Advice Please - Legal Question

[Staci]

My apologies if this has been asked before. If it has, please point me to the correct thread and I shall read it. However, if it is not, I guess it's a good a time as any to hold this discussion.

I've noticed -- on eBay -- that Manga CDs are being sold, e.g. Rurouni Kenshin Volumes 1-28 on two CDs, translated into English. Is this legal? Personally, I would love to buy RK for $2.99 and have it on two nice compact discs, but I do not want to be doing something "shady". I fully believe in supporting companies so the artists, et cetera, can make a profit on what they created.

Thanks muchly in advance!

[shooraijin]

As far as I know, they have not been authorized by the manga-ka or the publishing company (and additionally, many of them are likely scanlations stolen and sold without the permission of those having translated them for free use). Rather that state flatly the (il)legality of such a practice, I'll simply allow conclusions to be drawn.

[Mave]

I've never heard of any mangaka/manga company deciding to publishing/licensing their works as manga CDs and much less, decide to sell them on *ebay* of all places. (btw, watch out for all those yaoi doujinshis floating around there)

My conclusions are the following: Since Kenshin has become licensed, most respectable scanlating groups eliminated their scanlations. Someone probably decided to burn what they have in their hard drive onto a cd and sell them.

IF my conclusions are true, I am appalled. I do read and keep scanlations (and I buy the manga later, mind you) but *selling* them? >_< If they aren't, I really cannot understand how Watsuki-sama is getting any credit from this. (i.e $0.000000000000000001 per manga page?)

[Staci]

Okay, thanks the both of you for your advice!

I was feeling the same way but I wanted to make sure. ^_^ (And I actually don't read scanlations, so I generally don't worry about the yaoi/yuri stuff... You can pretty much tell from a cover at Barnes & Noble if it's good or not. Thanks for the warning, though!)