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jsevakis wrote:

sheighton wrote:

Actually, not really...I have not been all that far off on any of the copyright issues (ie illegal distribution, being the only issue, but anyways), nor I am wrong to be questioning the validity of this article (nothing other than illegal distribution and VR investment has actually been confirmed),

Uh... isn't that the crux of the article? 1. Said company has almost entirely illegal content; 2. Said company just got millions in VC money. The rest of it is just minor details, the most significant of which is that they're intending to try to license content legally, which you are clearly arguing for.

The fact that it is illegal distribution is nothing new to the blogger world, as it was pointed out early last year as well. However, I believe that the two points that are trying to be made in both the article and this thread 1. VC investment of $4M implies something, and 2. Crunchyroll is making money off of its streaming content, are what I am arguing against here...Add this to the wild speculations of CR being owned by HotOrNot.com and some of the other speculations within both the article (one of the most speculative and unconfirmed I have yet to find) and this thread and you might see why I persist...

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and nor is it unlikely for CR to gain a legal distribution license...Faced with making more money and not making more money, which do you think a copyright owner would likely choose? Rolling Eyes

Hahahaha! DEFINITELY spoken like someone who has never worked with an anime company!

And you have worked for all of them and can say that you know for a fact that none of them would agree to it? Right...

Last edited by MokonaModoki on Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

sheighton wrote:

Faced with making more money and not making more money, which do you think a copyright owner would likely choose? Rolling Eyes

With $4 million on the table? TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 504 (a) "Actual Damages and Profits" I choose you!

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Add this to the wild speculations of CR being owned by HotOrNot.com

A quick forum search reveals that no one has actually said this. What has actually been published was:

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The three founders, who asked to remain anonymous, are all employees of HotOrNot and the company operates our of HotOrNot’s San Francisco offices (although HotOrNot has no financial interest in the company, according to the founders).

That article is from August, so I may be mistaken about their current location, and probably am. Indeed, the Kokoro article clearly states that "It wasn’t long before Crunchyroll’s founders left their days jobs to work on the site fulltime", so it is obvious that the situation has changed.

But I don't think that it bolsters your argument that crunchyroll.com is not-for-profit if people are abandoning their jobs to work on it.

Keonyn wrote:

BasouKazuma wrote:

I was merely stating a more informed opinion. No need to bring the attitude unless you are against the freedom and distribution of valid information.

If I'm unwelcome this will be the last thing I'll say on this subject.

Good day.

Valid information? I'm sorry to say, but that site is not even going to come close to needing 4 million to operate. If their operating costs resemble that number then we can all take solace in the fact that they are getting screwed as much as they are screwing the industry.

Keep in mind that investments are often oriented towards expansion, not current operating costs, so I don't think that the $4M would be paying for the operating costs... Rolling Eyes

EDIT: Anyways, this argument is going to go nowhere because it doesn't seem like either side is going to change their positions much if at all. That said, I find it impressive how unconfirmed details and hearsay can make it into blog posts on the internet and become a firestorm...So with that I will take my leave.

sheighton wrote:

The fact that it is illegal distribution is nothing new to the blogger world, as it was pointed out early last year as well. However, I believe that the two points that are trying to be made in both the article and this thread 1. VC investment of $4M implies something, and 2. Crunchyroll is making money off of its streaming content, are what I am arguing against here...Add this to the wild speculations of CR being owned by HotOrNot.com and some of the other speculations within both the article (one of the most speculative and unconfirmed I have yet to find) and this thread and you might see why I persist...

Well, no, I don't, because none of the points you mention came from the article at all. They came from other users on the forum. So what is your problem with the article itself, exactly?

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And you have worked for all of them and can say that you know for a fact that none of them would agree to it? Right...

I haven't worked for most of them, but I've definitely worked with and know people at all of the bigger licensors. While CR has not come up directly, other known pirates have and nobody that I know of would ever even consider working with them.

Either way, even if they were in some "grey area" it would not hold up. The sites purpose is to broadcast anime, anime which is illegal and they do not have a license to broadcast. They can't claim donations because they are accepting money and advertising and that is the only real product they offer, therefore they can't claim the profits due to another source. If they took in 4 million dollars they are obvious not for profit and it would be easy to argue that the videos are the reason people pay that money and would not do so without them, they would have a nearly impossible task of proving otherwise.

That is of course dismissing, for the sake of your argument, that their broadcasting of the anime is legal anyways. The 4 million dollars can easily be attached to the content they illegally broadcast online, and that 4 million dollar attachment proves loss of profit to the companies that produce the goods they lifted. Let's not even pretend these people aren't even aware what they're doing is illegal. Their nearly anonymous state and the fact they admit they're hiding who they are for practically the same reason demonstrates the fact. Even if online distribution is the answer, parasites stealing anime without giving any due to the people who put hard work, time and money in to creating it is not the answer and is not helping. It only tramples those individuals rights.

Last edited by Goodpenguin on Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:01 pm; edited 2 times in total

sheighton wrote:

Quote:

VC investment of $4M implies something, and 2. Crunchyroll is making money off of its streaming content, are what I am arguing against here...Add this to the wild speculations of CR being owned by HotOrNot.com and some of the other speculations within both the article (one of the most speculative and unconfirmed I have yet to find) and this thread and you might see why I persist...

It's been explained precisely how Crunchyroll makes money off of streams, I don't know how that can be reasonably disputed. The even more inexplicable suggestion is how 4 million in funding 'doesn't imply anything', if you regularly get 4 million in venture capital for no reason, then tell the rest of us the secret so we can get in on that action.

As to the 'wild' speculations of Crunchyroll's connection to HotorNot and it's long-standing hunt for venture capital, here are two articles that reference both from last year:

http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/06/crunchyroll-for-pirated-anime-content/

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/crunchyroll

Edit: Here's a link that references HotorNot founders contributing to the first round of venture investment (Jim Hong's deal is creating highly viewed internet properties and selling them for a high return).

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/27/copyright-infringement-continues-to-pay-4-million-for-crunchyroll/

Crunchyroll Inc. is a pretty low-profile (perhaps not unsurprisingly) bunch it seems on a cursory glance, beyond working at 340 Brannan St San Francisco, CA 94107, which is a large business suite area, there's not much to see on a quick glance.

Ultra-secret Double Edit: To put what should be the very final nail in the coffin of anyone who would wish to defend Crunchyroll as anything other then a 'Get Rich With the Internet' business venture from the start--

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/29/crunchyroll-pushes-the-envelope-on-video-copyright/

Money graf-Crunchyroll tried to get Viacom to purchase them, but they (Viacom) apparently backed out over copy-right concern.

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That growth was apparently enough to get the attention of at least one possible suitor, Viacom. A source tells us that the company was very close to selling to Viacom for $10 million earlier this year, but the deal fell through when Viacom realized that owning the site, which contains a lot of copyright infringing content, may have hurt their positioning in the billion dollar ongoing litigation with Google.

I don't recall much happening with YouTube until it had financial backing via Google. I would hope the same happens here. This just seems to have a huge bullseye all over it for lawsuits.

After reading through this thread, I have changed my opinions on alot of things. CR is a lowly parasite. Sheighton has clearly proven that CR should be eliminated if it continues to host illegal content for free as it is doing now. I know this is almost a waste of a post but I just wanted to post my change in thoughts after reading this thread.

If this doesn't awaken anime fans to the shittiness of the piracy aspect of fandom, I'm kind of scared.

Crunchy Roll can burn in their illegal heck, and I hope things work out in favor of anime companies, and that this is just a BIG embarassment for that venture capital firm.

If you go to Animeondvd's forums, they've linked to the particular individual's e-mail address who was involved with the investment, so please be sure to send a polite, conside e-mail informing him why his company is nuts, Crunchy Roll is Scum, and this is just BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD

ANYONE DEFENDING CRUNCHY ROLL IS NOT AN ANIME FAN, in my opinion. Though I haven't actually seen much of that yet. And what has been said has the consistency of a wet paper bag

There is hope for you yet, anime fandom!

I know about piracy and how the industry is dying, etc. I just wasn't sure if CR would turn out to be a real threat that the community should really care about. Youtube at least has SOME original content that doesn't suck. Unfortunate how some people warp business models to their will.

kazana144 wrote:

Unknown Memory wrote:

-_-; I knew it! I knew that something like this was bound to happen. CR asks people to pay so they can watch more than what was limited to them. That's why, I refuse to pay CR beyond my free account over there (and I still dislike CR for all I care).

They get money off of illegal obtained stuff and fansubs that they themselves, never worked on. I look forward to seeing CR get in trouble one day.

Then don't watch, you're giving the ad guys reason to pay them money.

Don't worry. The last time I went on CR was somewhere early of last year. I have not taken one step onto CR ever since. Cool

Edit: After catching up with what I missed...

Goodpenguin wrote:

Crunchyroll Inc. is a pretty low-profile (perhaps not unsurprisingly) bunch it seems on a cursory glance, beyond working at 340 Brannan St San Francisco, CA 94107, which is a large business suite area, there's not much to see on a quick glance.

Alright, their address! Whoot!! *starts planning on sending a quote unquote polite rant letter*

Unknown Memory wrote:

Crunchyroll Inc. is a pretty low-profile (perhaps not unsurprisingly) bunch it seems on a cursory glance, beyond working at 340 Brannan St San Francisco, CA 94107, which is a large business suite area, there's not much to see on a quick glance.

I vote the VIZ staff should go and overtake their offices, and burn down their servers. They could make it into a nice new staff lounge.

Paploo wrote:

Unknown Memory wrote:

Crunchyroll Inc. is a pretty low-profile (perhaps not unsurprisingly) bunch it seems on a cursory glance, beyond working at 340 Brannan St San Francisco, CA 94107, which is a large business suite area, there's not much to see on a quick glance.

I vote the VIZ staff should go and overtake their offices, and burn down their servers. They could make it into a nice new staff lounge.

Ah... yes, that is how it should be done on Bizarro World, but it would be far more intriguing to me if someone at Viz would just pick up the phone and call (415) 553-7400 and ask to speak to someone at the San Francisco Division of the FBI. No lawyers, no lawsuits, no takedown notices... just a straightforward criminal complaint.

But I gave up hope that Viz (or anyone else) would ever do anything meaningful a long time ago.

MokonaModoki wrote:

Paploo wrote:

Unknown Memory wrote:

Crunchyroll Inc. is a pretty low-profile (perhaps not unsurprisingly) bunch it seems on a cursory glance, beyond working at 340 Brannan St San Francisco, CA 94107, which is a large business suite area, there's not much to see on a quick glance.

I vote the VIZ staff should go and overtake their offices, and burn down their servers. They could make it into a nice new staff lounge.

Ah... yes, that is how it should be done on Bizarro World, but it would be far more intriguing to me if someone at Viz would just pick up the phone and call (415) 553-7400 and ask to speak to someone at the San Francisco Division of the FBI. No lawyers, no lawsuits, no takedown notices... just a straightforward criminal complaint.

But I gave up hope that Viz (or anyone else) would ever do anything meaningful a long time ago.

The FBI? Are they really the ones to handle such a complaint? I do not mean that as a criticism. But I thought the FBI did work in other areas.

The problem is, there are too many agencies in America to remember their names, let alone what they do.

I agree, though. Nothing seems to get done unless there is a lawsuit. One would think that with so much at stake, the R1 distributors would band together and unleash the lawyers. But they might not, given how expensive such a process is.

So, wouldn't it be funny if someone actually called the Feds?

dtm42 wrote:

The FBI? Are they really the ones to handle such a complaint? I do not mean that as a criticism. But I thought the FBI did work in other areas.

The problem is, there are too many agencies in America to remember their names, let alone what they do.

I agree, though. Nothing seems to get done unless there is a lawsuit. One would think that with so much at stake, the R1 distributors would band together and unleash the lawyers. But they might not, given how expensive such a process is.

So, wouldn't it be funny if someone actually called the Feds?

Well, the FBI's warning is at the beginning of a lot of movies and DVDs, so I guess it'd be a valid call.

Regarding the other part, I have to admit to not knowing the amounts of legal red tape there are to take someone to court for willful and blatant violations of copyright. Still, one would think this site would be the easiest place to try and find out.

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