Exclusivity of Projects

Hi,

My post is one day late (two for most people in the world) and I have a topic I want to write about but I'm too tired to go in depth so I'm just going to go into a topic in relation to it which is a lot easier to structure than what I have in mind.

I don't know how many people have actually noticed nor do people care but in the scanlating world, there seems to be this sort of "de facto" law with manga projects. (de facto: in practice or actuality, but not officially established)

The thing is that if you've been reading as long as I have and/or if you aren't always in the clouds when reading, you'd catch on that only one group/scanlator works on a manga. It seems like this exclusivity (note, exclusivity is an actual word) is some de facto law or some unified consensus among the manga community that only one scanlator/group works on a manga and no one else.

First of all, how does this exclusivity work?
Well, I think it's quite simple. From what I've seen over the years, a group has to simply deem themselves as a scanlating group (setting up some kind of webpage be it a forum or a blog or something else; so that people can find it and witness them as a scanlator) and make sure no one else that is established as a scanlating group is working on a project or has noted a project as a future work. If it's a person, well, same thing generally. But this also brings into question how this even began. I think it's just some kind of twist on the human notion of private property as well as the idea that there is no point on starting on a project if it's already being worked on. That's just me though, what I think.

What happens if someone else works on it?
Well usually this only happens with "amateur" scanlators e.g. (e.g. not i.e. -there is a difference) anyone, usually a one man job, who works on a project without consulting the group that has "obtained" exclusive rights to a manga. (Gosh this "obtained exclusive rights" thing just sound ridiculous since scanlators aren't doing anything legal per se.) And this usually happens because the scanlator that has the "exclusive rights" aren't working as quickly as the freeloading masses want them to. As a result, there are usually 2 different scenarios that can play out.
1) The amateur doesn't do a good job at all (stressing on the "amateur" but there are those rare cases where the amateur does a pretty exceptional job) and the release(s) simply serves as a preview (using paint instead of PS is one clear indication). This is good because that means the scanlator is pretty "professional" in the sense that they'll still release the chapter but in better/high quality.
2) The amateur (good or bad) keeps on releasing chapter after chapter and in the end, the scanlators stop working on it. After awhile, the amateur stops too.
Usually when this happens, it's because the scanlators get annoyed that someone else (amateur) is working on it and doesn't see the point of going any further--as for the amateur, they just stop because unlike the scanlator, he/she/they didn't have much obligation to continue working on it.
It actually rarely comes to this but when I sit witness to this, I advise the amateur to consult the scanlators as soon as possible in order to avoid the issue of a project being completely dropped all together. I'm glad they actually listen too
*3) The amateur does a good job at it. I don't know for sure what happens when this is the case because both 1 and 2 can happen but from what I remember with one person, the amateur realizes that #2 can happen and puts out some sort of warning credit/declaration about it as well as telling people not to release it on a manga aggregate site since it's just an amateur release.

It's kind of strange how this exclusiveness works but there are some exceptions and recently I've noticed a few mangas having more than one scanlator working on it and they're not any of the big name mangas either. It's strange when that happens but this is actually related to a topic I may be talking about some other time.

I never really thought about this "strange phenomenon" (or whatever you want to call it) of exclusivity until now but I remember one somewhat recent event that really made me aware of how crude that the practice of exclusivity can be. I'm not going to name anyone but this group, let's call it B (I know, how creative is that?) I remember only released the first chapter of a manga simply fearing another group, A would take it on as a project eventually. This manga had a prequel and a sequel. The prequel was drawn by another mangaka artist (the story is by a novelist) and A was making pretty good momentum in the scanlation of the prequel. The sequel on the other hand (by another mangaka-and in my opinion too flowery with details and doesn't fit well with the prequel at all) was kind of "up for grabs" so to speak. B wanted to work on it but feared that A would eventually work on it first so in a rush, B released a first chapter. I must stress that it's exclusivity in it's most unrefined "raw" state. The chapter was poorly done (cleaning was ok but the translation/grammar was poor--grammar and the flow of the text is necessary for HQ scans IMO) and it was "rumored" that B simply did a quick release in order to obtain the exclusivity. Worst part is that now, B has dropped it. I don't know what B's reasons were for dropping but if the reason for release is true, that's sad. Anyways, it's strange how this works in some ways I think.

But then there's the problem of some groups taking on too many projects that they can't handle it and end up not actually working on them simply because they're more recent mangas that are released by magazines... To solve that problem, I think some scanlators should look to volumes and not magazines as well as completed mangas instead of ongoing. But another day for another topic to go into I suppose.

That's all I have to say. I hope you enjoyed. If not, not my problem =)

Have a great week!
tohukyo