Forum - View topicThe Proposal of Master Lee - A System For Anime Distribution
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Master Lee
 Posts: 47 |
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Wow...
Hats off to all three of you. I was afraid that my last post might have scared people away, but now I'm just speechless. All three of you brought up some amazing points and / or great ideas. This is the exact type of constructive criticism I was hoping for. I'll have to read over them thoroughly before I reply. I'll attempt to reply reasonably soon assuming life doesn't get in the way. Just wanted you all to know I've read them. Thanks again for the amazing replies! I pray that future posts follow in your footsteps! Master Lee |
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Hisdon
 Posts: 411 Location: Poquoson, VA |
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In a society founded by free markets this kind of thing falls into the hands of the companies and their own short comings. Its the same belief I have about pirating music: the industry needs to adjust itself to make their product more desired than the pirated copy rather than try to force legislation down congress's throats. Let's face it: The internet revolutionized the media, and if companies can't adjust, well, that's just what happens; the market will decide their fate. You don't see the newspapers and tv news complaining because the internet steals their viewers; they expanded their broadcasting online.
I believe the answer to this delimma is rather simple: Advertisement. When the market is flooded with a free, fairly high quality copy of something, the industriest must find a way around this. To me, the easiest way to do this would be making the services free via streaming videos and making a profit off the advertisements rather than the product itself. We're seeing this with(insert the site name, its slipped my mind ><), a music download site that is perfectly legal because it pays the industry via its advertisement income. The only problem with this is the songs are not ipod compatible, which alienates a good portion of the market (they do work on non-microsoft and non-apple mp3 players though) Yes, there is that thing called intellectual property. And it is being violated. However, pirating isn't going away anytime soon, and the market needs to show some initiative and adapt to the internet. As for your proposal, Master Lee, it is a solid business proposition, but I still feel that is far from an end all solution to internet piracy. Sure, it may slightly improve sales figures, but when their competition is free ware, they really need to buckle down with something solid. |
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Master Lee
Posts: 47 |
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To Animastryfe: Thank you for your reply and your compliment about my English skills. Though I assure you that my English skills only appear decent on the forum because I can take my sweet time and re-read things as necessary. In a real life conversation... I don't get to think things through so, more often than not, I sound like a total moron.
Your question about whether or not products can be downloaded brings up a very important issue. One that, while I have put a lot of thought into it in the past, I never actually came up with anything solid enough to write down. The issue of downloadable content from online services is, and has been, a major debate and a VERY touchy subject that still has no clear answer. For the most part, there are two main sides to this debate; the point of view of the consumer and that of the companies that make the products. In short... The consumer spends their hard earned money on a product and therefore feels that they should be entitled to download a copy of it. The consumer has a very valid point of view and I feel it's totally justified. The companies who create the products are depending on those products to turn a profit for them. They are concerned that if they allow their products to be downloaded then untrustworthy consumers will pirate their product. Thereby, taking money that rightfully belongs to the company. The companies also have a very valid point of view and I feel it's totally justified. A solution that appeases one side of the debate will likely alienate the other side. The root problem behind all of this is that it's impossible for the companies to know who is a trustworthy consumer and who isn't. Some companies use "Digital-Rights Management" (DRM) in an attempt to counter this dilemma. DRM puts restrictions on the usage of a product so that companies have a way to prevent their product from being used for illegitimate purposes. The type of restrictions vary greatly depending on the DRM method used and the product involved. While aimed at deterring the untrustworthy consumer, the DRM restrictions also punish the trusthworthy consumer. Meanwhile the untrustworthy consumer will likely find a way around these DRM restrictions if they really want to. In an ideal world everyone would be completely trustworthy and such an issue would never arise, but alas our world is far from ideal. As far as the proposed service is concerned, I have no definite answer to your question but, I will share some possible ideas I've thought of. Since you mentioned Steam, and Steam is what I used as the basic underlying structure for my proposal, I may as well start there. You are correct that Steam allows you to download products you've purchased. Steam handles a purchased product by associating it with the account that purchased it. After purchasing a product you often have to download and install it before being able to use it. Since your product is associated with your Steam account, and not your computer itself, you can login to your account on any computer that has the Steam program installed and have access to your products. When you login and attempt to use a product you're entitled to it must be downloaded on that computer before being usable. Even though this product is now downloaded on a different computer it would not be able to be used without having the account it's associated with logged into the service. For Example: If a friend used my computer to log into their Steam account and attemped to play a game it would have to download and install before being useable. After my friend left I would not be able to run the game without logging into their Steam account, despite it having been downloaded to my computer. Even logging into Steam with my account would not allow me to run their game as it does not show up as having been purchased with, and thereby associated with, my account. (Please Note: The above statements regarding Steam are based solely on my knowledge as a consumer. I am not affiliated with Steam and I have no inside knowledge of the Steam service. I also realize that the product protection that Steam uses is far from perfect and there are numerous pirated copies of Steam products floating around the vastness of the net. To be fair though, it's unlikely that any form of protection will ever prevent piracy completely. So long as there are people and goods in this world, someone will find a way to pirate these goods and at least one person will be looking to acquire these pirated goods.) While far from perfect, a similar system could be used in the proposed service. I'll attempt to address individual aspects of the service in this possible addendum to the proposal... (Important Notice: Titles that appear in bold and underlined are possible additions to the original proposal. Their purpose is to present how a given idea or concept could be worked into the proposed service. They are not set in stone! In fact I'd like to hear any opinions on them, so they can be modified to suit your needs. The questions that appear in bold are questions that I am asking myself. I forgot to mention these things in my earlier posts. As for the self-questions, I don't want anyone to think I'm attempting to quote someone else or put words in their mouth. The reason for questioning myself is to address questions I'm expecting to get asked in advance. I hope my proposal addendums and pre-emptive question and answer sessions haven't confused anyone.) Downloadable Content - What's Downloaded / Downloadable and What Restrictions May Apply Previews - If you're selecting to watch a preview of an episode it would likely be streamed as opposed to downloaded. My reasoning for this is that I assume most people won't be watching any one preview multiple times over a given period of time and therefore wouldn't need it stored and buffered in advance. Also, by streaming the preview, the consumer can get a glimpse of it faster than they would if they had to wait for it to be fully downloaded. Purchased Products - If you buy a product you would have the option of streaming it or downloading it. Once downloaded you would be able to view the product without having to wait for it to be buffered. If you originally chose to stream a purchased product you could, at anytime, go back and choose to download it. Rentable Products - If you choose to rent a product you would also have the options of streaming or downloading it. If you download the product you wouldn't have to wait for it to buffer, but also wouldn't be able to begin viewing the product until it was fully downloaded. In both cases the rental countdown would begin as soon as you start watching the product. Once the rental period countdown is up you would lose access to the product (unless you re-rent it) and in the event that you had chosen to download it the downloaded content would be removed from your system. If I purchase a product and chose to download it what happens if this download gets deleted from my system? There would be no need to worry. You would simply need to login to your account, go to your list of purchased products, and select the one you wish to re-download. This would be completely free of course. Since you purchased the product you would always be entitled to it and never denied access. Would downloaded products be able to be watched without logging into the service? No, they would not. Much like the video gaming service of Steam mentioned above you would need to login to make use of your products. This way the service can verify that you are in fact entitled to those products. Does this mean I would need an active internet connection to watch my downloaded content? No, you wouldn't need to have an active internet connection as you could login in offline mode. Much like Steam, the service I propose would involve a downloaded program. The program would be your "gateway" to the service. You would need an active internet connection to purchase products through the service, but not to watch a downloaded product. Even without an active internet connection you could login to the program (though online features would obviously be unavailable) and use it in an offline mode. The program would have the information from when your account had purchased that product and you would then be able to use it through the program. You would not however be able to use your product offline on another computer unless that computer also had the program and the product downloaded onto it. I apologize that this may sound very confusing, but I'm not sure how to explain it better with just words. If you really want to see how this "offline" mode works first hand, you could... download Steam (at http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php), make a free account, download a demo for a product, then logout of Steam, disconnect your internet connection, call up the Steam program again and login. You'll be able to access that downloaded demo, but not have access to any features of the demo or Steam service that require an active internet connection. If you decide to try this out I assure you it's completely free and it does not contain spyware or any malicious content. I'm not attempting to advertise Steam or telling / suggesting anyone use their service. It was merely being said as a way to clarify my above answer. And now a major question that I'd love to just happily ignore and avoid forever, but I suppose I'd better ask it to myself before someone else hits me with it... Suppose I purchase a product through the service and I chose to download it. Can I burn this downloaded product onto a DVD for backup purposes or just to watch on my TV? To be honest, this question is going to be way out of my league and I'm certain any answer I give is bound to displease someone. But, I'll attempt to address it anyway. Burning a backup copy, would be mostly unnecessary as you would always be permitted access to your product simply by logging into the service. While I would love to say that you could burn a DVD to watch your product on your TV... no, you would not be able to. My reason for this is that it would make product piracy too easy to do. I realize this would punish the trustworthy consumers pretty harshly, but I can't think of any non-intrusive ways to allow a consumer to burn their own copies while ensure that it would be for legal purposes. I'll gladly listen to any possible solutions to this that people have, provided that it doesn't start up a pro-DRM / anti-DRM war. In an attempt to compensate for not allowing burnable copies of downloaded content, I will offer up some possible alternative options. Granted, they aren't even close to perfect, but I'm at least trying... Discounted DVD's / Online "Soft Copies" Alternative - If you purchased a product through the service in it's online "soft copy" form you could purchase the DVD version of the product at a greatly reduced price. (Assuming that particular product has a DVD release available, of course.) Likewise, if you had purchased the DVD version of a product through the service you could purchase the online "soft copy" at a greatly reduced price. This could allow a consumer to have a portable DVD copy and still have a watchable online backup. Biggest flaw I can see with this alternative would be that the consumer would have to pay for the extra copy. The "PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Wii, WebTV, etc." Alternative - I don't currently own any of these devices so this will all be purely guesswork. Perhaps the service could be made accessible through these devices since, I believe, they are capable of internet access. This way you could enjoy products purchased through the service without needed to sit in front of your computer. Unlike the above alternative the consumer wouldn't have to pay extra money for another copy. However, the huge flaw in this alternative is what was mentioned in GrdAdmiral's first post. That being that not everyone wants, has, or can afford to have these devices. The "Hook your computer to the TV" Alternative - While I've never tried it, most modern graphics cards feature a form of TV-out output connection. By hooking your computers graphics card up to your TV and selecting it as your "monitor" you could watch your products on the TV. GrdAdmiral had stated in their most recent post that they have done this... although it sounds like their plasma TV doesn't like it too well. The biggest flaw I can see with this alternative is that some people may have graphics cards or TV's that don't support this feature or it may simply be that the TV is located in another room or even on a different floor than the computer making connection difficult or impossible. The above is pretty much everything I can think of at the moment. While I did create a possible addendum to my proposal addressing the questions that you asked regarding downloading, I'd like to apologize that I have no "true" and definite answer to your question. If you don't mind me asking AnimeStryfe, from your experience as a consumer do you find the above ideas to be reasonably fair to both the consumer and the companies? Would you use a service that handled downloadable content in this fashion? If not, would it be due to the lack of being able to burn copies of purchased products? I would also like to apologize to you for answering your two short questions with a novels worth of text. You just happened to ask the "right" two questions. I look forward to any future questions, comments, complaints, ideas, opinions, suggestions, etc. that you may have. Thanks again for your reply AnimaStryfe. To ShadowTrader: I'm currently working on finishing up a reply to your last post. Barring any complications I should have it posted tonight or tomorrow. To GrdAdmiral: I haven't gotten to start on a reply to your post just yet. I do however, really like your idea on "roll-over" subscription plans. I take it you're a cell phone user? To Hidson: Thank you for your post. You really hit the nail on the head with your statement that the internet revolutionized the media. It's also changed music and gaming in major ways. In todays world it's necessary for companies to adapt to changing technology and trends in society. Even companies like Coke and Pepsi embraced the internet, which completely blows my mind considering their products are so common place in most peoples lives that they don't even need to be advertised! Sadly, your comments on piracy are true as well. Piracy will never be completely gotten rid of, but hopefully measures can be taken to offer convenient, practical, and profitable alternatives. I was never really big into music but, I believe I've heard of the service you're talking about or at least similar services that operate on ads. I'm also curious... if there was an online anime service that relied almost entirely on advertisements to sustain itself, would you use it? If so, would you only accept in-house ads, such as anime and anime related products, or would you also tolerate watching third-party ads, such as car commercials? Would it matter to you if these ads occurred while you were watching an anime, such as at the start, between splash screens, or at the end? I'm glad to hear that you think my proposal is a solid business proposition. It is, however, far from complete. I know there are many obvious flaws present and, I'm certain, quite a number of major flaws still lurking below the surface waiting to be discovered. You're dead on when you say this proposal will never be an "end all" solution to piracy. It's main goal is to establish a newer method of distribution, focusing heavily on usefulness to the consumer and profitability to the companies involved. If a service functioning like the one I proposed was ever created would you use it? Do you have any specific needs as a consumer that the service does not currently address? Any ideas or feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your reply Hidson. |
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ShadowTrader
 Posts: 231 Location: NJ |
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Yea what he said. But I still think the anime producers can compete with pirating if they can sub their own anime and release it as quickly in foreign markets as in the domestic one. The problem is that they don't have the infrastructure to do this so I believe a third party is needed.
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angel_lover
 Posts: 645 Location: UK |
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Anime distributors' current business model is demonstrably untenable. They simply need to stop thinking of fansubbers as copyright violators who can be constrained by various legal means and start thinking of them as just competitors. With that simple, life-saving shift, most of the things being proposed here will follow. Everyone will then be happy. Anime companies will get some restoration of their revenue stream, consumers will get as much anime as they want released very shortly after the first showing in Japan for a very reasonable price, and fansubbers will be able to go to bed early instead of having to stay up all night working.
The only even slightly contentious thing in this is that people who prefer dubs will just have to learn to read more quickly 
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GrdAdmiral
 Posts: 101 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's a problem with Plasma TV's. The pixels like to burn in over long periods of time. I'm told that LCD TV's don't have this problem. I hope its only a temp problem. As getting TV's thru AAFES is a big pain, and Best Buy doesn't ship to APO's. However, with out a way to hook this media to another external source, you wold not be able to watch on trips, or away from your home computer. Laptops are nice, but not everyone will be able to afford all these luxuries. Guess I'm just kinda partial to physical media. Yes, I use to use cell phones a lot back in the states. I moved around so much, that I don't bother with land lines. But here in Germany, I don't use them as much. The policy process is much different here then it was back in the states. |
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GrdAdmiral
Posts: 101 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Hmm, I always thought the Japanese actually encouraged fan comics or Doujinshi. If Region 1 distributors took the same approach, things might be more friendly between fans and the companies. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3785 Location: Montreal |
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You are mistaken. They do have the infrastructure. They just don't have the rights. The terms imposed by the Japanese rights-holders can be pretty strict. Among other things they tend to forbid anything that could compete with the Japanese industry. Like early releases which, given the large price difference, could lead to reverse importation. The problem is mostly legal/political, not logistical/economic. It's not that no one ever thought of a system like this, it's that no one can get the Japanese companies on board. Create a youtube of anime? Nice idea, but only if you can actually negotiate the rights to the gazillion series out there. If the Japanese animation industry was led by business people they might be more easily convinced to take a strategic risk, but mostly it's led by creative people who are (understandably) very protective of their cherished works. It means that anime is more creative than Hollywood by it also means it's much less profitable (just enough to pay the bills, really). Which would you choose? Creativity or profits? You can't have both. |
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Comartemis
Posts: 28 Location: Chicago Illinois |
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The reason behind that is due to the fact that many of the industry's best and most successful artists got their start as mangaka. Naoko Takeuchi and CLAMP are the only ones I can name off the top of my head, but look at how successful they turned out, eh? There's also the fact that doujinshi don't reproduce the original product like fansubbers do, they just take the characters and stick them in new situations, like Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime crossovers, for instance, or the oodles and oodles of hentai doujins that exist for practically every series under the sun. |
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ShadowTrader
Posts: 231 Location: NJ |
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I think everybody is in agreement here that the anime companies have failed to compete and foresee the problem of fan-subbers stealing away profits. The solution however is still not clear. If anything the best solution is one that will at the same time allow users all over the world to watch anime in real time and at the same time generate profits for the producers. The easiest solution in my opnion is to release a fansub, but this time it will be an official sub, at the same time as the domestic release airs. To do this the compnaies can just partner with any online video provider already out there, YouTube comes to mind just because its the biggest and has different language versions. The partner benefits because of all the extra hits from anime fans plus advertising revenue, and the companies cuts losses away from illegal fansubs, plus they can also have some kind of revenue sharing plan with the partner. |
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Master Lee
Posts: 47 |
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I noticed fansubs being mentioned so I figured I'd jump into the conversation for a few.
Though I'm sure the last thing anyone wants to see here is more text from me.
In their post on the first page Xanas had suggested that anime companies actually incorporate fansubbers. In response I came up with a possible way to incorporate fansubbers into the service. This way they would have the freedom to work at their own pace and in the setting of their choice, but they would still be working in a legal and controlled way that could help the anime companies immensely. It would also allow fansubbers to be rated, so they can flaunt all their bragging rights from having the best fansub. Did anyone think that idea sounded do-able? More importantly did it sound like it would be fair to both the fansubbers and the anime companies? Sorry to interupt. I'll retreat back into the shadows again... Master Lee (I'll try to finish up that reply to you ShadowTrader!) |
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ShadowTrader
Posts: 231 Location: NJ |
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First of all creativity rarely puts bread on the table (talent is another story), and secondly how have they managed to protect their createive works so far? They haven't and on top of that they didn't even make profit off of it. I believe you can have both, and saying you can't is really naive. Good creativty can turn into better talent and become so priceless that even money raining from the heavens wouldn't be enough. The problem is competition, or better yet lack off. What I mean is competition forces talent to come out and the strong thrive while the weak die out. If the industry stops protecting itself as you say it does, stand up to the competion and start acting like a business then not only will the quality go up but so will the profits and the world-wide anime revoultion can begin. |
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Animastryfe
 Posts: 152 Location: Vancouver |
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I think this idea is do-able. Yes, I will probably use a service like you described, Masterlee. I don't care about burning copies to DVDs, I usually watch anime on my laptop and I could just buy the DVDs. I would also support the ad-based service some other people mentioned, but I would intensely hate it if the ads came on during the show, like commercials do on TV. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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You sure about that? Ever heard of Dentsu? |
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GrdAdmiral
Posts: 101 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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In "Western" markets, could that not be looked on as copyright infringement? In a sense, you are taking another persons work, (characters, places, organizations, ect.) and using them? How ever, I think that just shows the difference between the fanbase in Japan and the Fanbase in the US. Both run on different views. I'd actually think that the fansubs would also be appreciated. In a sense, its almost like free advertising, so people know about your products, and buy them when they are available in their own country. If you read a doujin from one series, you'd get interested in the original series. But that's kinda off topic I guess. Oh yea, oodles and oodles of hentai doujins eh.   Well, I guess there is that one character that you just can't let the imagination run wild about. To bad I've never found a Ran Mouri one though.
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