Forum - View topicNEWS: Article on Anime Bootlegs
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animeolddude
Posts: 2 |
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All you guys should stop complaining about bootleg. if it was not for bootle there wont be any anime market here in the US. first of all back then you can only get bootleg anyway because no one was releasing the stuff.
since i work a lot of my time here in asia what all of you should see how bootleg, download and real product market work hand in hand. real fans still buy the bootleg but also buy the real stuff when they have the cash. They download and buy bootleg of rare stuff. studio uses bootleg as a way to spread their work. even when i see the real dvd release out here is almost %50 less then what they charge in the states. for $10 you can buy a non pirate dvd or a box set would cost about $45 to $60. in the US market it makes me sick when i see they charge $25 to $35 for 1 dvd. also no one ever pirate any manga becuase managa here is so cheap. for a few dollars you can buy a whole set of manga compare to you have to like $12 to $20 back in the states. the reason for this is that asia is whole lot bigger market for anime and manga then the US. US market get the populer crap and left overs...which is sad....but anyway larger demand means cheaper dvd, but bootleg is there for a reason. people still buy bootleg out here however they are getting less and less in japan and taiwan but in china still tons and hong kong has some too. people buy it because it is cheap and want to watch it now, but they do save up to buy a whole box set of the real thing. In china they need bootleg because all the stuff is censored so only way to get in is bootleg. hongkong people prefare real stuff but since there is no chinese sub or in chinese they have to settale for bootleg unless they can speak japanese. in japan which my friend and i go to shop a lot for toys is rather expensive but you can always talk the price down. and if you are a gijin sorry dude they gona take all your money and laugh at you. hahahah kidding. but anyway you can still find cheap deals. in the states i dont know about the midwest market but i feel that shop guy dont know what he is doing. he is hurting him self more then anything else. in california most anime shops sell ligit and bootleg stuff together and let the people chose what they want to buy and beside people here knows what is real or not and dont care much....all the asian kids including me (40 year old kid) buy the bootleg because we want to see the stuff that are not in the mainstream. we dont want to pay $35 per dvd for something that was release 1 year or 2 years ago..we want to see the latest stuff now. for those of you still stuck on ranma or sailormoon...i am sorry but it is time to move on. and for thos of you that say bootleg are robbing the legit people that sell the legit stuff. what are you refering to? the japanese studio or the other shop owner who sell ligit stuff or the company that release the dvd? for one the company that release the dvd they pay such a low ball price the japanese studio dont even knwo how much they are worth. so who is ripping who off? japanese studio only care about the japanese market or asian market. if you think that boot leg is ripping off the japanese studio please think again...the japanese studio is allowing the US company to release old crap they dont need anymore. they let the american company buy it at low ball price already because they already made their money in asia. so technically it is not that much of a ripping off....it is more like the us company is ripping off the anime fans buy chargeing them for so much that the real stuff in asia sells for at least %50 less and chargeing people for something that was release over a few years ago. that is what is sick about the anime market today. people are too greedy to get the fan's money and it will happen in a bad way like when the comic book industry died because people are too greedy. i dont want that to happen to the US anime market...it is too small still to get greedy now. The US company are the real scams for chargeing so much. over $120 for a box set that was released over 2 years ago in asia and you want me to pay $120 for that...oh gave me a break. it is cheaper for me to fly over to japan and buy whole buch of stuff and in orgional japanese version rather then spend $120 on a box set for a crappy US version. for the shop owners in the mid west ...to combat the other shop that sells only bootleg stuff you should take note from shops in california. sell more toys and sell some of the unreleased bootleg stuff along with ligit US stuff but at a more discount price. that way you can make up your numbers. if you want some cool sources to stock on capsol toys and figure just contact me and i can hook you up with direct sources here in asia. for the fans dont be so mad if you buy bootleg...it is just part of the anime world we live in. if you dont want to buy it then wait a year or so and pay real overprice for it. it is good that your money is not going to the japanese studio that actually make the stuff but to the Us license company...so think of it that way next time you buy a dvd at $25 USD. your money dont go to the japanese studio when you buy ligit dvd here in the US. They go stright to the US license company. remenber that. |
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DemonEyesLeo
 Posts: 844 Location: Japan |
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Maybe, but now there is a market for anime in the West. Times have changed, there's no real need for bootlegs anymore. This is no longer "back then" when anime was unavailable, people are making it available.
Well duh. But the market in the US has been growing; years ago it used to be like $60 for a 2ep VHS with one language track. Now it's $30 for 3-4 episodes with 2 language tracks and extras. If the market continues to grow, then maybe we'll see a drastic drop in prices, plus more titles being licensed including those obscure titles.
Yes, and that demand grows when people buy the legit DVDs because then the legit companies don't have to sell as much to make a profit, and with that gowth in demand the market also grows. But if people buy the bootlegs instead of the legit copies then nothing goes back to the companies. This is why I say Henderson is contradicting himself by saying that he sells the bootlegs to make the companies lower their prices.
Well this is not China. The DVDs in the US are uncensored, unless it's a special reason such as One Piece, and with English audio and subtitles.
All three, I'll explain later.
You're wrong on this. This is basic economics. A US company pays X amount of money to the Japanese company for the license, now the Japanese company just got an extra X amount of money that they can now use. Now the US company takes the property and distributes it in the West and manages to make more than that X amount that they paid for the license, plus all other expenses like the actors, the translation, the DVD's themsleves and whatnot, in other words they now have more money than they started out with. And where did that money come from? Did it just magically appear? No, it came from the people who bought the DVDs. And now with more money, they can go back to Japan, pay another X amount of money to get another license, and now the Japanese company has an extra X amount of money. So, in an indirect way, the money people pay to the US companies does go back to Japan. Once again, this is basic economics and business. So to answer your previous question of who bootlegging robs from, it's all three. The legit shop owner because he bought the legit DVDs but does not get any money back from them; the US company because they do not get any money back from the licensing and other costs; and the Japanese companies because of what what I just explained above. |
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beelzebozo
 Posts: 308 Location: Aurora, Colorado |
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I'm about to write of animeolddude as a troll, but whatever.
And the extra money that the American market is generating for the anime industry in Japan is responsible for the increased quality of their animation in general and the continuation of certain shows. I also have friends who worked in the anime industry over in Japan and there was a time in the early 90's that it looked like the only companies that were going to survive were studios like Ghibli. Only Sailor Moon saved Bandai and kept several small shops that helped with it alive. But as more and more titles were getting licensed overseas, the studios had more money to work with to make better and better shows. A few shows were even made with direct US money, like Ghost in the Shell. Others, I'm sure, were made with the international market in mind. Remember, your money makes it back to Japan. Your money helps pay for new anime in the future and allows your favorite anime to get into the hands of better companies, rather than lowest-common-denominator 4Kids or (if you want to go old school) Harmony Gold. So rather than trying to collect everything that comes down the pipe, buy what you really like and really want. That means that more of the same will be on the way. We are still enough of a niche market that a small number of sales can make a big difference. |
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beelzebozo
Posts: 308 Location: Aurora, Colorado |
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Oh, and one last note that I wanted to keep seperate from the part above:
I don't expect bootlegs to be gotten rid of completely. Human greed will not allow for it (At least not in this lifetime). But can't I expect, as a fan, for these items to be removed from retail shops where Joe Newbie and Ma & Pa "I don't know nothin' about these Chinese cartoons. I'm just here to buy for my kids" Mundane don't mistake them for the real thing. Or where people who should know better can just walk right in and pay cash so they don't have to worry about obtaining a credit card or Paypal to buy online? And as a small business owner, can't I expect the government, that places such strict copyright protections for the benefit of much larger companies, to protect me from unfair trade practices by someone who fences stolen intellectual property that I can't come even close in price to matching? Some people have accused me of simply being a sore loser. Well, that might be the case if I was driven out of business by another legit anime shop who managed to trump me on service and selection, or even Best Buy, which has the buying power and income to be a loss leader. If that were the case, all I could really do is complain a bit and try harder. But this is not the case. My business is being damaged by someone who is essentially selling stolen goods that he buys for a pitance and sells for less than half of what I can buy the legitimate discs for, with a profit margin that is through the roof. That's not competition, that is fraud. Thank you for dealing with my self-important run-on sentences. Now back to your regularly scheduled thread. |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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How do you think U.S. get these Anime in the first place? They took a risk and license them to distrube in the U.S. That mean Japanese companies get supported for their work if anime continues to grow here in the state. They did not steal them from Japan like the chinese bootleg do. Heck, the chinese bootleg are now stealing from R1. companies. Also I'm not sure if you even understand how business work here in American. U.S. companies buy the license to anime from Japanese companies which would benefit both parties. Japanese companies get paid for their work and they can use the fund to increase the production cost of anime series, take other risk, and overall have more resource to make better anime. R1 companies get to distrube the anime legally in the U.S., thus help the the anime community grow by bringing in new viewer and at the same time create jobs for countless of people from voice actor to shop owner to the people that run ANN. And this is all done legally and it takes work plus risk to reap the benefit. Being 40 year old, you should really take some business course while you were here in the U.S. Some other points since I don't want to quote you like on idiotic you are. 1. Bootleg are cheap because they are stolen. They avoid all the legal stuff, like the millions of dollar in production cost and licensing fee. That's why in Japan, an anime dvd will cost about 50 dollar. Do you even know how much it cost to produce an anime? To hire voice actor, director and everybody working on the anime? How are you going to justfied that U.S. and Japanese DVD being overprice when they have invest in production cost. 2. You said something about U.S. paying a low ball price and ripping off the Japanese. I don't even think you know what you're talking about here. The only one ripping off the Japanes companies are the ones stealing their product. Japanese companies can track how well a legit series is doing in the U.S. by the sales number and feedback. Thus they have some sense of what series will do well. Japanese companies can't track bootleg product because they're stolen. If the people in China brought 100,000 bootleg dvd of naruto, how the hell is the japanese studio going to know how well the series does or any any kind of feedback? Heck, they don't even see any of the profit from it from their hard work.
Yeah man. I'm sure the toys are low quality bootleg too. You're probably from china where bootleg is very common and even accepted. And I'm not talking about jsut anime, but hollywood movies to computer application to videogames. |
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BuffaloStyle
 Posts: 274 Location: Colorado |
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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You also forgot low quality, full of lead and other banned chemicals, possible choking and safety hazard...... |
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GSAttack
 Posts: 20 |
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There seems to be some confusion here between bootlegs and fansubs. FANSUBS are what help grow the market in the U.S. They are typically recorded off Japanese television and then fans digitally add English subtitles in order to transmit it to other fans via the Internet, VHS and now DVD. These usually cease when the series is licensed by a U.S. company. BOOTLEGS are pure theft of licensed material with the intent to underprice the legitimate companies. While it is true that there are some people out there who would not buy anime anymore if bootlegging stopped, even 20% of that business buying legitimate DVD's would be a substantial help to the anime industry. In addition, if more networks would broadcast anime that would help the industry even more since they pay to license the broadcasting rights. In the end, there are ways for the legitimate companies to offer anime at a more reasonable price, but it's up to the fans the help make it happen by stopping the sales of bootlegs and convincing the networks to broadcast more anime. |
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beelzebozo
Posts: 308 Location: Aurora, Colorado |
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Let's also be clear about something else. When you buy a bootleg, the seller and the maker are making almost pure profit. No paying for rights, dubbing production, marketing or anything like that. They simply copy the DVD and maybe spend the time translating.
Alot of these people are in it for profit only. They know it sells, which is why they make them. Love of anime means nothing to them, only the money you are willing to pay them. And that money is enough of a priority to steal the DVDs rather than pay for the rights. |
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anime_man01
 Posts: 15 Location: the other side of the asylum on the hill.. |
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2 things for ya..
1.beelzebozo, please p/m me as i dont have much time right now... 2.i dont care what anyone says about bootlegs, theyre theft, thats it, clear-cut, plain and simple, sealed signed and delivered... thats it... like fansubs, when other companies make software(for example) the demos are limited, allowed to be copied/dispersed.. or the betas with limitations are readily available.. anyone worth their salt, will buy the legit/official version if they like the outcome, not keep it and distribute it... that said, piracy rips off the main stream economy/businesses billions of dollars annually... now with the exception of microsoft  theres no reason to bootleg..
now, if anime could be handled the same way and offer more teasers and limit the use to a given amount/time, that might help.. as would anime retailers offering a small fee rental "try before you buy" deal.. when i got the teaser for ultra maniac, i liked it and plan on getting the series... but for flame of recca, i didn't see myself running out to get it.. ill probably get a couple of sub eps and go from there.. it is kinda unfair to not offer more "teasers" for more series.. as with anime, it is a really bad thing to buy something, realize its not what you anticipated, or wanted.. thats it.. but to support piracy and bootlegs, you are just as guilty.. i believe those, purchasing(knowingly), selling, or obtaining bootlegs, should be held both criminally and civily responsible.. even if as little as 5,000 people across the u.s. were jailed for a year and fined over $5,000.00(5,000 seems to be the lucky number), there would be a major "wake-up call and then the tide would turn over pirated dvds.. will that happen?? most likely not.. but hey, if bootlegs take tha majority of the market, then the prices for legit stuff will go through the roof.. well, this is where i insert the:
thanks for your time 
Last edited by anime_man01 on Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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beelzebozo
Posts: 308 Location: Aurora, Colorado |
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I had sent Westword a letter to the editor to clear a couple things up. Yesterday, I recieved a response back, saying that they had received numerous letters from anime fans. So numerous, in fact, that they are going to wait an extra week to print them so they have time to got through them all, plus edit them because several went over their 200 word limit (Mine did, unfortuantely, so I snipped a paragraph out to get it under the limit and sent it back)
It should be interesting to see the paper's reaction. It may demand a follow-up.
Well, my shop offers a rental service. It's our main draw. This was something that I thought about a few days ago. I think that maybe some of the companies could start doing a subscription service to allow people to download episodes before they've gotten to market. This could be based on the music subscription models that some of the companies use. That way the companies have the ability to remove the episodes if the subscriber quits the service.
If the anime companies started that, they would alienate their fanbase. Anime is still too small a market to pull something like that. But if they'd go after a few retail shops and get convictions, I think that would put the fear into all but the most reckless of shop owners. That would still leave places like Ebay, but you'd have definitely made a dent. |
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anime_man01
Posts: 15 Location: the other side of the asylum on the hill.. |
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ebay suspends/bans peoples accounts for bootlegs and selling dvds made from fansubs... while digging through my stash i happened upon another bootleg that was very very well done.. i even looked up how much i paid for it.. it was an ebay purchase(one of very few anime bought there) and noticed that the seller was no longer registered but yet had all positive feedback... that says one thing, piracy... but yes, it cant be stopped but yet more can be done though... |
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vickeyv
Posts: 183 |
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Alot of people have been ahnging up on animeoldude and MR HEnderson almost singleing them out. Mr Henderson is definitly hurting stores around he badly and has no courage for real competition and America can use each and every one of these retial stores since they buy alot of DVds from Licencing comapnies and the success of licecneing does depend on them.......and if Mr Henderson is causing them harm he is worng
But he isn't the only one who is wrong, practicaly each and every other American is also a MR Henderson in there own rights when they download Rurouni kenshin, Raxehpone, Neo Geneisis, GUndam Seed, Full Metal ALchemist off the net instead of buying there DVDs since they are wrong fully enjoying the product and are not giving a cent to the people who payed for them. And they are causing more harm to retailers sicne these fansub watchers are the consumers. The greatest losers are they themselves since they get satisified by watching horrible quality 200 mb sized fansubs on there dingy computers and their computer moniters where as all the people here get them on DVD and watch what 2 GB quality per episode.........and thats cool.............. Please excuse animeoldude since he's asisan and in most places in Asia people get a thousand dollars INcome per year no joke no string s attached and its impossible to even imagine buying a sereis on DVD for what $200, its brain numbing. And while bootlegs are avilable for like $2 in some countires people cant even afford that, i am not joking,....they perfer to watch them on cable for free or a paltry sum like a few cents................ I am sure its great living in a first world country but spare a thought for people in 3rd world countires its hard enough............. also teens cant even make money here by working inplaces like MC donalds since the jobs there are taken by Bachelors Graduates really its horrible.................... So what if people in asia watch a couple of bootlegs...............no body licences anime or movies in 3rd world regions and where the hell are they to go to get anime............. and if you order of the internet you have to pay a 100%mark up like $20 for shipping and since Dvds are relesased in like spaces or 3 months people end up paying $50 per Dvd which is just economicaly unfeasible and at this limit people lose their fandoms............no matter how strong there feelings towards anime are............ |
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anime_man01
Posts: 15 Location: the other side of the asylum on the hill.. |
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i gang up on no one personally, but if theres a call for justice, it must be answered..
he can do what he wants, he's not the one accused of piracy nor of stealing business.. i said before that i download, but only to preview.. only under extreme circumstances does a download last more than 24 hours on my computer.. now that thats out of the way, like i said he can do what he wants there but its there, not here... |
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vickeyv
Posts: 183 |
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Well beelzebozo first thing you have to do is to sink Animemanics. I have noticed MR HEnderson sells them for like $16/$17 those bootlegs and attracts people by just a cut of what five or six dollars. Also he sells unlicecend bootlegs or liececned bootlegs which are years ahead of the American version like Naruto.
What you should do is burn out fansubs on Cd-Rs and Dvd-Rs and give them out to fans for free, this is not illegal if you go for the unlicenced ones. YOu would just be a instant download server metaphoricaly. i know you intend on selling originals of those fansubs later better you might not survive if Mr Henderson isnot stopped. Trust me if you start handing out fansubs for free he will go out of business in days no one is gonna buy the boxset of Natuo he sells for $50 or so if you give it out for free. In avi format or rmvb format mind you since its only for trailing just like anime_man01 does, i don't see there is anything wrong in what he does. Besdies this is just like trailing and renting...........in any case the decicion is yours. I am not telling you to sink to his level. I don't think there is anything wrong in distributing fansubs since its gonna cost you peanuts and fans download them anyway and even ADV recognizes them as important. But saty away from Licenced fansubs. Just give away free fansubs of shows which are never likely to be picked up......take this idea and you can spawn several of your own to advertise your shop better under the banner of legal. Besdies if you give them in bad rmvb format they will come to buy the real thing as well |
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