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Answerman - How Big Of A Deal Is Crunchyroll Reaching A Million Subscribers?

As far as the Aniplex situation, you can argue either they HAVE a "monopoly" on their specific titles (no one else can sell them, thus they can set prices), I don't agree with that, but the argument COULD be made for any IP item. Or you can argue like you said, that they're offering more of a "premium" brand of an existing product, and thus charging a higher rate.

Unless, you are considering the titles themselves to be the "premium", in which case you are going back to them having a monopoly on that title.

Nobody else can even come close to getting that kind of revenue out of the international streaming market.

Plus, Spaniards do not like it one bit, it is often despised upon, and for a simple reason: only cheap soap operas have ever kept the latino dub when imported to Spain (also very old cartoons), which means, anything that uses latino spanish, spoken or written, will be sentenced by the public as a mediocre product, looked down upon, and most probably cast aside.

relyat08 wrote:

I'm with you on the majority of this argument, but I sit on the side that because of a publisher's sole ownership of a property in a specific territory, they have somewhat of a monopoly. I can still go outside of my region to get a legal copy of some of their products, which does help to mitigate that, but within the North American market, they do have a monopoly technically. No one else can sell those titles, like you said, so customers are entirely at their mercy as far as what price they want to sell it for and whether they want to release it at all.

True, but in the end this is a "brand" problem, rather than a fiscal "monopoly" issue. The recent EpiPen situation is more of a true MONOPOLY problem. They took over 90% of the market and then jacked up prices because "where else are you gonna go?" But any one anime title (or ALL anime really) is just one more form of entertainment. For comparison, if I want to see Beyonce in concert, it may cost several hundred dollars, or I can go see some indie band at the local club for $5 cover. Beyonce sets a higher price because she's built her "brand" and thus people will pay a premium for her variation. (let's take IP out for a moment, and people will still pay more to see a Beyonce concert rather than go to a "cover band" concert of the same music)

Technically, any IP owner has a "monopoly" on their IP, but its not really accurate because for that, the competitive market (in an economics sense) is not the individual product, but is instead the wider "media" market. I actually agree with an argument against perpetual IP, but purely from a "market theory" standpoint, I don't think it's fair to classify IP ownership as a true "monopoly" situation. In that sense it's no different from owning a house. If you really want my land, I can set a ridiculous price or not sell at all, but that's simply because I own it.

EDIT: While in the end it IS "all about the money" (because that's how the world works) "Intellectual Property" is not really about "property" it is about CONTROL. And the reason I don't think any one anime company will ever monopolize the "anime market" is because piracy assures they'll never really be able to have "control".

Piracy is not an option nor a form of competition, it is a crime.

I strongly suspect that the majority of people who currently pirate anime in North America are so anti-industry or dedicated to piracy that they wouldn't subscribe to Cruncyroll if ...

Alan45 wrote:

Piracy is not an option nor a form of competition, it is a crime.

From the perspective of the company though, it DOES function as competition and is responsible for keeping prices down for the consumers.

@leafy sea dragon

Possibly, possibly not. I'm sure most North American companies are aware that an X percentage price increase will result in Y percentage decrease in sales. They have to balance X against Y to see if they will make an increased profit. However, I doubt that they care whether the lost sales are due to piracy, a determination that the product isn't worth the price or inability to pay the increase price. A lost sale is a lost sale regardless.

I strongly suspect that the majority of people who currently pirate anime in North America are so anti-industry or dedicated to piracy that they wouldn't subscribe to Cruncyroll if it was only $1 a month or buy disks if they were $10 a cour. They always have an excuse. Of course there are some that are so clueless that they aren't aware they are watching a pirated source.

CR, Funimation, Sentai, and the rest will never be able to fully compete with or destroy piracy. There will always be a segment of the consumer population that won't pay for their content, no matter the price point.

Alan45 wrote:

I strongly suspect that the majority of people who currently pirate anime in North America are so anti-industry or dedicated to piracy that they wouldn't subscribe to Cruncyroll if ...

I know for a fact that a holier than thou attitude only deters people from changing their habits.

@dragonrider_cody The legitimate arguments that still exist for regularly pirating content are very limited in NA. You don't need a credit card to sign up for a free membership on Crunchyroll, you don't need any money for that either. And being afraid of identify theft is not a valid reason for that same reason. At this point, I think the majority of pirates here are anti-industry. They still will try to come up with reasons, like the outdated and irrational ones that you mentioned, but those are just half-hearted excuses. The real reason is simply that they don't want to do things legally or they've gotten into a bad habit and don't want to change.