Phillyman]

OneManga is/was a website that took Japanese manga (comics) and translated them to English and provided them free of charge. They operated in a gray area much like Retromags does, and this just proves that at any time...publishers can stop turning a blind eye. Its really ashame, I have been visiting OneManga for a very long time.

"There is an end to everything, to good things as well."

It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July 2010).

So what next? We're not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear.

You can also show us some love in this moment of sadness by 'liking' our brand new Facebook page. It would be nice to see just how many of you came to enjoy our 'better than peanut butter and jelly' invention.

Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going.

As a certain Porky was fond of saying... That's all folks!

Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in.

- Zabi

Source

http://www.onemanga.com

[Gnash]

I think they should have only removed mangas that publishers directly asked to be removed. I doubt every manga publisher requested this. Even if only a few series remained it's still a nice archive.

[Redstar]

It's a little deeper and far more expansive than just one site and a few publishers:

An international coalition of Japanese and American-based manga publishers have joined together to combat what they call the “rampant and growing problem” of scanlations, the practice of posting scanned and translated editions of Japanese comics online without permission of the copyright holders. The group is threatening legal action against 30 scanlation sites.

The effort brings together the 36 member Japanese Digital Comic Association—which includes such major Japanese houses as Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha—as well as manga publisher Square Enix, the Tuttle-Mori Agency and U.S.-based manga publishers Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Tokyopop and Yen Press, the manga/graphic novel imprint of the Hachette Book Group.

A spokesperson for the coalition said the effort shows that Japanese publishers—who license the majority of manga sold in the U.S.—are taking an aggressive interest in combating manga piracy outside of Japan as well as inside the country. The group charges that the former fan-driven practice of scanlating—begun in the 1970s, fans later began to scan, translate and post manga online at a time when it was difficult to find manga outside of Japan—has been transformed by “scanlation aggregators,” heavily trafficked, for-profit Web sites that host thousands of pirated manga editions and offer them for free to readers.

According to a spokesperson, these sites are among the most heavily trafficked sites on the web attracting millions of visits each month while earning advertising revenues and even soliciting donations and sometimes charging for memberships. The group also charges that pirated manga is now beginning to turn up on smartphones and other wireless devices through the use of apps developed “solely to link to and republish the content of scanlations sites.”

A spokesperson said that “we are left with no other alternative but to take aggressive action. It is our sincere hope that offending sites will take it upon themselves to immediately cease their activities. Where this is not the case, however, we will seek injunctive relief and statutory damages.” The group is also aggressively reporting violations to the “federal authorities, including the anti-piracy units of the Justice Department, local law enforcement agencies and FBI.” While the group has yet to file any lawsuits and has declined to name specific scanlators, sites such as MangaFox and OneManga have long been identified as major scanlation aggregators.

After several years of booming manga sales in the U.S. that drove the popularity of comics and graphic novels in the traditional book market, sales of manga in the U.S. have declined more than 30% from a high of $210 million in 2007 to $140 million in sales in 2009, according to pop culture news site ICv2.com. Many manga publishers and retailers who used to believe that scanlations actually attracted new readers, now blame the sales decline on the rise of giant for-profit scanlation sites that have allowed a new generation of fans to grow up reading manga for free online.

“Go back 2 years and track these sites and you’ll find an inverse relationship between the rise of traffic on these scanlation sites and the decline in U.S. manga sales,” said Kurt Hassler, publishing director of Yen Press and a former graphic novel and manga buyer for Borders Books and Music. Hassler points out that early fan-driven scanlation sites were aimed at making manga available overseas at a time when English translations of manga were rare. Indeed these fan scanlators would remove their online translations when the books were licensed for the English-language market.

That’s no longer the case, said Hassler. “These sites are run as businesses and include direct scans of licensed English-language manga editions. Some even include our copyright notices. We don’t want to have to do this but publishers are now focused on this problem.”

Japanese and U.S. manga publishers unite to fight scanlations

[Schloss Ritter]

Hooray for another traditional media industry just not getting it, just like the music industry and the MP3 controversy. All these actions are going to do is drive free trading underground, where its even harder for them to track. At least the music industry finally smartened up and decided to embrace the mP3 format through iTunes, etc. If online distribution has become such a big problem, they should find a way to benefit from it, not just waste resources failing to suppress it.

[Mister Zero]

I can sort of agree with the publishers when it comes to scanlations.. many of the series are current and by scanning them they are essentially giving away free manga to anyone who wants it. Now, if it were an old series from the 80s and 90s, I don't think they'd care as much.

Also, if there is interest in an English translation, there is possibly a market for that perticular manga in the states and elsewhere. By scanning and translating these for free, money is being lost to countless people.

I totally see why they did it, and I agree. Not to say I'm above it all, I pirate as much as the next guy, honestly. It just wasn't a smart move for the scanlation groups.

On the other hand, here at Retromags I believe we're going about things in a generally good way, no one is losing profit. Maybe they're actually making profit, because people who remembered the mags when they were kids might get back into them and order/buy after going back through the old issues again.

[KiwiArcader]

This sort of thing is EXACTLY the reason everyone should appreciate the guys at OoPA who worked to get publishers onboard and agreeing to let us preserve their magazines .... legally!!!

No matter what you may think of them .... and I've had my share of discontent with those guys in the past I freely admit .... they have at the end of the day given some legitimacy to our cause. That's why I have started scanning content for them .... I appreciate that for some content we no longer need to be concerned that we'll get told to take it down so it's worth investing time helping make that content available for people to enjoy.

The BIG difference between us and SCANLATIONS is that comics never really age or go out of fashion while gaming mags suffer the effects of the discontinuation of the systems themselves so while a gaming mag publisher "may" accept that us scanning 20 year old mags is okay as they can't make anything much off them the comic publishers can certainly see how it can affect their chances of digital distribution profits over long periods of time.

[unbanned]

This sort of thing is EXACTLY the reason everyone should appreciate the guys at OoPA who worked to get publishers onboard and agreeing to let us preserve their magazines .... legally!!!

No, this is exactly why you go underground because of COURSE they don't want you to do it. Huh? Wow.

[KiwiArcader]

Theft is Theft. Period!!!

I for one appreciate that I don't have to worry about it for some content. You want to be a thief ... go right ahead. Just don't expect everyone to agree with your principle that everything should just be stolen and made available everywhere. I'd like to see you blubbering like a baby when someone comes along and ransacks your house and steals your personal property. But hey .... everythings fair game right? What's the difference between digital and physical after all?

Anyway ...why even start this drivel up again? Sure didn't take long ....

[Redstar]

I'm of the opinion that everything, and I mean everything print and illustrated should be digitized and archived for the sake of posterity... But that does not give you the right to freely distribute it if the legal owners don't want you to. There may come a time when you can distribute the work (and pre-digitization makes sure there will be something to distribute if that time comes), but until then it would constitute theft and undermine what we're doing here.

[KiwiArcader]

I'm of the opinion that everything, and I mean everything print and illustrated should be digitized and archived for the sake of posterity... But that does not give you the right to freely distribute it if the legal owners don't want you to. There may come a time when you can distribute the work (and pre-digitization makes sure there will be something to distribute if that time comes), but until then it would constitute theft and undermine what we're doing here.

That's how most people feel. I'd rather contribute legally that illegally. That's why I appreciate it when someone gets a publisher allowing this sort of thing. Simple things like legitimacy of the cause, ownership. common decency and so on are lost on one or two people unfortunately

[Schloss Ritter]

What should happen and what does happen are two different things. Shutting down these sites is not going to stop it from happening only just drive it further underground, as I already said. These publishers need to get their heads out of the Industrial Age and the concept that the only way to make money is to produce physical products. Instead of shutting organizations down completely, there should be a legal method of the copyright holder to just claim a share of the profits leaving some to compensate the one who does the translation. Or they can keep all the profit themselves and allow the fans to volunteer their efforts - with popular enough content, there will be some willing to work for free. Instead, publishers would rather pay to hire a "professional" translator, pay to print physical copies of the mag, and then pay to have them sit in a warehouse unsold because they gambled on the wrong thing not selling. Or they just don't publish it at all. Instead of all or nothing, they could work with fans and online distributors to sell content online for much less cost and almost guaranteed profit.

Look at novel publishers; now the eBook is finally entering mainstream thanks to decent readers finally being available. And these publishers are paying a fraction of the cost to distribute each copy digitally; meanwhile, they are charging at least half the price of a physical copy, reaping much greater profits. And again, I point to the recording industry finally embracing legal MP3 distribution as even more profitable than traditional album sales.

[Redstar]

Pushing it "underground" may not deter everyone from seeking scans/scanlations, but it will deter a sizable portion of comic and manga fans that don't have the time or Internet-know-how to seek it out. Profits will go up as people are forced to go buy physical copies rather than find it for free at the touch of a finger.

And a lot of publishers and production companies do already follow your method in some form: crunchyroll.com is the only officially-sanctioned English website that hosts anime. All other sites are illegally streaming episodes of anime.

A similar officially-sanctioned site for scans would be a great idea, but who's to say that's not their goal in doing this? Of course you're going to crack down on the unofficial and illegal alternatives before introducing the appropriate source. I just don't understand how these companies are either mean-spirited or stupid just for trying to protect their intellectual properties.

[E-Day]

We haven't got anything that is close to be considered current on here, so I am not worried about this site's mortality concerning that manga site at the moment. That's not to say we won't be in the same boat one day. But it's nothing to worry about at this point.

[SuperFrog]

Manga is form of art and as that it looses much less in its value then an retro mag. I agree that free distribution of someone's work is a bad practice.

I never downloaded/read manga online, but I have borrowed a lot of manga comics in local library.

[Guest s1500]

There's several methods to the madness to xyz preservation:

1. Official permission. You have their blessing.

2. Middle of the road. Distribute it until you get caught, er C&D.

3. Underground runner. Anything goes. Back alley deals with the Triads & shipping containers you slip by customs.

Each yields different results & total # of stuff yielded.

[Phillyman]

The BIG difference between us and SCANLATIONS is that comics never really age or go out of fashion while gaming mags suffer the effects of the discontinuation of the systems themselves so while a gaming mag publisher "may" accept that us scanning 20 year old mags is okay as they can't make anything much off them the comic publishers can certainly see how it can affect their chances of digital distribution profits over long periods of time.

I know there is a difference, but there are some similarities also. Most of these comics are not available in the USA, and that is one of the reasons I use OneManga. Even when the comics are provided, they are often months if not years behind the current japanese release. When you are that far behind, and really into a cetain comic....it sucks to come across spoilers posted online. Anyways I only posted this topic to drive some conversation

[SuperFrog]

I know there is a difference, but there are some similarities also. Most of these comics are not available in the USA, and that is one of the reasons I use OneManga. Even when the comics are provided, they are often months if not years behind the current japanese release. When you are that far behind, and really into a cetain comic....it sucks to come across spoilers posted online. Anyways I only posted this topic to drive some conversation

So your only option is to order them from Japan and learn Japanese language - all doable...

5月は、力はあなたと一緒に！ - or something like that....

[Schloss Ritter]

5月は、力はあなたと一緒に！ - or something like that....

Correct, according to Google Translate anyway, where I've seen some weird results before...

[SuperFrog]

Correct, according to Google Translate anyway, where I've seen some weird results before...

Yes, weird stuff happens once you translate, and then translate back the same thing in first language....

But is a good start. I found mango to be be interesting, but I don't have required time to learn new languages. (like to learn Spanish and renew German :()

It's a lot of work to translate anything, apart from a whole comic books.

[Redstar]

I'm lucky enough to have a professor of linguistics as a contact to translate Japanese for me.

[KiwiArcader]

I know there is a difference, but there are some similarities also. Most of these comics are not available in the USA, and that is one of the reasons I use OneManga. Even when the comics are provided, they are often months if not years behind the current japanese release. When you are that far behind, and really into a cetain comic....it sucks to come across spoilers posted online. Anyways I only posted this topic to drive some conversation

Well ... intelligent conversation on the merits/disadvantages etc is altogether different from the rubbish some people around here were spewing out a little while ago.

Anyways ..... I look at the differences something like this .....

RISC User magazine ..... half a dozen people download to date = little to no potential loss of income

Uncle Scrooge Comic ..... bazillions of downloads = potentially a LOT of money lost to the owners of the content.

Substitute Uncle Scrooge for Batman, Avengers, Snagglepuss .... whatever .... the reality is that comics by their very nature tend to retain their popularity over far greater periods of time therefore as publishers move into thinking of providing digital content the illicit copying of that original content is more likely to impact their bottom line than 20 year old gaming mags.

The only thing I will say is that Anime/Manga has pushed it's way into all parts of the world popularity-wise for a long while now and as a result if publishers are going to refrain from thinking globally and target all the markets that desire their product then they are pretty much creating the conditions for people to rip/dub/subtitle their content. Same goes for releasing movies/TV in the USA six moths ahead of everywhere else because in the case of movies they only want to master 1000 reels etc. The internet has changed the rules on global distribution so they need to wake up to the fact and start thinking globally rather than market specific.