Forum - View topicNEWS: FUNimation Sues CA Retail Sites over Alleged Bootlegs
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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Well, I know here in Orange County Gamestops still carry DVDs, but they are totally blowing them out in an effort to get rid of them. Right now the Gamestops that I go to offer buy 2 get 4 free deals, which works really, really great with anime 
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Draneor
 Posts: 355 |
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You're mostly correct. A Japanese R2 DVD will have an episode count of 1-4 episodes* and vary in price, depending on how niche the show is. You're correct that $60 (5800 yen) is a fairly typical price for a late night otaku show. However, many R2 DVDs are sold for less or more. Children's anime are generally priced much cheaper, for example. The most I've paid for an anime is 8800 yen for a DVD of D.C.II.SS (two episodes per DVD except for the first, which was 3200). Used R2s can be sold for as much as ~80% off the MSRP (although a smaller discount is more common). Japanese boxsets do not cost "thousands" of dollars but hundreds. For a one cour show, 15,000 yen is not uncommon, but it can also cost significantly more. Still, it's generally at least 50% off the original price of the singles. Regardless, R2 DVDs are expensive and, of course, almost always do not have subtitles. Then there are R3 DVDs (Taiwan), which are generally more or less the same price as R1 singles but with R2 episode counts. They have Chinese subtitles and sometimes a Chinese dub. R3 boxsets are fairly cheap. Rarely, they might have English subtitles, but the vast majority do not. There are, of course, other parts of Asia where some legitimate DVDs are sold (Korea, Thailand, Singapore, etc) but it can be hard to tell a licensed DVD from an unlicensed DVD in certain regions. *I haven't personally seen an anime with more than four episodes on an R2 DVD, at least. |
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hikaru004
 Posts: 2306 |
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They can move their primary address and servers overseas. They can just stop selling bootlegs that FUNi has licensed which would effectively solve the current problem. Bootleg sellers prob have ways of getting around this. Some of them are linked to organized crime from the general rumors you hear about bootleggers. Last edited by hikaru004 on Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DerekTheRed
 Posts: 3544 Location: ::Points to hand:: |
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HAH! The GameStops near me are buy 2 get 5 free, and I picked up NGE Platinum 2-7 and Metropolis special edition for $14. Then I finished up NGE through TRSI. 
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stardust462
Posts: 8 |
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Regarding GameStop, I think if a GameStop still has used DVDs they're trying to phase them out, hence the buy 2 get 5 free or whatever. I'm seeing a lot of MovieStops popping up in my area, which explains why GameStop is phasing out their DVDs. Anyone else seeing those stores? Both in my area has a huge wall of anime, both used and new.
It's great that Funimation is doing this. Nothing sucks more than getting a crappy bootleg. Back when I first started buying anime online I got stuck with three bootlegs (Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, and Real Bout High School, all purchased on Half.com) and didn't know till years later that they were bootlegs. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Well, this wasn't actually publicly announced. We dug it up and then Funimation confirmed it. -t |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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That's a little harsh, and also more or less untrue. Anime fans who are new to buying DVDs may not know that anime DVDs are typically overpriced when compared to North American TV on DVD. So $20 for a set will seem reasonable for them. Other fans familiar with the high prices might don't always know those foreign "imports" are often bootlegs. It's worth noting that I've seen several "educated" fan call legit R3/R6 imports "bootlegs." There are legit anime licensors in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, etc... and their legit releases are cheaper than legit North American releases. Some of them even have English subtitles. And believe it or not, some retailers don't know that they are carrying bootlegs. I've seen one retailer pull all their bootlegs from their shelves when a fan pointed them out to the retailer. That being said, there's no way the people at AnimeNuts/N Trading/DiscountAnime did not know their products were bootlegs. They were a large anime specialty store, they knew the market. They had been informed already by Funimation that their products were bootlegs. And they were smart enough to keep their bootlegs out of their retail store.If they didn't know they were bootlegs they would have carried them in the physical store. But yes,the vast majority of the "imports" available online and in little brick and mortar anime shops are indeed bootlegs. -t |
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Hikari06
 Posts: 55 |
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It's about time those businesses got busted. When I was in the 7th grade (I'm a freshman in college now), I bought the box sets for Chobits and Ai Yori Aoshi without realizing that they were bootlegs until I watched them (with their crappy subtitles) and an older anime fan friend of mine educated me about the whole bootleg DVD industry. Since then, I have never purchased any product, legitimate or not, from a retailer that sells bootlegged goods. Even if you're buying, say, a legitimate copy of volume 1 of the Fruits Basket manga from one of those websites, the money would still be going to people who are breaking the law and making at least some of their money off of a property that somebody else has the rights to distribute. So yes, go Funi.
(And I hope that my comments aren't too repetitive; I only read the first several comments in this thread before posting.)
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Ah, credit where credit's due, then. They didn't put out a press release, but I'm pretty sure Lance hinted at this in the Otakon fansub and industry panel we posted a while back.
(Answer: 1995. A consortium of the active anime companies at the time, lead by CPM, hired a lawyer on retainer and called the initiative J.A.I.L.E.D., or Japanese Animation Industry Legal Enforcement Division. They managed to get the FBI to bust a single store in Chinatown, put out a press release, and were never heard from again. The comically intimidating name raised the concern of fansubbers of the era, who thought they might be targeted. The irony, of course, being that compared to today, VHS anime piracy was a ridiculously minor concern.) Last edited by jsevakis on Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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beelzebozo
 Posts: 308 Location: Aurora, Colorado |
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First of all, congrats to Funimation. I'm sooooo happy to see someone doing something about the bootlegs. I hope that some of the other anime companies will follow suit.
I think this needs to be quoted for truth. The reason you can get a great deal on legit merchandise from a bootlegger is *because* they are selling pirated merchandise with the bigger profit margins. So don't buy from anyone selling pirated material, period. It is supporting them.
Probably not, but by setting the bar high, they then can get whatever they can out of the owners. This includes things like seizing and selling of all company and personal property, garnishing of wages, investments, retirement plans, insurance, etc. Possibly jail time for non-payment. Don't know if they are a corporation or not, but if they are, then Funimation can use it to "pierce the corporate veil" to go after the owners personally. |
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AVPen
Posts: 9 |
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I have seen PLENTY of bootlegs at the Gamestops that I've been to - everything from Naruto to Sailor Moon R, Gundam Seed to FLCL, and quite a few others as well.
Great find, but I think I can top that - I found and bought the first 4 volumes of Trinity Blood for $2.00 TOTAL (evidently, the Gamestop didn't have that title in their databanks, so they had to sell them for a dollar each, which worked out pretty well with the "Buy 2, Get 2 Free" deal they had going on). |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10420 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Do you remember if the AX action by Bandai from a few years ago resulted in any courtroom action and/or store closures? Or was it all settled out of court? Although never publicly announced, that would probably be the last real action if it did indeed result in real action. Since then it's all been C&Ds that are either followed or ignored. -t |
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Draneor
Posts: 355 |
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Pardon the intrusion. While it wasn't the anime industry that initiated it, there was the Pandora's Cube FBI raid (animenewsnetwork.com/news/2004-12-09/pandora's-cube-raided-for-piracy). At one point, at least, they did sell unlicensed anime DVDs as well. |
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sonyfan
Posts: 4 |
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Its unfortunate that people would do this, because it wil make people even more hesitant to buy DVD's in the future. I hope that if there were even more titles that were found to be bootlegged by [This URL is a known bootlegging website] they would be published. I did buy from them maybe once or twice but none of the ones I bought were listed above. I tend to buy DVD's that haven't been licensed in the United States because I really don't care about a show being dubbed or not. that said is there a good website were I can pickup unlicensed dvds and not have to worry about a show being bootlegged.
Anime I own: Yumeria, Tona-gura, Tsuyokiss, Crescent Love, Lovely Idol, Tactical Roar, Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica, Shining Tears X Wind, Prism Ark, Happiness!, Happy Seven, Kono Aozora Ni Yakusoku Wo, Onegai Twins, Gosyusho Sama Ninomiya Kun, Lime Iro Senkitan. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Regardless if the show has been licensed in the US or not, a bootleg is a bootleg. You paid someone money for a product that they did not create, nor had the license to distribute, be them American companies or Japanese or whatever.
I'm really happy to see the R1 industry starting to attack the bootleg industry. People who profit off of other's hard work are awful. |
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