Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is It Ethical To Import Anime From Other Countries?
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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The only moral significance to someone in the UK or Australia importing a US release lies in the counterfactual loss of a sale on the part of a local company, had they licensed the title in question. An argument may proceed that this counterfactual loss is a pro tanto impediment to the local company becoming able to license such titles with the wherewithal of their bigger US counterparts, causing the former to lose revenue that is proportionally dearer to them. The conclusion would be that importing such titles is pro tanto morally harmful on the consumer's part.
Of course, such an argument would become complicated by the matter of market size. Being a UK anime fan is like enjoying anime with a low-pass popularity filter applied. Below a certain degree of accessibility, a show simply lacks the market for a license to be tenable. Indeed, the Utena TV series has never been licensed here. This being so, if one can discretionarily recognise which titles are never going to be licensed locally, then one may import them from the US, safe in the understanding that no counterfactual local sale is being lost, and thereby that no harm by the above conception is being committed. This being so, we can restrict the scope of the moral issue at hand to cases of anime that enjoy an indeterminate degree of popularity. Obviously, one should wait for a local release of an anime with a broad appeal, and so too should one unhesitatingly import niche titles, but the liminal cases of US-licensed titles that could foreseeably receive a local release, if only the local market would show sufficient patience for them to be licensed, are worthy of further consideration. In resolving such cases, we might demand a degree of exceptionalism for local companies on account of their tighter operating revenues and their services rendered to the local community, which is the broadly consequentialist approach, or we may alternatively make some appeal to our freedom as consumers and opt for the readily available imports, which is more of a deontological stance. My own views waver on this matter. Sometimes my concerns lie more with our industrial friends at Manga/Animatsu, and other times I have more sympathy for fellow fans being inconvenienced by a mere accident of geography. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16961 |
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I actually wasn't arguing ethics and morality over consumer goods. I clearly said I was not saying one way or another my opinion on the matter. I was simply pointing out to nagpo that his assumption of the question being nonsensical was false. That the ethics of importing discs does in fact matter to some. I never once said I was actually part of that group. The ethics also becomes more of an issue for those items that are not legitimately licensed products. |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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This is not true. Funimation put Gosick out in a Bluray/DVD combo pack. |
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Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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Exactly. Reason (1) above is why I ordered a Region B BD of Roujin Z from the UK, and why I might do the same for Perfect Blue in the near future. Reason (2) was--at the time--why I did the same for Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions, on BD specifically. (Reason (4) was also part of the equation for cour 2.) And I'd add a (5) to DJStarstryker's list: - It was available in your region, but it's been OOP for years, and is now either impossible to find and/or hideously expensive. Which is why I got the German BD of Interstella 5555. If I make sure that a foreign disk is properly licensed, Amazon UK is my friend. |
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Tripple-A
 Posts: 383 Location: Hamburg, Germany |
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As if I care if the anime market goes down in Germany, in fact I would like to see it go down.
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John Thacker
Posts: 1008 |
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The slightly more interesting moral and ethical argument regards (as Kirtsaeng did, being about Thai market versions of textbooks) importing cheaper editions produced for a lower income market. A seller of a good which is expensive to initially produce but cheap to replicate may often engage in price discrimination, and offer cheaper versions for less wealthy markets. However, if extensive importation by the wealthier countries occur, then the response may be to only offer the product at the higher or an intermediate price, making those in poorer countries worse off but those in wealthier countries better off. The Supreme Court of the US ruled that it was not a legal issue (Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Scalia dissented), but that is indeed a bit separate from ethical concerns.
Note that Japan is an odd exception because personal disposable income is lower than the US but the typical prices are higher, so the analysis doesn't entirely follow. None of this applies to the case where something is simply not offered. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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If we are going to talk ethics, I think this is not the question, rather, "It is ethical for japanese companies to cripple overseas releases?". Famous cases like the Sankarea release that used the TV broadcast instead of the disc (and error corrected) release. This is not limited to japanese companies, case in point, here in latin america The beast and the boy was only released on DVD (probably because funimation deemed to recent) while all other Hosoda's film are at the moment available in bluray from a local distributor. Also, all the DBZ movies are released locally in blu-ray/dvd, but without the original japanese audio (only the latino spanish dub).
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4755 |
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Amen to that. I was going to say that I'd spin this question in the opposite direction: I've recently gone on quite the importing spree from the UK and Australia, not only to pull an end-around on Aniplex's nonsense, but also to pick up several titles that for whatever reason haven't been licensed here.
Don't sell your region short; the UK has several prominent series/movies I've imported that are nowhere to be seen over here. You guys made out far better with Satoshi Kon's works than we did (a BD of Perfect Blue, a dubbed Millennium Actress, Paranoia Agent still in-print), you got a proper BD release of Metropolis, and you have that nice BD copy of the 1997 Berserk series. That's not even mentioning the Anime Limited releases that go for far less than their Aniplex of America counterparts. Hell, depending on the shows you like, in some respect you guys are doing better than we are. |
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ScruffyKiwi
 Posts: 702 Location: New Zealand |
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That depends to a large extent on the country you are importing it into. New Zealand for instance has "parallel importing" legislation that means it is perfectly legal to import legally purchased goods from another country and do what you like with it, including on-selling it. Other countries do not have the same protections. For instance in the USA an individual was prosecuted for legally purchasing textbooks in India, importing them into the USA and then selling them at a lower price than the domestic publishers (this would be perfectly legal in NZ). I have in the past imported a fair amount of anime from USA to NZ (via Rightstuf) and the only time I was hit with an issue was when I imported Madoka. Half way through restrictions of selling overseas were put in place by Rightstuf, although they did sell me the final volumes. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2038 Location: australia |
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legality comes into stuff like rating
for example, new zealand refuses to classify a few anime, thus making them illegal in the country. if a new zealander ships that title from, say, australia, theoretically that's illegal and that show is a contraband item. in terms of exporting as a moral thing, well, it's always good to support your local business, but sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do. So long as you're not buying some illegal bootleg from some dodgy foreign shop and you're not buying contraband, it's ok. the only other issue is if the Japanese company has put a strict rule in place regarding the licensor and whether they're allowed to sell it outside a certain territory, but, well, that's the licensor's issue, not yours. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Yeah, you also have to be careful when importing from a US perspective as to whether you'll get a censored copy of a show or not. A number of hentai have been released in Germany with regular 18 or even 16 ratings on Amazon, which is a good sign they've been heavily censored (uncensored hentai releases are an under-the-shelf unique restriction/classification thing). There's also the issue of Paranoia Agent. The UK has by far the most affordable release of the show at the moment...but it's been cut by eighty seconds for a scene of a child attempting suicide in one episode that the BBFC felt adult anime fans were too stupid to handle. 
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2894 |
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TL;DR addendum to the answer, it's much better than pirating.
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ScruffyKiwi
Posts: 702 Location: New Zealand |
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It has to be "refused classification" to be contraband. For example I imported "Garden of Sinners" from Australia. That was rated MA 15+ in Aussie but was not submitted for classification in NZ so has no rating. The only "Anime" I can think of that has been refused classification in NZ is some lolicon Hentai and an Excel Saga OVA spinoff for having underage lesbian sex. |
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harminia
Posts: 2038 Location: australia |
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That's what I said:
There have been shows that have been refused rating that aren't hentai. A season of High School DxD was refused rating. But yes, there are also shows that just don't get submitted, as anything over MA15+ in Australia is contentious for rating in NZ. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2486 |
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This 'frankly it's none of our business' sentiment is something I have a hard time getting behind. These are businesses, not people; they need privacy only to the extent that it is a significant competitive advantage. Keeping consumers carefully informed about the structure of business is incredibly important to maintaining a healthy business ecology and business-consumer relationship; I don't buy at all that it's "none of our business." |
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