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more reasons
Aug. 12th, 2010 11:35 amApparently some of the whiny entitlement babies who think that comics and animation are created by some kind of automatons without bills, families, or any financial needs whatsoever are making the argument that if you read scanlated manga online for free, it's just like going to the library and reading it for free. If this argument is being used by anybody over the age of 12, we are all in big trouble. Anyway Robin Brenner has a point by point rebuttal of why the two things are not alike.
And it got me to thinking, surely there are more reasons why reading manga at a library is not the same as scanlations...
5. No smelly homeless people using your computer as a convenient hangout. Well, maybe there are. I don't really want to know what kind of homeless roleplay white-slavery thing you have going on in your private computer dungeon.
6. Afterschool educational programs will never herd dozens of children into your scanlations. Unless you're reading a scanlation of the new manga "Afterschool Educational Program".
7. Late fees for not returning your scanlation? No sir. In fact scanlations have no fees at all. Which is actually the problem. And if you did happen to turn your scanlation back in on time (which you don't have to do) and the library desk failed to record it as returned and started charging you late fees, you wouldn't have to go to the library and find the scanlation in the stacks, bring it to the desk, and wave it around in front of the librarian while doing the "here's your scanlation, it was here all the time" dance.
7a. This also applies to scanlations which you, in fact, never checked out at all, and yet somehow the library computer decided you did, and in order to get everything cleared up so that you can, oh, I don't know, "graduate from college", you have to go through an entire Orwellian Kafkaesque nightmare all about a book on "autogenic therapy", whatever the hell that is, that you never even checked out to begin with!!
8. "SSSSSHHH!" You'll never hear this with scanlations! Unless you annoy those around you when you loudly move your lips while you read, which may very well be the case!
9. Libraries - buildings full of boring old-media "books", some of which you don't care about AT ALL, arranged according to something called the "Dewey Decimal System", which frankly smacks of Socialism. Scanlations - enjoyed from YOUR easy chair, with YOUR Cheetos within reach, and chosen by YOU. You'll never be challenged or confused by contact with the outside world!
10. Scanlations will never ever hire you at minimum wage to shelve the books in a particularly boring stretch of economics. Except for the book about how Amway is a cult, that book was pretty awesome, and one I would have never found EXCEPT FOR LIBRARIES. Suck it, scanlations!
11. You see, your mommy and daddy pay taxes so that we can have public libraries. Something about a well informed public being the cornerstone of a democracy or some such boring adult boredom. The libraries actually PAY MONEY for all those books you see on the stacks. Yeah, I know they could just download them all for free! Aren't they just silly! However, all this complicated boring adult stuff means "money" goes to the "publishers" and the "authors", and they can buy "groceries" and "gasoline" and write more books. And of course you're asking, why don't they just have their mommy and daddy get those things FOR THEM, like I do? I don't have to pay for any of that stuff! Yes. Truly it is an unsolvable mystery.
Hope this list helps. And I actually did have a political science instructor who informed us all breathlessly of the Communist takeover of our public educational system via the evil John Dewey. Who did not invent the Dewey Decimal System (that was Melvil). BTW fact-checking your PolySci prof does NOT result in higher grades, not for me anyway.
And it got me to thinking, surely there are more reasons why reading manga at a library is not the same as scanlations...
5. No smelly homeless people using your computer as a convenient hangout. Well, maybe there are. I don't really want to know what kind of homeless roleplay white-slavery thing you have going on in your private computer dungeon.
6. Afterschool educational programs will never herd dozens of children into your scanlations. Unless you're reading a scanlation of the new manga "Afterschool Educational Program".
7. Late fees for not returning your scanlation? No sir. In fact scanlations have no fees at all. Which is actually the problem. And if you did happen to turn your scanlation back in on time (which you don't have to do) and the library desk failed to record it as returned and started charging you late fees, you wouldn't have to go to the library and find the scanlation in the stacks, bring it to the desk, and wave it around in front of the librarian while doing the "here's your scanlation, it was here all the time" dance.
7a. This also applies to scanlations which you, in fact, never checked out at all, and yet somehow the library computer decided you did, and in order to get everything cleared up so that you can, oh, I don't know, "graduate from college", you have to go through an entire Orwellian Kafkaesque nightmare all about a book on "autogenic therapy", whatever the hell that is, that you never even checked out to begin with!!
8. "SSSSSHHH!" You'll never hear this with scanlations! Unless you annoy those around you when you loudly move your lips while you read, which may very well be the case!
9. Libraries - buildings full of boring old-media "books", some of which you don't care about AT ALL, arranged according to something called the "Dewey Decimal System", which frankly smacks of Socialism. Scanlations - enjoyed from YOUR easy chair, with YOUR Cheetos within reach, and chosen by YOU. You'll never be challenged or confused by contact with the outside world!
10. Scanlations will never ever hire you at minimum wage to shelve the books in a particularly boring stretch of economics. Except for the book about how Amway is a cult, that book was pretty awesome, and one I would have never found EXCEPT FOR LIBRARIES. Suck it, scanlations!
11. You see, your mommy and daddy pay taxes so that we can have public libraries. Something about a well informed public being the cornerstone of a democracy or some such boring adult boredom. The libraries actually PAY MONEY for all those books you see on the stacks. Yeah, I know they could just download them all for free! Aren't they just silly! However, all this complicated boring adult stuff means "money" goes to the "publishers" and the "authors", and they can buy "groceries" and "gasoline" and write more books. And of course you're asking, why don't they just have their mommy and daddy get those things FOR THEM, like I do? I don't have to pay for any of that stuff! Yes. Truly it is an unsolvable mystery.
Hope this list helps. And I actually did have a political science instructor who informed us all breathlessly of the Communist takeover of our public educational system via the evil John Dewey. Who did not invent the Dewey Decimal System (that was Melvil). BTW fact-checking your PolySci prof does NOT result in higher grades, not for me anyway.
