Forum - View topicNEWS: 'An Open Letter to the Industry' Translated into Japanese
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I hope you won't mind me adding a touch of constructive criticism then. Don't get me wrong. I too thought this was an incredibly well written letter. However, I you could have gone into more detail about why you feel that eliminating fansubs through legal means without replacing them would not work. I can see your point there, but with the rest of the letter (and this is why I thought it was so well written) unless people just didn't get what you were saying there really wasn't much they could disagree with. However, the one question people can still raise to some extent is whether the industry could not just elliminate piracy through legal means. This concerns me especially since this is the direction I get the impression the industry may be leaning already. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I don't think so. The cost to litigate ONE case would involve filing in federal court, which means at least six figures in legal costs. With margins as thin as they are in this industry, nobody is prepared to do that. Not to mention that it's very, very difficult for a foreign company to do in the first place.
Thanks! I'm not sure how much good that'll do, as AIC is merely an animation studio and not a rights holder, but it certainly can't hurt. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2233 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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I was discussing this with my friend during my vacation to Kyoto, and she mentioned I point I hadn't really thought of.
Is it even legal to do what Justin wants? Or, to be more specific, is it legal for the original japanese license holders to offer their content online without region locking? Don't they, by distributing the content worldwide, have to abide by the local laws of every country in which it could possible be viewed, and therefore open themselves up to prosecution by a foreign government? For example, Singapore has quite strict censoring for its TV programming. Or (not to bring up a sore spot, but) Kodomo no Jikan... I can easily imagine a conservative group in america trying to sue the japanese company that makes that available. By distributing globally, the Japanese company would have to make sure that their content abided by EVERY SINGLE LAW OF EVERY COUNTRY in which it is available. Which is really really difficult, and would be a hideous restriction on the creators' work. One way around this is by region locking, but even restricting to just the US, Canada, Australia, and Singapore, I can already see possible issues with many anime. Furthermore, by offering them online for free or nearly free, you risk serious political problems about "violent cartoons" aimed at our youth. Well maybe this is not really something to be worried about, since even if it wasn't completely legal, it seems unlikely that anything would really be a problem. However that doesn't stop the Japanese companies from WORRYING about this. |
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razberry_yum
 Posts: 169 |
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I do hope the Japanese industry does pay attention to your letter, Justin, enough to make some positive changes. But I wonder if also the North American industry needs to make some changes as well since, as you've mentioned, they're losing money too.
For me, personally, the cost of the DVDs and the rate at which they're released is a huge deterrent for purchasing them. And I'm one of those crazy otakus who would usually buy the DVDs even after having watched the entire series through fansubs already, so imagine how much more a deterrent it would be for younger audiences who can't afford the DVDs or whose parents wouldn't plop down the dough for them to buy it. I'll cite a very recent example: I was going to purchase a season of Prince of Tennis as a Christmas gift for someone, but then I had to nix that idea when I saw that for just half the season, I would be paying close to $30. So for just one season, I would be paying close to $60, and really for what? The awful dub work (not to start a dub vs. sub argument)? The average packaging? I know eventually box sets are released and they tend to be cheaper than the individual DVDs, but then they take what seems to be forever to come out. Considering that the whole first season has already been shown in Japan, what, 2 - 3 years ago, I'm puzzled as to why it would take North American distributors so long to release a box set at a more reasonable price and at a quicker pace. I wonder if the North American anime industry also wouldn't benefit from changing the way they release DVDs. Why not mimic the way American tv show DVDs are released? Instead of selling the show piece by piece, just wait until an entire season has been aired on Cartoon Network (if that is the restricting factor) and then just sell the entire season in one box set. And also how about doing away with the hardcover cases and just use a cardboard case like how most American tv shows are packaged? Wouldn't that help cut costs as well and therefore increase profit margins? And then for lesser shows that wouldn't be shown on Cartoon Network and therefore no dubbing is needed, how about skipping the costs of dubbing altogether? Obviously, reading subtitles hasn't deterred anyone from watching anime, considering the popularity of fansubs. I confess to not knowing much about the North American anime industry so I'm sure for every point I mentioned above, someone probably has a way to counter each point and argue why it's not feasible. The point of my example is just to reiterate that I believe change DEFINITELY has to occur even within the North American anime industry and I see their current patterns as a reluctance to accept the current state of the anime fandom as well. The issue is not just with new anime and making it available legally in English, but with older series as well. Maybe it's our sue-crazy culture that makes them stubbornly believe that all they have to do is send out cease-and-desist orders and the problems will magically go away, but isn't that essentially biting the hands that feed it? I hope your letter not only motivates the Japanese industry to change, but also the NA industry as well. They need to catch up with the times, and I truly don't see that they've done much to do that. |
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Parvati-IV
 Posts: 72 |
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Wow, this is a first for me to see. I see a lot of people complain that $30 for 3 to 5 episodes is too expensive, but $30 for 13 episodes? I think people normally would be jumping for joy if anime cost that little. Sadly, with all the talk about releasing things faster, I wonder if it will becoe more and more rare to see some of the older titles make it over. The update about how the IA titles did makes me very, very hopeful though. Go for Ace o Nerae!  (and though not older, if that deal covers their more recent catalog like the 2005 version of Glass Mask, I would explode with happiness.)
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TriezGamer
Posts: 19 |
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Generally speaking, they only have to follow the laws of countries in which the servers they are utilizing are based. You cannot attack a group from a legal standpoint simply for making the content universally available, and that's a good thing. 95%+ of the internet is open to everyone, we'd have a lot of people in trouble with countries as restrictive as some of the ones in the Middle East if you had to follow everyone's laws simply by having a content available on the net. The legal onus in such countries is on the consumer. For example, in the US, child pornography is illegal. Some sources of said pornography may be in a country where it ISN'T illegal, and as such, they can distribute. It is still illegal for an American to view it. |
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desterion
Posts: 18 |
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This article is a perfect example as to why i hate the ANN staff with their constant elitism and holier than thou attitude. It is shameful to realize that these people also call themselves anime fans. There is nothing but constant blame directed at only anime fans, or their favorite target of non-human downloaders. Not once is it really mentioned about the fact that for most fans, anime is still too expensive. Much less the fact that americans have to wait months, to pay for an inferior product. The dubbing casts for most animes are so horrid that they should be paying YOU to put up with it. Fansubbing groups tend to do a much better job at the translation as well. While the evil little download trolls may be a part of the problem, licensing companies share just as much of the blame for being nearly incapable of putting out a product that can rival the original.
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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They can't lower prices in a niche industry very easily, they need to cover base production costs. So sadly there isn't much that they can do when it comes to making dvds cheaper. I do think you are right that there are plenty that can't afford anime at the price (well, sometimes can afford but would definitely choose to buy something like American TV which is cheaper per hour). However, I think you are very wrong to talk about dub casts, etc. because that's pretty much just your opinion. I couldn't disagree with you more about that issue and overall I think the industry is doing a good job here these days. My only issue with them is that they don't seem to be very good at marketing it. They don't appear to know the fanbase outside of their already paying customers.
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biolizard_alpha
Posts: 183 |
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Umm... did you actually read the article?
Do you speak Japanese? |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I'm pretty sure you either didn't read the article at all or your reading comprehension skills are very poor. |
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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I'm going with C:"All of the above". |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10425 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I must agree with you on this, $30 for 13 episodes is right there with the price of North American TV series like Family guy, which SRPs for $39.98 for the first half of season 5. Amazon carries it for 29.99. It only has 9 episodes (18 episode season). Prince of Tennis also SRPs for 39.98, but for 13 episodes, and can be found for as low as $27.99, that's only $2 more than what you'd pay to download the first 13 episode from iTunes if it was available that way. $30 for 13 episodes is very reasonable for anyone who wants to own the 13 episodes. If Razberry Yum wants to give a TV series as a gift, (s)he is being unreasonable. But that doesn't solve the problem of people who want to watch 13 episodes, don't want to own them, and don't want to pay $30. They could rent them from RentAnime.com, but if waiting a few days for it to arrive isn't their thing, they might turn to online piracy (or fansubs, but post release, fansubs are piracy imho). My point is that, even with very reasonable DVD prices, the market is going to miss out on potential revenue from fans, who either 1) don't want to spend anything, 2) don't want to own a DVD, 3) don't want to wait 6-24 months for the release, 4) don't have access to the show they want to see on TV and/or 5) don't want to wait a couple days for a rental. |
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N15PCA
 Posts: 37 Location: San Tan Valley, AZ |
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I bought around 5,000 dollars worth of anime. I did my part.
I been lately buying some anime on X-box 360 Marketplace and ADV downloads. Both are 2.00 bucks an Episode. You can't beat that. |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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I assume you are talking about Japanese blogs. All the blogs I've read that responded to your article at least partially agree with you. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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