So we’ve talked about scanlations more than a couple times here on Anime Vice, and that controversy’s continuing unabated. The latest turn in the ongoing drama (as Honolulu’s Star Advertiser and CBR’S Robot 6 blog spin it) seems to be that the “all-star coalition” of manga publishers has made some headway in getting major scanlation sites like Onemanga, Animea and MangaFox to take down links to scans on their front pages. However, if you still had urls for the pages… well,they still work, and there’s actually a good chance that they’ll turn up in a Google search or in an app compiler. Basically, the sites kept what they had – - they just stopped advertising it.

I’ll agree that eradicating piracy at this point will be basically like trying to plug up a leaky dam with your thumb. Just as soon as you’ve got one leak sealed on one end, there will be five more leaks popping up on the other end. However, I’ll also agree with Robot 6’s assessment that it isn’t impossible for this coalition to make significant progress. I’ll reckon it’s just going to take time, patience and a dedicated staff who’s savy to the kinds of subtle tricks described above.

Lissa Patillo’s column rebutting a lot of the scanlation-related arguments has been popping up a lot in these discussions. After reading it again, I’ll say that it’s that I’m definitely siding with the allied publishers (as if there were ever any doubt about that.) As a published writer, myself, I don’t think I’ll surprise anybody by saying that I sympathize with the creators’ rights in this fray. I’ve come across torrents of my work online before and, believe me, I don’t find it flattering to know that they’re out there.

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