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Ex-Mangamura operator ordered to pay 1.7 billion yen to publishers

by Yuto Yoneda

The former operator of the now-defunct manga piracy website Mangamura has been ordered to pay approximately 1.7 billion yen ($11.01 million) in damages to three major Japanese publishers. 

The Tokyo District Court on April 18 ruled in a lawsuit filed by Kadokawa Corp., Shueisha Inc. and Shogakukan Inc. against the operator for infringing on their rights by publishing popular manga on the internet without permission.

The publishers had sought damages totaling approximately 1.9 billion yen. The court ordered the former operator to pay approximately 1.7 billion yen.

This was the largest claim ever in a lawsuit over a piracy site.

According to the complaint, from around February 2016, when the site was opened, to April 2018, when it was closed, Mangamura posted approximately 8,200 pirated copies of manga and magazines, equivalent to about 73,000 volumes, without permission.

The maximum number of monthly hits at that time was close to 100 million.

The publishers estimated that the damages totaled about 320 billion yen and sought a portion from the suspected mastermind of the site.

In a criminal case, the Fukuoka District Court in June 2021 sentenced the former operator to three years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of 10 million yen and about 62.6 million yen in back taxes, for violating copyright law.

The Mangamura operator has served his time behind bars and has been released. 

#manga #piracy #copyright #comic publishers #scanlation

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#bookstores #booksellers #book publishing #book lovers #literacy

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As a kid’s bookseller, with a major chain, I find today’s news piece in The Bookseller reporting on "a notable shift towards shorter children’s books" incredibly resonant. Because publishers are not “judging children’s reading standards realistically. Nor are the people in the higher echelons of bookselling. I think both have “been guilty of favouring the books we as already bookish adults enjoy reading, losing sight of the actual child the books are intended for”.

What’s more, I would say the resulting “pedestal” treatment of overly long, overly complex, very often fantasy or borderline fantasy books is driving young readers away. Presented with 300 pages of world building, the majority of the children I meet, will baulk. The fence is too big, too early. I don’t blame them. I can’t read these massively complex books. I have a number of books (and I don’t want to name them) that have been lauded but which I haven’t bothered to finish reading because they’re too much like hard work, and the storytelling is not strong enough to compensate. And I have read Ulysses.

Recently, and I quote, a bookseller who has worked in bookselling for over 25 years called a children’s book that has won prizes in US and UK: “Wonderful, loved every minute of it, possibly the best book I’ve read all year – but it ain’t for kids.” These books are marketed at kids, but really, they’re for adults.

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#ya #young adult fiction #librarians #literacy #booksellers

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The horror, the horror...

My cartoon for this weekend’s @guardian books

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What is the Festival of Sant Jordi and when is it?

It is one of the most original celebrations in Catalonia and takes place in spring, on 23 April. It is a very popular festival that combines culture and romanticism, celebrating both World Book Day and Valentine’s Day. On this day, it is custom for couples to exchange gifts: the men receive a book and the women receive a rose. However, this has developed over time, so both men and women can receive books and roses.Book and flower stalls are set up along the streets of Barcelona. The streets fill with people walking around stalls, looking for a gift for their beloved, and for their family and friends too. You will find the latest publications, see well-known artists signing copies of their books, and of course, smell the scent of the roses.

From now on I am celebrating the Festival of Sant Jordi rather than World Book Day. It combines the best of both worlds, romance and culture.

#why is this not a global holiday #librarians #booksellers #literacy #book lover

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Merci bookstore in Paris.

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#tell me again why your party doesn't have a cleric #stories #storytellers

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Outdoor reading season has begun.

#outdoor reading season #booklr #book life #librarians #literacy

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I know that look.

My first job with books was working the stacks at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at NYU. The more academic subjects were often on floors with very little traffic. The building already had a reputation for suicides. On my first day on the job, I was told the patterned marble floor was designed to appear jagged and discourage jumpers from the top of the 12-story mezzanine. Shelving books on a floor where you are the only human can make you hear things. Old and dusty books give off their own mysterious vibe. When coupled with creaky pipes and the odd scurry of a rat, your mind tends to fill in the blanks with all sorts of creepy stuff...

Library of Congress

(Bernard Hoffman. 1941)

#what was that? #librarians #nyu #libraries

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How a Dallas bookstore is tackling book deserts and encouraging a culture of reading

by Zara Amaechi

...Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows Texas ranks in the bottom four of states for adult literacy.

Vega said the classroom doesn’t have to be where kids are introduced to books. Reading culture should start in the home — research shows that early exposure to books in a household is essential for building routines and practices that enhance lifelong cognitive skills.

But for many families, buying books is considered a luxury.

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#book deserts #literacy #texas literacy rates #bookstores #booksellers #community support

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#wait who is playing the lead character

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Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism

1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue

2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection

3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback

4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing

5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of

6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there

7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own

8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it

9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least

10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go

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I'd like to check out some 12 year old Knockando please. I have a library card...

#how to increase circulation #librarians #books & libraries #literacy #book life