Forum - View topicInterview: Crunchyroll's Vu Nguyen
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Ultenth
 Posts: 229 Location: Washington State |
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Thanks for not tip-toeing around them and asking them some tough questions (or at least trying to). It's pretty obvious that even Vu Nguyen knows that what they have been doing is pretty shady. Personally even moreso than fansubbers or just about any other part of illegal distribution the people that I have the least sympathy for and revile the most are those that run websites like crunchyroll. Not only do they make a profit off others work, but they make profit off of work done by those that specifically refuse to make profit off what they do. Personally I wish they could somehow get sued for a few million dollars and all see some jail time.
They are the absolute worst members of the anime community and I hope the thing with gonzo etc. falls through, I don't want them to ever even get a slight hint of legitimacy considered they horrible way they have treated the anime community as a whole to get to where they are. Makes me sick that these slimey bastards get to make a living by leeching off other people's work (both the original creaters and the free-working fansubbers) in such a blantant and corrupt way. I don't care if they do get connections with gonzo etc. and stream some of their shows, I'll never support sites like crunchyroll, I hope if they ever have any presence at any anime cons that people show up and picket them. By far the worst breed of anime fan, so much so that you can barely even call them anime fans in the first place, because it's quite obvious they really don't care about the industry nor the art, just their own selfish needs. I honestly can't even think of words strong enough to accurately convey my extreme distaste and disgust for people that run sites like crunchyroll. Not only do they insult the original creaters, but then they insult the fansub groups by taking the work they do for free, turning the quality into complete crap, and then charging people for it and making money off it. I hope karma finds them all. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4422 |
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Your post just reminded me of Nguyen's comment about how it's there "intention" that the creators and companies get proper compensation. So apparently that just means that they'll get around to it when they feel like they've made enough off of other people's efforts. If they really mean it then perhaps they might want to reconsider their current plans for their venture capital.
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Shuchung
Posts: 77 |
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I agree. I see no mutual respect in this interview. How do you expect the interviewee to feel comfortable answering if one of your very first questions is: I'm assuming your friend is “Shinji”? How old is he? Wow. Seriously, how do I read between lines. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8459 Location: Penguinopolis |
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I too felt like Vu Nguyen's answers left a bad taste in my mouth. He comes off as being almost entirely unethical and evasive, like he was a criminal who had just sat down with his lawyer before the interview. I think it's appaling that Crunchyroll should be so successful when it's built on the illegal distrubution of copyrighted material. It almost reads like Nguyen is justifying his actions just because "maintaining a website is hard work". Disgusting.
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Greed1914
Posts: 4422 |
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Is there something wrong with asking how old someone is? It's a common question that comes up all the time. I doubt if the person's age was going to be used against them. And I don't see anything wrong with aggressive interviews, being overly considerate just allows people to slip past answering a question. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Please read the "about" section on Crunchyroll and put that into context. It might make more sense to you if you see what the offered message is versus the fact that this is a company with +$4 million in venture capital and a full-time staff. Also please stop assuming that my role is inherently to softpedal everything and be as pleasant as possible. There are difficult and often uncomfortable ethical and legal questions to be asked of an operation like this. You can't get to any sort of truth if you don't pursue those answers. |
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Ultenth
Posts: 229 Location: Washington State |
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I agree completely and thank you for not approaching this like you're simply here to give them some free publicity, but to actually see if even they themselves can justify their illegal and unethical activities. (Turns out they couldn't.) |
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luhead
 Posts: 151 |
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After reading this interview, I am just amazed that GONZO wants to do business with people like this. What are they thinking? How can they possibly want to bestow even the slightest whiff of legitimacy to these thieves?
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Shuchung
Posts: 77 |
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When is the last time you see the question "How old are you?" in a formal interview. Trust me, you are not supposed to do that.
Can you explain exactly what you mean by that? And the reason you mention the "about" section? |
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tenjigozza
 Posts: 4 |
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I, too, feel that Crunchyroll should be stamped out as fast as possible. I back Ultenth up on this. Vu Nguyen and his co-horts should go back to whatever IT related crap they were doing before and stay the hell there.
By comparison with Zac's interview with the fansubber, the interview with Nguyen came across as "hey, I'm a businessman. What are you gonna do about it?". In the fansubber interview the person got their love for anime across in droves. Zac did press him on a number of issues but the chap came back with as solid an answer as he could provide. Crunchyroll was more like "hey, we do this anime thing. And you crazy kids love your anime right? I mean we always comply with copyright C&d letters but we aren't going to be giving the copyright holders any of our capital any time soon. If those crazy Japanese producers want to make ACTUAL money from anime here in the US then they can get their own damned ilegal streaming service! " As for Zac: you go right on asking questions like that. |
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Onikuno
Posts: 21 |
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Oh yes, what a load of crap that was...
The Folks at Crunchyroll are almost as bad as the people who still sell fansubs at conventions on DVD. C'mon folks. These guys knew what they were doing! The fact that they made ANY profit whatsoever is completley unethical. I'm not trying to be mister morals here; but the days of earning a profit on fansubs ended a LONG TIME AGO! I was an otaku in the days of tape trading and buying tapes for $10-$20 at conventions. Of course the money all went toward "labor" "shipping" and "blank tapes". It truly sickens me that these guys are being rewarded for this by getting deals form major Japanese studios. All they do is maintain a website. They didn't even do any of the work on these fansubs! Nguyen willingly admits he's getting a paycheck. They profit from this illegaly folks. There's no way around it. I don't care how much it is. It's wrong. Fansubbing has been a grey area since it's inception. It had it's use back in the early eighties when the fandom was small and growing. But there is a fine line to it and the Vu Nguyen has crossed that line. He takes almost no responsibility for what is uploaded onto his servers and that is inexcusable. Some of you people talk about how "Zac was attacking him." I'm sure he held back folks. He could have been a lot worse. Those questions needed to be asked. The fact that half of those questions were danced around and answered with "no comment" should be a clue the size of the Macross that something's not right here. That's my two cents. |
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Greed1914
Posts: 4422 |
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You'll find that most people don't do "what they're supposed to." Not to mention, quite often the interviewer has bits of information like that already, but if not then there is no harm in asking. In this case, Nguyen chose not to answer that specific question about his friend, and that's fine if he doesn't want to speak about other people's personal information. However, this isn't like a job interview where certain topics are off limits. It's completely fair to ask all sorts of questions, and I'm sure Zac had a reason or else he wouldn't have done it. Last edited by Greed1914 on Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Well I went to the front page of CR for the first time in my life. It looks like they are thinking of putting manga on the site.
 I hope they handle it with as much respect and high standards as they do everything else.
J-live-action, Anime, and now possibly manga. It's a trifecta folks. Oh and the about section has a grudge against uppercase I's. That might have been a contributing factor to the question of Shinji's age. |
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Xevo
 Posts: 10 Location: The Netherlands |
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Ok, most of the story that I read, was complete bullsh*t. I mean, at the beginning he said that all the money went to the site. And at the ending he suddenly says that their team gets a paycheck of Crunchyroll..?
And also about the filtering, that was bullsh*t too. I'm a site builder myself and it is impossible too filter movies out that have been uploaded before. You need a volunteer/worker for that too keep track on it. because you can easily change the name of the video file and title when your uploading. Conclusion: Start working with Japanese companies right now, or pull the plug on the site. A site like this might risk the anime industry. |
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Xevo
Posts: 10 Location: The Netherlands |
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I actually laughed when I was reading those qeustions, you could almost see like he was taking the side of the companies/fansubbers. Which is good, because they are supposed to be payed, not crunchyroll. |
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