The world of scanlations is always on edge. Usually, when publishers announce official translations of manga titles, fans drop translations of this title. It's not rare that publishers hire fans who were translating this title before for free as an official team.
To be more precise, the real reason why such sites are alive is that they delete titles that got licenses in Europe and the USA. Still, publishers can measure the popularity of titles and buy legal rights to publish it, because it's popular enough. It's harder to find manga "raws" than translated versions.
And by that, they're not 100% "illegal" for the western world, and asian companies are not so interested in fighting with scanlations because they need to combat piracy in their part of the world.
Heck no. As per the Berne Convention they are 100% illegal even in the western world and can only survive due to the neglect or lack of legal resources---I have seen multiple cases where artists were well aware of scanlations but couldn't fight against them because of that. A legal way to do scanlation would be always welcomed (and there have been varying degree of successes in other areas), but it is just wrong to claim that they are somehow legitimate at all.
Maybe because they enjoy the interesting domain and challenges of the area, look at a project like Dolphin for example.
Also, some people hold the view that things like information, media, code can not be “stolen” in the traditional sense, so that further reduces any qualms about associating themselves with it.
Just curious if anyone reading this knows the answer: Would it be illegal to contribute man-hours on e.g. implementing features or fixing bugs on a project like this, or does that only apply to whoever actually hosts the content?
MPA tried to get the source code for Nyaa.si removed from GitHub because the "Repository hosts and offers for download the Project, which, when downloaded, provides the downloader everything necessary to launch and host a “clone” infringing website identical to Nyaa.si (and, thus, engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows)".
It was a completely retarded play on MPA's part and they only managed to get the repo down for days until GitHub restored it even without hearing from the repo owners. So really they only brought about some minor nuisance alongside a bunch of headlines to advertise Nyaa.si for the rest of the world.
A good lawyer would probably say something like "it depends".
It's entirely possible for a copyright owner to construe some kind of secondary liability based on your conduct, even if the underlying software is legal. This is how they ultimately got Grokster, for example - even if the software was legal, advertising it's use for copyright infringement makes you liable for the infringement. I could also see someone alledging contributory liability for, say, implementing features of the software that have no non-infringing uses. Even if that turned out to ultimately not be illegal, that would be at the end of a long, expensive, and fruitless legal defense that would drain your finances.
Depends on what you consider "stolen". In most cases, the manga that is available is translated and edited by fans to make it accessible to English-speakers when the IP owners do not see a reason to do it themselves. The amount of manga that actually get official English releases is very tiny and western licensing companies do not have many incentives to start picking up obscure manga that no one without the ability to read Japanese have heard of. They're much better off going after manga that have already been made popular by fan-translated manga, or have some other property that has caught traction (for example manga with an anime adaptation that has official or unofficial subtitles).
Scanlations are often viewed by fans as the only way to read comics that have not been licensed for release in their area. However, according to international copyright law, such as the Berne Convention, scanlations are illegal. [1]
This is a snippet about the Berne Convention:
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886. The Berne Convention has 179 contracting parties, most of which are parties to the Paris Act of 1971.
The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists the moment a work is "fixed", rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other parties to the convention. [2]
Yes of course it is stolen. And people claiming otherwise are the same people who come here and ask "What can I do, some Chinese company ripped of my website?!?!?!"
