Forum - View topicNEWS: Video Site with Unauthorized Anime Gets US$4M Capital
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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No where in the article do we state that Crunchyroll is making money (profit) off their content. Sorry, but if that's the main point of your arguement, then you've been wasting your time arguing against something that wasn't stated in the article. Likewise, no where in the article did we even mention the speculation about HotOrNot.com. Readers have said those things here, and if you want to argue with them, please feel free to do so, but please don't call ANN's credibility into question over a statement that we did not make. Now then, I am going to speculate here. We have a strict no-speculation rule for the news, but in here I'm allowed to speculate a bit. Fact 1) Crunchyroll does derive revenue, in the form of subscription fees, from the act of providing video; Fact 2) Crunchyroll has received $4m in venture capital; Assumption 3) VC's don't invest unless there is a decent chance of deriving profit; Speculation derived from 1+2+3: Crunchyroll intends to profit (if it has not already turned any profit) from the act of providing video. Fact 4) Most of Crunchyroll current content is illegal conclusion from 1 + 4: Crunchyroll has derived revenue from the act of providing videos that infringe on copyright. Up for debate: Has Crunchyroll itself broken any laws? Has it done all that it can to dissuade people from placing illegal videos on it's website? If it hasn't, can it be held legally and financially liable for damages? Up for debate: all laws aside, is what Crunchyroll doing okay? They've built a business, with the intent to profit, on the act of providing a video hosting service that relies on unauthorized, copyright infringing material. -t |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Good point. I should have thought of that. I'm going to go away and kick myself. I just wish that a company like Viz would go and make the phonecall. It is not like I can do it. I am not an affected party, and international phone calls are too expensive for me. Is there anyone on this forum who works for a R1 distributor and lives in San Francisco? If you want to bring down a company that even fansubbers (who some consider the scum of the universe) hate, then please, make a phonecall. |
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mokitty
Posts: 106 |
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The sheer ridiculousness of this and similar statements makes my head hurt. An organization does not accept a 4 million dollar investment as a "donation" towards "bandwidth and upkeep". Likewise, no company anywhere -- ever -- is going to MAKE a "donation" for such purposes. Whatever arguments Crunchyroll might have tried to make previously about taking "donations" and "not profitting directly" from their activity are not only tossed out the window, but vomitted upon on the way out, the very moment they start talking about accepting venture capital and/or seeking ad revenues. If they know the content they're hosting is illegitimate (a safe bet, since they've apparently gone through the process of gaining the rights to at least ONE video they host, and so know from experience that providing copyright-cleared material does involve work), then what they're doing is not only clearly illegal, but absolutely despicable. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Actually, I picked up a pamphlet about this from a gaming convention booth a couple of years ago about this. The FBI might be the ones who actually carry out any action, but the place to report copyright violation issues is to the National Intellectual Property Rights Center (www.ice.gov). Amongst its stated purposes: "Coordinating the U.S. Government domestic and international law enforcement activities involving IPR issues." "Serving as a collection point for intelligence provided by private industry, as well as a channel for law enforcement to obtain cooperation from private industry (in specific law enforcement situations)." |
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ZeroRyoko1974
Posts: 258 |
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I would think that this would make it easier for companies like ADV to sue crunchyroll. Nobody sued Youtube until Google bought them. If they have money now they are worth seeing. Zac must have blown a fuse when he saw this news item:lol: |
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MokonaModoki
 Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over the mast majority of crimes defined in US federal law, including activities that constitute criminal infringement under the DMCA. I'm not in any position to state that what crunchyroll.com does actually rises to the level of criminal infringement, but there's plenty of reason to believe (already posted in this thread) that safe harbor doesn't apply to them and that their activities may rise to the level of criminal infringement in each category defined in section 506 of Title 17, which would prosecutable under section 2319 of Title 18 of the US Code. Licensors aren't required to submit takedown notices or C&D's at all. Takedown notices are for providers who (actually) comply with the DMCA's provisions on the limitations of liability. If they don't do that then there are several other options, one of which is contacting the FBI. NCSoft here in Austin did just that when they wanted the Lineage II pirate server L2Extreme.com to go away. L2Extreme.com was another 'free' service that apparently thought that financial gain via donations didn't violate the law. You can see the result for yourself here. Edit to add: this in no way takes away from the information that Key provided. The point simply being that there are courses of action that can be taken by interested parties that don't require racking up a lot a billable hours by lawyers. If you are the victim of a crime, you can just call the cops. Convictions are great aids in pursuing subsequent civil suits. |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Unlike YouTube, the entire structure of this site is geared toward showing copy written content. There's little user generated stuff. The front page is littered with anime, many already out in the US like Bleach.
The site is set up for sharing anime. They have videos listed by series. The site is by its very design for illegally distributing anime and manga. They post it in full, every chapter or episode available, even if it's legally obtainable in English. They don't even credit the fansubbers and scanlators, never mind contributing anything to the publisher. As tempting as such a pirate treasure trove of delights is, I hope this site gets shut down yesterday. Their entire revenue would be from hosting other people's copy written content. Again, not focusing on user generated like YouTube at all. The focus is on blatant digital theft. I can't believe these idiots actually got money from some suckers. What was this firm thinking? Did they think, "Oh, it's just Asian cartoons and movies. That doesn't matter. You can just host it and nobody cares."? How could they not think a central site hosting Asian anime, manga, and movies is legal in any way? What an insult to every anime fan.
Aw. That's adorable. The kids playing pirates are fighting amongst themselves. Then again some of those kids just got 4 million dollars invested in their company. Um.. also.. When I said the site was wrong but tempting.. I kinda just found a show I heard about and am watching en ep. ... Forgive me Father for I have sinned. The temptation is so great. Now I need to call a press conference and have my wife standing next to me for support. Um.. and by wife I mean life sized Rei doll. 
Last edited by The Xenos on Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CitizenGeek
 Posts: 136 Location: Ireland |
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Wow, this is stunning. As if things weren't bad enough for anime in the West ....
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4570 |
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I know this is just a pipe dream, but God, how I'd love to see them sued for every last cent of that $4 million by the Japanese and/or R1 industry. It's far less than they deserve, but I figure filing legal proceedings against them is far less frowned-upon than stringing them up by their testes.
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Sandstar
Posts: 196 |
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I just went there, and they have Bleach episodes, starting from the first one. How is that not copyright infringement? I wonder, however, if this makes the VC people liable, and can they be sued? If so, awesome.
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kuinni
Posts: 4 |
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I have just visited crunchyroll and they don't seem to have any of this news posted on the main site or forum.
I would have expected that they'd be in glee over the fact that they just got $4M but there's nothing to indicate this. Err. Was there an announcement before and they have deleted it, or is there something somewhere in the forum? |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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kuinni wrote:
This is just ol' fashioned, 100% pure speculation on my part kuinni, but letting the sites 'social community' people in on the business intent/motives of the site might not be in Crunchyroll's interest. Having a dedicated 'fan community' is probably an important asset to a site like that, and as you can see from this and a few other threads a few of the visiting 'volunteer mods/community members' really seemed to be shocked/defensive that Crunchyroll was owned by anything other then a few Asian media fans innocently happening along. If 'fan community' members who do valuable free work/functions on the site came up against the reality Crunchyroll was a preplanned 'business venture' attaining value partially through their efforts, it may ruffle some feathers. |
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MokonaModoki
Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Plus there's the fact that if your business model is based upon creating the illusion that your company is just some hobbiest named shingi who needs 'donations' to keep the site running then advertising the fact that you've got $4 million in venture capital coming in doesn't particularly help.
hmmm... I just visited their forum too, and nope, not a peep about the venture capital story in any of their sections. No bragging, no denying, no asking... nothing. The topic doesn't exist. Looks like their situation is nicely under wraps. I'd join just to initiate the discussion just to see what would happen, but it's too late to be that trollish right now. |
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kuinni
Posts: 4 |
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Goodpenguin & MokonaModoki, thank you for your replies. ^^
Yes, I can see how it may ruffle feathers. But I still wonder how much of crunchyroll's fan community would actually be shocked by such an announcement, especially if they are simply there to "watch and go" like my friend... and even more if since most of them seem to simply be saying "loved it" or "it sucked." But then, that wouldn't really qualify as a member of the fan community, so I guess I've answered myself. 
@Mokona, I would guess that Crunchyroll would simply delete such a thread if it came up. 
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xstylus
 Posts: 263 |
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You're arguing semantics. "Donating" gets you access to higher quality videos, does it not? One is obtaining something in turn for monetary exchange, are they not? Furthermore, it is only granted for a limited amount of time unless they "donate" again, correct? Sounds like a subscription membership service to me, leech.
But until you gain that right, you've got no problems leeching it. No problem, got it. Glad we cleared that up.
Hey leech, ever heard of something called the Berne convention? It doesn't matter if its licensed in the US, Canada, Europe, or Timbuktu. You do not have the right to dick with it until you have obtained permission FIRST. They should not have to ASK to take down something you never had permission to put on your site. What you're doing is, in a sense, extortion. You post other people's work, force them to devote resources to hunting it down, and extort the companies into coming into some sort of agreement with you since it's clear you'll do nothing proactive to keep unauthorized works off your site.
HA! Just what part of what I just described above IS legal?
So what you're saying is that if someone's going to dick the industry, it might as well be you, eh? And if someone manages to win in court against your streaming, you'll just switch to being another torrent aggregator. Man, the word leech might be too kind of a word for you.
And that's where you have the companies in a headlock. I'm sure you're well aware of the fragile state of the industry, and I'm sure you're also aware they can't afford to blow money on sueing your ass to kingdom come like you deserve. However, since they're not willing to do so, you constitute that as consent to continue going about your business, waiting for them to come crawling to you to sign some sort of deal. As I said, extortion. I dare you to try this crap with Hollywood shows and movies. You'd be spending every last penny of that $4mil on a few good lawyers.
And yet again, extortion. Fscking parasite. |
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