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Bandai Entertainment Responds to ANNCast Comments


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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 10:32 pm Reply with quote
sdhd wrote:
I thought it was strange that he believes in fansub and fansubbers doing good will to the anime industry while he is against ripped R1 dvds on the internet. Aren't they both essentially harming the anime industry at the end of the day by costing the companies to lose dvds sales.

He was referring to fansubs of unlicensed shows, or at least, that was how I took it. The R1 DVD rips hurt the R1 industry far more because those are shows there the DVDs are available for purchase.

Anyway, I thought it was kind of funny that he still thought the unspoken "Fansubber's Code" was still in play with groups today. How wrong he is. I can count on just one hand the releases that still say "Do not distribute this title once it is licensed", which used to be plastered over every single release.
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Elves



Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 269
Location: USA
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 10:47 pm Reply with quote
Yep, Bandai is on damage control here. Can't say I blame them.

I can see how Mr. Sherman's remarks on ANNCast may have been taken as a death-toll for the entirety of the industry, but, to me anyway, it was clear he only meant the future of dubbing. I guess that with Bandai not denying his statement that they're seriously considering sub-only releases. Which is a shame, but what else can they do if people aren't purchasing legit copies?
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Kalessin



Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 931
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 10:51 pm Reply with quote
I'd say that it's naive to think that fansubs' overall impact at this point is positive to the industry, but they definitely have some positive impact and were a big part of how and why anime ended up here in the first place. Rips of R1 DVDs, however, are far more clear cut. You're getting a product from R1 without paying for it, costing R1 companies money, while with fansubs of unlicensed shows, you're watching a show that an R1 company may or may not pick up. You're not costing them money as directly. It could still be costing them sales if you don't buy the series once it's licensed, and you would have if you hadn't watched the fansub, but given the number of licensed shows compared to unlicensed shows, and the fact that watching them could actually increase the number of shows that you buy once they're licensed (since it exposes you to more) muddles the matter considerably.

Pirating R1 anime releases is clearly in the wrong without all of the grey that accompanies fansubs, and Bang Zoom Entertainment has directly experienced it, so I think that it's at least understandable why Eric Sherman would be particularly concerned with the pirating of R1 anime releases.
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sdhd



Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 169
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 10:56 pm Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:

I think the big distinction comes from many fansubs being for shows that aren't available yet, whereas an R1 rip is obviously available for purchase. Don't know, I'm just taking a stab at it.


Mr. Sherman said what a lot of people who watches fansub says. It's obvious that the lack of anime dubbing contracts (ripped R1 dvds) effects his livelihood whereas fansubs does not. That's why Bang Zoom is focusing on other venues.

I agree with your statement and Mr. Sherman statement in regards to fansub. Fansub is not a problem from that point of view if fansubs never sees a R1 copy. Fansub is copyright infringement. Once an anime title gets licensed overseas then fansub is harming the R1 anime dvds because people will be less inclined to purchase it when there is a fansub copy.


Last edited by sdhd on Fri May 07, 2010 11:50 pm; edited 6 times in total
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Reaper gI



Joined: 05 Oct 2009
Posts: 299
Location: UK
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 10:57 pm Reply with quote
I wonder how much they get through their manga licenses. They have a few good titles and have been doing competant (as in keeping all colour pages etc., not the typos) releases of them.
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rinkwolf10



Joined: 05 Apr 2009
Posts: 750
PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 11:44 pm Reply with quote
So can someone summarize. I didn't watch it and don't have time right now.
So if someone could summarize what is being said, I would be grateful.

Just list the major points that are brought up and I think that should suffice.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 12:20 am Reply with quote
Kalessin wrote:
... while with fansubs of unlicensed shows, you're watching a show that an R1 company may or may not pick up. ...
But the major portion of views of fansubs are of licensed product.

Indeed, since everything gets "fan subbed" unless they are just ripped straight off Crunchyroll, that means that everything that might be licensed is already fansubbed. So the "might or might not pick up" is the lamest of excuses for new shows ... providing subtitles for bootlegs helps undermine the market for anime and reduces the number of shows that can refund the costs of their release.
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captainbanana



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 191
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 12:27 am Reply with quote
Rinkwolf wrote:
So can someone summarize. I didn't watch it and don't have time right now.
So if someone could summarize what is being said, I would be grateful.

Just list the major points that are brought up and I think that should suffice.


Basically Bang Zoom's volume for anime has dropped completely off, and they are only doing a fraction of what they were doing a few years ago (they dub shows for other companies such as Bandai). In a nutshell, this means that the quantity of shows being dubbed in the US is way down from even a year ago, which points to a massive slump in the American anime market (which we already knew about; he's just one of the first industry insiders to admit it)

It was stated that Bandai's North American business (as far as dubbed anime goes) was almost completely riding on the success of Haruhi and an unnamed project. In other words, if it doesn't sell, it's likely that investors and board members alike at Bandai would cut their losses and get out of the North American dubbing business, switching to sub only instead.

This gels with what has been said on earlier ANNcast's pertaining to companies starting to become their own distributors (of subbed shows) and cutting out the middlemen like Best Buy and Amazon, as well as the cost of dubbing a show.

That the president of the company came out and said that the information given was false says a lot, in my opinion anyway. Businesses tend to be prideful, and when someone comes out and basically says that their entire business (in the US, in terms of dubs) is dependent on one or two shows, they want to quickly limit the damage, which is what it seems is happening here.


Last edited by captainbanana on Sat May 08, 2010 12:36 am; edited 1 time in total
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 12:34 am Reply with quote
Oh man this is the best drama since ADV went under.
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Kalessin



Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 931
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 12:43 am Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
Kalessin wrote:
... while with fansubs of unlicensed shows, you're watching a show that an R1 company may or may not pick up. ...
But the major portion of views of fansubs are of licensed product.

Indeed, since everything gets "fan subbed" unless they are just ripped straight off Crunchyroll, that means that everything that might be licensed is already fansubbed. So the "might or might not pick up" is the lamest of excuses for new shows ... providing subtitles for bootlegs helps undermine the market for anime and reduces the number of shows that can refund the costs of their release.


Well, I never said anything about such reasons being good or not. My point was that you are not immediately, directly harming the R1 anime market when you watch a fansub. You may very well harm it later by refusing to buy a show that you would have otherwise bought since you've already seen it fansubbed, but there is at least the possibility that either the show will never get licensed or that you'll pick it up when it does.

On the other hand, when someone pirates an R1 release, the odds are likely quite low that they'll ever buy it. They're downloading (or purchasing if they get Hong Kong knockoffs) something that has been licensed and released in R1. It's an obvious and immediate hit to the R1 anime industry. There's no question of whether it will get licensed or not, and there's likely not much question about whether you'll buy it or not (you could end up buying it later, but I'd be surprised if very many people who pirate R1 anime DVDs end up buying them later - certainly far fewer than the ones who watched the fansubs first).

So, I can see why Eric Sherman would view pirated R1 anime DVDs as a big problem while not worrying as much about fansubs. My guess is that fansubs are in reality a much bigger problem than pirated R1 anime DVDs, but I don't know that for sure. The R1 anime DVD pirating, at least, is clearly in the wrong and a problem, while you can at least argue (whether you happen to be right or not) that fansubs might help the industry. With R1 anime DVDs, you have no such excuse.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
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Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 1:22 am Reply with quote
Kalessin wrote:
... Well, I never said anything about such reasons being good or not. My point was that you are not immediately, directly harming the R1 anime market when you watch a fansub.


You did not specify how you watch the fansub.

What about shows that have current licensed streams? All of the leech streaming sites rely on fansubs and rips for the bootleg content that they upload onto the free video streaming sites and then point to with their web pages. And they compete head to head with the legit streams.

Certainly, hypothetically you may have a way of watching fansubs that hides from the fansubbers that you were part of their audience and so avoided encouraging them to continue. But the more honest way to avoid encouraging the production of fansubs of currently airing shows that may or may not be in the market is to not watch the fansubs of recent shows.
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Kalessin



Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 931
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 1:45 am Reply with quote
agila61 wrote:
Kalessin wrote:
... Well, I never said anything about such reasons being good or not. My point was that you are not immediately, directly harming the R1 anime market when you watch a fansub.


You did not specify how you watch the fansub.

What about shows that have current licensed streams? All of the leech streaming sites rely on fansubs and rips for the bootleg content that they upload onto the free video streaming sites and then point to with their web pages. And they compete head to head with the legit streams.

Certainly, hypothetically you may have a way of watching fansubs that hides from the fansubbers that you were part of their audience and so avoided encouraging them to continue. But the more honest way to avoid encouraging the production of fansubs of currently airing shows that may or may not be in the market is to not watch the fansubs of recent shows.


??? I was not for a second claiming that fansubs weren't a problem. I was trying to explain the likely reason why Eric Sherman views pirated R1 anime DVDs as a worse problem: the fact that they are of immediate and obvious harm to the industry. You're reducing their profitability when you pirate an R1 anime DVD.

Fansubs undoubtedly have a negative effect on the R1 anime industry as well, but you at least have a grey area there - a major reason why fansubs are such a hotly debated topic. With the R1 anime DVD pirating, there is no grey area.

As for fansubs competing with legal streams, I assume that you're bringing this up because it's more of an immediate impact on the R1 anime market than the fansubs have on R1 DVD releases? Fansubs do now compete with legal streams at least some of the time (though plenty of the time there is no legal stream for a show), and that is a negative impact on the streaming portion of the industry, but it's not at all clear that streams are all that profitable, and so fansubs aren't likely to have the same level of negative impact in terms of profit lost as they do with pirated DVDs (though they obviously still have an impact). Regardless, the competition between legal streams and fansubs doesn't really have anything to do with lost DVD sales, which is what Eric Sherman was worried about.

The only reason I ever brought up reasons for why the pirating of R1 anime DVDs could be considered worse for the R1 anime market than fansubs was to explain a possibly reason why Eric Sherman looked at it that way. I don't, personally, really agree with that. At the point that there's an R1 DVD to pirate, I don't think that there's really any difference between downloading a fansub and pirating the R1 release. It's only before that that there's a difference, and even there, I'd argue that fansubs have a hugely negative influence in spite of whatever positive influences that they have simply because of the sheer number of people who appear to download them without buying them once they're released. They're not all lost sales (since many of them wouldn't have bought the product regardless of whether a fansub for it existed or not), but many of them are bound to be.

Regardless, any time that someone watches an anime without ever paying for it, they're watching something that they don't really have the right to watch, and it's hurting the R1 anime industry. They really need those DVD/BD sales.
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bankai3232



Joined: 24 Mar 2009
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 2:05 am Reply with quote
So basically Anime fans will destroy the Anime industry....no surprise here
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keikanki



Joined: 25 Feb 2010
Posts: 107
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 2:16 am Reply with quote
Gotta admit, the thought that Sherman didn't really have a basis to speak to Bandai's future did cross my mind at one point listening to that segment of the ANNCast interview.

His company is a dubbing studio. His services are (or were) central to the reach and success of the R1 industry, but he did that work basically on a sub-contracting basis to the companies that actually link up with Japan and license the stuff. He's like the small town insurance agent who talks up health care reform like he was an expert personally involved, but actually got all his information secondhand and jumped to conclusions about the details and/or filled in gaps in his understanding with largely uninformed assumptions. (And name dropped to make it look like someone more credible is somehow responsible for them.)

Eric sounds like a really nice guy, he's obviously passionate about his work and fond of the talent pool he's helped cultivate over the last 10 years or so, but the more that's said on his comments, the more I tend to agree with the person in the other thread who said he's stuck in the past and not actually well informed. Like a lot of people in the thread his blog posting spawned, he seems like a guy who knows just enough of the in's and out's of the industry to be dangerous enough to jump to conclusions and make seriously flawed judgments about where the industry is and where it's going, when his experiences in the business are really considerably below that level of knowledge and expertise.


Last edited by keikanki on Sat May 08, 2010 2:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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nhat



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 922
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 2:23 am Reply with quote
Technically aren't they just trying to keep things positive and not say if they are doing bad or else the shareholders and stock holders will withdrawal support from that company? Aka cause a panic?
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