Forum - View topicAnswerman - The Return of Answerman (And Why Companies Bother to Take Down Piracy Websites)
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2658 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I was wondering which Manga Entertainment Jerome was coming from, but the sight of that one word confirmed to me that we have ourselves a Manga UK alum! (I also verified it by looking him up online) Honestly, I think it's really cool that the new Answerman has experience from a different region than North America, and I hope people start asking some questions that allow Jerome to dig into his Manga UK experience more, as I think it'd help give him a unique style compared to the likes of Zac, Brian, Justin, Kim & the others before him. Anyway, welcome Jerome! |
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Vanadise
 Posts: 529 |
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Welcome to the column!
Heck, it's been a thing for at least 25 years. I remember getting digital fansubs of Slayers TRY in 320x240 resolution RealVideo files back as a college freshman. Those were the good old days, back when you could barely even tell what the background was supposed to look like because everything was so heavily compressed. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1242 |
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I think it's more that 15 years ago, Crunchyroll, a streaming pirate site (and pressure from similar sites), very directly changed the primary business model. Even though digital downloads existed for a much longer time, they didn't result in the whole industry switching to that.
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 755 Location: North America |
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An important difference is (except for a few countries due to off-topic geopolitical reasons) while it is generally illegal to re-stream licensed content without permission and often also to download licensed content without permission, there is no legal prohibition to just watching the illegally streamed content. The article fails to mention one area where the pirates beat out the paid subscription services is the pirates often have comment sections that have "relaxed" moderation that allows for off-topic banter. While some certainly oppose this as it leads to "private conversations in public", opinions that everyone may not find appealing and therefore does not create a "safe space", it does allow for natural community building - something Crunchyroll just recently killed off. |
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RupanSansei
 Posts: 94 |
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seeing Answerman come back is making me cry tears ofjoy.
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igiari21
Posts: 40 |
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Welcome, I look forward to reading this. Answerman columns historically have been a wellspring of interesting insight for the anime obsessed and can't wait to see how your experience in the biz translates to talking about the nitty gritty.
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1120 Location: Puget Sound |
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Crunchyroll's forums were dead years before they took the mummified corpse offline. And ANN's aren't looking too healthy compared to what they were ten years ago. Generally, across the entire web, discussion forums are dying. Mostly I suspect because of the ever increasing number of people who can't fathom a world that exists outside the walled garden of a mobile app. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13613 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I guess it depends on how we define "discussion forums" because I see Reddit as being a discussion forum. |
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 755 Location: North America |
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Yes, writing, formatting, and editing a comment on a mobile phone or even a tablet is a nightmare compared to using a proper computer and keyboard. |
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Flash33
 Posts: 67 Location: Florida |
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Something else important to note about piracy sites is that often they have a wider range of shows available (both old and new) than sites you have to pay a subscription for (usually in both sub and dub), and usually shows don't get removed from a pirate sites catalogue unless they're forced to via a DMCA attack. Why pay $20 a month for an inferior product when I can just use a superior one for free?
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alabamabeachmouse
Posts: 15 |
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I view reddit as social media.because the format there encourages karma farming and engagement bait just like X/twitter, tiktok, and every others ocial media platform that encourages that kind of posting style. none of those are good for actually discussions and building relationships.. I only use X for browsing Japanese art accounts and news. I'll always prefer forums and chatrooms. 4chan is still very active for anime-based stuff and I use retro achievements specifically for retro games. Discord is pretty popular as well and I've found a lot of communities there mainly surrounding specific streamers or topics. I tend to stay away form the ones that are like 10,000+ people though since there's no real community there and only use those for like support/help with a game or something. A lot of forums are not as active as they once were like GameFAQs and others I used to go to so it's better to find a smaller community and enjoy the people there. As far as piracy goes I'm a boomer who still uses torrents and prefer to download actual files to archive and catalog rather than streaming on pirate sites but most of the younger people don't seem to know how to do that if it's not on an App |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14884 |
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Yeah, a lot of people just do stuff on their smartphones - which they have on all the time everywhere they go, and it's always online obviously (it wouldn't be a smartphone otherwise), and can take pictures and videos and instantly post it But also, discussions have moved out of web forums onto social media like Twitter and Tiktok So if ya want people commenting, ya have to have an app, like Reddit and Discord and Youtube and Twitch |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 788 |
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Welcome, Jerome!
I'm so happy to see Answerman back. It's been sorely missed and I'm looking forward to your many wisdoms. Will the column be coming out with a scheduled regularity or as an intermittent treat now and then? Regardless, I'll be looking forward to the next one. @Vanadise: Your Slayers Try memory reminded me of how I watched Escaflowne the first time circa 2000. The entirety of the series was on two CD-Rs, so you know the quality was great. (And yes, I did buy the Bandai DVDs later) |
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Fluwm
 Posts: 994 |
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Delightful to seen Answerman return!
Goddamn. Felt that one in my bones. Anyway, some thoughts on the conversation: It's deeply worrisome how these media corporations conflate "password-sharing" with "piracy." The two are not the same same, and I can't help but think cracking down on the former is helping to perpetuate the latter. What makes legal media platforms competitive with illegal alternatives is, largely, simple convenience. The less convenient a platform becomes, the more people are going to turn to privacy. And also: "Forums" are social media. Any online platform used to communicate with other people? Social media. Discord is social media. Reddit is social media. The ANN forums are social media. The issues at play here are not, "People are abandoning older discussion platforms in favor of social media," so much as "a small number of tech corporations have monopolized the social media space." And also also: I'm gonna have to happily endorse and enthusiastically recommend that everyone in the 90s pirate Slayers and Escaflowne. Sounds pretty rad time, if you ask me. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2507 |
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I think the distinction most folks are worried about is more like "medium/long-form content social media with limited/no algorithmic curation of who/what you see" versus "short-form content social media with aggressive algorithmic curation", with folks using "social media" as short-hand for the latter. |
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