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NEWS: Japan Asks America to Stop Illegal Net Releases of Anime


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Viga_of_stars



Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Posts: 1240
Location: Washington D.C. in the Anime Atelier
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:53 pm Reply with quote
Emerje wrote:
Japan should turn its target on the raws coming out of Japan, not the Americans putting subtitles on them.


That sounds much easier than approaching America about it. Besides it's not just the Americans fault but the Japanese people who supply the raws and pirate over there.

Could this be a case of cutting off the head so the body can die?

Anyway, although I watch fansubs and also buy DVD's I gotta admit not having fansubs anymore would suck. But would Japan's plan really work? Not anytime soon IMO. It would take a long time even if this plan was successful.

KabaKabaFruit wrote:
Why do I get the feeling that this is going to turn into another 20+ page bickerfest? Rolling Eyes


5 bucks on 15 pages. Any bets?


Last edited by Viga_of_stars on Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
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britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2618
Location: Out.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:54 pm Reply with quote
KabaKabaFruit wrote:
Why do I get the feeling that this is going to turn into another 20+ page bickerfest? Rolling Eyes


Because anytime Nihon & Fansubs are mentioned it does. Crying or Very sad

Also- from what I remember do they not show the same episode twice of shows? Maybe they could...ya know. Show a repeat now and again? I'm going to guess that raws wouldn't be as plentiful had people just been able to see the shows again.

Viga_of_stars...how about 20 ftw
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minakichan





PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Hm, if I'm watching anime for free at my college anime club, the Japanese producers certainly aren't getting any revenue, and I'm not watching any commercials. If I Netflix anime, I'm paying for it legally, but how much of my $5 a month gets channeled to Japanese producers? I'm thinking not much. I'm just saying. It would be more effective for me to watch the fansubs and send the producers a check once in a while, or to buy their merch.

Although watching the not-subtle ads in Darker than BLACK gave me an urge for pizza more than once. But not Pizza Hut, sadly.

I still think this whole Ameri-centrism really sucks. Fansubbers exist in tons more countries than just the US of A, but why does America get all the attention?

Also, aren't some Japanese shows streamed once a week free, or at a pretty low price (not more that $3, I'm sure)? Not all of them, of course, but if they would sell English subs for an additional dollar, I'd hit that. (Or fansubbers could just release separate subtitle files and not release the actual video. I'm just saying.) Seriously, anime industry; iTunes and related services sure didn't cure the world of music piracy, but they did help it out quite a bit. Why can't other industries be more inventive?
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leatherman



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 36
Location: Calgary Canada
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Unfortunately not, it would be the same as if you missed an episode of your favourite north american tv show. Some people are just to impatient to wait for a repeat. (I'm as guilty of that as anyone else.)
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shinsengumi



Joined: 25 Dec 2004
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:01 pm Reply with quote
LunarEchoes wrote:
Hold on a minute. This is for all anime? Does this mean they're taking legal action against fansubs as well? As far as I'd been aware, it wasn't a problem to stream/torrent/download anime that hasn't been licensed outside of Japan.


Actually, it is. It's still illegal to do so regardless of whether it has been licensed, which is an important point that a surprising number of anime fans seem to be entirely unaware of.
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leatherman



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 36
Location: Calgary Canada
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:05 pm Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
Hm, if I'm watching anime for free at my college anime club, the Japanese producers certainly aren't getting any revenue, and I'm not watching any commercials. If I Netflix anime, I'm paying for it legally, but how much of my $5 a month gets channeled to Japanese producers? I'm thinking not much. I'm just saying. It would be more effective for me to watch the fansubs and send the producers a check once in a while, or to buy their merch.


Watching anime at your college anime club has always been illegal. Public Broadcast and whatnot. And your netflix money goes back to the US production company. They say yay or nay on the rentals. The rental place has to buy the dvd to rent it out.

minakichan wrote:

I still think this whole Ameri-centrism really sucks. Fansubbers exist in tons more countries than just the US of A, but why does America get all the attention?


I'm sure other countries have received similar requests. Not just the states.
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Gatchaman



Joined: 23 Oct 2007
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:06 pm Reply with quote
LunarEchoes wrote:
Hold on a minute. This is for all anime? Does this mean they're taking legal action against fansubs as well? As far as I'd been aware, it wasn't a problem to stream/torrent/download anime that hasn't been licensed outside of Japan.

Personally, I tend to watch most anime online and if I like I buy the DVDs, and if not just forget about it, but anime is too expensive to be buying everything ($20-25 each). And really, is this going to put an end to sharing anime for good? Doubtful.


It won't put an end to sharing... but fansubbing is still bootlegging... if everyone is able to get unlicensed shows for free easily outside of Japan, why would any company outside of Japan want to license the shows? Sure, I suppose companies could work faster to put out product... but that requires manpower and money... things that are sorely lacking if companies are laying off people because of bootlegging and piracy...
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Gatchaman



Joined: 23 Oct 2007
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:07 pm Reply with quote
leatherman wrote:
minakichan wrote:
Hm, if I'm watching anime for free at my college anime club, the Japanese producers certainly aren't getting any revenue, and I'm not watching any commercials. If I Netflix anime, I'm paying for it legally, but how much of my $5 a month gets channeled to Japanese producers? I'm thinking not much. I'm just saying. It would be more effective for me to watch the fansubs and send the producers a check once in a while, or to buy their merch.


Watching anime at your college anime club has always been illegal. Public Broadcast and whatnot. And your netflix money goes back to the US production company. They say yay or nay on the rentals. The rental place has to buy the dvd to rent it out.
.


You are correct... Netflix had to pay the production companies for even the right to do business with them... it may not seem much to you, but it all adds up...
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Pepperidge



Joined: 13 Sep 2003
Posts: 1104
Location: British Columbia, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:11 pm Reply with quote
I think Japan needs to reformat their business models for anime so that they don't rely solely on the profits from DVD releases in order to remain sustainable. I mean, take a look at something like Cybersix: quite possibly the most expensive 13 episode series ever produced in North America. But despite this, it still hasn't seen a DVD release, nor has there really been any merchandise. Obviously the title has been able to produce profits for Teletoon and TMS through other means. Japan needs to get over this whole "gouging the other guy for all he's worth" mentality when it comes to marketing.

It wouldn't make illegal online distribution right in the eyes of the law, but at the very least the anime studios could stop complaining about how much they're suffering.
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xjaymanx



Joined: 12 Jun 2005
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:22 pm Reply with quote
Hmmm, let's say I download a fansubbed anime series, and love it. But instead of buying $100 worth of U.S.-licensed DVDs (e.g. a year or so later), I instead choose to buy $100 of figures directly from a Japanese hobby website. I'm sure there's another set of licensing going on between the anime-producers and figure-makers, so which Japanese companies are we focusing on? Might there be some gap between the Japanese stations/animation companies and the Japanese figure/pillow-cover/t-shirt/apparel companies who might be seeing more GLOBAL business due to fansubbing? Cool
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rg4619



Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 163
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:25 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I still think this whole Ameri-centrism really sucks. Fansubbers exist in tons more countries than just the US of A, but why does America get all the attention?


That's where the biggest overseas market exists. Their concern is not so much the number of fansub viewers that exist, but the loss of potential customers (i.e. those who would buy the DVDs, but don't simply because they can watch fansubs for free). With other countries, the markets are either much smaller than that of the US or otherwise non-existent.

Quote:
Actually, there is one difference: commercials. Japanese TV makes their money the same way American TV does, through selling advertising time.


Most anime series make little to no money on Japanese TV, which is why the industry is so peculiar (if shows could pay for themselves via broadcast, there'd be little concern over the declining home video market). Essentially, the business model rests on the sale of merchandise.

Mainstream kid's shows do fine via broadcast. However, most series can only break even through a combination of domestic DVD sales (high priced product sold to otaku) and overseas licensing, which are factored into their expectations from the start.

Typically, late night otaku shows make no money at all during broadcast. In fact, anime producers actually pay for those time slots, which serve as advertising (glorified infomercial) for the eventual DVDs.
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Xanas



Joined: 27 Aug 2007
Posts: 2058
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:28 pm Reply with quote
Gatchaman wrote:

You are correct... Netflix had to pay the production companies for even the right to do business with them... it may not seem much to you, but it all adds up...

It all adds up to significantly less than DVD purchases, which is insignificantly more than purchasing nothing.

Lets say you have one person who rents via netflix for 20$ a month and rents only anime. He gets 10 a month (I have no idea what is realistic so I'm just tossing out a number, maybe this is too high?) Another person instead of using netflix downloads for free half of what he watches, but buys 5 dvd's a month instead.

Person A contributed 20$ towards netflix entirely for anime and thus towards the industry, Person B contributed 100$ towards the industry, but he's an evil pirate so lets attack him for daring not to follow the established guidelines.
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tarrin4ever



Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 34
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:30 pm Reply with quote
Japan: Hey Internet, stop it.

Internet: Ok, lol.
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crilix



Joined: 16 Nov 2005
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:32 pm Reply with quote
Pepperidge wrote:
I think Japan needs to reformat their business models for anime so that they don't rely solely on the profits from DVD releases in order to remain sustainable.
You have to be kidding me, right? Japan's anime industry mainly focuses on micro, niché markets, with small profit margins. Selling DVDs the way they are now works just fine for them. Their market is a bit more mature when it comes to this question. The only one who's failing at this point is the U.S. niché anime industry that's trying to penetrate into mainstream, and the Japanese companies bitching about illegal downloads are big-shot companies with expensive anime productions (GHD etc) that rely on American licencors. Works for companies like Viz who snag all prime-time non-otaku anime, but for licencors with niché titles like ADV, Funimation, and Media Blasters? :/ They should mimic Bandai Visual USA instead. Anime will never wholly penetrate the mainstream America.


Last edited by crilix on Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
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KyuuA4



Joined: 28 Sep 2006
Posts: 1361
Location: America, where anime and manga can be made
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:34 pm Reply with quote
Fansubbing is officially f*cked. If it's not this year -- then it'll be next year or the year after that. Yet, the biggest irony here -- it's the Internet that drastically increased Japan's media market in the first place.

Now, a very "easy" solution to all this -- an TV channel broadcasting all this in Japanese form. Screw subtitles. Screw dubs. Do it RAW. Twisted Evil

Oh, can America make its own anime yet? No? Carry on. Razz


Last edited by KyuuA4 on Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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