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AnimeNation has the following item in their news today.

Quote:

Kung Fu Cinema has made public the fact that Disney owned film distribution company Miramax Films has taking preventative legal action to ban the importation of legitimate, official foreign DVD releases of films Miramax owns domestic distribution rights to, including Zhang Yimou's Hero and Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer. Although Miramax has a well known reputation for editing and altering the Asian films it licenses for American release, and Miramax has repeatedly delayed and repeatedly extensively altered Shaolin Soccer, the company is still attempting to prevent American residents from importing official, legitimate DVD copies of these movies.

Banning the illegal distribution of unlicensed bootleg copies of movies is a valid policy for a domestic distributor, but attempting to ban the distribution of competing legal, official DVD releases may be considered an unfair business practice, and may also be interpreted as an infringement upon the rights of consumers that choose to purchase legal, official foreign DVDs. While such a corporate move has not yet occurred within the anime fan community, there's very little figurative distance between attempts to ban the importation of live action Asian DVDs and attempts to ban the importation of official Asian animation DVDs.

The Appeal to Disney - Web Alliance website is still up, offering concerned consumers an avenue for expressing concerns to Miramax and Disney via online petitions and letter writing campaigns.

http://alliance.hellninjacommando.net/
http://www.kungfucinema.com/news/2003-12-08-01.htm

Umm, how is that legal? The only why that I can maybe think of them doing this is if the contract (that they signed with the orginal owners of the film) stated that they had sole rights to distribute the moive in the US and Canada.

This is stupid. Why should one movie company ban people from buying legit, import dvds? Sometimes it's the only way to see certain films, like Battle Royale and Legend of Zu. Maybe if Miramax would actually release Shaolin Soccer, instead of eternally delaying it, they wouldn't have these problems.

Screw em. I will never buy a Miramax dvd again. There is nothing illegal about owning a legitimate dvd from another country.

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.

Well technically it is illegal.

If you look at the back of most official issue DVDs they do sale for sale in region (fill in the blank) only.

This goes for video games as well.

Quite frankly I think this is bs. 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.

j

In theory, region-coding is to prevent bootlegging, but in actuality, it's just an excuse to charge certain countries more for certain dvd's than others. (That's really why certain Japanese companies are so reluctant to release anime such as the Ghibli movies and the original Gundam so soon. Because they'd rather place inflated prices on the Japanese. And sometimes, as in the case of Spirited Away, higher cost does not necessarily equal higher quality.)

Yet more evidence that Disney truly is the evil empire....

Well, they do have a legal leg to stand on, but that doesn't make it right. Then again this doesn't really matter that much as there's little one company can do to entirely prevent the import of foreign DVDs, even if that one company's Disney.

eva05 wrote:

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.

Last edited by Godaistudios on Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

Twage wrote:

Well, they do have a legal leg to stand on, but that doesn't make it right. Then again this doesn't really matter that much as there's little one company can do to entirely prevent the import of foreign DVDs, even if that one company's Disney.

eva05 wrote:

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 think he's referring to the idea that "title X" typically gets a better release in its home country than it does here. The ones that have lackluster releases (especially live action films) are far less likely to make their way to our retail store shelves. There are exceptions, but the rule of thumb still stands.

The problem is, that more oft than not, because they force more eps per disk, there is a quality difference in the video due to bitrate issues. Now some companies do a decent job in video transfer, etc. However, I've known a number of people with both releases of the same thing who can actually show you side-by-side comparisons in color vibrancy, contrast, etc. between the two.

This doesn't go into the fact that there are other issues where some films brought to the U.S. are cut for time or edited for content because "we're too stupid to figure it out or enjoy it for what it is, so why bother?"

While there may be some legal ground to stand on, I'd say Miramax's practices are questionable, if not unethical. I think the article says it all when it basically says it only forces those who would buy it legally to bootleg it instead. The people who were going to bootleg it anyway aren't stopped by it to begin with.

Godaistudios wrote:

The problem is, that more oft than not, because the force more eps per disk, there is a quality difference in the video due to bitrate issues. Now some companies do a decent job in video transfer, etc. However, I've known a number of people with both releases of the same thing who can actually show you side-by-side comparisons in color vibrancy, contrast, etc. between the two.

of course we wouldn't have as much of a problem (for quality) if they removed all the crap ass "trailers" and "previews", when I buy an anime DVD, I don't mind one or two, but they better be related to anime, not trailers for 'farscape' or more evil disney crap. The longest ammount if prevews I've seen on a DVD is roughly 25min which could have been used for higher quality video Rolling Eyes

I think the reason that there are "Farscape" previews on ADV's dics is that they release the dvds for those shows.

Paradoxally, ADV has stuck those Anime Network "Demand your anime" on Farscape dvds.

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.

Last edited by eva05 on Thu Dec 11, 2003 2:52 pm; edited 1 time in total

Twage wrote:

eva05 wrote:

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.

Dude, I actually have Japanese versions of dozens of western films because they had better presentation, packaging and mastering than US versions.

Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and The Wild Bunch are both given the 5 star treatment wheras the US version of Cross of Iron isn't even letterbox and Wild Bunch has been split onto 2 sides of a disc!!!!

As for high quality US releases, I can think of really two instances where the US versions are nicer (mastering-wise) FLCL and Perfect Blue. But for exampe, the mastering on the US Macross Plus OVA discs are done excellently! High marks to Manga. However the packing of the US versus the Japanese.

Well the US version came with a Amray case and a piece of paper. The Japanese version came with a collectors box with artwork original to the set. The box was of an extremely high quality treated with a satin process, featured an art book and collectors CD. Granted it was more than 5x the price but it was worth it. Same with GITS. I wasn't so impressed with the mastering on the US version. The Japanese version, while significantly more expensive, also had significantly better mastering, came in a huge box with 2 bonus DVDs and a bonus CD, plus artbook, color poster and the original movie.

j

eva05 wrote:

Dude

<snip>

Get the picture?

Try to be a little more polite please.

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