Forum - View topicNEWS: ADV Suspends Anime ADVocates Club Program Indefinitely
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grgspunk
Posts: 136 |
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Do you think ADV is going to survive this year?
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Aresef
Posts: 909 Location: MD |
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As a club officer, I will really miss ADVocates. The program helpd us secure easy programming for our club when we really needed it, and I don't know what we would have done without it. At least there's still Operation Anime.
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mjgeo
 Posts: 133 Location: Australia |
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Most likely it's a situation where ADV brought in some consultants a few months back, and this is the result of their review. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
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Where do you guy's clubs meet? If you meet at a college or school, you can probably request an LCD projector (my school does that) and you could just collect dues and use that to buy DVDs for the club and downloads (the projector can go straight to your laptop). If you collected like $10 per member each semester (assuming its two semesters per school year), even a small 10 member club could collect enough to buy a decent amount of downloads and DVDs. Not to mention if you maybe sold soda and snacks at the meetings as another way to generate money to further the club. $10 a semester and maybe $1 each week for chips and soda won'ot break anyone's bank. Plus (ideally) your members will buy some titles so they can bring their DVDs for everyone to watch as well.
-- I agree that ADV likely doesn't see a point to actually mailing out physical media to so many clubs. Especially when they could do it digitally and still be effective. As far as Newtype, I always wanted to buy an issue but the $9.99 per issue always kept me away. Plus, magazines can't be anywhere near as up to date as sites like this one that are free. Not only that but, back to the digital vs physical thing, digital distribution is a cheaper and more effective way to getting promo content out to people. When ADV announced they were ending the 24 hour anime channel, I remember reading an interview where someone at the company said that they never wanted to have that anyways, but cable companies were reluctant to pick up the on-demmand service if they didn't also offer some sort of 24 hour channel as well. That may not be a sign of hard times, but a sign that the contractual obligation ended and cable providers are now willing to carry the on-demman by itself now thats its proven successful enough to merit it. Alot of this stuff seems bad on the surface and while it may be, it could just as easily be a consolidation of wasted money and a push toward digital, which is where people are going anyways. People watch fansubs on the computer all the time so its not like your fanbase is adverse to downloading and watching content thats stored on computers. Alot of sites that sell downloads often will give away an early episode for free for a limited amount of time. Thats basically the same type of promo as sending out a DVD to clubs. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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The club my teen belonged to in her first year of high school just played stuff the members owned. She lost interest because couple of the kids seemed to always dictate what everyone else saw.
ADV's just dumping baggage for the recession we're probably already in but no one wants to admit. |
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HayateTokidoki
Posts: 37 |
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Does no one else find it ridiculous that they need permission to allow people to watch something? If someone starts an anime club at school and the members of the club feel like bringing in their own DVDs from home to show other club members, that's their own business. They paid for the DVD and there is no reason they shouldn't be able to freely allow anyone they want to watch their legally purchased items. It's downright absurd that they need to get permission from ADV to show something to what amounts to a group of friends with a common interest.
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Well, the idea doesn't appeal to me too well either, but I understand the basis for it well enough. Of course, I should state that my position on copyright in general is more libertarian.
I would like to abolish pretty much all of it except the very core (a limited time monopoly on commercial distribution is fine, DRM supporting laws, allowing corps/RIAA to sue individuals, etc. is not something I'll ever agree with). So in line with that I don't believe groups like this should need permission insofar as they aren't charging money. If there is any kind of membership or viewing fees then I absolutely believe permission should be received. I would also look down upon these groups if their design was to prevent people from buying anime, they should do their best to promote members support of anime (through purchases) if they like what they see. Yes, I realize this means that copyright holders "lose" control of their work in this situation, but I don't believe this control is some kind of inalienable right. Personally, I think that level of control shouldn't extend beyond what is absolutely necessary. |
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MeggieMay
 Posts: 607 |
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Copyright laws say different, however. Some of you need to read those FBI warnings at the start of videos. They say, or at least use to, that owners do not have the right to use said videos for public screenings. Technically you aren't even suppose to view home video in groups at someones house but enforcement of that isn't exactly feasible (thought RIAA has been working tirelessly to change that
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However, viewing a home video (VHS, DVD, even personal copies of 16 MM films, et al) with a group of people in a public place like a library or school is much more enforceable. The groups who oversee copyright have always made it their business to enforce the laws in those situations. I can remember back when I was in High School, back in the early 1980s, they would come around and check to make sure the music in the band and choir libraries were legit (no xerox copies) and that the schools had permission to show movies or TV shows. Lots of TV shows even to this day have disclaimers on them saying schools may use them for a certain amount of time, if the show is educational (check out shows that air on TV in the Classroom on Cable for a good example). Another example, fast food restaurant are not exempt and have to pay a license to play music in their stores. The restaurants, either individual stores or the chain, have to have permission from ASCAP and BMI to play music. That also applies to radio stations (both must have license bought from these two groups to play music). In particular I remember a local restaurant (I think it was a Arby's) while I was attending college making the local news when ASCAP discovered they didn't have the license from them to play music in the store like they were suppose to have (they got fined for it). So while enforcement of copyright laws can be hit and miss, the "missing" gets a lot less likely when you move things out of your house and into public places. |
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HayateTokidoki
Posts: 37 |
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What is legal is not necessarily inherently right and what is illegal is not necessarily inherently wrong. Laws have nothing to do with what is actually good or bad, but rather what a small group of those in power determined should be allowed or not allowed.
In the case of copyright laws, they should be completely and utterly abolished. As with any business, you need to provide a compelling reason for your customers to part with their money in order to have your product or service. The fact that there are such restrictions on your own use of your own private property is wrong, plain and simple. If I buy a DVD, it's mine. If I want to have friends over and watch it, that's my business. If I want to bring it to a club meeting and let others watch it, that's my business. If I want to charge people $2 to enter my house to watch it with me, that's my business. If the product or service is worth that $2 to those who I invite to my home, they will pay me for it. If the publisher wants to make sure those people buy the DVD themselves and don't pay me to view my copy, they need to provide a compelling reason for those people to own the DVD themselves. Higher quality packaging, lower prices, bonus features, and other such things influence that decision. Don't get me wrong. I'm not someone who thinks everyone should download or bootleg stuff and avoid paying for it. I myself own almost 700 legitimate US released anime DVDs and a handful of Japanese ones. However, I believe that the publishing companies need to provide an adequate service or product to merit the price they are asking rather than having laws in place that force me to pay for it or not experience it at all. A great example of this is fansubs. I download and watch fansubs semi-regularly. I do this as a way to test out series because I have been burned on many series that look really cool, cost $40 for a DVD+box version of the first volume, and suck horribly. I watch a few episodes. If it's good, I'll buy it. If it's really good, I'll watch the rest right away and still buy the DVDs as they come out. If it sucks, I quit watching it and delete the files, and of course I don't waste my money on a DVD purchase. Legally, that is against the law and I (and thousands of others) could spend time in prison for something so harmless. Realistically, it's actually beneficial to the publishing companies because I'd estimate that somewhere in the area of 150 of my DVDs (and probably 60-70% of my 800+ CDs) were purchased new at full retail because I was able to download and sample the product. So, let's get to the heart of this particular discussion though: people that are in anime clubs. Of those people in anime clubs that watch anime in club meetings and never buy DVDs, how many do you think would actually buy the DVDs if they were cut off from watching them in club meetings? If the publishers restricted permission to screen these DVDs, does anyone actually believe it would increase their sales in any way? Really, what harm is there in having someone show a series to other people in any situation? |
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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As a Higher Education Establishment (Yeah, that'll be vauge enough) club organiser myself, I honestly don't care what ADV think in regards to my situation. If I want to show people Nadesico then by hell I am going to take the three DVD boxes of Martain Successor Nadesico that I bouhgt with my own money, take my Laptop with VLC on it, hook it up to the AV and show them Martain Successor Nadesico.
Of course, I would stop to concider if ADV actauly pulled thier thumb out of thier ass in regards to certain articales and actauly did the work on some of the good stuff they licenced. I don't want to buy Kannon, I want Gurren Lagann and Keroro Gunsou in spades, cubs and hell even Daimonds. It's the same as the Gonzo debarticale a while back, give me something good to buy/actauly bother requesting the right to show and I will buy/actualy bother requesting the right to show at a public meeting. |
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SalarymanJoe
 Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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Obligatory "in before..." clubs are still around?
As a former club organizer, I see this as a non-issue. Even if I were still running a club, I would still see this as a non-issue. While a service like this, I'm sure it made operations easier on the organizers' part and probably provided an outlet for even the most "backwater" (or maybe "uncharted" is a better word?) areas to anime fans to actually start a club. However, clubs, if they've managed to survive in the face of digisub proliferation via the Internet and the existence of fan communities on the Internet, period will be able to survive this latest hit against them. I agree with Mr.sickVisionz, though, there are ways to get material together. While a school club may be limited to how funding may be used, it's not impossible to get titles through online rentals, physical brick and mortar stores, and plain old purchasing and show those. Or, even going back even further, pull things from people's own collections; that's what a lot of people had to do Back In The Day(TM) when there really wasn't much of a domestic industry to begin with. Also, on a quick note about the public showing letters to the copyright holders, these aren't really rocket science nor a real inconvenience. I remember the hardest part being finding which e-mail address to use. However, the content of the e-mail is usually nothing more than what show, which episodes, and whether or not a charge for attendance will occur. I remember sending an email to several companies in the span of twenty minutes and got responses back within the week. It's not that big of a task, so I don't really see what the fuss was about. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Neither of us were under the delusion that this is legal, we were talking about what we thought was justified, not what is legally correct. I disagree with the law on many points, it doesn't mean I don't know what it says. I wouldn't have said I want to abolish components of copyright if I thought those rules did not exist. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
Posts: 2173 |
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This is slightly offtopic, but I saw some people saying it so I couldn't resist commenting on it...
Do you guys even know what copyrights are? Some of you guys sound silly with talks of erasing all copyright laws. That would destroy alot of things that rely on creativity. Most artists don't do things solely for money, but if they can't pay their bills they'll have to quit and find a new job. Thats what would happen if you totally abolished copyrights. Copyrights are literally the rights to copy, distribute and publish intellectual property. They protect content creators from having their work stolen or used without their permission. When you take that away from the creator and put it in the public, creators will get chump change if anything. They would have ZERO say in how their material was handled. You'd have alot of theft from authors claiming that they made something when they really didn't. Copyrights protect the author from this. For example, YOU (Think of it as you, its easy to say some millionaire but these people started off as regular folk like you and me. Think of yourself and see if what you're suggesting still seems fair and just) spent years working on a movie script. You put alot of work into it but now you have something that you're proud of and you are shopping the script. You show it to a studio who asks to read over it. That studio could LEGALLY photocopy it and sell it to someone else or use it. With no copyrights, the right to copy, publish, and distribute is up to whoever feels like doing it. Ideally it'd be the YOU, but theft and plagarism wouldn't be illegal or punishable at all. In fact, theft is rewarded because its not punishable and you eliminate the need to pay the writer for his script. Of course, with no copyrights a movie editor could get the film into a final product, and rather than deliver it to the studio, take it to his house and put it on the internet. Nobody owns the right to distribute and publish content so theres nothing illegal about what this guy did. But if that happens, will there really be studios willing to invest millions into movies knowing that at any step in the process, they could fall victim to this? Probably not. Thats not feasible, thats not even just. You would destroy the artistic community as a whole. It just wouldn't be possible for them to sustain a living when they can't get paid for their craft. Musicians and people who perform live might do ok because they can at least tour or perform, but writers, poets, movie makers, etc... they'd be up the creek without a paddle. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Unproven, on the contrary, we've been without copyright laws in the past and artists still existed and still did get paid. In any case, I'm not for abolishing "all" of copyright law. I'm for limiting it to exclusive commercial distribution, which is a small subset of what it currently attempts (but fails) to restrict. You say that artists couldn't exist without further extensions to copyright, but people aren't obeying it now anyway, so what makes you think if we got rid of those laws they would start obeying significantly less? If you look at the costs of these lawsuits and DRM technology, they are likely spending more on that than what they make up defending it. I believe artists and authors have the right to benefit from their work as the next guy, and I show that by the fact that I buy these things even though I do disagree with copyright. My disagreement or agreement with that does not change the core fact that I know people must somehow earn a return on their work. But I do not believe that it is necessary that they should be granted the right to restrict everything people do. So non-commercial distribution (sharing, showing to friends, etc. ) I think should not be a right they can restrict. I think the benefit of having that right to them is not worth the cost to the rest of society. Once again, if you think these laws are necessary, explain to me how the industry gets by when those laws have been broken with high regularity for the last 30 years (by VCRs, cassettes, and CDRs)? Apparently the industry is capable of living with consumers having these rights. So what I am saying is lets end the lawsuits and the farse of a system where we pretend that we grant rights that government really has no powerful to enforce. Why? Because if we end up going the other route of trying to enforce these laws we will only create a cyber war as well as massive amounts of lawsuits. Anonymous p2p, encryption, etc. all are things you don't want to force people into. You can never win customers over by suing people. It doesn't work. |
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