Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - The Subtitle Will Not Be Televised
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
|
|||
Should consumers succumb to the use of pirated content under the circumstances shown by the strip cartoon you so despise, I would agree without qualification. It is a straightforward point, although alas a controversial one, to additionally state that there are many users of free pirated content whose activities, whilst illegal, do not themselves contribute towards depriving artists of their livelihoods. This claim of mine revolves around the thesis that there exist persons who cannot be properly called customers; who for various reasons would be in a poor position to contribute financially towards their areas of interest regardless of their use of pirated content. Needless to say, such an assertion is often subject to ridicule, usually due to the fact there are many users of piracy who are in a good position to pay for their desiderata but proclaim otherwise. Given the very poor access in certain countries to physical and online content, along with prohibitive importation taxes with which some people are faced, I believe it is not naive to state that there are indeed persons whose use of piracy does not ipso facto cause them to eschew legal products they otherwise would buy, and thereby to deprive artists of deserved funds. No counterfactual purchases can be made by such persons through reasonable means. (Are such persons 'entitled' to carry on as they do? No. Does my prior assertion implicitly postulate otherwise? Contrary to what some instantly assume, no. Having only stated that there are some persons whose illegal activities do not harm the wealth of the artists they appreciate, I would need to posit further, distinct and normative premises to conclude that those same persons possess the right to pirate.) Now, I accept that there are other means — aside the obvious citations of law — by which one may criticise all users of pirated content. The disrespect shown towards the artists' desire to control their works' distribution is perhaps one of them. All I wish to claim here is that there exist certain persons, albeit perhaps quite small in number, who are in no position to either contribute to or detract from the income of artists. Although you acknowledge the difficulties faced by certain fans, I do not believe you have made statements along the same lines as this. (Should there be a need for me to safeguard myself from responses of an ad hominiem variety, I attest to being able to afford the anime I watch. As such I do not use fansubs.) |
||||
|
||||
agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
|
|||
One wonders whether the actual offense is with respect to the analogy of the industry that the bootleg consumers expect to always be there to provide them with what they wish with the expectation of not having to give anything in return ... ... or the analogy of the entitlement generation to a demanding, selfish husband? |
||||
|
||||
yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
|
|||
Yes, but then you went off on a rant against GameStop for engaging in the perfectly legal business of buying and reselling used games. You seem to think the game producers have no control over this situation, but in fact they have all the control since they own all the rights and can charge however they want for them. In a world where the first-sale doctrine applies, a profit-maximizing producer will price each copy above its marginal cost to capture some portion of the additional revenues a copy will generate on average via resale or rental. This process pushes up the retail price of the game, while those higher retail prices themselves prop up the used market. (Copyright holders have more market power in terms of pricing than do ordinary sellers because they possess a monopoly over the works they sell. Mass Effect 3 may compete against other RPG fighting games, but if all you want is Mass Effect 3, there's only one place you can go.) By the end of your piece I was left with the impression that you thought businesses built on used media were somehow treading on thin moral ice. Used booksellers have been around since books appeared. Some of them still run physical stores while others sell on Amazon and eBay. Mattel doesn't get additional trademark royalties from the resale of a Barbie on eBay; copyright holders shouldn't expect to be treated any differently. Last edited by yuna49 on Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
|
|||
|
@agila61:
The best I can explain myself is that the idea of a codependant relationship that is eating one or both partners alive and making their life a miserable tribulation is something rather extreme. An industry and its leeches may have, at the outset, a comparable dynamic, but so does say, a parasite and a host, a freeloader and a household, etc. and the latter, although less evocative, is also a little more honest. Is that an overreaction? |
||||
|
||||
pokefreaks
 Posts: 45 |
|
|||
|
I would like to thank Brian for answering my question about importing figures. I felt good reading your answer since my Madoka & Homura figma just arrived this afternoon.
Last year, I visited Singapore because of AFA 11 and Hatsune Miku concert. I was amazed to find out that even in a major country like Singapore with thousands of anime fans, apart from Ghibli's films, I can not find the anime DVDs or Blu Rays selling at their video stores. I find a lot of figure shops though. After speaking with cosplayers from several Asian countries at AFA, I got the same answers from everyone that they also watched anime from TV channels like Animax or by streaming or by downloading them even though they occasionally buy official merchandises. Guess that's how the Asian anime market outside of Japan rolls. At least the import price is very reasonable for me to buy figures and stuffs from Singapore. I only have to pay 15% of the original price. I guess it will cost double or more if I have to directly order from Japan though. There's also one simple thing that bugs me for watching pirated shows. I wonder how the creators, director or seiyu of our favorite shows will react when we go and tell them that we are one of their biggest fans ever even though all we do is pirate their shows. I think they will simply just loathe us, wish that we rot in hell and won't even consider us as a "fan". I don't want the people I love and admire to hate me. For me, that reason alone is enough to support them as much as I can. |
||||
|
||||
CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
|
|||
|
I have to also agree with several others, Under US property rights, you have the right of reselling items you have bought. And no its not a zero sum game like answerman and the industry will lead you to believe.
Do you know what will realistically happen if used products were outlawed, sales would drop, not go up. You see the only reason a lot of people buy new at these ridiculous prices is because they can read or beat the game and then turn around and sell it and buy a new one. You think anyone is is going to buy a 60, 70 dollar game if they cant recoup at least a little bit of that. You take about entitlement by anime fans, and I see the same thing about entitlement of game fans on gamespot, yet seems to me the only one here with a sever case of entitlement are overzealous game developers, manga publishers, etc. O woah is me, last time I checked Blizzard EA made over a billion last year, with no diablo 3 release. Oda sold something like 60 million volumes, I believe in Japan only. The fact is as has been the case throughout the course of human history the deciding factor for success will always has been making something someone wants. Why limit this to games and manga, you cannot sell your used car, you cannot donate used clothing to charity, you cannot sell your house, the builder built it for you, if you sell a used house you are robbing, a construction firm from building a new house. You can see just how ridiculous this gets. The Howl's Moving Castle guy was so much better. |
||||
|
||||
TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1871 Location: USA (mid-south) |
|
|||
I'm guessing you must live outside the U.S. or Canada, as I can click over to another tab at this very moment and legally stream the dub of either of these. Of course, I pay a few bucks per month for that; less than the cost of the least expensive box set for both services combined. It also appears that both offer the dub of the first two episodes for free viewing. If you've already seen the entire series subbed, is there really a need to view the entire series again to make an informed purchase decision? |
||||
|
||||
witchlingaria
 Posts: 4 |
|
|||
|
I see a lot of people complaining about Answerman's stance that fans should make buying new products, rather than used, their priority, and not a lot of people understanding the possible reasons behind that stance.
I can understand why it's upsetting to see someone trash buying used products, but in this market, it is very important that you buy things new as often as possible, from legitimate retailers. If you like anime, if you like manga, then you should support the publishers of those products. (Of course, I speak only for people within the United States.) It's all well and good to say "I just want to support the creator, so I'll only buy figures or other merchandise," and it's understandable when the DVD releases are poor quality, with little to no extra features, for such high prices, but doing that won't tell the licensing companies that it's worth it to bring those titles to America. I'm not saying you should buy every single thing they put out; if all you can do is purchase one or two DVDs of a show that you love, or a few volumes of manga that you enjoy, then do that. If they're out of print, or impossible to find due to an extremely low print run, then get them used. But I think it's vital that whenever possible, fans buy things new, to show the production companies that it's worth the effort they put into bringing those titles here. |
||||
|
||||
|
Maigraith
Posts: 80 |
|
|||
...where do you think the money to pay the engineers/producers/etc comes from? It most likely comes from investments that only get paid because the investors expect a return of greater value, if they didn't get that return on their money they wouldn't fund it. |
||||
|
||||
|
agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
|
|||
Also outside Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and UAR, as then they'd have picked a different example than Heaven's Lost Property ... man, what a reminder how far we've come, I just glanced at one of the November 2011 streaming lists when Crunchyroll was only streaming 11 simulcasts. |
||||
|
||||
|
ljaesch
Posts: 299 Location: Enumclaw, WA |
|
|||
|
I ususally prefer to buy new rather than used if possible. But, like Brian said, there are times when items go out of print, so I'm willing to buy used in those cases. The main other case that I would be willing to buy used is when a store is closing down and is getting rid of any used inventory that it has. In fact, our most recent used purchases, would have been buying some DVDs and Blu-rays from the Blockbuster in my town before it shut down late last week.
I was thinking about mine and my husband's music collecting back in the mid-1990s, and instances where we would buy a used copy of an "in print" item. You know, in those pre-iTunes days. Anyway, it was around that time that the record labels decided it would be better to not release singles in the US and try to force people to buy albums. When we encountered a song that we liked by an artist but just weren't willing to buy the whole album for whatever reason (either not knowing any other material or only liking one song that we heard), we would usually try to track down an import single for the song. However, in those cases where we just couldn't find an import single, we would be more likely to try to find a used copy of the album in order to get it cheaper. Of course, in this day and age of iTunes, this is rather moot, since there's the potential to buy individual tracks. But I have to admit that sometimes, I do miss going to Tower Records and browsing through their import singles.
|
||||
|
||||
|
kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
|
|||
uh huh, and who's going to pay my electricity, my gas, my rent for that matter? I get it, that's no one's problem but mine and I don't need for anyone to hear my swan song, but I am sick to death of everyone placating the anime industry. It's a big boy, it can take care of itself, and if it wants to play with the big boys in the business world, like it or not it has to pay by the same rules. Namely that as much as it probably hates all the entitled fans who don't want to pay for anything and would rather pirate, for the ones that actually do buy legitimate products, those fans don't own them shit. That's just the way it is. That is why Brian's comments about buying used bothered me personally, because somehow now my used purchase is somehow not good enough. Really? And the analogy used to back it up: the multimillion dollar game industry. Seriously? Excuse me if I'm not a little too exasperated to shed a tear for them as they roll in their pool of money  Obviously the Anime Industry is a different beast than the game industry, but in this hurting economy where people who have to budget for their non-essential hobby, excuse me if I'm not willing to stoop down to some obnoxious self appointed civilian anime police and shave shame carrots at a fan for buying a used anime dvd or manga. Let's not forget fans have bills and expenses too, and far be it for me to have my primary interests be my own expenses before some producer in Japan. Just Sayin....
|
||||
|
||||
tygerchickchibi
 Posts: 1448 |
|
|||
No one is asking you to buy the whole store. With ANY purchase, whether it's a DVD or that brand new iPhone you're looking at, don't you save money for it too? Good grief, don't be so dramatic. I'm sure that you're good at multitasking. |
||||
|
||||
Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
|
|||
|
@ kakoishii
Its more about the smaller game companies and unique ideas that really need support of new purchases for games. Many in the anime industry, I feel, fall into the camp of small companies. Every little bit counts, so if you can't get new all the time, try to get a few that you can. |
||||
|
||||
Imperial_Commander
 Posts: 44 |
|
|||
|
Wow. Your stance on used games and such is kinda dick-ish, Brian, and I don't care if you or Zack want to call me out on it.
This isn't the same as illegally pirating simply because it's perfectly legal, and it's within my legal right to purchase it used and save a few bucks. I could point out that the developers/publishers did get paid when the product was first purchased new, but I have a feeling it'd be more effective if I simply argue that, once I purchase the product (new or used), it becomes my legal property and I can do with it as I see fit within the confines of the law - exchange it to a legally-licensed reseller for money, gift it to a friend for free, or even throw it in the fireplace. To put a moral equivocacy to this issue seems a fallacy and even a little silly - I understand the sensitivity given pirating, but it reflects poorly for people to say "you should feel ashamed of yourselves for taking advantage of a legal right to save a few bucks!" Sony's trying to do that, and it just seems to be yet another item to add to their growing list of PR faux-paux since the PS3 first launched. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group