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NEWS: Crunchyroll, TV Tokyo Sue YouTube Users for Unauthorized Anime Uploading

To be honest, I think via YT is the only free, legal way there is to watch the full first season of Code Geass. It's a bit of a different beast in this case, but I do believe I'm not the only one that watches some anime on YT.

We frankly don't give two shits about the legal streaming of anime, and really just care that you watch our streams which as it happens are now legal. Categorically, we do endorse doing whatever the hell we suits us. Hypocrisy be damned.

Recently, we have identified a few specific accounts on YouTube which were responsible for over 200 million unauthorized streams of the same content we also used to stream illegally millions of times before we went legit. These accounts were owned by repeat uploaders like us (except we did it for money) who continued to illegally distribute licensed shows despite receiving multiple DMCA takedown notices. In compliance with YouTube's TOS, filing a formal legal complaint was a necessary step in order to keep these illegal streams off of YouTube.

With permission and cooperation of our former victims who we eventually backed so far into a corner that they gave in and became our partners, we will continue to work on our own behalf to protect our profits from people just like us.

Thanks to our years of illegal streaming Crunchyroll is now the only legal website where anime fans can watch shows such as Naruto Shippūden and BLEACH and other, better shows immediately after TV broadcast in Japan. Hence, you've basically got no choice but to support our evil, hypocritical asses since revenue we receive is shared with anime producers in Japan and goes toward making more great anime titles in the future. We want to sarcastically thank our self loathing fans in the regions we stream to for their continued grudging support in helping us prove that crime really does pay.

Rather than targetting little rats like Youtubers, shouldn't Crunchyroll be chasing after Illegal Anime distribution sites that gets 5 or 6 digit daily viewership and most importantly AD REVENUE?

In compliance with YouTube's TOS, filing a formal legal complaint was a necessary step in order to keep these illegal streams off of YouTube.

Another pointless lawsuit which will only turn people off using their services. Especially because Crunchyroll isn't viable alternative for many.

Anime titles on Crunchyroll's are frequently region restricted, meaning people have no chance of seeing anime series. Crunchyroll's streaming doesn't allow buffering, so can be completely unusable on lower speed connections, and even high speed connections at times. It is a long time (2009), since Cruncyroll allowed episodes to be completely buffered, before play back.

I bought a 1 year subscription through their last Black Friday sale, but rarely have been able to get decent streaming, and too much content (old and new) is still region restricted. It is ridiculous, when I payed for a service, but still have to download fansubs, to actually see these anime titles!

errinundra wrote:

I think that the current piracy issues reflect, to a large extent, the disconnect between what fans want and what licencees are providing.

Simple solution: the IP holders give what the consumer wants......within reason.

For the most part they do the problem is that more often than not American pirates refuse to get off their "Free downloads with 1080p video" demand. Anime is extremely cheap with the S.A.V.E line in particular being the best example. A lot of Americans are fine with leeching off the Japanese.

I remember one guy simply stating that he sees no reason to buy SRW games since he will simply pirate the english translation games. Someone then pointed out that the fan translated games are all from 10 years or older.

Incidentally, it's been interesting to observe how many have failed to acknowledge--let alone engage...

Just look at the insult you did with Robert's post by taking a quip on hypocrisy and twisting into an anti-piracy tirade.

All the angry anti-lawsuit posts in the thread, and you want to complain about a very short and not-angry (but disappointed) dissenting post.

The failure I spoke of happens to predate both the RACS post and mine, by the way.

The entire point of complaining about the hypocrisy angle is to delegitimize the lawsuit...

...while not paying even slight attention to the clear interests and rights of copyright holders such as TV Tokyo.

In compliance with YouTube's TOS, filing a formal legal complaint was a necessary step in order to keep these illegal streams off of YouTube.

The most important sentence in the article comes from the Crunchyroll statement:

Quote:

In compliance with YouTube's TOS, filing a formal legal complaint was a necessary step in order to keep these illegal streams off of YouTube.

In other words, the only reason Crunchyroll filed a lawsuit is that YouTube requires that before they will enforce their own TOS and prevent these repeat offenders from continuing to upload anime illegally.

That is why they filed this suit and are not going after the download and streaming sites that make money off of ad revenue. This suit is not intended to go to court, it is only a tool to make YouTube do what they should be doing already.

Only by inference. Without the lawsuit, there is no hypocrisy. No one's really said much against the lawsuit itself (your point), but the company's position for doing it.

Those interests, by the way, allow this company to attack other businesses when it comes to streaming anime.