Forum - View topic

Hey, Answerman! - Portmanteau-Related Tomfooligans

However, not harming the livelihoods of artists who bring joy into the world is one I'd be content to see broad agreement on.

agila61 wrote:

However, not harming the livelihoods of artists who bring joy into the world is one I'd be content to see broad agreement on.

What if the said artist didn't bring joy into my world, though?

bob51 wrote:

agila61 wrote: However, not harming the livelihoods of artists who bring joy into the world is one I'd be content to see broad agreement on. What if the said artist didn't bring joy into my world, though?

If they didn't bring joy into anyone's world, they'd not be a long time in the profession.

In any event, what you'd care about is that the system does generate income for those artists that do bring joy into your world. If that happens, it would be not only selfish but in the long term denying yourself joy to get tied up in knots worrying about the fact that some people get money and you are mystified "why anyone likes that crap".

As far as the fact that sometimes you pay good money to go to the theater (or equivalent) and the show/movie/play/comic (or equivalent) is a clunker ... well, shit, its the real world. Worrying about the fact that the real world is not perfect is never going to make it perfect, so it seems a waste of time and energy.

So you're not saying it's wrong...just that's it's not okay. How is that different?

No. I actually never said anything like that. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't put words in my mouth. I completely agree that piracy as a whole has a negative effect. I just don't see any logical reason to lump everyone together like that though. If an individual is using piracy to leech, then I agree that is wrong. If an individual is using piracy in a way that is harmless however then is that wrong merely by association? The logic of this just does not compute.

This comparison is obvious nonsense. Your complaint seemed to be that by pirating, you are supporting pirate sites and enabling other people to pirate. My response was that you're not.

Just that in the mean time, you're not making the situation any worse or enabling anyone to leech so if you yourself aren't doing any damage then what's the problem?

I don't care what you or anyone else on here think of me, but people on a moralistic high horse who treat everyone else as unworthy and constantly berate them piss me off.

God, truly wonderful at misreading things, Yueh. The point was not that I want that to happen, it was that there are plenty of excellent things worthy of support that never took off for one reason or another, contrary to LordRedHands naïve claims that any place can have a booming industry if one fan yells loudly enough about how awesome anime is.

Honestly, LordRedhand, you seem to forget how many good ideas simply weren't profitable because the market couldn't be created. Just going with literature, art and music, there are myriad examples of excellent works that didn't sell more than a handful of copies until long after their creators had died in poverty and obscurity.

We weren't talking about fansubs or scans there, though. Why was lack of availability or an industry an acceptable excuse 10 or 15 years ago in the US, but it's suddenly invalidated now for other countries with an industry similarly lacking as R1 of 15 years ago, merely because they speak English as well? It's the same excuse nobody was criticising here when our industry was still nascent, but suddenly it was only okay for us, but now it's bad for anyone else to do it?

Typical American hypocrisy, you should be in government office.

Another of your non-answers that avoids the issue mentioned. How helpful.

His idea came to fruition after he met Masahiro Ohga, then managing director of Shogakukan, in 1985 and shared his vision. Shogakukan provided Horibuichi with $200,000 in startup capital, which Horibuichi used in 1986 to found Viz Communications.

In 2005, Viz LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current Viz Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and Shogakukan's licensing division Shogakukan Productions (ShoPro Japan).

Seiji Horibuchi, originally from Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku, moved to California in 1975. After living in the mountains for almost two years, he moved to San Francisco, where he started a business exporting American cultural items to Japan, and became a writer of cultural information. He also became interested in publishing Japanese manga in the United States, though he himself was not a fan of the Japanese comics until a visit to Japan in 1985 exposed him to Katsuhiro Otomo's single-volume title Domu: A Child's Dream. His idea came to fruition after he met Masahiro Ohga, then managing director of Shogakukan, in 1985 and shared his vision. Shogakukan provided Horibuichi with $200,000 in startup capital, which Horibuichi used in 1986 to found Viz Communications.

Viz Communications released its first titles in 1987, which included Legend of Kamui, however sales were mediocre due to the specialist comic market being adverse to venturing into new territory. To counteract this problem, Viz expanded into the general publishing business and began publishing various art related books in 1992

ADV wasn't owned by a Japanese company, but they were still just the anime imprint of a much larger company, effectively amounting to much the same thing.

John Ledford, a man who started a Japanese video game and video console import business in 1990, received an introduction to anime from one of his friends; the friend introduced My Neighbor Totoro to Ledford. In 1992 Ledford and Matt Greenfield launched ADV together and decided to begin licensing anime. Toho reluctantly licensed Devil Hunter Yohko to ADV, making the title ADV's first; even though Shozo Watanabe, the general manager of the Los Angeles office of Toho, expressed concern that ADV would not be able to handle the distribution of the film, Toho was unable to find another distributor, so it selected ADV

Again, you fabulously miss the point. It's not that there are no good movies from America, the point was that in the US many excellent films are almost doomed to failure simply by virtue of being foreign.

You don't know until you try? Perhaps not definitively, but there are ways to get a rough idea of how likely something is going to succeed with maths.

But, to put it simply, you irritate me whenever the converstaion turns to something you have a strong opinion on. I don't mean this as a personal attack on you, because I don't know you. You could be the nicest person in the world for al I know. But whenever someone posts an opinion and has the nerve to dissent from your view of how things should be, you start posting in an extremely arrogant, moralistic manner that drives mental.

You constantly talk down to people that disagree with you,

provide irrelevant answers (I'll concede that you had several good points in the yuri thread, though) that ignore the problems or circumstances around it,

and either have woeful reading comprehension (and I know you're smarter than that, which leaves us with option two) or you intentionally misread other posters statements in a manner that fits your purpose whenever you have no response for it.

You've also got a nasty habit of making assumptions about other people and putting words in their mouth.

You also have to remember that the internet doesn't convey emotions very well. Maybe it doesn't sound as cocky and condescending in your head, but it comes out that way.

My stance has been all along breaking the law in pursuit of a HOBBY doesn't make breaking the law ok.

So somehow there are sites where every single one of the people who use the site buy anime product in support of anime? No leeches?

So if people are looting in a riot situation, what's it going to hurt if you take something? Everyone else is doing it. Whatever you take can't hurt, right?

And, what is wrong with being selfish? You use it like it's a negative word, selfishness is in my opinion something every single person in the face of the world does. No one here isn't selfish, do not try to say you are not, use logic, really.

I don't see why would I be slightly frustrated at "worrying" about paying artists I like or not, It's not like it's more of a hassle to decide I like this one, and not this, than to pay every single one of them, even those I didn't like.

And for the theater analogy, if the movie was crap it doesn't mean I won't have the feeling that I want my money back, but this scenario sets me up to be preemptive and not pay before watching, and only pay after if I like the show, ideally for me.

CCSYueh wrote:

My stance has been all along breaking the law in pursuit of a HOBBY doesn't make breaking the law ok.

Okay, I get that this is your stance. But can you explain why? In what sense is it 'not okay'?

Just to recap, my argument is: In some cases, Piracy is harmless and has no ill effects on others. Therefore, in these cases, it is okay to pirate. Your response seems to be: Regardless of your reasons or justifications, it is still illegal and therefore not okay. My follow up question then is: Why? Why isn't it okay to break the law if you're not hurting anything?

(1) The R1 rights and R2/UK rights are both all-rights, and the R1 rights holder streams on Crunchy because they have the right to do so. In that case, so does the R2/UK right holder.

(2) Neither the R1 rights nor the R2/UK rights were all-rights, and streaming rights have to be acquired in support of the R1 marketing strategy. Since the R1 rights have been granted, the likelihood is that the R2/UK rights would be allowed on the same terms.

(3) The R1 rights were all-rights but the R2/UK were not. That's were there is extra difficulty that has not already been resolved for the R1 upload.

Is the original Naruto region-blocked?

My stance has been all along breaking the law in pursuit of a HOBBY doesn't make breaking the law ok.

bob51 wrote:

And, what is wrong with being selfish? You use it like it's a negative word, selfishness is in my opinion something every single person in the face of the world does. No one here isn't selfish, do not try to say you are not, use logic, really.

That "use logic" is a non-sequitur, you are making empirical claims here, not drawing logical implications from commonly accepted premises.

And certainly, nobody here is entirely selfless. At the same time, hopefully, no one here is entirely selfish either. That tends to lead to psychopathy and, when caught, prison.

Quote:

I don't see why would I be slightly frustrated at "worrying" about paying artists I like or not, It's not like it's more of a hassle to decide I like this one, and not this, than to pay every single one of them, even those I didn't like. And for the theater analogy, if the movie was crap it doesn't mean I won't have the feeling that I want my money back, but this scenario sets me up to be preemptive and not pay before watching, and only pay after if I like the show, ideally for me.

And then not paying at all for a show that you only enjoyed well enough to watch once.

Which is why the line you seem to be proposing ~ watch only bootlegs the first time around, and only pay if you decide you "liked" the show enough to pay ~ reaches out into the territory of doing damage to the industry, and is not where someone would draw the line if they wanted to support the industry.

Just to recap, my argument is: In some cases, Piracy is harmless and has no ill effects on others. Therefore, in these cases, it is okay to pirate. Your response seems to be: Regardless of your reasons or justifications, it is still illegal and therefore not okay. My follow up question then is: Why? Why isn't it okay to break the law if you're not hurting anything?

Piracy-an act of robbery on the high seas; robbery on the high seas; the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright; the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

This wasn't my claim. The opposite in fact. There are a ton of leeches out there. Even if everyone who also buys stuff or otherwise feels they do no harm were to suddenly stop pirating and the only people left were true leeches there would still be more than enough demand to encourage fansubers to continue. Either way, leeches who do damage the industry are still going to have no problem pirating everything. It's still all going to be made available.

If a fansub group sticks to material that is three or more years old and is not licensed in their language, that is still, in almost every country on the face of this earth, breaking the law, but its not something I am going to worry about, because I doubt it does any harm.

They are still fans, though, and I can't begrudge the subbers and translators themselves their right to exercise their right to be fans. If only there were a way to scourge away all the leechers and leave the subbers and translators intact... Hm.

They're (fansubbers) doing something on their own time that is difficult and time-consuming, and they're doing it all because they love this stuff. That's evident, and I don't think myself or anyone else would ever challenge that.

I just wish there was a better way, I guess, to channel that sort of devotion. Because it all just seems like wasted effort to me. Maybe not to you, since you enjoy the fansubs more, and that's certainly your prerogative. But to me, I'd like to see these guys and girls forgo the titles that are obvious no-brainers to either be licensed or simulcast, and stick to the stuff that sits on the fringes of the fandom. The titles that still truly need that extra bit of promotional push.