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NEWS: Funimation Serves Akadot With Cease & Desist

But where does this leave stores like Kinokuniya or Asashiya, who have brick-and-mortar outlets in the US and do do a brisk business in Japanese CDs and R2 DVDs?

Pat Payne wrote:

But where does this leave stores like Kinokuniya or Asashiya, who have brick-and-mortar outlets in the US and do do a brisk business in Japanese CDs and R2 DVDs?

Shhhhh! Don't give Funi any more ideas.

(When did Allen transfer from ADV to FUNi?)

If Funimation has an exclusive deal over North America, then they have every right to make sure nobody sells products for the property INCLUDING parallel importation of said product.

The bottom line is that in order to distribute a product somewhere, you need to have the rights to do so. If you do not have the rights (many, many, many places don't!), then you are subject to a cease and desist or even legal action. There is no issue as to whether the product is legit...The product is legit in Japan, for sale in Japan. The "For Sale and Use Only In Japan" labels DO mean something.

What about sites like CDJapan that are located in Japan but ship internationally? Would they need to get the international rights to each individual CD they sell?

Guilty until proven innocent eh? Not only that but the label of guilt goes towards the accuser and ignores the accused completely.

Luckily the people that actually matter in the judicial system are a bit more fair and respectful.

Um, I was unaware anyone was on trial here. Furthermore, last time I checked, copyright infringement was a civil matter, not criminal, so guilt or innocence doen't even enter in to it. Besides, that sword cuts both ways by assuming that Akadot is "guilty" of whatever Funimation is accusing them of. Based on an earlier post, you seem to not like Akadot. Well, thats your perogative, but whether Akadot is a "saint" or not (and I certainly don't know, having never done business with them) is irrelavent to this particular incident. People are simply stating their opinions on a particular news article and the issues surrounding it. Thats it.

Trials are not required for guilt or innocence,

but your assumptions imply guilt where as those assumptions aren't proven and you frankly don't have all the facts.

I'm not assuming Akadot is guilty and I personally have nothing against them as I've never once used their service. But upon hearing about this issue I did some looking around and found only Akadot comments and posts regarding the issue and attempting to villainze Funi for it where as Funi has so far made no such PR move which only works against Akadot in my opinion. If you get immediately and aggressively defensive and respond in a way that barely touches the actual infraction they're accused of which really doesn't look very good.

It is relevant to this situation because the actions of theirs to which I referred involve this incident. If they respond regarding an incident than it does indeed have everything to do with that incident and can be used to judge the incident far more than baseless assumptions but is still not enough to make any true judgement which is not what I'm doing.

My intention was simply to point out the fact that there are 2 parties involved

and immediately jumping on the accuser and assuming the innocence of the other is a foolish mistake. Chances are Funi has lawyers and a legal department and I imagine they know far more about the matter than the people here.

You're right, people are posting their opinions but alot of those opinions seem to immediately assume the evil and vile Funimation is out to eat their babies and steal their anime. I'm simply posting my opinion on the matter same as them and backing it up in the process and basically pointing out the wrongs of those who would use "assumptions" as a means to determine right and wrong instead of basing their course of action on actual fact.