I’ll admit it; I do it. Chances are that if you’re reading this article, you do it too. We download scanslated manga from a number of assorted groups, but do many of us bother to take the time to reflect upon whether or not our conduct is legal? Ethical?

Legal? No.
Ethical? Ay, there’s the rub.

A Question of Legal Rights

First, a look at the technical mumbo jumbo that makes law so endlessly entertaining. In legal circles, there exist a few key terms: “copyright infringement” and “internet jurisdiction”. Copyright infringement is pretty self-explanatory; people copyright their products, and if you choose not to respect their copyrights, it’s infringement. Internet jurisdiction is something much more complicated and drawn out; in fact, courts are still discussing this concept to this very day. Basically, the idea is that if somebody feels that they have suffered harm locally due to an online activity, wherever that harm originated from, then a court in the country of that party would be allowed to assert jurisdiction over that online activity. To make things simple, in the case of Japanese manga, if a Japanese manga company believes that a fan group’s scanslation and online distribution activities are causing them to lose money, they are allowed to take action, even if those scanslation groups are not based in Japan.

In itself, it is not illegal for an individual to scan the manga that he owns for his own personal use. It is also not illegal for a person to translate or edit that manga for his own personal use. The legal problem arises when the individual decides to distribute the finished product to those who do not own the original. The “harm” is done by the distribution of the scanslated manga and by those parties who download and keep them.

A Question of Suffering

As previously noted, a Japanese manga company could sue or take other action against any party it feels has done harm to it, and in some distant way, one might say that both groups do harm to the Japanese companies; the scanslated manga is offered to anybody who might download it, people in Japan might be tempted to get it online, rather than pay for it. However, I am assured, in good faith, that Japanese people living in Japan much prefer to purchase the manga in their own language, and thus this is not a big issue for the Japanese companies. In fact, these companies stand to make money from licensing fees if the titles become so popular within scanslation circles that North American companies decide to pick them up.

So, if the Japanese manga company suffers little to no harm, what about the mangaka themselves? One might argue that the benefits of having their manga scanslated greatly outnumber their costs for a number of reasons. Mangaka do not receive royalties from the manga being licensed outside of Japan. However, many fans are inclined to buy their original Japanese language volumes, especially because the price of these books are significantly lower than the price of many professionally translated and edited “graphic novels”. The mangaka stand to benefit more from the sales of their original works, and they have the intangible, but valuable pleasure of knowing that their art and stories are known by people in many countries.

Without a doubt, it is the North American companies that suffer the most from scanslated manga, but the extent to which they suffer is an unanswerable question. When the manga that they choose to license is being simultaneously scanslated by fans online, they suffer losses from those people who prefer to download, and not to purchase. However, they also gain some exposure and “free advertising” from the scanslation groups’ efforts; more people are aware of the manga, having downloaded and read it on a trial basis, and may be such great followers of the series that they do not hesitate to purchase the professionally done books. It is easy to believe, however, that the number of people who leech and do not buy vastly outnumber those who become fans and buy. How much they lose is up for debate, for surely it cannot be argued that these companies gain nothing.

A Question of Ethics

In the interest of completeness, we must isolate two different types of manga scanslation groups: 1) those who choose not to scanslate North American licensed manga, and 2) those who are indiscriminate in their scanslation choices. Members of Group 1 think of themselves as more ethical scanslators; they will scanslate a manga for the masses to download and enjoy; but as soon as a professional North American company decides to license it, they drop the project. Members of Group 2 tend to think of themselves as more of a rebellious, underground element, hiding whenever possible. They pick up or continue licensed manga for a number of reasons, one of which is that some don’t really care about the word “licensed”.

It is not so simple to label one group ethical and the other group unethical; the difference is not so black and white. Both groups take copyrighted material from mangaka in Japan and use them. Both translate the author’s words into English and edit them for others to enjoy. The difference lies in the proximity and impact their actions have on the professional North American companies.

There are many arguments to be had back and forth over whether or not either party is ethical. The first group, who scanslates the manga but drops the project once the manga has been licensed, is seen to be the more ethical of the two; this is reasonable, for they do no major harm to anybody. Or do they? Although they drop the project, it is impossible for them to erase past releases, and often, many of the earlier scanslations that were done before the licensing circulate around the Internet, jumping from person to person. They may pull the downloads off their websites, and restrict distribution in their channels, however it is impossible for them to cut off distribution of their work in its entirety. Many groups pick titles that are popular, and thus are more likely to be licensed in the future. Unless scanslation groups have a crystal ball with which they can determine which titles will be licensed in the future, there is no way to avoid this short of only scanslating terribly unpopular titles, or not scanslating any manga at all. On the other hand, these groups promote the titles they choose to scanslate to an English-speaking audience, which in turn helps convince North American companies to license these titles and release professional publications.

Is the second group ethical? Most people would say no. However, there are many appealing arguments that members of this group might put forward. One major complaint about North American companies is the exorbitant cost of the “graphic novels” that they put in the market. For example, a typical Japanese language volume would sell for approximately $3USD in Japan, and approximately $8USD imported to North America. A typical English language graphic novel would run from $9-$16USD. Some people may find prices so high to be prohibitive, unaffordable, and unreasonable, especially when free chapters for download are readily available. Some see it as “revenge against commercialism”. Scanslation groups generally work at quick speeds; for the most part, the number of chapters of a given manga that they have scanslated exceeds that of the professional company. Scanslation groups are usually so far ahead that if they stop, fans would have to wait months before they could find out “what happens next!”

The burden of ethics should not lie with the scanslation groups alone; many people ignore the fact that ethics should be considered by those who download as well. But again, let’s be honest: leechers don’t care if what they’re downloading is licensed or not, as long as it’s free. However, this aspect is mostly overlooked, for professional companies could never take action against downloaders, who number in the thousands; they can only try to deal with the scanslation groups.

In the end, it all comes down to personal judgment, as discussions about ethics always do. If you feel guilty about reading scanslated manga, buy it. If you don’t, well, you’re in agreement with a huge portion of the Internet community. If you’re one of the companies, and you are aware that scanslations of your product are floating around freely, then you will feel cheated, and thus believe these scanslation groups to be unethical, no matter if they drop the projects or not. In the end, no scanslation and distribution group is entirely legal, but ethical always depends on your point of view.

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