Forum - View topicNEWS: Funimation, Bandai Entertainment Respond on Crunchyroll
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MokonaModoki
 Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Hmm... I understand what you are trying to convey here, but think that you may underappreciate the level of understanding that has already been reached by many here. It's an indisputable fact that crunchyroll.com has built a community around the streaming massive amounts of unlicensed content, that the streaming model ties that community to the website in some very lucrative ways, and that the donation model built around it has generated enough of a revenue stream to attract venture capital. That venture capital may give them some leverage to go legit, as the Kokoro Media article indicated that they would like to do. That means that even if crunchyroll.com managed by some miracle to acquire some licenses for digital distribution and become a completely legitimate business tomorrow, the fact would remain that they had gained a competitive advantage over legitimate industry interests via an illegal activity. They have also enjoyed profit from content (fansubs) that an overwhelming majority of people believe profit should never be derived from (regardless of how they feel about fansubs). That's a taint that may not go away, no matter what crunchyroll.com might ever say about it. If you are new to the site, then you can trust me when I tell you that many people hold many opinions around here that aren't malleable at all, and this could easily be one of them. As for the possibility of refuting every statement of every poster here, if you or anyone else wanted to start with mine it would amuse me far more than you might think. But my view of the facts as I understand them is simply not going to change barring some miraculous revelation that crunchyroll.com actually had the legal authority to stream the anime on their site all along. Even then, there'd still be the issue of manga which is not scanlations of unlicensed titles, but has been scanned directly from volumes licensed and published here in the US. I compared some to volumes on my shelves to verify this positively, and it is identical - word for word, bolding and all. That sort of stink just isn't going to wash off. |
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lackofcheese
Posts: 25 |
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Alright, it seems to me you guys have covered the basics. The site is very probably illegal. Even if the laws behind it aren't entirely clear-cut, in this case it seems straightforward. If they're also making a significant amount of money off what they do, well, then, it's pretty immoral too. The morality of the latter is debatable, though, especially if you take a more liberal outlook on copyright law instead of taking what the RIAA and MPAA feed you.
However, I think there are far more important things to discuss here. First and foremost, of course, is what kind of an impact this all has on anime in general. Now, compared to numbers of people who are willing to torrent, there are loads more who lack the ability, or simply can't be bothered, to torrent. Consequently, streaming, because of its accessibility, tends to greatly increase the exposure of the fansubs (and the anime itself with it). As for what this means, I'd say the overall situation is that a lot of people who wouldn't have paid for it, or would only have been willing to pay very little, end up seeing the anime. Sure, this does deprive the anime industry of some amount of profit. But those who claim that every fansub watched is a DVD sale lost are exaggerating in the extreme. No solid data exists on what the correlation is, however, and this is very saddening, since such data would be priceless. Ultimately, however, I'd argue that this will, in the long term, be a good example to the anime industry, and I mean this in two ways. 1) For the first time in, well, ever, the anime industry actually has a HARD TARGET to attack. So, in that sense, they could get a bit of money from the lawsuit, but most of all it's a "this is what happens when you mess with us" type of thing. 2) If this venture proves demonstrably successful, well, then I'd say that's insurmountable evidence that online anime distribution need not be merely a source of losses. Surely all the anime industry would have to do then would be to take action on that information. If Crunchyroll got sued into bankruptcy, then got bought out by legitimate companies; or in fact, if they were forced to give up their business as part of a settlement, it would be a perfect way for the anime industry to take advantage of the status quo. Overall, I consider this the greatest opportunity the anime industry has had in a while, and if we see them take advantage of it... well... all-round celebration would be in order, for sure. Ideally, Crunchyroll will take the fall, and not too many people will mind it happening, while all of this will give the anime industry a great chance to do something other than rot miserably. |
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lucia096
 Posts: 3 |
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well. i dont know. might as well buy them on dvd i guess. but i think crunchyroll should be handing over the money to the companies. but i doubt that will ever happen untill soemone does something about it. also crunchy roll isnt the only anime steaming website. there are so many others sites on the web. even if you cut off cruchyroll what about the other sites? anime viewers are gonna go to those ones. you'd have to do something big to get all the site off the internet or they not gonna be canceling cruchyroll for nothing.
Last edited by lucia096 on Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:59 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Yes speaking for an entire group you aren't in definitely makes sense. Last edited by Vortextk on Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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CSousuke
 Posts: 75 |
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Such as Youtube. My God, you can find so many episodes of anime on that website. But it'll be hard if somebody tries to take down Youtube for it, especially because 1)they don't specialize in anime and 2)how could they stop users from posting videos of anime? |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4378 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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True but it would send fansubbers and sites like youtube and veoh a message. Then there's also NebsTV.That site in infamous for fansubbing.They've been doing that for yugioh GX and since 4kids have the license for it,the series will eventually end up dead in the water cause more people are heading to those fansubs sites.In my view.unless the japaneese companies take a stand and demand these sites shut down and send a message to fansubbers,the industry's going nowhere fast. |
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aarondirebear
Posts: 1 |
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First off, i am not a troll. This is what I really believe and I demand to be allowed my opinion be heard and not have it dismissed because of its passion and controversial nature.
That said.... Wow is everyone here a COWARD? Funimation only wants fansubs to stop because they want to continue to feed us their bowlderised, mistranslated and poorly acted dubbed anime series. If you were a true anime fan you'd continue to fight Funimation and Bandai and ESPECIALLY 4Kids entertainment. I will never, EVER, EVER buy a "Legitimate" release of an anime because It isn't actually legitmate until these fools learn to take it seriously as a medium and stop putting the losers and dredges of the acting industry into the voice roles, and stop Americanizing everything. This reeks of nazism: "They will watch ONLY the version we sell them or be litigated into destitution!!!!" Their real objection to fansubbing is that people will realize tha 1) the original Japanese is better, 2) The fansubbers working for free do more research into the nuances of the Japanese language than they ever could be bothered to do with all their money , and 3) that the translation in subs is simply better. My idea of supporting anime is paying patronage to the original artists, not to lazy pencil pushers who don't give half a whit about the quality of the translation. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Yeah, right. 
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Vortextk
Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Aww, you guys took the best quotable parts! Ok fine
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kazana144
Posts: 30 |
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I'm just going to assume that entire post was a joke. No one can be that stupid.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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I think I just dropped 10 I.Q. points while reading that. Oh, and apparently, "patronage" doesn't involve the transferral of any remuneration or other material support. Who knew?
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lackofcheese
Posts: 25 |
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Heh, indeed it was a poor post; There is but one point in it I agree with, though in context of the rest of his post it makes that part seem pretty stupid too.
Personally, I kinda agree with this; I would much rather, and would be happy to, donate money directly to the Japanese anime companies every time I watch a fansub, rather than just buy DVDs I never wanted in the first place... That's not to say I agree with anything else in his post, but that one part is worth something to me. |
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Zero328
Posts: 5 |
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This will probably look like a direct attack at the companies, but I will post it anyway since it is how I feel on this matter.
First off, from what I can see, Crunchyroll, like youtube, grows off members uploading videos on it, if you feel bad for the fansubbers who make it for free and end up sticking money in Crunchyroll's pocket, you only have the people who upload to blame. Secondly, i'm not sure whether this is true or just my thought, but doesn't 3 different versions of the same video and the newly added softsub function add to their cry of "We need money to keep this site alive! so give us money and we'll let you in on the stuff thats eating up our space!" Sure if they were just sharing, they'd just have the best quality they can provide. I think thats all there is to say about crunchyroll Now the fansubbing issue. I really don't think the Japanese care... Why would japanese people buy or download the english version of stuff that is readily available to them in the language they know best? If you're talking about the profit gained from foreigners importing their stuff, then I think they can easily find people out there who are experts at subbing and will willingly do it (ie the fansubbers) and just sell stuff online. With the money that the importing company will charge due to the licencing issues and whatever, I doubt the difference in price would be huge. This would easily benefit fans as they can get stuff of better quality quicker. By the way, did I mention I really don't like the american half-asked dubbing? Also, if the american companies so want to attack the fansubbing "industry" then they really should direct a lot of their fire power at the RAW providers. Afterall, where would fansubbers and streaming sites get their primary material if RAWs are stopped? Finally, the companies. With a few of the points I said up there, I can readily say they are just wasting their time and money getting rid of CR... I'd much rather see them investing their money on more anime series and certainly better staff... If they can provide media at a quality better than fans can, they wouldn't be losing business. The fact that lots of people prefer fansub should be clear evidence that they aren't doing their jobs properly, what right have they to stop people who aren't paid but are doing better jobs than they are? Another thing about TV boardcasts that came to mind when I read the 9 pages preceeding this post, why are you americans importing foreign stuff when you can't fully accept their culture?! If you say you fully accept their culture, why are you censoring things and cutting out episodes?! Badly grammar and structure are my habits, flame that all you want, I don't really care. If you think I'm bias, I probably am. Thats due to the fact that I'm not living in America and CR is one of the quickest and easiest ways to watch anime paid or not paid (btw, i don't pay CR for anything, I believe that quality is not something I can ask for when I don't pay or spend any effort to find it) since the selection of locally available anime is seriously limited and imports costs FAR more than I can handle as I am. And as I've mentioned above, I seriously hate dubs... they irratate me far too much to bare. |
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Vortextk
Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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You don't like dubs so the entire industry is crap and fansubbers are all extreme pros that 1-up every company in the business. Right. I watch fansubs, and some are good, but you probably wouldn't know either way because you just hate the companies for dubs.
Censoring and cutting out episodes? You say you don't live in America but are you still talking about anime licensed and released here? If so, you're about 10 years too late and severely misinformed. |
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