Illegal 'scanlation' of web comics overseas frustrates Korean creators

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

The rampant growth of illegal scanlation of web comics overseas is causing growing financial and psychological damage to Korean creators. Scanlation, a portmanteau of "scan"' and "translation," is a fan-fueled online posting of translated comics without the consent of the copyright holder.

Over 1,300 scanlation aggregate websites are active in more than 30 countries, according to a Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) report. They host unlicensed and amateur translations of web comics from Korea and other countries in over 40 languages and yielded 334.8 billion page views in 2020 alone.

Illegal scanlation is a universal issue for Korean web comic creators. "Almost every single webtoon made in Korea is illegally scanlated and shared online. It is every webtoon creator's frustration," says Kim Dong-hoon, the head of the Korean Webtoon Creator Union.

The driving force behind these pet translation projects, according to Ggang-e, a webtoon artist from Lezhin Comics, is young avid comic readers of various nationalities. They form translation groups, collaborate via the internet, and claim that Korean artists "should be flattered" for the hard work of global promotion they offer for free.

Their reasons for voluntary unlicensed distribution go on. The cost, quality, and speed of commercial releases on legal platforms fail to meet the expectation of global readership, the amateur translators argue.

However, from the artists' point of view, illegal scanlation is blatant piracy. "I was in complete shock when I found my work on an illegal foreign website two years ago. We, the webtoon creators, financially depend on readers' view counts and purchases on official platforms. There is no question that these works are artists' intellectual property. Illegal distribution, no matter how well-intended, is a threat to our living," said Junah, a webtoon artist from Lezhin Comics, in an interview with the Korea Times.

Some artists fall victim to severe cyberbullying for speaking up for their property rights. "Some illegal translators and readers bombard me with slander, abusive language, and insulting images, because I speak out against illegal scanlation on social media," says YD, another Lezhin Comics creator. She says she is not the only one in the field who has been to a mental clinic for depression treatment, due to the stress from illegal scanlation.

92 percent of Korean webtoon creators say illegal scanlations have made it difficult to work on their current comics, and over 50 percent have considered retiring their careers because of illegal translations, according to the survey provided by the union.

To bring an end to intellectual property right infringement overseas, the Korean government and Interpol initiated a three-year-long cooperative investigation in April. The investigation aims to arrest the individuals who are engaging in illegal distribution of Korean contents and to confiscate derived profits, according to Pyo Gwang-jong, an official in charge of Copyright Protection Division at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The creators welcome the joint investigation and call for intellectual property rights awareness campaigns by the government. A group of legal readers from Korea and overseas have come together in solidarity to raise voices for the creators' rights and report illegal translations. The civilian effort, however, is not enough.

"Illegal scanlation ruins artists' lives and dreams. It harms creators, and no creator is grateful for such piracy. If we go on like this, I'm afraid the Korean webtoon market could perish someday," says Ggang-e.





source: The Korea Times

Comments

[dantethetaco.livejournal.com]

Hmm, scanlations are only done when the source material is not officially being translated to that language. Or when the official translations take months to come, wich is not the case for the webtoons/manhwa that do get translated on the regular. So... they are losing money from people they are not willing to sell their product to? In fact, much like fansubs to kpop, scanlations has helped create a market for manga and manhwa outside of Japan and Korea.

I understand that a lot of people get used to consuming media for free, and that can be a problem. But, most people when they are presented with a legal and good quality option to consume media they are willing to pay for it, And that has been shown time and again.

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

Yep. Translate your webtoons into English and offer opportunities for foreign fans to purchase them instead of complaining

[timetobegin.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same. I feel sympathetic to the original creators, but the article makes it sounds like the illegal translators are making a huge profit over it — which is certainly not true. These are often people doing the translators for free in their own time! If Korean companies can market their comics internationally through their own official platform, international audiences would be more than willing to use that. The Webtoon app is a great example of that imo.

[cxxl.livejournal.com]

Im assuming we are looking at mostly independent/small teams. As an artist who dipped his toe into webcomics…that shit do take a lot of time. I’m not gonna pretend that I don’t read scanlations because…yeah. If you don’t have official platforms, fans are going to find ways to make it accessible. Point blank and period. But these are not major publications that can possibly eat that. Again this do take time and if you messing with my bag, and NOT putting money back into the original creator in some way, then yes we gonna have a problem.

I don’t think the Korean webtoon market is gonna perish. Like we doing too much on that. But there is obviously a need for growth and adjustment. Webtoons have exploded in popularity and should be made more available, especially if this is going to be messing with these creators’ money.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

If they are mad about the scanlation groups, they might as well be mad at a wall, cause they ain’t gonna bend or disappear lol The whole point of the groups is that they are fans that earn nothing from the work they do, so the creators can’t even complain they are losing money because of them.

I think the biggest issue is the screenshoting and directly sharing of the official English versions in sites that do earn money from ads. This is indeed clearly a breach of copyright.

However, I’m always a little skeptical about the “if piracy goes away, sales will definitely rise” speech. As a person who has been a fan of manga and anime for a looooong time, and has lived both in Japan and Brazil (where it was extremely hard to get content at the time), I’ve always observed that people that are willing to pay for content will do so from the start. This also includes myself lol. For example, just last week I binged Painter of the Night from my friends’ account, but if I didn’t have a free way to get my hands on it, I’d just not read it and not spend my money on that specific work, cause I have others I want to support more.

Tl;dr piracy ain’t going away, it finds a way lol

[chiives.livejournal.com]

lol as someone who as been reading scanlations since the late 90's by downloading hundreds of zip files on a dial up connection ia. there ALWAYS will be pirates and the only way to mitigate that is to provide translations quickly and make it easy to access (and not force people to get a vpn just to read shit, come on).

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Totally! If people start blocking all the sites without providing a good and affordable service to back it up, stuff like sharing via mirc chat rooms will just come back lol

[chiives.livejournal.com]

lol irc! i was an irc baby but nowadays i'm in several discord fansub groups, it's all very same shit, different day. 😂

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Hahahahah yeah, the discord servers would work just fine too!

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Also, most scnalation group I follow buy their raw and drop teh serie as soon as it's translated
If anything platform like webtoon & co I've been watching scanlation group to know which webtoon to pick

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Yes, when I was in Brazil and had to rely on US scans I was always afraid the manga would get licensed there and I wouldn’t be able to read anymore lol

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

Ia with the comments that piracy will unfortunately always exist in media, and the creators would be better off finding ways to deal with it rather than just demanding it stop.

But at the same time, these scanners are actually abusing artists for daring to ask them to stop stealing their work??? Who raised these people jfc

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that’s messed up! The least people could do is not be vile about it, the creators are not the ones wrong here. Just quietly find another way of sharing or pay up.

[dantethetaco.livejournal.com]

But at the same time, these scanners are actually abusing artists for daring to ask them to stop stealing their work??? Who raised these people jfc

I doubt it's the scanners or translators doing it. Most of the people that scan/translate do it because they are fans of the series and want to share it with people that cannot read/watch the material because they don't know any of the languages it's translated to. I's a very hard, time consuming and unrewarding work with 0 profit involved. And most of them buy the original work, campaign for licensing in their countries and encourage buying merchandising to support the artists.

It's the very minority of people (consumers) who pirate and refuse to pay for the works, even when they get licensed, that usually get very defensive and aggressive about piracy.

TL;DR It's probably not the scanners/translators but a minority of the consumers doing it.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

NGL I read a lot of fan translation but only when the material isn't available in french or english
As soon as it drops on webtoon I read there, and let me tell you my ass has been buying A LOT of fast pass

[torontok.livejournal.com]

I'm amongst the demographic that does pay for webtoons so I get the frustration for creators.However,I think the issue is the business model on sites like Lezhin where for many webtoons you have to pay for every episode beside one or two free.That just encourages piracy. If you look at something like Naver Webtoon which allows for weekly updates or daily passes with the option to purchase episodes ahead of release and uses ads, I think that's a better solution

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

I agree. Like I regularly use sites like Lezhin but these stories are long usually, and the coins per chapter add up. I don’t mean to be mean but back in the day when I bought Tokyopop manga novels back in the day it was like around $10 or so right? But with these web comics, these stories can go well over $20, even $30 to read the whole story. That’s ridiculous. I think there needs to be a more affordable option.

This is nitpicky but they let you preview maybe 3 chapters for free before making you pay. I think for a long story they can at least make the first 10 chapters free. I’ve definitely had buyer’s remorse before after a few chapters I spent coins on made me realize the story isn’t for me. If they let me preview the web comic more beforehand I’d have a better impression of if it’s worth continuing.

Also let’s be real, I’m older than most people consuming these webcomics. These teenagers just don’t really have money to be spending like that, I mean those $10 manga were so much for me to buy as a kid lol! Maybe a membership where you can get access to most stories? I know they you can read free for certain stories on certain events but idk if that’s much incentive.

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

I probably should add those $10 manga add up if it’s a series going on forever lol! $10 can be $70+ real quick. But there was time spaced in between releases so there was time to put money away for them. I wasn’t really buying whole series at once. Can’t say that for the web comics imo.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

Mte to all your points. Many webtoon readers are teens and really don't have the funds to be paying that much for an entire series. And I really agree about buyers remorse being a thing for a lot of series.I think I'd be fine with sites incorporating more video ads for revenue or some something similar to try and bridge the profit gap.And maybe make merch available overseas. Like for POTN I know so many international fans want the music box Lezhin is selling but its only available in Korea.

[infj23.livejournal.com]

Intellectual property laws and intellectual rights do not match the times. Legislators and property owners need to be much more imaginative about how property and rights to them are created, owned, distributed and monetized. Technology is going to continue to give purchasers—not the owners—of products more power and ability to set demand and supply. This isn’t the early 1900s where owners have complete control over their products any more. Streaming music is one innovation but even that will only last for 10-15 years. The movie industry holding simultaneous releases of films across the world and experimenting with offering opening day streaming events is more ideal and reflective of our current environment—a global economy with citizens who are interested in consuming products outside their countries. Until contracts and laws better reflect this privacy will remain a desirable and profitable alternative.