CattyNebulart Wrote:We have been over this repeatedly, depending on assumptions the ideal length of copyright for a book, from a purely economic perspective, is somewhere between 6 and 2 years. Current copyright tends to be upward from 80 years, which means that it is too long by an order of magnitude.
Personally, I'd have no objection to Disney holding the copyright for Steamboat Willie until the sun explodes, as long as it's always possible to buy a copy at a fair price.
Of course, under this principle, when a work becomes unavailable for sale (or when they refuse to sell it to a population), they lose the ability to prohibit non-commercial distribution. (I want to say "immediately", but I suppose it's really better to have at least a three month grace period.)
Doesn't quite cover all the bases, but I think that would strike a nice balance between allowing creators to benefit from their creations, and ensuring that works which are no longer economically viable don't fade from existence in the long term.
Epsilon Wrote:Why do you have to read the manga scanlations to do that. I can find spoilers for series without ever going to a scanlation site. I follow Bleach and Fairy Tail up to current releases without once downloading a scanlation.
Because of course reading a summary provides the same experience and entertainment value as the actual work! Why, I'll never have to pay for another movie ticket again, I can just read the summary on wikipedia instead!
Quote:He asked for a case where availablity of fansubs killed a market.
... Who asked?
You mentioned that in a reply to me, but I didn't ask about that.
Though, again, if fansubs have a discouraging effect on bad anime, that's actually a plus in my book.
Quote:I find the argument that the only way to get free previews of manga is through scanlations to not satisfy my burden or proof.
Not sure anyone's saying it's the only way, full stop. It is, however, pretty universally effective, in that it works for manga that haven't been released in your region, or for people who only have bookstores available where they frown on such extensive browsing, or the store doesn't have the title you're interested in...
... Okay, so. Bob reads some scanslations of Negima online, decides it's awesome and spends a couple hundred dollars on the official releases. Alice goes into a bookstore, thumbs through a few volumes of a few different things, decides Negima is awesome and spends a couple hundred dollars on the official releases. Who is being harmed by the choice of one set of actions over the other? Maybe whoever bought the stuff Alice looked through and didn't buy, if she didn't wash her hands first.
-Morgan.