Forum - View topicNEWS: TotalVid Offers Death Note by Subscription or Download
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Sakurachan1
Posts: 42 |
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Oh I love it when people say "fans" are bitching, when they dare to put the hammer to companies like Viz, FUNi etc... for their two faced policies. I don't recall personally ever getting upset over domestic Anime DVD releases. I'm quite content with the way most companies put out most series. Put simply I work in the corporate world and Point blank, Viz is a joke for this, Period, and I'm not going to accuse sensible fans of bitching when they are voicing sensible opinions. Anime has become a boon for all these little nickel and dime - used to be fansubber - companies, and I've got issue with the way they treat fans in general. Before we start attacking each other over these issues - go back and do some research. There once was a time when many of these companies were just fansubbers making a whole lot of money off fans, and now that they think they have a pedigree they are treating the kids who are making them millions like dirt. And this myth about there being legal constraints to offering weekly downloads of current series is one of the biggest jokes to me. Who told you there was a problem – travel anywhere outside of the US and maybe even Canada and you will see that there are subtitled versions of currently airing US TV shows & Anime from Japan being shown overseas. I was in France back when Saiyuki first came out and saw many eps of the first season while it was airing in Japan, fast forward and I found myself back in Paris just in time to finish watching the series well before the domestic DVD’s – which ADV held up even started coming out. 2003 in Italy I saw most of Reload during the time I was there. The turn around time internationally is like a month – so there is nothing keeping companies like VIZ from doing the same with Anime over the internet. Absolutely nothing. Also I don't think anyone here is saying they don't want to "pay" to watch Anime. If you are like me and you buy DVD's every other month or as a box set, or if you pay Netflix/Blockbuster a monthly fee to rent movies and have anime in your rental q's then you are PAYING to watch anime. Since most fans can answer yes to all those anyone saying we are complaining about having to pay is an idiot. I love iTunes and have used it on more than one occasion to watch an episode of a TV show I missed, and I know a lot of other folks have done the same. News flash, it cost me $2 to watch an episode I could have seen for free, so my problem isn't with "paying" to watch. To Paploo - I do see where you are coming from with your response. However, I beg to differ on one point. From a cash standpoint and to launch this service it would probably make more sense to focus on Bleach and the current Naruto eps, for the simple fact that most fans are up to speed, and would be more likely to buy into the service. I watch Bleach on-line weekly and I do the same with the new Naruto series, so I wouldn't mind paying a fee to watch them legally every week. Viz has never stopped the fansubbers of these series because at the end of the day it's making them money. The more people stay interested the more they will want to buy the DVD's and season sets when they come out. SO why not translate that into this new service they want to offer. Number talk and using your two biggest shows to set the benchmark is the best-case scenario. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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You're completely, utterly wrong about this. Totally. I'd like you to prove - with evidence that isn't hearsay - that most of the companies that exist now "used to be fansubbers". |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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It could very well be that VIZ did attempt to do Naruto and Bleach downloads, but most japanese companies balk at this sort of thing, which is why theres some series you'll never see available for download online, and why the ones you do tend to see in this format are ones that are heavily copyright protected, streaming, older series, or in a specific format that's harder to bootleg. Given how much Naruto already is bootlegged online, I suspect Studio Pierrot might of passed on it. It's also probable similar deals to do this with those titles hinges on the success of Death Note's online release. There's too many ifs ands or buts in all of this to say "They should be doing this"---- licensing and releasing anime is difficult, time consuming work with a gazillion hoops to jump through that many fans are unaware of. There's a lot of technicalities. Anyhoo, the dvd's are now monthly, the online release will start 16 episodes in so you'll see the last few episodes hit legal/official downloading subbed around the time the first dvd hgits, and everyone's worries are now assuaged, as they would inevitably be. Anime fans spend too much time mucking about like headless chickens. Or as armchair buisnessmen........ [not saying you're idea wasn't good, just pointing out the potential flaws. Armchair is better then Headless "OH NOES" Chickens. The ideas of armchair buisnessmen fan do sometimes work their way into the offices of anime companies, who do investigate into the possibilites of these things.....] PS-- Recently in Japan, companies have started suing and prosecuting people who have distributed bootlegged dvd's, posted scanned manga online and shared files on websites...... if companies [japanese and american] had less red tape to cut through, I imagine we'd see a lot more of that here [vs the usual cease and desists]. Fans have no idea how untolerated some behaviour really is, and that they're not far from getting the same treatment these japanese "fans" have deservedly gotten for ripping off animation studios and manga artists. animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-05-24/japanese-man-arrested-for-bootlegging-dragonball-dvds http://www.jasrac.or.jp/ejhp/index.htm animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-05-18/three-arrested-in-japan-for-file-sharing-shonen-manga animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-05-16/anime-bootleggers Even in Hong Kong people. Just look at stuff like JASRAC and Liej Matsumoto's anti-bootlegging rants of recent. As bootlegging grows in the US [with many websites offering licensed titles for subscription fees or "donations"], it's likely we'll see growing measures to combat these as more and more japanese users use them, and it affers japanese companies domestcially [which tends to make them move fast- just look at JASRAC's dealings with YouTube] Educate yourselves folks. Last edited by Paploo on Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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FYI---- Animeigo, ADV's and CPM's earliest releases some 15 to 20 years ago [Madox 01 first came out in the late 80's] were subtitled, but they were 100% official, legitimate releases. The companies bravely ventured to Japan with NO idea what to expect. A funny story- Animeigo almost licensed Project A-Ko, but CPM beat them to it. However, while CPM was across town negociating with one company for Urusei Yatsura The Movie 2 [whose rights were seperate from the rest of the series], Animeigo was at another part of Tokyop negociating the rights to the rest of the series, and got 200 episodes, the OVA's and Movies in one fell swoop, leading to a release that lasted over a decade of new vhs, laserdiscs and dvd's. Most started with subbed vhs LICENSED from the original companies who made their launch titles. NONE of them started out as fansubbers. Funimation started out as a fledgling kids cartoon company that licensed Dragonball [1st series] since the founder loved anime, released it with Trimark, eventually released DBZ by themselves, got into dvd's after a breif liason with Pioneer,and became the monster we know and love today. VIZ, Geneon and SynchPoint all started as US division of Shogakuken [and later Shueisha when they merged], Pioneer and Brocolli respectively. Media Blasters licensed hentai OVA titles, got into release regular anime, and kept doing the niche titles we know and love them for. Streamline [an 80's/90's distributor] grew out of TV production company Harmony Gold, before they dissapeared with the death of Orion Films in the mid 90's Manga started out much like ADV/CPM/Animeigo did, but were a british company, who then moved into US releases aftger establishing themselves there, focusing on dubbed productions at first. US Renditions, whose licenses would go to Manga after they died, were a US division of Books Nippon, who licensed assorted shows from Japanese companies, and released dubbed and subbed versions in thevery early 90's [such as Gunbuster- which came out just a few years after it finished in Japan- and Macross II the OVA series] Urban Vision is a US division of Madhouse, with other partners. ADV did begin in an odd way, but still a legal one- they imported japanese video games when they were starting out, noticed a lot of them were based on this stuff like also like called anime, and decided to licence and officially release on VHS one of their first titles- Devil Hunter Yohko [whose video game was a big import title] Also, Frederick Schodt originally translated the earlier parts of Phoenix in the 70's, and tried to get publishers interested in it back then, but as a personal friend of Osamu Tezuka, it was done with his permission apparently, and was finally published and made available to fans with some reworking when VIZ published the series over the past 7 or so years. So, no companies that started out as fansubbers. Definitely none that started out as digital fansubbers [which are quite different in terms of ethics from the tape traders of the late 80's/early 90's] And all have had to deal with bootleggers over the years, with movements to stop this kind of stuff like J.A.I.L.E.D---- it seems like anime fans in the old days were generally more ethical when it came to these things. As for the "kids making them millions", there's a core group of buyers who buy dvd's and vhs, and don't even download at all. Kids who download crap don't deserve to whinge about R1 releases [I have almosy 700 different releases in my collection, and rarely encounter a buy that I found to be a poor value, or a truly poor release.... the majority of what we get is great, and if it isn't, there's usually a good reason [like say the music rights in Kodocha, totally offsetted by the GREAT dub btw- it's a stellar release. Or Gunbuster's music rights issues, offsetted by the wonderful packaging job and excellent transfer and sound], and a lower price to make up for it [like say, cheaper dub only kids discs, or ADV's low low thinpack prices despite fewer extras on some titles]. Dear "fans"---- please, learn your fandom history. It'll do you good. |
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Sakurachan1
Posts: 42 |
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Um, didn't I say they used to be fansubbers & I am not basing my claims on hearsay - I've been around Anime fandom for many moons - I know business insiders, people who own stores, people who run the cons so many of you flock to each year. And YES absolutely YES many of companies we purchase DVD's from today did used to be fansub operations out of New York, Canada, and LA back in the day. Let’s see: ADV, CPM, Viz, all these companies started as minor players – AKA – fansubbers. I’ve got the VHS tapes in my storage locker to prove it. But that is beside the point, and like I said initially, do your research. If you haven’t been a fan since the say they late 80’s then you really wouldn’t know about the past since so much about the industry has changed since then. Sigh, honestly I think the age gap is why so many of these companies can get away with pulling fast ones on fans because they know the old timers will be shot down in forums such as this by the new generation of “we think we know it all fans.” This is exactly why meaningful debate cannot happen because some makes a factual and sensible statement and those with limited historical knowledge come along and shoot them down. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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I'm sorry, but I'd rather keep up the convo out in the open. VIZ's first releaes were VHS, dubbed and subbed, and 100% authorized. They were a company started by Shogakuken. They were the domestic division of a JAPANESE company. I seriously doubt they were distributing bootlegs- I know people who were anime fans in the 80's, and a lot of them worked in...... it was common place for people to get laserdiscs via import [as an aside Tokyopop's website actgually started out as an import dvd store tied into their Mixxzine, though back then, it was more of a specialty store thing]. but imports aren't the same thing as bootlegs. Yes, they did start out as minor players. But minor players doesn't mean fansubbers. They were small companies offering legitimate, licensed copies of a given anime title, under permission from the japanese company they licensed their works from. I have no doubt that many an anime retailer sold bootlegs in the past, and no doubt that bootlegged merchandise was readily available at comic conventions and such [this kind of stuff still goes on] Exactly which VHS tapes in your storage locker are you referring to? What titles? Give use proof. I think you're simply confusing their intial releases [primarily available via mail order, primarily subbed] with early vhs fansubbers [also primarily available via mail order, but w/out a proper license]. I've been buying anime for 10+ years...... if you have proof about this, I'd be more the willing to listen in the open. Given all these companies were selling legitimate anime vhs releases in the late 80's/early 90's, my doubt level is on the max. |
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