Devil under two masks: Mangafox and Mangahere

I think sites like MF, MR, etc that host manga from scanlator groups really need to try harder to put the community closer to the actual scanlators. They don't try nearly hard enough. As a result, you don't really see one united community of fans of manga, but many niches of them, ranging from the leeching(readers in forums of sites like MF) community, productive (translators/editors/scanlators/etc) community, business (admins of sites like MF) "community", and the go-in-between (people who dl manga/hentai/doujinshi/etc off scanlator blogs) community.

I think a lot of fans aren't connected to scanlator groups because it's easier to go to one site and find everything they like instead of going to a half a dozen or so. If all you read is Shonen Jump, then Mangashare is (almost) all you need, but if you read other series, then you need to go to different scanlators, and if you're following a dozen or so series, all those scanlator sites can really add up.

Mangahelpers used to be a great place that connected fans with scanlators by linking to their sites and plainly showing what group what did chapter of what series, but the site has since become obsolete by not having any downloads. And while it's not hard to go to a scanlator's site, ease is what most people care about, and if they can use only one site to get everything they need, they're going to get it.

I didn't know about this.

Yeah, because of this reason, I really think that the individual scanlator groups need to get together, in a sort of a union type deal, but still independent groups. Like, pool together to create one web reader for all the groups. I guess there is Batoto.com, but still it needs to get advertised and put more out there so that it exceeds the visit counts of Mangafox, mangahere, etc. And yeah, it is really tedious like you said to go to individual blogs and scanlator sites for all the manga. Which is why the scanlators should really need to at least create a directory at mangaupdates or create one of mangas each group does and link it back to their sites or their online manga readers.

@Penington
I completely agree with everything he said and really encourage that thinking.

Mangareader is half the time shit. They usually fuck up the order in which chapters come in and mess up the pages

I don't care what others say I'm still using mangafox

Why would they have a union? Isn't scanlating illegal? Why would they do such a thing as make a union?

Translation: I don't give a flying fuck about scanlators because I'd rather have sugar blown up my ass and I condone people making money with that



Well, "union" in the sense we understand it today maybe not. At least not in the sense of a "trade union"...

But as an aggregation of power to defend its members against people trying to exploit individual groups or members.

LWB has become that to an extent. They've gotten so big and so involved with other groups that parasites like DM don't dare fuck with anyone LWB work with.

Nash (may he rest in peace) gave a pretty concise explanation for why two wrongs don't make a right in this regard.

Scanlating may be illegal, but is it illegitimate? That's another question. I, for one, think that the whole (legal) publishing industry itself is illegitimate because it is grounded in private property and wage slavery.

One could consider scanning and scanlating a form of direct action against private property, just as stealing or smashing windows would be, but far more specialized and thus more effective.

What happend to NAsh?

Harmonian died on a camping trip wrestling a bear.

Nash then hung himself over the loss of his loved one.

(The latter part is actually true)

Mod Note: Topic has been moved from Serious Discussion to the Anime General section.

The tone of the topic being discussed is quite serious, but I believe it would garner more responses and exposure in the Anime General section.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

This is why I mainly read from the scanlators' sites themselves, like Mangastream and Easy Going Scans. Luckily, their projects are the only ones I read regularly.

Or you could use CXC-Scans' manga reader instead. Or you could keep using MangaFox and just ad-block everything.

... Hmmm... you sure mangareader have TLR:D on there? last i check, not there...

i'll bite.

Why are they doing this?

Scans are not done for money. People are taking (read pirating) japenese work and translating it into english. Fair enough. This is how series catch on here. Many manga that have eventully published got their fame online.

Now here's the thing. How exactly does having a second illegitimate manga site help them generate more money?

1. Both sites do the same thing
2. the second illegitimate site, doesn't wait the amount of time scanners ask you wait, which is what? 7 days at most?

I mean come on. Mangafox is already profitable. How can having scans up for a series one week sooner somehow make so much more money? Doesn't make sense.

There is nothing wrong with taking scans and posting it on a site and making money, as long as they get permission from the scanners of course. In fact I think it's brillient, since a lot of otaku want to read manga, can't afford to buy everything they want to read and don't want to be caught sitting in a bookstore or library reading manga. In other cases some manga get discontinued (RIP Toykopop), Scan sites are good for filling in the blanks.

Bottom line is. I CALL BULL.

It sounds like someone is butthurt and make a bunch of shit up. I just don't see why someone would go through all the trouble to run two sites that do the same exact thing.

I'll keep on using mangafox unless you guys actully make a compelling argument. It it is true i'll boycott Mangafox but right now i'm not too convinced.

i read mangafox, goodmanga, and mangareader, some certain manga feaster in mangafox, and some other faster in another in manga reader or goodmanga !!!

The evidence is all laid out before you. Mangahere and Mangafox are both linked back to one owner, who apparently could give two shits less about abiding to waiting periods and/or requests to not host manga by scanlation sites when asked to. It's the staff at MF who does that. But if taking down the scans hurt ad revenue, ie a popular manga that rakes in a lot of money daily, then they just ignore it and upload anyways. Having scans up one week sooner means much more than you think.

The intake traffic you would get from having it one week earlier is enormous. Let's say Mangahere ignores scanlation requests and hosts manga before the wait period is over. The site gets its daily readers and per any random manga, there is at least 1,000 fans/viewers. Each chapter has about 19~50 pages depending on the series and magazine it's in. Imagine how much adsense revenue that generates in merely a day, forget a week. Then after that wait period is over, Mangafox hosts the same manga chapters. It's daily readers come and do the same thing. It's twice the profit for sites that are as big as Mangahere and Mangafox. It's just clearly two-timing the scanlation groups and just trying to reap the benefits. The bottom line is that both websites have an enormous amount of traffic daily. And that's what the problem is. Bitch slapping scanlation groups in the face and shitting on them and their policies.

[spoil]Try Batoto

[quote="ubergeneral"]There is nothing wrong with taking scans and posting it on a site and making money, as long as they get permission from the scanners of course./quote]

The problem is, Mangafox doesn't get permission, and while they claim to respect the wishes of the scanlators, the hard truth is that the site does not. All they care about is making money.

As for why have two sites doing the exact same thing - more money, of course! Both sites make money, so that's more money the owner pulls in every month. Also, some people might use Mangahere instead of Mangafox because they've had about how Mangafox doesn't care about scanlators. They think they're avoiding the asshole site when they're really not, because the same person owns both sites.

What more do you want? What constitutes a "compelling argument" for you? Mangafox doesn't respect the wishes of scanlators - this is made extremely clear. Notice how the credits page says, "Do not rehost this chapter. Please don't support websites that do"?

Mangafox is a for-profit organization that only cares about money; there are other read-online sites that aren't just about earning as much dough as possible, that actually listen to scanlators' requests.

To add to how greedy Mangafox is, I remember some time ago, around when OneManga died, Mangafox removed a lot of series due to copyright infringement. Included were Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Yu-Gi-Oh (there were many others, but those four are the only ones I remember being taken off, and they alone illustrate my point satisfactorily). With a few weeks, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece were returned, without any explanation. Of course, no one needed an explanation. Those three series (and the other popular ones that were brought back) were important money-makers. They drew in a lot of people, and the more people that visit the site, the more money the owner makes from ads. With the most popular series gone, the number of people that visited Mangafox drastically decreased. So, to get their profits back up, Mangafox brought back the series, disregarding any possible legal troubles. They did this solely to keep people coming to Mangafox. This is obvious because they didn't bring back every series that was removed; Yu-Gi-Oh remained removed, and it is still removed to this day. The only series that were brought back were the most popular ones, the ones that generate the most income for the site.

Are you literally retarded?
1)Please present proof this is made up.
2)Two sites = Double the money.
3)I pull from that post that you don't understand anything about why groups want a 24hr time delay on their releases or how much effort it goes into to making a chapter.
4)Educate yourself.



Nuff said.

Sorry, but as a scanlator you should know you have a thankless job. You do not have any rights to your translations, anymore than these corporations have no right to use your fan translations as they please. The actual legality of the matter is a gray area, but as far as the legality of copyrights regarding themselves and scanlators, there are none, so they are free to do as they please and make a profit from it.

I don't understand why so many translators get upset by this. It is free advertisement for your work. You aren't getting paid, and you aren't going to, so what is there to complain about?

i have the feeling your trying to troll me, but I'll bite anyways.

first off I don't want to put down your work. You do a good thing translating manga for us. I want to thank you for that.

However you made an argument and said "I saw this" but show no links. So I argued back saying "I don't believe it". That pretty much it.

I think that if it is true then it's really low and bogus to do.



Now I'm curious. Why is that? I figured it had to do with making people go to the scanners site so they can make money. Otherwise I can't see why people would want to withhold a release.



i'm not seeing it. A reader isn't going to read the same chapter on both sites. They are either going to mangafox or mangashare. If one site did the same as both sites the same amount of money would be made.

Sorta like having business split 50/50 or having all at one shop. Your still getting the same customers!



Ok you say you have proof that mangafox doesn't respect the wishes of scanners and you post a link that says "don't support sites that don't support the wishes of scanners"

All you have shown me is that mangafox supports scanners. Still haven't said anything about mangahere.

I'm curious and i'll do some research on it when I get an off day. But to me I think it's really far fetched.