Forum - View topicAnswerman - Hearts On Fire
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GWOtaku
 Posts: 678 |
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We live in a time when nearly all TV anime in a given season are legally streamed online nowadays on services where the industry pays attention to the traffic, and the sites are supported by ad money and / or subscriptions. In Crunchyroll's case at a minimum, we now know that the money that makes its way back to a given show's publisher increases according to the amount of attention it gets. There's no other way to say it: the notion that either fansubs or illegal streaming sites could possibly be irrelevant in this context is simply absurd.
If it's available in your region, you should be using a legal stream. Full stop. There is no gray area. Anime has never been more widely available for less money than it is right now, which is how legal streaming is rightly a growing thing in spite of the illegitimate places Justin talks about this week. I hope that trend keeps growing as quickly as can be managed as awareness increases. |
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relentlessflame
Posts: 188 |
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This is still a little bit overly-simplistic. Territorial distribution is an antiquated system that only worked in a fundamentally disconnected world. If these distribution companies are implying they can't give any money because all their customers will have already watched the content in other ways, then at least it means that there are people who want to watch your content, and proves that the distribution company is useless to you (because they don't know how to monetize them). If the distribution company's attitude is to shrug their shoulders and be like "oh, now that they've discovered how to pirate content, they'll never spend money on media again!", then how exactly do they expect to stay in business...? The genie isn't going back in the bottle. I think they're just using this excuse to justify a lower financial commitment. It seems to me that this is an opportunity for your company or someone else to figure out what it'll take to monetize those customers that are currently not being served by legal means, and ditch the useless distribution company entirely. So, sure, I think piracy has a negative impact on territorial distribution and business models that depend on it. But that's because we're all in the same region now: the Internet-connected world. The sooner companies figure that out, and what to do about it, the less relevant piracy will be to their bottom line, even if it never completely goes away. |
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ThisJustThis
Posts: 54 |
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The distributors are also treating the content as if it were worthless and impossible to sell. Maybe it just calls for a change in the business/distribution model, like what happened with the music industry. I understand that making movies involves significantly larger investments than recording music, but I'm not convinced that it's a lost cause.
The point is that the wrong people are being made out as the villains/scapegoats. You won't end piracy by scaring, threatening, and guilt-tripping consumers. Chances are there aren't as many people dying to see your masterpiece as that optimistic corporate estimate. If they don't think it's worth it, their options are either to find a cheaper way to watch it or not to watch it at all. In the latter case, nobody has gained anything. The real problem is actually that people don't think your product is worth it, for any number of reasons, one of which being the existence of free illegal options. Going by the case of illegal anime streaming, the answers for why people pirate are mostly 1- out of necessity (no access to legal options), 2- because the illegal options provide better service/accessibility (the legal options are inferior from a value perspective), or 3- habit. The only one for which the consumer should be held accountable is "habit". So really, the solution is to get people into the habit of using legal sources, paying for them, and believing that/understanding why they are worth paying for. Again, this isn't accomplished by scaring, threatening, or guilt-tripping them. This has been accomplished by creating better, more convenient infrastructures for content delivery and payments. This is being accomplished by companies building positive relationships with their customers, and demonstrating/highlighting the value of what they do. This has been accomplished by converting a pirate audience into a legitimate paying customer base. Not saying it's easy, but if there are people interested enough in your product to give it their attention, there should be a way to make money from them. Or you can just give up and complain that pirates and their thieving mindsets have killed your industry. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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When the phonograph (and subsequently the gramophone) came out there was an outcry by orchestras because now people didn't have to go to the concert hall to listen to music.
When radios became popular there was concern because now you didn't need to buy a gramophone and vinyl discs in order to listen to music. When tape recorders started being used the amazing sound quality meant that singers and other artists no longer needed to play live on the radio. They would only need to record once and then it could be played over and over again at the station's leisure. Good for established bigshots like Bing Crosby, but supposedly not so good for up and coming singers who would record once and then never get invited to a gig again (at least, that was the fear at the time). When cassette decks came out there was gnashing of teeth about piracy because now people could copy songs without permission from the rights-holders. As the song goes, video killed the radio star. Or did it? VCRs were also supposed to kill television, because no-one would bother watching ads when they can fast-forward them (same ludicrous criticism that TiVo later faced). CDs all-but killed magnetic tape, causing an upheaval in the industry. Except they soon became the new standard and RIAA goons claim that people should buy more of them. Talk about mixed messages. And now illegal downloads are savaging CDs (and for movies, DVDs), which is why few artists can sell CDs now and you rarely see them on store shelves. Oh, wait . . . The end of the music industry? Hell no. It's just progress and a realignment/readjustment of the industry to cope with new technologies. iTunes has sold billions upon billions of songs and videos. Fifty-five thousand people turned up to watch Eminem last night in Auckland. Lorde got a multi-million-dollar contract to write songs for other artists. Simon Cowell has so much money his face is more toxin than flesh. The music industry is still alive and kicking, and still immensely profitable. Hollywood ain't doing too badly either (if only because they've cottoned onto the fact that people will pay an extra five dollars to see a movie in 3D). So lighten up people. Illegal downloads are not going to destroy the music industry, the movie industry or the gaming industry; people still gladly pay $140 for the latest online shooter. Nor will they destroy the anime industry. In fact, in terms of sales volumes and number of shows made per season, the Japanese anime industry is doing extremely well right now, even better than it was during the bubble years of the 80s. In this golden age of bit-torrents offering 1080p fansubs and fanrips, people are still willing to buy anime (and in increasingly large numbers at that). Last edited by dtm42 on Sun Feb 16, 2014 12:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animehermit
 Posts: 964 Location: The Argama |
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I would say that Crunchyroll and netflix have dropped the amount I actually pirate anything, let alone anime, to almost nothing.
I pirate some OOP or unlicensed stuff, or stuff which is available but isn't correctly translated sometimes. It's more convenient, it's cheap as hell and the quality is nearly as good a blu-ray. I have no reason to even buy anime anymore. Aside from a few choice series, everything is available online and will continue to be so for a long time. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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If I have no problems streaming or browsing from sites besides FUNi and CR, wouldn't they be the cause of the issues? My ISP seems to be just fine if it can handle literally any other browsing/streaming/gaming needs that I have(which are actually pretty significant). I'm not going to pretend that I know what is going on on their side of things, but both companies have already released statements and contacted a lot of subscribers acknowledging that they are at fault and that they are looking into solutions. CR said they were probably going to have a fix sometime during Q1, but I'm not holding my breath. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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That's a fair point. We do tend to say that. Although as you said, it seems like there is also then a key component there of passing it off as your own idea. The closest analogy to piracy to me would be getting payed (or rather not getting payed) for work you've done. If I agree to do some work for my neighbor for $20, and then afterwards he refuses to pay me, I wouldn't say he "stole" $20 from me. I'd say he owes me $20. I'd say he didn't pay me when he should have. And that may well be just as bad. But unless he actually goes into my house and takes away $20 that he find there, I wouldn't say he stole my money. It just doesn't seem correct.
Yeah, sure. That's probably true, especially in the age of legal streaming. But my point would be that I don't see any need to take a black and white stance here. Why be against "piracy" because its harmful "overall" instead of just being against "piracy when it is harmful"? If somebody eschews legal streams, refuses to buy any of the shows they like, and otherwise is a detriment to the industry...yeah. I'm against that. But on the other hand, I don't see any reason to condemn instances of piracy that aren't detrimental. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6583 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Hyouge Mono actually got released on Blu-ray in Japan? I doubt they would have an English sub, though, which kind of makes buying it moot, even if the price you mention isn't enough of a barrier. Edit: just found it on Amazon JP; looks like they're selling it in three volumes at about Y28,000 per volume, which would be over AU$900 for the series. That's a pity. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24142 |
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@ ikc - although it may appear differently, my purpose in this thread isn't to argue against piracy. That truly is a waste of breath. Really, my only reason for being here is that, conceptually, there is no reason not to recognize copyright infringement as "a form of" theft. Just like plagiarism is "a form of" theft. Just like in your example of doing work and not getting paid. That is a breach of contract. A breach of contract where someone legally owes you money and doesn't pay is "a form of" theft.
When a product is legally available to you and you knowingly choose to obtain it illegally that is "a form of" theft. When you illegally obtain a product and distribute it for profit that is "a form of" theft. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6583 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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You've missed the point that ThisJustThis is trying to make. I read them as arguing that points 1 & 2 can be addressed by the content creators without persecuting the consumers, whereas point 3 requires an education campaign. They aren't justifying the behaviour of the consumers. |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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You don't see the contradiction here? Like, not even a little bit? |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Persecuting the consumers? If the copyright holders should somehow manage to stop the illegal distribution of their products you would consider that to be persecuting the consumers? |
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JonLa
Posts: 55 |
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Of course there's no clear alternative way for creators to get paid yet. And that's what we all want, right? We get bogged down in the different arguments but ultimately what we want is for artists to be able to create anime/manga/music/film/tv/books that we like, and for them to be able to do that, rather than have to get boring regular jobs like us poor schmos.
Patronage has been mentioned but that didn't really work that well in the 18th century - it didn't foster innovation and tends to produce work that is formulaic or designed to flatter the patron. How does a new artist make money if nobody buys music/film/books? Live performances never used to make much money for the mid-list bands - they were promotions to sell the cd/vinyl. There are lots of exciting and interesting new ways like kickstarter and the like, but even then you have to have some previous evidence of good creations to get support? Surely that's the interesting discussion to have? |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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The core of anime buyers in Japan is so small, but also so responsible for the anime industry's income, that we have already reached this point. ...I can only think that those in the anime industry treat the deluge of lolicon/"wincest"/neet-glorification shows that they have to churn out with the same revulsion that Balalaika had when she had to review pornography for publication in Black Lagoon. "Though it is not the right move to make artistically it is, however, the right move to make FINANCIALLY"<- Nathan Explosion |
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L stole my cookie!
Posts: 76 |
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I am completely with you on this. I hate it when I have to resort to the pirate streaming sites just to watch something that isn't legally available! I'm stuck halfway into season 4 of Keroro gunsou because not even the pirate streaming sites have the rest. I even tried youtube but it seems that most of it got removed. I really want somebody to buy the license to it From Funi so we can have it on DVD again. |
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