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Semi-OT News - Banning DVD Imports

And the Anime Network shows farscape clips at the end of the shows you watch. They could at least put up anime clips instead. I could care less about Farscape and Mutant X.

If the companies here didn't do such a hack job on art, presentation and mastering quality fans would not have an excuse to buy foreign market versions of the discs.

This is untrue. There are plenty of high-quality releases of foreign films, especially anime, in the US. There are lackluster presentations in foreign countries too. Suckness is not a quality reserved for the United States.

I can't see the point of it, as long as the profits are going to the legallly right people. why should they care really. I can understand the technical reasoning of different regions, but as was stated that's more of a marketing purpose than for any pirating purpose. It should be brightly appearent to them that that reason is a complete failure. So the vague reason of marketing is just cutting off their nose to spite their face IMHO. Merimax are just being daconian.

Miramax may pay millions for a North American license, and then spend millions more promoting the release (or thousands in some cases).

You mean underpromoting.

The point for them is to make sure the profit goes into the right pockets. Miramax may pay millions for a North American license, and then spend millions more promoting the release (or thousands in some cases). If you find out about a movie from their publicity, but end up buying an import, Miramax gets nothing.

If Miramax had spent the "Millions" on the promotion of Mononoke as you seem to think they had,

you yanks don't know you've been born.

" No imports, but exports are OK".

Umm, you assume to much. I was speaking about theory and globally about all licensed titles, I never even mentioned Mononoke. Hell, I even included the comment about thousands right after I said millions just to make it clear that I was talking about whatever amount of money, large or small.

you yanks don't know you've been born.

I'm not a yank thank you very much. There you go with the assumptions again.

" No imports, but exports are OK". Hmm, not quite so. You see, they're talking about "No Imports of Locally Licensed Titles."

Was the title you imported from the US licensed in the UK?

You'd probably find that they'd also be perfectly willing to stop exports. They after all don't export directly unless they have the license to do so. Take AnimEigo & Viz as examples, both companies have gone to lengths to show that they do not approve of the exporting of their titles to English Speaking markets outside of the United States.

I'm not sure if you assumed that I supported this move either, but since you seem to assume a lot, let me make it clear (as it should have been if you carefully read what I had said before) that I don't support Miramax's (or anyone's) attempts to legally ban or restrict the importation of otherwise legal media. I merely see their point of view and respect that they have good reasons, as a business, for trying to do this. And I, as an individual, have good reasons to be against it*.

*Of course, I'm not directly affected by US import laws, so this discussion is purely for discussion sake from my point of view.

-t

-t

Geez, it took you that long to get it?! I guess me saying, "Supporting Kill Bill just gives Miramax more money to screw Asian films" finally got through to you.

Eva05, I simply don't believe that there's a sizable number of foreign releases of American films that are better than the originals. To pull off the top of my head the DVDs I've imported recently from the US, the Star Trek movie special editions, Criterion Collection of Life of Brian and Brazil, and the Disney Treasures and Looney Tunes Golden Collection. Those works get nowhere near that kind of presentation here.