User blog comment:Caring16/Stop SOPA before it takes are fandom away!/@comment-3987368-20140318105032/@comment-3987368-20140318123518

I didn't claim in any part of my post that we aren't to blame or that what certain consumers do is alright. Like with a wiki edit-war, it takes two. We have to take the blame in so far as we torrent movies and anime and read manga scanlations online, thus costing the production companies the money lost because now that some people have the stuff in their computer, they won't buy the DVDs or manga volumes.

The overall issue I was trying to speak against was the panic that goes on whenever what we love is threatened. The first time SOPA was brought out, the same thing happened. We got random rants on DA, Tumblr, Twitter and tons of other places which basically consisted of people throwing links in their journals/posts/tweets and telling people to vote against "this" or "that" without really knowing what "this" or "that" is. That's the dumbest possible way to protest something because it's clunky, disorganized and lacks a coherent goal. The bills were ultimately stopped because of organized protest by voters and media use by companies in opposition to the bills. Wikipedia blacked-out their site for a day (despite the fact that officially they maintain a policy of neutrality, they found this far too extreme), people wrote to their congress members from their state and debates were had which put the issue into context for the unaware, thus making them aware and causing them to engage in the issue.

For the issue of anime and manga in particular, the tricky thing here is that the copyright exists but the enforcement of it is sketchy. Yes, image and likeness do qualify and in fact, the image of Erza in a bikini when drawn by a fan is copyright because Fairy Tail is copyrighted. This scares people but the simple way out of this is the fandom itself. Do you think Kodansha, Mashima and whoever has the FT copyright is going to sue a DA artist because they drew that? Absolutely not. Of course, that's a different issue from reading the manga on a scanlation site. So why haven't they taken down the sites when they're obviously aware of them and they cost them money? Well, we can identify a few reasons for that:


 * 1) Image. Do they want to be known as a body that removes the online material of its work even when it costs money? It has the advantage of increasing their profits but at the same time will seriously cost them in the eyes of the fanbase. Whenever companies do something that people don't like, there is a backlash. When Visa stopped payments to WikiLeaks during that fiasco a few years ago, Hackers Anonymous took down their site in retaliation. Are the forces behind FT afraid of Hackers Anonymous? Probably not, but they do have to worry about how they look and in all honesty, their image consultants will likely tell them to adopt a liberal approach to online scanlations.
 * 2) Engagement. Any company worth its salt knows that having an engaged fanbase is a good thing. These are the people who will ultimately purchase their material and encourage others to do so. I started with reading online scanlations when I was getting into the FT manga and since then, I've bought a few volumes. I'm sure we all know others who've bought manga as well, despite its readily available status on Manga Stream.

Third point, softer approaches. Thank you for bringing up this particular example, Misk. Crunchyroll is a great resource for watching your anime and reading manga. They're currently offering more titles than I can remember. The main issue with them is that people still want to download their anime or don't want to bother with a 5-minute sign-up process for a free trial since it's temporary and you will eventually have to pay to keep using the service. Still it's a great step in the right direction and while my trial expired a while ago, I'd start paying soon as I get my credit and tax information (I have to since I live in India) in order.

So, yes, illegal manga scanlations are a part of the issue but they're almost completely insignificant when you compare it to movie piracy or video game piracy. I'm not defending it, and I think people should buy the volumes if they can. In the greater scheme of things, and in relation to this particular venture by the corporations to censor the internet, manga isn't the highest priority in their list and their strategy is not going to be relying on things like SOPA, CIPA or PIPA in order to keep their profit margins from falling into the red.

Basically, please don't write off my post as an attempt to defend copyright infringes as a whole or to vindicate a particular group.