Forum - View topicOpen Letter from GDH International's Arthur Smith
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Cartoon Jay
 Posts: 8 Location: Boston |
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DVD sales are dramaticaly slowing down. DVD sales hit a high of a little over 17 billion in 2006. From 98 to 04 growth over each previous year was in double digits. but growth has slowed to 2% per year for from 2005-2007. This is not my opinion, this is the market. When I said "people" it was general term used to refer to the consumers driving the market. I'm sorry you chose to take it as a personal insult. The market is shifting. It's reality, and it needs to be dealt with. |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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Oh boy. Here we go again.
Look: Case in point. Downloading is destroying the industry. Why is that? Because, by now, more people are less likely to put money on anime titles than before. News Flash: The Japanese anime industry is suffering. Some people are unable to get good homes and support themselves; even though they're in a "job" to create the eye-heroin for you. For people to say; "there's nothing we can do about illegal downloading" when all they need to do is a little more self-policing... Keep people from uploading shows licensed for release in America, at the very least. Why is Nightshift Nurse Kranke 3 being uploaded when Adult Source Media (and Critical Mass) threatened to send the lawyer dogs toward said uploaders? You know, though: I'm glad it's coming from the head of GDH and not the head of Bandai Visual USA. I'm about ready to do a boycott on the latter. And personally; the last thing I want to see is a new era where all types of anime are released quickly with no English dubbing. We came a long way from the era where parody-creators made fun of the young American anime industry. Our people here are not makers of "shitty products" (as proven when they kicked China's behind for trying to sell them poisoned toys and crappy products). Finally; as I e-mailed GDH. I told them what anime I liked and the type of anime I don't like. (I just bought the Trinity Blood boxset and am just saddened that I couldn't find any hentai doujins based on the show.) I told them that they need to create less crappy anime that's poorly plotted and includes even one spineless wimp. I said that they should stop catering to society's outcasts and aim towards the top in order to succeed. "Shonen anime is doing well on (satellite / cable) TV." Manga is doing better than anime. "Haruhi's Melancholy" didn't make the top 10 on Videoscan. (And I have high doubts that the fellow YouTube-fodder "Lucky Star" will do better.) More shows that have little-to-zero wimpering? I hope so. |
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tygerchickchibi
 Posts: 1474 |
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Your statement is rather misleading, Jay. >.>
Please show links of where you got the info from. Not to be a pain, just curious. Because as you can tell, people still want DVDs. I'll have to agree with Xenos. burning onto DVD-R isn't the same as owning an original copy. I do know, some people take time and get fansub made DVD covers off the net, print them out and use them as their own, though... Last edited by tygerchickchibi on Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:22 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jayntampa
Posts: 12 |
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If Anime companies truly wanted to be progressive, they'd provide the fansubbers with slightly lower quality copies of their shows including commercials, with the requirement that the commercials not be cut -- the anime companies should track the torrent downloads and charge companies for the advertising in each torrent share.
People would get the show out in the "cool" fashion, advertisers would get to direct contact with niche markets, anime companies would find an additional stream of revenue, and, if the show was good, people would buy the high quality DVD/HD format retail releases. Talk about win/win. |
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Cartoon Jay
Posts: 8 Location: Boston |
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I got my info from a quick search in MIT's Vera electronic Journals Database. The one article I can find that's accessible online is in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/technology/13disc.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss I am in no way claiming that no one wants DVDs, but the trends are pretty clear that the market is shifting. Last edited by Cartoon Jay on Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tygerchickchibi
Posts: 1474 |
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Thanks for the links.
o.o hmm...but this is only with American DVDs, right? Last edited by tygerchickchibi on Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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It wouldn't be fan subbing. Fan subbing is a thing of the past. Now it kills the industry instead. If anything they might hire some to be part of a new line of early and legal digital downloads. They wouldn't be fan subs, they'd be coming from the company itself which hires fans to do quicker translations and subtitles. They'd be subtitled digital online releases by the company. Ads within them would be nice. Hopefully you'll be able to fast forward, but they need to be there to help cut down the price. |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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I wonder if you were there during the "Shin Bible Black" ruckus: Milky Label ordered whoever licensed their work (which was Kitty Media Blasters at the time) to release the first two episodes of this adult anime with no Japanese dialogue. A crapstorm erupted. When it was officially released to English speakers, there was a file of the two episodes floating around the web that featured the original Japanese, the English, and the uncensored shows. So then episodes 3-4 of Shin Bible Black came out; said 3rd episode was of low quality visually and looked like it was done in South Korea. Another crapstorm erupted (yet I'm thinking that it's getback from Milky). We, in the US, might not get to see episodes 5-6 of Shin Bible Black uncensored. Lesson for today, folks: The uploaders will slice out the commercials. We will get more badly-done 30-minute commercials like Lucky Star. The anime fans and the outer-Japan anime industry will lose. Evidentally, the "fan" -subbers and the uploaders will lose. Everyone loses. |
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tissuebubble
Posts: 49 |
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I don't know if people want a DVD per se. I think people want to watch a movie at full quality on their TVs. They might use On Demand, Netflix, whatever. There are people who would watch a 700 megabyte movie but most people like sitting back and watching it on their home theatre system. And until full quality movies can be downloaded and burned I don't see DVDs being in trouble really. Look, even iTunes has had trouble selling video. It just isn't matured yet. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10454 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Actually, no, you're wrong. Most anime released in North America has the Japanese audio with subtitles on the DVD. There's no real interpretation that can be made here. Perhaps most of the anime you watch is dub only, but most of the anime SKUs released in North America aren't. Go to our release list an count them if you don't believe me. Sorry Irish Harem Otaku, you were very wrong in making this statement. If there's some sort of qualifier that changes the way your statement should be interpreted, you failed to mention it. -t |
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crilix
Posts: 208 |
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When faced with utter extinction the industry will budge in the right direction, but until then I don't want to hear a word about fansubbing hurting the industry, when the industry is obviously hurting themselves by not doing what they should. I would be ashamed in your position to blame my failure on a couple hundred broke highschool and college students, NEET and hikikomori, with nothing better to do than to subtitle anime all day. You can beat these guys in their game, you have every resource at your disposal to do that, so just do it! ... or is the U.S. market always going to be that bastard child on whom the Japanese will constantly point fingers at because he smells, when in fact it doesn't have a bath to clean himself up? |
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Cartoon Jay
Posts: 8 Location: Boston |
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Yeah. That's where I shop, and where Arthur Smith does a lot of business. I don't have the time to do a comprehensive report on DVD sales in all markets world wide for you... sorry 
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Ruremi
 Posts: 60 |
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I agree with this totally. That is definitely the real reasons behind the decline in DVD sales. The English Death Note DVD 1 is already available for download. Mostly (if not) Every show that has been licensed can be found for download right now without paying. |
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Hanyuu
Posts: 2 |
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Just the same way that hardcore downloaders are going to never admit that fansubs are hurting the industry, it's unlikely that the CEO of Toei or any other company would ever come down to show any hard evidence. Maybe it's because of privacy issues or for some other myriad of reasons, but some proof of any kind would be a lot more convincing than just repeatedly saying that they're losing money. So in the end, you have 2 sides of the same coin; both sides are presenting arguments with partially applicable claims while neither has no evidence to back up what they're saying or isn't willing to present it. You also have to consider the agenda of the person who is tossing out the "facts". A letter from a President of a company who gets hurt from fansubs has a motive to write what he's writing. He also has a motive to present the facts the way he's presenting it. While it's understandable that the people whose paychecks are directly tied to this issue are the most adamant about it, it is still helpful to have some proof to back up what you're saying. I don't doubt Smith has authority to talk about this issue, but having implied authority from your position still doesn't give you the freedom to toss out bits of information without some evidence to back it up. Had Smith not been so focused on presenting his argument using the words FACTS in capitalized letters, I probably would've been more lenient about the lack of references. Also, towards the end of his letter, about the tone Smith implied about the future of the anime industry. It sounded pretty similar to the way environmentalists keep harping about how global warming is going to kill us all tomorrow. The day that anime becomes a completely non-profitable market and all the writers, creators, voice actors, animators, manga authors, and the industry execs all stop and walk out the door is the day that the everyone decides they don't like having money anymore. |
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Killtheshrew
 Posts: 118 |
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In my opinion it is just far, far too easy to download the fansub for free, in DVD quality and usually a whole year before the release of a R1/2 DVD, until this fact changes people will always download fansubs, as long as it is possible to freely download to your hearts content with no fear of consequence then nothing will change. Even if it was possible to watch or buy each episode for a small fee from a licenced website/server etc. I can't help but feel you will still find a majority that will opt for the completely free fansub instead, if people feel that they are safe to do so then they will... it's a damn shame but it's so bloody true. I've always liked the fact that anime can be a hard thing to come by legally where I live, I am always happy and willing to have a look about for an anime I want and I've always seen it as perfectly feasible to have to sell my left testicle for an overpriced DVD that I had to travel up and down the country to find and the reason why... I am a very sad individual, I enjoy having my secret little joy that most of my mates would see as a childs hobby... I've made my peace with that but I know that most people would rather spend their hard earnt cash on other things other than a plastic disc in a plastic case with a heafty price tag on the front... I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, rather off topic I feel... sorry.... the top part was my main concern.
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