re: speed scanlation groups

Fan Boy Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 15

i've only been into scanlation for about a year now, but i hope you folks don't mind if i play devil's advocate here for a little bit.

so people 'steal' other people's scanlation projects. we all know how that works.

but let's look at it another way: take something as widely translated as, say, the iliad. you certainly aren't going to say that the latest translator 'stole the project' from the translator before him? or that translator from the countless others that likewise preceded him? they all worked off the original. same in scanlation. it's not like scanlation group B passed off group A's work as their own. each scanlation adds a little bit to the body of work, each a little different, that exists based on the original. who knows, i might find something enjoyable in B's scanlation that wasn't in A's.

but these 'project-jackers' aren't just doing it for the love of art, are they? they're pre-empting other groups' releases. some groups even exist specifically to pre-empt other groups' work.

so you have speed scanlation groups vs. quality scanlation groups. the speed guys are unsatisfied with the pace at which the quality guys work, and the quality guys are irked that the speed guys are stealing their thunder, running off with projects that they (the quality guys) worked so hard on and made so popular.

so who's in the right? the market will tell us.

both groups and their releases are subject to the same laws as any market-- that is, competition and natural selection will weed out the 'weaker product' and the groups that attract the largest audience share (presumably those that do the best work in the least amount of time) will be the ones to survive and flourish. to put it simply, the best scanlating group wins.

not necessarily the quickest.

another possible outcome of this competition is that each type of group will attract an audience that shares its outlook. so the rabid fanboys and impatient leechers will flock to the speed groups, while the more discerning fans will stick with the slower quality groups. this works out well for everyone, because the rabid fans get what they want sooner, and the rest of us can use our forums and irc channel in peace without their incessant questions and all-around immaturity.

there's another possible scenario, wherein mercenary people (like me) initially download the crappy, chopsuey-english scans for preview purposes, just to scratch the itch, and then afterwards download the quality stuff as they come out for archiving in their pc's.

so the overall point here is, let the market be--it'll all work out in the end. my appeal to the groups having projects stolen from them is to not quit and deny the fans their excellent work. we can choose, and we can wait.

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:23 pm

summer is a great time to try dog meat soup in Korea...

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:54 pm

My main problem with project stealers is that there's always the undercurrent of a feeling (both from the stealers and the leechers who get the manga) that the original group has somehow failed in an obligation to the "fans". This is sometimes explicitly stated -- I've seen people claim that it is rude to the fans for a scanlation group to go too slowly on a project.

The main difference between your Iliad example and stealers is that the translator of The Iliad starts from the beginning, and generally brings a new interpretation to the work (and sometimes a better translation). That is a very different thing. Mangascreener "stole" Mushishi from a different group, but the reason we did it is that we felt we could do a better job than the other group, and we started from chapter 1.

The stealers, on the other hand, are just catering to the greed of fans by putting out crap translations. This is not the same thing at all.

Quote:

so who's in the right? the market will tell us.

Scanlation is not a "market". Scanlation is a hobby. We don't have to cater to fans' wishes to make money or to keep our group afloat. You make the mistake that many scum-leechers make -- you believe that the scanlators care how many readers we have. News flash: we don't. Whether 20 people or 2,000 people read my projects makes no difference to me. It's not like most of them show their face on the forums or in the channel except to complain anyway.

Quote:

so the overall point here is, let the market be--it'll all work out in the end. my appeal to the groups having projects stolen from them is to not quit and deny the fans their excellent work. we can choose, and we can wait.

What an fucking arrogant opinion.

You seem to feel like you're some entitled bitch sitting on his chair waiting for the groups to cater to your need to draw you in to their group. "Hey, when a group screws you over, don't quit! Stick around so that you can give me what I need!"

Every time you support the speed releasing groups, you make the legit groups that much less interested in putting out a quality project (any project at all, really). The speed releasing groups could be the death knell for serious, high quality scanlations. Why should anyone spend a lot of their free time on a project they get no money for if the leechers will just read the speed scanlation instead when it comes out?

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

Don't worry, they'll re-download the better-quality ones when they come out coz tat's what they keep!11

As for the actual topic and the original poster. Umm.
You = stupid.

Yeah that's about as much effort as I feel like putting into my reply.

PS to qualify my statement a bit, you make the cardinal sin of assuming that scanlating is an actual "market" where leechers and scanlators both have something to gain, and require one another to get that benefit. It doesn't quite work like that, sorry.
In an actual market, if the consumer makes noise about what they want/aren't getting, the suppliers will shift their actions to better fit those demands.
In scanlating, you leechers (consumers) can bitch and whine all day about how we scanlators (the producers) should do things better, faster, whatever, and we will turn around and tell you to go fuck yourself.

Fan Boy Joined: 13 Aug 2003 Posts: 18

The main reason “speed translation” groups annoy me isn’t because of their crappy quality, it’s because of the duplication of effort. Anyone who’s been around the anime scene for awhile knows how badly things went downhill once digisubbing started, and it’s pretty obvious that’s starting in manga as well.
With anime, there is at least some rational (only a few new shows come out each season); with manga it’s completely pointless, there are 5000+ existing titles and hundreds of new chapters coming out every week in Japan. No matter what genre a group is working in there’s a ton of great stuff that no one has translated yet and fans over here have no idea even exist.
If all the Johnny-come-latelies would just do a little research before starting on whatever the fan boys are obsessing over today they’d find plenty to keep them busy without having to steal someone else’s project.

Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 11:26 am

Mangascreener has been around for more than half a decade... on the internet thats an amazing feat. Speed groups have and will come and go... but Mangascreener has a foothold, and i doubt anyone is gonna go out and speed-translate My Name Is Zushio or Mushishi... thats why we'll be here tomorrow, unlike some groups who only care about jutsus, boobs and exploding heads.
Wait a minute, what the heck am i doing here?!

Mangascreener Love Slave Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 124

We didn't steal Mushishi technically. I spoke to the group originally about doing it and they had decided to drop it unofficially because there was way too much kanji involved for the translator. Maybe I didn't tell anyone but whatever.

Anyways, speed groups suck. They're not doing anything new, but translating (badly) manga that other people have already sweated over. I don't see any achievement in that. Admittedly, for the average leecher, those groups are good enough for them because they provide fast releases but once those series get licensed, they'll just hump some other group that's going to do it underground.

Another note, if speed groups are so disatisfied with the groups who originally do the projects, why don't they offer their services instead? Of course, if you think you can do some quality shit with p2p raws and a few summer courses in Japanese, then yeah, you've got another thing coming.

Roadie Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 45 Location: Located

Kashi wrote:

Another note, if speed groups are so disatisfied with the groups who originally do the projects, why don't they offer their services instead? Of course, if you think you can do some quality shit with p2p raws and a few summer courses in Japanese, then yeah, you've got another thing coming.

I have to strongly agree with this. The weakest point of speed groups is undoubtably the translation, which you need real experience. It is possible to scan something fast, or find decent raws on p2p. If you're experienced at photoshop you can do a decent editing job pretty quickly. So why not offer those scanning / editing talents to a group which already has a great translators? Stephen is usually ahead of what's been edited by a few chapters (judging by txt files on his site vs whats out) so extra editors here could have a quality release out faster instead of forcing a give and take between the two. ZD is an amazing editor but he's scanning a lot of stuff himself, which takes up time he could use for editing. I was ready to take the MS editor test before ZD showed up due to wanting more Monster so badly (a position i've since retreated from, at least for the present). Instead of bitching about omanga's recent sluggish release rate, take them up on the offer of needing good editors on their main page.

If you have a mid-end scanner and know how to use it (not that hard) it's pretty cheap to buy a volume of manga, and it doesn't take much time to scan a few chapters a week. Put on some music while you do it.

Basically the fact that these people don't do this but put up sub-standard works with their own groups name on them makes me think they are doing it more to see the name of "their group" on something and the novelty of doing something by oneself rather than getting the best possible product for the fans (assuming one buys into that moral imperative).

As for http downloads, manga daisuki is running a fan support based system where they have a server with 200GB (i think) a month of bandwidth that costs $50 a month to run. If fans donate $50 a month, they get a crapload of hosted downloads. If they don't they have to wade through fserves. This could be a plausible "model" to base easier distribution on.

Fan Boy Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 23 Location: Sweden

Quote:

As for http downloads, manga daisuki is running a fan support based system where they have a server with 200GB (i think) a month of bandwidth that costs $50 a month to run. If fans donate $50 a month, they get a crapload of hosted downloads. If they don't they have to wade through fserves. This could be a plausible "model" to base easier distribution on.

But then again, fserves don't cost a dime.

Fan Boy Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 15

thanks YT and EK for correcting my earlier incorrect assumptions. consider the market competition theory erased from this leecher's mind.

what i was trying to get across was that quality scanlation (better projects, better translation & editing, etc.) will win out over "speed" stuff in the long run, but i guess i chose a really horrible allusion to illustrate. for which i apologize. i guess i took the 'by fans for fans' thing too far. i hadn't realized that the fans they were referring to were still themselves!

oh, and just for the record, i do read the quality stuff before i archive it, to look for weaknesses in the speed translation.

big idjit Joined: 03 Jan 2003 Posts: 280

mista wrote:

Quote:

As for http downloads, manga daisuki is running a fan support based system where they have a server with 200GB (i think) a month of bandwidth that costs $50 a month to run. If fans donate $50 a month, they get a crapload of hosted downloads. If they don't they have to wade through fserves. This could be a plausible "model" to base easier distribution on.

But then again, fserves don't cost a dime.

well in some sense they do. because they eat up someone's bandwidth and someone is paying for that bandwidth. Like if I seed something, it uses up my bandwidth which I *could* use for something else.

The donation thing is a good idea though I think. Maybe more like you can pay for an account for web downloads while if you don't pay you just get it from BT or something. You just have to worry about people sharing accounts.

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

Yeah, unfortunately those plans where you dispense "special priviliges" to people (whether it be dump access, web downloads or whatnot) usually have a fundamental fallacy, i.e. they trust the users to not be complete and utter morons who have no sense of decency or foresight.

Remember what happened when we were giving out access to Souraga's dump?

Roadie Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 45 Location: Located

Whether you agree or not whether the bandwidth for http dumps is useful or not, people want them, and MD shows people are willing to pay for them (~$80 this month), and it'd keep some of the pollution out of the irc channel. I don't think it'd be possible to host all of MS stuff in a souraga style dump, but just have new releases for x amount of time and then rotate older chapters / finished projects on a monthly basis.

As long as you can set the site to shut down when bandwidth limit is reached, if the leechers eat up all the bandwidth they just have to wait until next month to come back. As far as I can tell the MD downloads are open to all as long as enough money is there.

Fan Boy Joined: 13 Aug 2003 Posts: 18

omanga's able to keep most of their stuff on http with fan donations and they do 2+ tb's a month, so it defenitly feasible. you just have to have someone willing to corridinate everything (and have a few decent leeches willing to help out)

big idjit Joined: 03 Jan 2003 Posts: 280

and again, the download script dammit!

it's going to waste! :O