JaneDrew sent me this link and SLURP it sucked up an hour of my life. So, what better to do than inflict it on all of you? Midnight Secretary is, well, kind of awesomely addictive. A secretary, a mysterious boss, insane demands, egocentrism, adorable looks hidden behind big blinky-owl glasses? Sound familiar? It’s like Harlequin: Presents crossed with manga and vampire romance.
Enjoy. Mwaaaahahahahaa.
ETA 9/2015 – it’s available legally! Legit copies! Oh, this is glorious. But again, I’m going to re-read and lose hours of my day. Oh, well.
Glad to know I’m not delusional. 😉
Generally, when I’m trying to explain when I’m dealing with it as it affects me, I do try to explain it in a way that’s not so much on money and more on respecting rights and the fact that it does have a more widespread affect than people think.
Of course, I also think I’ve used up most of my allotted amount of diplomacy for the next month (fifty years)
It’s one thing to pirate something you can easily and quickly buy.
It’s another to find something that there is NO WAY NO HOW you can purchase either online or in a store and download that. Anime and Manga are part of that category.
The industry is fixing it (FINALLY) by charging for same day translated shows. There are still pirated versions but it’s dropping dramatically. Simply because of quality.
However there is still a VERY large portion not available in the US.
This is different than being flat out pirated. At least that’s how I see it.
Flo, I do understand where you’re coming from.
However…it’s still piracy. Regardless of the reasons.
Again, people can argue they pirate my stuff because they can’t access it in their language.
But it still pirating. It still violating my copyright. It’s still illegal. It’s still wrong.
I don’t see it any different with the Midnight Secretary deal. I just don’t. It’s the author’s livelihood, it’s his/her work. Unless they authorize, it’s wrong.
And I’m pretty much said all I need to on this. I’ve got such a headache from dealing with my own issues this week, it’s not even funny.
Aaah, someone’s been dipping into Aerandria Manga Scanlations. Midnight Secretary is one of their most popular projects. I don’t think it’s been licensed, scanlation groups like this one are pretty good about stopping the project as soon as they hear the rights have been bought over on this side of the Pacific.
Welcome to the wonderful world of shoujo manga! You will never leave, no one ever does.
Re: Suze
Regarding Video Taped works and copyright:
There have been instances where use of personally owned videos actually brought up copyright infrimgement suits. Disney had a couple (in)famous ones back in the late 80’s or early 90’s with semi-public broadcasts of thier movies without permission/payment – the one I remember involved them suing a library for playing thier movies in the kids section as part of a ‘weekend movie day’ promo.
I think the rule of thumb for broadcast media is if you are getting money for showing it (public or semi-public rebroadcasts) or if you are reselling it (via burned dvds on e-bay, ect), you had best have permission to do so.
Addendum: I forgot to link to the one manga reviewer on a romance site that I know, though she hasn’t reviewed a lot in recent times. Dear Author’s Jan did a lot of reviews of available manga relevant to romance readers.
I know the crack of which you speak, and it is good crack. When a dealer comes to my ‘hood, I will ho for this crack. For more delicious crack, please go to your local B&N;or manga joint and ask for “Vampire Knight” – I do believe Vols 1-5 are out now under the ShojoBeat tankubon imprint. The story’s also serialized in ShojoBeat as well, along with another perennial fave (Nana). If you can wade through the LoliGoth fashion tips and fluffy lipgloss and rice ball recipes, VK is sooo worth it.