Got asked to post here the suggestion for MANIA pictures I made in another section, so here it is :

Have to say it's great to see a picture from MANIA!!! but if you don't allow any piracy stuff you shouldn't allow MANIA material. It's reserved to fans that pay so by posting it here it's like posting (in a much smaller way) a mp3 song to download.

That being said... I have no idea how MANIA works, maybe they are posting 1 new picture every day, maybe 150 every week, etc.

So maybe you could do a special MANIA thread to promote this and sometimes post a picture so fans can see what MANIA is about and it's a good promotion for it without being bad for the band. A picture there and there are not gonna hurt them if you promote the thing. Could be a good solution where it's a win-win for everyone.

Like I said, don't know exactly how MANIA works but I doubt that if you mods post a picture from time to time to promote it, it will be seen as piracy and hurt our lovely band. Especially if you make it clear with a special thread with explanation, links, etc to become MANIA member or so.

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So this was the post, just my opinion ^_^

Well isn't an admin/mod member of MANIA? .omg. 

I think I read somewhere that you can only pay with a japenese credit card but maybe there is another way.

If a mod/admin was member then it's easy to check if it's a MANIA photo only or not.

Well if the staff can't or doesn't want to deal with it or promote it, then simply delete them when you know it's a MANIA picture. Much easier that way.

Or let it be, I don't think many MANIA pix are being posted anyway.

I'm a MANIA member (the only one of the SH staff, it seems), so yes, I am able to check/tell right away if a picture comes from the app or not. There are different ways to become a member if you're an international fan but it's definitely not easy.

So, because hardly any international fans are members of MANIA, no one really seems to know how the app is set up. I'll break it down.

There is an entire members only section on the app, and this is what it's comprised of:

-Fan Book (scans of previous MANIA bulletin magazines; hasn't been updated since January 2012)
-Photo (photos from past tours; hasn't been updated since the fall 2011 BABY ACTION tour)
-Movie (video messages from SCANDAL; hasn't been updated since March 2012 - Budokan)
-Ura SCANDAL (contains posts and pictures of behind-the-scenes SCANDAL stuff; it's the only section that's somewhat updated and where most of the pictures come from)

There is only one part in the members only section that's actually somewhat updated, which is "Ura SCANDAL" (Behind-the-scenes SCANDAL). All of the posts/pictures are posted by one of their managers, and the updates pretty scarce and kind of pop up sporadically. The previous one posted before the bubble one was back at the end of May.

About the "special MANIA thread" idea, I personally don't think it would work out since it's not like they post a bunch of pictures all of the time. Because they obviously don't ever update the other sections of the app, the only new pictures come from the Ura section and are posted maybe once or twice a month, if even that. So, if we were to "sometimes" post pictures from there, we would end up posting all of them since the updates are so few and far between.

Also, since you do have to be a paying member of MANIA to have access to this, it's like you're paying part of your 4000 yen (about $40 USD) yearly membership fee just to basically have access to this one section of the app. It's kind of unfair you're paying for content that's going to be made public anyway, but I guess it's inevitable when something like the Internet exists.

First of all thanks for explaining it and giving a lot of details!

Second of all, I'm shocked. In a bad way. I wasn't expecting that at all. Sure I wasn't expecting daily updates and hundreds of new photos every week but... What you are describing is actually sad and very disappointing.

Like I said i didn't know how MANIA works but now with this info it's clear that my suggestion is bad lol. With almost no new content at all it would be bad to allow it. Would have been different if they released many new stuff. Maybe they will do it again in the future...?

So new suggestion :

- Don't allow MANIA material
- Delete photos from MANIA if someone posts it
- Make a pinned thread about it that explains its forbidden but also add a full explanation (screens too?) of what MANIA is and maybe a full guide for the fans if they want to subscribe

With that you help fans who want to subscribe but don't know how and also promote MANIA.

Also no legal problems at all for sure, and will be better to the fans who subscribed because they will have exclusive content.

And will be easier to handle in the end I guess ^_^

But sad that it's updated anymore, I would be angry if i subscribed...