Forum - View topicComics and Digital Piracy
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I don't see how the quote about why Big Windup! can be taken as aggressive and accusatory. It sounds like fact to me. They couldn't buy the next season because enough people here didn't buy. It's how things go.
Did you watch it illegally and then refuse to buy it? Well, it's not solely your fault even in that case. It's a group, a certain section of the audience, that's at fault; the ones who refused. I'd only got involved some time after Funimation decided they wouldn't get the next season. I watched some legal streams and then bought, but had never paid attention to the series before. Really, who can hold the blame for not licensing the second season? Not Funimation, who couldn't get the sales. Maybe the Japanese publisher and miscellaneous production stuff hold some of it, as they probably were the root cause that made BW expensive to produce. But the audience itself was the one who wouldn't buy. It's the same reason why manga series get dropped in the middle of their run. I understand if you don't want to or can't spend the money on BW, especially if it's only a so-so series to you, but we can't sit around and say the audience isn't at fault for any of it. EDIT: Oh, and I guess I should mention that Big Windup! is available for around 30 dollars. It'll be released in August. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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Well, I don't read manga, so I'll remove this element. As for my uses of a fansub site, there are 4. Two were due to my impatience (and are now DVDs in my collection). One was spawned by a figure design but yet the series has never been released here. The latter was the first episode to a controversial series which will never see the light of day as a release. What's this prove? Nothing.
The reviews we often see aren't usually formed by obtaining the material illegally either. What's this prove? Nothing.
(I did read your reply, but I clipped it to save an electric tree) This statement speaks volumes because cost and value are not the same thing. Trying to explain this causes arguments, so to keep this thread on track, I fully understand why you don't regret your purchase. 
Very true, but this still doesn't explain why old rules are being used by sellers while new rules are being used by consumers.
I interpret this statement as: -The value of anime is very high. This is proven as many want to consume it. -There is no correlation between the value of anime and a worker's compensation. These can be related but are not related. -People aren't defending their desire to read anime for free. -The right of the creator is a different issue. The publisher relates to the creator and the consumer relates to the publisher. Rarely does the consumer relate to the creator. Given this, it is not acceptable to put the rights of creators in line with consumer demand. The creator gets paid by the publisher who gets paid by the consumer. When the publisher fails to sell its products to those consumers, it is not beneficial or prudent to blame piracy for its failure as a seller. If the question was to be rhetorical, let me know and I'll edit out my answers before they cause a fire due to people forgetting these are just my opinions. |
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Sunday Silence
 Posts: 2047 |
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Most people, when asked about the RIAA hate, will list Napster as one of the big reasons. Top 3 at best. Lemme ask you a question: Can you at least name one of the defendants without going to Wikipedia or law.com? Bonus points if you can name one where the RIAA had a questionable reason to why they were suing them. Betcha $1 you can't without doing a quick search on Wikipedia.
Which thankfully the ISP's refuse to implement. Remember when AT&T blocked 4chan? You don't rile up your customer base who are capable at best taking their business elsewhere and at worse, crashing your entire system with a DOS attack. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Some of the ANN Staff do speak/read Japanese (or have in the past). They also limit their "illegal activity" for review purposes to a couple eps which most I know would have no real issue with. I still fail to see why fansub users have to watch the entire series in the name of deciding whether they like the series or not.
Then I'm not sure you fully understood the statement. Basically it's that different people put their value in different places & we all have to decide what we're willing to pay, but the argument that it's ok to watch fansubs because the seller is asking too much for the anime is completely wrong. Because someone who owed me money failed to pay me before CCI, I had less cash this year than I normally would so I was more discerning on my purchases (I went for Sebastian for $28, but passed on Ciel for $23 whereas had I more cash I'd have likely picked Ciel up). You do not steal Ciel because you think the price is too expensive. You just walk away. Because of the unique situation of visual media, one has the ability to view it without depriving the owner of the original, yet you are depriving the owner of the compensation s/he rightfully expects from the viewing of this product. It's like the freak show at the carny-once you've seen it, the value is "used" so by sneaking in, the carny retains the items, but they have lost your viewing compensation. Fansubs "steal" the use of the product from the copyright owner to allow what would otherwise be the consumer buy now really isn't because the fansub user isn't really a customer of the seller.
But the consumers shouldn't be forcing new rules on them. It option has always been the seller's way or the highway so if the consumer doesn't want to play by the seller's rules, the consumer walks away & the seller scratches his/her head over how to sell more product. What fansubs does is push the right of the consumer to a place it has never really existed in this world short of riots where people are running around grabbing whatever they want.
Wrong. The value of an item is set by the seller. If the price is too high, the seller loses money, but too low & the seller loses potential profit so optimally the product needs to be priced at a level to produce a satisfactory profit at a price that the consumer will spend. What they have been doing at the supermarket is keeping prices relatively the same (I happened to find some newspapers in my daughter's closet she'd grabbed for a school project 5 yrs ago & left the rest & it's amazing the prices are pretty much the same as now) but they often reduce the size of the product. One used to buy a 1 lb bag of candy which is now 12 or 14 oz. Anime, on the other hand has come way, way down, I paid $70 each on sale for Slayers & Slayers Next when CPM held the license. Something most of the anime companies have fone for years is charging a premium for the first release, but offer it for less a couple years later so if the consumer is willing to wait, one can get it for less. (Movies so this also. If you have to have the movie the week it comes out on dvd, you'll pay more than if you wait a year) Funi has their SAVE line for this now.
We aren't talking about a worker. We're talking about the creator & publisher. Cost does enter the fansub argument thus one has to assume it is part of the argument. "I'm a high school student! I don't have any money/enough money to buy all the stuff I want to see" has popped up on too many of these threads.
??? The creator creates a prpduct the consumer wants. The publisher is the middleman who delievers it, but the consumer only buys the product if the consumer wants it, often in relationto the creator. This is why Hollywood casts certain actors in roles. They may not be the perfect actor for the role, but they potentially represent the sale of a certain number of tickets. I want to see a band play, I buy the ticket with the understanding the band gets a cut of the ticket as does the promoter & the hall. Same for plays. Same for books. I understand the more books a writer sells, the better deal the writer can make for the next book. There was a time I was really into Patterson because he is a good author. I bought paperbacks because I was a high school student, but still I understood the author received some sort of compensation for the book I purchased. |
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Metanomaly
Posts: 107 |
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Sure, but the other side of the coin for getting legal alternatives to work is to crack down on infringing distributors. Without that (that is, making it sufficiently difficult/"dangerous" to get things for free), past legal alternatives have crumbled, because they can't offer a product at a price that is sufficient to keep the operation going, much less pull in a profit. You definitely need both. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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Easily solved. Simultaneous releases to beat the fanscans to the punch. Also offer a range of services from digital downloads to on-print demand. In before "That not gonna work!!!" |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Maybe in your world, but it's not as easy as you think. It's a bigger scale than local vs national news. Local's great on last minute in your town, but national hits more areas. You're suggesting going further than that to push for WORLD coverage. That is mindboggling. Most tv series seem to fly be the seat of their pants, finishing just in time to be aired. You're adding a layer of scripting into that already tight schedule. Yeah, we all love anime, but in the scheme of things, is it worth the money for such an investment? I dare say there are fans in Japan of Supernatural who would love to see it simulcast. I know I subscribed to a British magazine for a couple years & back then Angel, Charmed & Buffy ran 6 months in England after their airdate in the US & fans there always seemed to wish there could be no lag. I ran into a couple of guys from Ireland in line to get Steve Blum's autograph at CCI who said they came out this year since it was Smallville's last season & they wanted to be at the last panel (I told them I expect there will be a panel next year to sell the dvds) We may be there someday, but realistically right now there are bigger problems in America & in Japan than airing a program simutaneously in every country of the world. You remind me of the calls I took back in the late 1980's as a general information operator for a local government when the people would freak out when I told them if they want their birth certificate, they would have to contact the government of the place they were born in. San Diego does not maintain records for births in Chigaco, etc. Yes, the internet has made ordering those records easier, but still, the last time I checked one had to still go through that local government records branch to obtain that record. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Saying that is not a solution. Working out how to do it in a way that generates sufficient revenue to make it worth the trouble ... and if it has backlash against existing income streams, also generating sufficient revenue to compensate for those lost income streams ... that would be a solution. And since the reality of viable business models is that they are normally somewhere in the messy middle instead of close to an ideal, some manga distributed within a week of Japanese publication and some manga able to be distributed digitally that are not viable to license for a press run is likely to be part of a viable business model ... ... but anything approaching across the board simultaneous online publishing in multiple languages is not going to be driven by the 20% int'l licensing part of the market ... if it ever happens its going to be driven by the 80% domestic part of the market. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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Whats your ideas then? Before I rip into yours, you bring your game to the table. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Nothing, anime and manga are doomed as a sellable object in America. Nobody wants to pay for it, anime and manga have no value it's just something they read/watch burn it on a DVD, then throw it in some closet.
You can't make the sufficient revenue to make a profit. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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I still fail to see why we have to purchase an entire series to decide whether or not we like it. What if we don't?
I don't believe the argument is wrong because the statement is combining two completely different economic factors. Refusing to buy DVDs has nothing to do with wanting to consume animation. Unfortunately, this fact is lost on many.
Really think if all the piracy sites were shut down tomorrow the anime industry will be better off? If anyone thought the answer "yes", then it's quite clear the global recession hasn't taught its lesson. The anime industry is using the exact same model to support itself and has already crashed once because of it.
I'd hate to think of the world if consumers didn't force the rules on businesses.
Doesn't this fit exactly what's going on now?
Since we disagree on this, we'll call a draw. However, I will continue to use its purpose where appropriate.
I put an emphasis in bold on the biggest factor in running any business. Why didn't you say "consumer has to spend"? After all, isn't this the same thing? We have to buy a box set in order to watch anime. We have to buy books in order to read manga. We have to buy CDs to listen to music. We have no choice in this market. More importantly, why does it take an illegal act for these industries to change?
This is an excuse to justify people buy in today's market and it's a strawman argument. Back in "the day", anime wasn't popular at all. In fact, it took the work of copyright infringement to bring anime into the US market. Yet now that fansubs are doing the infringing, it's wrong? *pulls out red card. Penalty! (bet you imagined Haruhi saying it, didn't you?) Those prices you paid back then was because there was no market for anime in the US (high demand = high price). It wasn't until piracy grabbed more and more titles that a few businesses sat up and took notice at a potential new market. Thus, the industry was born. But there was a problem: too many businesses saw the opportunity and when licenses were used to finance new productions, the bubble burst was inevitable. Take a look at those titles you own. Are those business who brought them to you still around? Chances are, they're not. Piracy didn't cause the bubble burst then and it's not the reason the industry is hurting today. That distinction goes to businesses who fail to sell a product people are willing to buy. I can not fathom why anyone has a problem with this but yet here we are.
This is called "windowing" and it's a model which should be outlawed, in my opinion. It's price fixing. There is absolutely no reason why every single anime company releases its products at the same price its competitors do. Why is Sentai Filmworks selling its titles at the exact same price point FUNimation does despite not having a dub? *pulls out red card. Penalty! When a license holder precludes a company from doing business in a market they know, this is a recipe for disaster. Now anime companies have no choice but to screw retailers over with this bullshit move and they're still doing it despite the drop in sales. Retailers have no choice but to lower prices to the point profit margins are so small, it's damn near worthless. Walmart told the movie industry to shove this plan where the sun doesn't shine because Walmart was tired of losing retail space for pennies on each sale. Listen to the podcast featuring Shawne (TRSI). Even with the Bargain Bin, things aren't looking so hot. I'm sure things get worse when retailers have to carry multiple copies of the same series with multiple price points. Hey, I wonder how those singles of Lucky Star are moving now that the full box set which sells for less than one single is on the market. Anyone want to answer this?
Aha! Proof these people don't want to work but capitalize on royalties for the rest of their lives! 
Yes, they are workers.
These people are irrelevant because they're not going to buy no matter what. Therefore, it's up to the business to target those who can.
The primary problem with the system. Now, before anyone gets upset, I don't see these as "greedy empires out to screw over artists". They're not greedy. They're just stupid. So stupid, they believe everything can be paid for using pixie dust and unicorn horns. In other words, they're responsible for the licensing system and it's this system which has destroyed every model it's ever been used on. Another name for the licensing system is the welfare system, which generally makes people cringe when they hear it. There's a reason for that. I present anyone the challenge to show me any welfare system that has ever sustained itself while costs increased and markets changed. The middlemen need to go. Today. I'm sorry so many people feel these people need to keep their jobs, but it's a necessary action in order to correct the market. The middlemen are compounding the problem because they take the profits of one production to pay for the production of another while hoping for another Golden Goose. This model has never worked. Instead, they should be work-for-hire entities. Artists would actually have to pay them to get their works distributed. The way it should be. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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I'm willing to pay for it, but at a price point and format that I want. I have the money on the table, show me the goods. |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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Yeah, but no one is going to make money giving it you for free. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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Y'know, some of the comments here remind me of this one particular Chaser's skit I saw once. The Chaser's War on Everything - Free Money "Hey, here is my money, take it!! Wait, you don't want it? But i'm giving it to you!! Why won't you take it? Is it because it was in a stripper's g-string?" |
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ZakuAce
 Posts: 525 Location: SE Wisconsin |
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That doesn't make any sense at all. |
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