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NEWS: Retailer to Stop Imports of Funimation BD/DVDs into Japan

hikaru004 wrote:

I don't think so. Yesasia does the exact same thing as well as Amazon. No one has sent notices to these guys yet.

No, no. You missed what he said. A retailer was importing the discs into Japan, then selling them. Online retailers who sell merchandise everywhere, but can claim to be located elsewhere, are exempt from this, and buying and importing from them are legal. Apparently what was happening, was a Japanese retailer was ordering Funi sets in bulk from Fantasium, then selling them at a retail store in Japan. That is illegal. Especially considering that most (if not all) of their releases specifically say on them, for sale only in the United States and Mexico (maybe also Canada, I forget, and am too lazy to check). Selling online can count as being inside the intended retail market, but buying online then selling in a non-licensed market does not.

And based on what samuelp stated above, since they're located in the US and ship those discs directly to JP buyers, it seems like they are well within their rights to do so here at least (see my post above about first sale doctrine), so they didn't actually have to comply with the request. The only way this complying with removal would make sense is if the Japanese government creates some kind of blanket ban, which would be ridiculous.. but this delisting only applies to Funimation, so there's even less legal rationale.

I just wanna know who in Japan who buy FUNimation's crappy R1 releases in the first place? Do they really need anime without music cues tht badly?

configspace wrote:

And based on what samuelp stated above, since they're located in the US and ship those discs directly to JP buyers, it seems like they are well within their rights to do so here at least (see my post above about first sale doctrine), so they didn't actually have to comply with the request. The only way this complying with removal would make sense is if the Japanese government creates some kind of blanket ban, which would be ridiculous.. but this delisting only applies to Funimation, so there's even less legal rationale.

Exactly. But we're not really talking about legal rights here, we're talking about internal pressure.

Japanese companies see DVD Fantasium selling cheap versions of their shows to their local customers, and they complain to Funimation, and funimation halts all sales to that retailer.

Remember, Funimation is stuck in a very tight place, too... They're trying to get Japan to sell them Blu-ray rights to series, but Japan is wary of killing their own market's inflated prices. If FUnimation ignores a place like DVD Fantasium for too long, then it could be a real problem for Funimation.

It doesn't matter if Funi sells an extra 1000 discs to Japan if they can't get the rights to the shows in the first place because of it.

Heck, I'm sure Crunchyroll would get 100,000 new subscribers if they allowed Japanese IPs to view all the shows on their sight, but if they did that they'd never license a show again.

Blu-rays for Japan and US share the same region code.

animalia555 wrote:

dewlwieldthedarpachief wrote: The waiting game is a losing game in my experience. I like to take advantage of this system and call it even. People in general seem to care more about convenience though; what about you guys? Hypothetically speaking, would you grab the lossy Innocence BD off of amazon.com or get the one with real HD audio from amazon.co.jp? I know I'd go the extra mile - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, right? Personally what i care about is story quality not how PRETTY it looks or sounds.

Then why watch anime when there's hundreds of years worth of literature brimming with story the likes of which an anime couldn't shake a q-tip at?

I'm all for this if the end result is that US buyers don't have to wait like 2 years to get a show in the US. I've always heard that the fear of reverse importation was a major reason for huge delays in anime coming over. If they can at least stop major retailers from doing it, that should put some big wigs at ease.

I don't know about you, but the concept of a US retailer being forced to stop selling a product they have every right to (since they're shipped out of the US... in fact they're all shipped using USPS, EMS, or Fedex and I believe shipping is "free" (the price is included in the base price essentially.)) is a bit irking to me.

I'm afraid that ironically this will be great publicity for the website (it's all over 2ch), and they might end up making up the loss of funi blu-ray sales on sales of other anime/hollywood movies.

The Japanese online retailer DVD Fantasium has announced on Saturday that it will no longer import products made by the American distributor Funimation into Japan. DVD Fantasium notes that Funimation releases anime on DVD and Blu-ray Disc for the American market, and says that these releases cannot be sold at retail overseas due to licensing agreements.

Okay, please someone tell me where you all are getting this information that a Japanese publisher twisted Funimation's arm into forcing DVD Fantasium to stop selling Funimation's releases to Japan? Nowhere in the article is this said, and to state it, then start basing arguments off of it, is pure fallacy. While it's a possibility, to act as if it's fact and argue based on that supposed "fact", is incorrect. Now as that is the case, my earlier argument is also only a theory, but based on the use of the phrase "sold at retail overseas", it sounds like my guess was the most likely to be close to the actual circumstances. So please, quit with all the damn Funi hate. It's old, and has been for a while.

The first sale doctrine only comes into play as a defense to copyright infringement ("Hey, you don't have the right to distribute that DVD on half.com!" "No, I own this copy, so the first sale has already happened and now I can sell my copy as I see fit."). It protects retailers like DVD Fantasium from copyright infringement suits, since they have already purchased the copies from someone else (there was some mention earlier in the thread that DVD Fantasium may have been selling wholesale to Japan-based retailers as well, but is there evidence of that? At any rate, it doesn't matter, because wholesalers would be equally protected from infringement suits). Unless there is some deception going on, the DVD Fantasium announcement specifically mentions licensing agreements, so we're likely outside the realm of copyright law and into contract law, which is an entirely different situation.

(what follows is pure conjecture based on the assumption that a reasonable, contract-based explanation probably exists--I have no clue what the licensing and distribution agreements actually say, I am only making educated guesses)

Funimation has NA distribution rights as per its contracts with the Japanese companies. I would bet those contracts prohibit Funimation from distributing their releases outside NA (they may have separate agreements for other regions, but here we're talking specifically the agreement that gives NA distribution rights). I would be surprised if that agreement did not also charge Funimation with monitoring the exportation from NA to Japan of its R1 releases, or at least prohibit tacitly allowing the importation into Japan of gray markey goods (i.e. selling to a wholesaler or retailer that Funimation knows to be in the business of importing R1 releases into R2). Further, Funimation may (and probably should, because it wants to maintain goodwill with the Japanese companies) request that its distributors, wholesalers, and retailers sign similar agreements. For example, Funimation may pass on its prohibition against distributing outside of NA to its retailers: "I will not sell you copies of my NA releases unless you promise to only sell them in NA." Such a clause may in fact be required by the original licensing agreement. If the distribution agreement does not have a prohibition on passively allowing the copies to be exported to Japan, only on direct sales to Japan, DVD Fantasium might be able to get away with buying the DVDs from another retailer, but think about the mark-up there. DVD Fantasium would have to raise its prices to maintain the same profit margin, etc. I'm only qualified to talk about the law, though, not the economics aspect.

As for why it is only Funimation--I have no clue. Maybe they were the first company to get concerned, maybe one of their Japanese contacts came to them first, who knows? Well, Funimation would know, but they aren't really obligated to tell us.