Forum - View topicNEWS: Retailer to Stop Imports of Funimation BD/DVDs into Japan
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bankai3232
Posts: 20 |
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Cos it BREACHES contracts with the Anime owners in Japan. read my first post again, it explains... |
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hikaru004
Posts: 2306 |
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It's only a breach when it's brought to your attention. I would have just turned a blind eye and kept the profits. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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"Does exist" is not the same thing as "is large enough to be worthwhile (read: profitable)", though. Especially if it might be at the cost of sales of their regular boxsets.
Apparently it is, if they region code their Blu-Ray releases.
There is a cultural difference in consumerism, though. "A better deal" isn't "more for a lower price" to everyone. It's pretty clear that the Japanese market snaps up things like bonus features and limited edition extras much more than the American market does, which tends to favour a good dollars to actual episodes of the show ratio. And even in America that's not universal, as some people on these forums refuse to buy releases that lack any extras, regardless of how cheap they are.
I'm pretty sure it would have been brought to their attention. |
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Romuska
Subscriber
Posts: 799 |
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I'm sure it's already been said, but I think it's pretty obvious why this is happening. It's because Funimation charges less for their Blu-Rays than any Japanese distributor.
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Does this change anything? At the end of the day importers will import while the rest of the population remains ignorant or indifferent. I think in a way the clusterfuck that is regionalization does benefit us consumers; more editions of content mean more chances to get the release right. I remember back in the day when Hong Kong Legends was still around and they busted out The Killer on DVD - isn't that still unavailable in North America?
The waiting game is a losing game in my experience. I like to take advantage of this system and call it even. People in general seem to care more about convenience though; what about you guys? Hypothetically speaking, would you grab the lossy Innocence BD off of amazon.com or get the one with real HD audio from amazon.co.jp? I know I'd go the extra mile - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, right? |
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Mr. Anobe
Posts: 47 Location: Canada |
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You know what I think of all this simply abolish the region codes completely...that's what keeping these companies locked and sometimes "isolated" from ever to gain more profit internationally.
This move with importation of only FUNi stuff is not going to stop the import / export business completely in Japan. Others will emerge and found better ways to get to the customers with this importation...just like Hentai I guess. |
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Teriyaki Terrier
Posts: 5689 |
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Indeed, but remember Japan has a ton of series that hasn't been licensed into America. Considering how many series Japan has created and has licensed, this shouldn't be too damageing. I'd say Japan has the better deal than America these days. |
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einhorn303
Posts: 1180 |
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Someday the massive price difference of North American and Japanese anime is going to need some pressure venting. Out of the two possible solutions, I'd definately take "charging Japanese prices in NA" (ala Gundam Unicorn) over "gimping and disabling NA releases (ala the Kurokami blu-ray).
Potential future sales. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Blu-rays for Japan and US share the same region code. So they the were getting a mighty good deal on US BDs. That site seemed pretty popular. They were getting and even announcing all of the US releases at the same time for similar street prices (minus special sales we periodically have here). Still, Japanese folks can use amazon and buy from retailers or individuals who'll ship from the US (see here) Distributors may have there own contractual agreements but there are no US laws preventing the reselling of physical property, no matter the license attached to the intellectual property. See the First Sale Doctrine:
This law has constantly held up, most recently in this case where Autodesk tried to shut down an eBay seller of legitimate AutoCAD software which Autodesk deemed was too cheap. In fact, they used the same license agreement argument, and lost twice.
The decision was not as clear cut as it seems though, due to the nature of software. However, I believe it is much more clear for property that is meant to be consumed, property that is not used in an intellectual way (i.e. derivative work), for which you own your physical copy, and so the anime medium themselves can be treated like any other physical property in which transfer of ownership applies. If that were not the case it would be illegal to sell or give away any new or used goods whatsoever. |
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Kakugo
Posts: 163 |
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Who, FUNimation? FUNi isn't the one telling Fantasium to stop buying their products. If they took issue with that they never would have sold them the goods in the first place. It's got to be one of the JP distributors telling them to knock it off before they get sued for selling gray area merchandise. I nearly forgot that Basilisk is coming out in Japan on Blu-ray next month... at 6 times US MSRP. So it wouldn't shock me if Sony was the one who got this ball rolling. |
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animalia555
Posts: 467 |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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No, that's not true. DVD Fantasium was an operation run out of New York, and their warehouse was in New York as well. It is owned and operated by Japanese people and specifically tailored to exporting to individual customers in Japan. So it straddled the gray line between what you point out very carefully, and since I discovered them a year ago or so and the blu-ray market has taken off, I suspect they've grown considerably. I was wondering how long they would be tolerated, and I suspect that Japanese licensors got Funimation to basically pressure them into stopping. They'll still make a ton of cash selling all those Aria and Clannad box sets to Japan. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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First of all, it's inevitable that most series that aren't licensed are trash (Sturgeon's Law)[not that all licensed series are gems, but licensing is an additonal filter, at least]. Second, if we're talking about markets, most of those series won't sell in America, and if we're talking about the individual enthusiast, then there's fansubs. How then is paying four times as much a better deal? |
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MeggieMay
Posts: 607 |
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Try United States and Canada if you're talking DVD. Mexico is Region 4 and while Funimation has some R4 rights they tend to be for countries in South America and the Caribbean, not Mexico (though most of their disks do say Made In Mexico, FWIW (they press them there) ). Now, I've not paid enough attention to the back of the Blu Rays to see what they say on the subject. Region 1 Blu Ray covers Japan and all of the Americas but just how the licensing goes with Funimation on what country they cover in R1 BD I'm not sure. However, I would think Canada would still be a R1 BD license - if not, someone please post in on that. Here's the maps, for anyone interested http://www.regionfreedvd.net/player/sony.html |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Then why watch anime when there's hundreds of years worth of literature brimming with story the likes of which an anime couldn't shake a q-tip at? |
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