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NEWS: Gonzo/GDH Contacts Crunchyroll Video Site

For all you doubters that I argued with a few days ago I say HA! "Wouldn't agree to work with each other" my ass! I win bitch!

I've been watching Crunchyroll's activity for awhile now (ever since Viacom was interested in paying US$10 mil for it), and I would like to point out a few reasons that this site needs to (and can) be sued by US and/or Japanese companies:

a) They are not protected under the DMCA, as pointed out by many people on this and other forums (but for posterity: TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 504 (a) "Actual Damages and Profits" & 506 of Title 17, prosecutable under section 2319 of Title 18).
b) They have just received $4 mil Class A venture capital--Class A is typically 1/6 to 1/3 of a company's estimated (read:projected) value. In addition to any previous site revenue, they are a worthy target of a lawsuit, and since their site has not yet been sold to a 3rd party, this is the best opportunity to sue them.
c) If US and Japanese companies band together they can keep court costs to a minimum.

The only impediment I can come up with is that the US/J companies are afraid of pissing off a 4-million-viewer-strong fanbase. To that, I would like to point out that those viewers are being duped as well, and should not hold a grudge for the downfall of such a despicable site (and the majority of them will just surf for other streaming sites without another thought). My defense of this argument:

a) They are not a "fan community" run by an innocent anime fan called "Shinji" as they would suggest. They have the gall to write that they are "started as a site for fun, it was a pure site that simply wanted everyone to experience the culture and joy that is asian media." In reality, they have been an Internet Startup since inception (coming from the HotOrNot startup, which also sold for millions), with the constant goal of building site traffic via pirated video streams in order to sell the site for insane profits.
b) Even now, with at least $4 mil in assets, they are telling their so-called valued members this: "donations still aren't able to cover all of crunchyroll's costs" and asking them to donate for "bandwidth costs" and also to "volunteer" as in-house fansubbers of titles they have no rights to broadcast. They are not only snaking the anime industry, but also their own members.
c) CR recently removed its ads and made a statement that they were doing it to "be purely about the user experience" and "for the fans," stating they would keep them off "for 2 weeks, maybe longer." Sounds more like they got advised by lawyers (via Venrock) that those ads were a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Point out these facts to crunchyroll's "fanbase" and it will undoubtedly turn any of their exploited users with half a brain against them.

ANIME COMPANIES ! Please act now against this site--this is a time-sensitive situation. CR is a foolish site that pushed the envelope on both the use of fansubs and the DMCA laws, then sought out and took $4 mil in VC--So not only are they 100% vulnerable to prosecution, they HAVE THE MONEY TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE! Please don't wait for them to institute the legal protections that will make this more difficult in the future--FILE THE LEGAL DOCUMENTS TODAY !

"Sounds more like they got advised by lawyers (via Venrock) that those ads were a lawsuit waiting to happen"

Could be, and could not be. That's not really a fact as you state so in the last part of your post. Just an assumption.

"Even now, with at least $4 mil in assets, they are telling their so-called valued members this: "donations still aren't able to cover all of crunchyroll's costs"

(...)the fact that time is an important factor here to consider before you jump to conclusions(...)
For instance, the donations link has changed. It is currently under construction(...)

Ultimately, if anything is to come of this, everyone would likely have gotten their own hand in the jar, and that’s really where things may fall apart. A lot of people wonder why copyright holders don’t partner up with sites like The Pirate Bay, whose business model has earned them millions in profits. What they fail to realize is that such sites are earning millions on copyrighted material that cost hundreds of billions to create. If that money were to be divided equally to every rights holder, it wouldn’t be worth the time to cash those checks. So if the royalties studios receive from Crunchyroll are eating into more substantial profits from traditional DVD sales, then this would have been a bad decision. Anime output will either be cut back dramatically, or the quality will suffer. Of course, this is already happening.

Secondly, for advertising revenue to be truly substantial, there has to be support from major corporations… and much like in television, these mega-companies will eventually want a say in content. If anime fans get pissy over digitally removed gunshot wounds in Cowboy Bebop, just imagine what things would be like when every next scene has a character eating Doritos or downing a Pepsi.

If my post thus far seems pretty one-sided, let me close with this… as vital as publishers, distributors, and talented localization people are to anime, they are NOT ANIME. If online distribution is able to displace, or more likely, coexist with current distribution models without detriment to profits, then that’s all for the better. But fans have to remember that, whether you get your anime as legal DVDs or stream them online, anime is a costly product that needs genuine financial patronage. A lack of true support will doom anime, no matter what business model or delivery system is in place.

xstylus wrote:

walw6pK4Alo wrote: If you have the money to buy anime DVDs all the time, you definitely have the money to buy a 500 gigabyte Western Digital external harddrive. They go for $100 or less these days. Whoaaaaa wait just a minute. Are you suggesting to people who actually buy DVDs that they should go buy hard drives instead?

Sometimes it makes for better storage space, and those things are getting cheaper these days. At 100 dollars for a 500 GB hard drive you're paying a dollar for evrey 5 GB, which isn't bad really.

Right again--time is the important factor--and CR is clearly taking advantage of that by removing both forms of revenue to the site--which is why Anime companies must FILE THEIR LEGAL DOCUMENTS NOW.

He touches a bit in spirit with what Tempest wrote earlier. He also ponders some of the questions I had as well; isn't it kind of a stab-in-the-back to R1, what will it do to the value of physical (DVD) license contracts, etc..

[grabs some tylenol]

I think you missed my question entirely. Let me try being a bit more clear.

My question was whether wal-whatshisname, and now you, seriously advocate that people go buy larger hard drives (theoretically in order to store more downloaded/pirated/ripped/bootlegged anime) INSTEAD OF buying more DVDs which thereby supports the industry, which thereby does not make you another deplorable leech.

If I am coming to the wrong conclusion, then please clarify for me how or why the topic of hard drive purchases is in any way beneficial or even relevant to the situation at hand.

Goodpenguin wrote:

He touches a bit in spirit with what Tempest wrote earlier. He also ponders some of the questions I had as well; isn't it kind of a stab-in-the-back to R1, what will it do to the value of physical (DVD) license contracts, etc..

If it's nothing but subbed raws before there is an R1 licence, which then would only be important for the English dub, then your answer is not much at all. it would act the same way as a fansub but under Gonzo's control, meaning if a title appears to be a "hot property" by the amounts of hits and forum activity that leans towards favour, then gonzo can use that to set the asking price for an NA license.

Perhaps Gonzo could legally ask for a piece of the "donation profit" that Crunchyroll asks users for? Or ask Crunchyroll to pay royalty fees? Until I see some more news concerning this, I don't really understand how Gonzo plans on profiting for the long run.