Manga, An End

Saw something interesting today.

First you need to understand some context. When it comes to things like Anime and Manga on the Internet the issue is a bit confusing. On the one hand it is clearly a breach of copyright to upload these things onto the Internet, however if you don't live in Japan... and basically have no other way of getting a hold of these things, because there is no company in your country that has the licences for these things... Then it was kinda ok to put up translated versions of these things.

The idea was when your country actually licenced these things they would need to come off the Internet, as they were definitely illegal now.

So I went to my normal manga site to find out they were actually closing down. This is because Manga publishers have taken a step forward and made it clear they don't like this sort of thing. This website is going down because it's always tried to stay on the legal side of things, so regardless of what happens in the future there pretty safe.

This creates an interesting issue that is similar to many things 'plaguing' the Internet. In that now that all the 'legal' places are going down and only the ones who don't give a shit will stay up, basically not solving the issue at all.

Companies have always tried to get their stuff off the Internet... But the Internet is a big place, where people feel entitled to absolute liberty, regardless of it's effect upon the world. Were in a sort of limbo at the moment, where the Internet will either bend to the will of corporations or stand firm and never break in the face of 'legal' issues and what have you.

Regardless I find I'm not really sad that manga on the Internet might start getting the ban-hammer.

Because it's all terrible at the moment.

It's really not worth your time.

Seriously.