Forum - View topicNEWS: Shueisha Requests Spanish Advertiser to Take Down Alleged Ads on Pirate Sites
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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Seriously, what year is it? You can't assess the loss of revenue this way! There's no way to know if people would have bought manga legally without those sites. This fallacy has been disproven repeatedly and the companies still go with it? There's need, IMO, of a critical piece on these issues. Piracy IS a problem, but these claims are ridiculous. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10012 Location: Virginia |
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@ximpalullaorg
Their attitude is that every time someone views their property they are entitled to money. Every one of those page views records someone viewing the property therefore they are entitled to the money. The fact that the people didn't intend to pay or couldn't pay is beside the point. Think of it like dining and dashing. The fact that you didn't intend to pay or didn't have the money doesn't change the fact that you owe the money. Heck, by the time they put it on the table you owe the money, doesn't matter if you ate it or not. Does this represent money they would have gotten if piracy wasn't available? No, probably not. However it does represent a valid point of view. |
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chronos02
Posts: 272 |
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A Spanish business? Can't we know who it was? Seems a bit sus without saying who it was... then again, I can see why the Spanish business maybe did this, and it's to capture buyers that are otherwise clueless that a certain title is available in their country! (who am I kidding, as if ads were that convenient, they likely only andvertised the shop itself and little more, not if the title reading was available to buy lol).
Oh, and as OP says, this calculation method is not accurate at all, it's akin to saying every player in a F2P gacha game will spend money, when reality is quite different. A general rule of thumb when calculating these numbers (and it is a rule of thumb that generally applies to these kinds of calculations, so of course it will not be a perfectly accurate calculation, but it will be vastly closer to reality than what these businesses apply) is that 90% of the revenue is provided by 10% of the consumers (in some cases, 99% comes from 1%). If we extrapolate it here, it means that only around 10% of the page views would generate 90% of the expected revenue, which is a far cry what what they are claiming these websites cost them. [list=]They are also not accounting for repeat page views from the same viewer Page views from bots Inaccurate tracking from these websites People without income that view these (children, teens, unemployed) Binge readers (they would never be able to afford reading so much if it cost money) Boredom readers (they read to pass time, would never actually buy the title) etc.[/list] In the end, since this is free, and as said before, it's likely that only around 10% of the real page reads would actually have paid to read the title (and this is without taking into account the repeat reads, bots, etc. it only takes into account actual people interested somewhat in the title! meaning that the calculation is being very generous in favor of the title owners!), so the actual potential earnings they lost amounts to 132,000,000,000 yen, or 895,156,476 USD (at today's exchange rate). This is still a very sizeable amount of income they could have generated, but even then, the calculation is very far from reality, since we also did not take into account other factors such as real interest over a title vs another (willingless to buy A vs B), and a plethora of other important factors (which are hard to obtain, and cost money to know as well). Oh, and I wonder if they even considered people that only buy things if they are discounted, or that they wait for such discounts? Because, maybe I am just biased thinking they would only apply the maximum price possible, but I don't think they applied this into their calculations. |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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I don't think it's valid. Aside certain exceptions, proving this stuff in court is almost impossible. And it's ridiculous. Maybe, maybe it's time to start again thinking about reducing the impact of piracy via non-stupid means, such as removing DRM, instead of chasing the windmills. |
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Predictabo
Posts: 13 |
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It's not a valid point of view because they knowingly use false numbers to prop up an argument that is incorrect at best and downright dangerous at worst. For example: - Some people torrent the things they've legally bought. This is done in order to avoid damaging/wearing out manga or to avoid all the wasted time from unskippable logos/legal stuff in BD/DVD. Other reasons might include a local release having a terrible video encode and so people pirate the superior Japanese release so they can actually enjoy the thing they bought. - Some people are digital hoarders and torrent things they never actually read or watch. So the food example becomes entirely inaccurate because they never consume the goods. It's just sitting there. They try to claim this is a lost sale but it's nonsense. - Some of these sites count page views PER PAGE. Meaning the 20 views are actually just a single reader. Also, those views go up when bots that scrape the internet access them. So when they make bold claims like "50,000 people stole our book!" it's actually more like 2,500 and many of them may be bots. Also people re-reading the same book. That's just a few examples. I could keep going. The point is they know their numbers are BS but they tout these high numbers despite making record breaking profits because they want their legal position to be stronger. They want to influence laws and politicians and get people on their side. And that's dishonest and manipulative. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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You are comparing hardware(food) with software(scanned images). You can't copy/paste hardware(food) without any extra cost as with software, unless your name is jesus and you are doing literal miracles. Don't be an enabler for the software lobby. |
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Jeff Bauersfeld
Posts: 109 |
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I would say a better analogy would be a restaurant thinking you owe them money if you eat a recreation of their dish by someone else. You don't. Now where I think the line is crossed is when people try to make money off of piracy. They should accept that this is someone else's creation, and they're not entitled to any money. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10012 Location: Virginia |
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Sorry I used a food analogy. It just muddies the water.
People it is called theft of services. There does not need to be anything physical transferred. If you engage the service of a lawyer, a doctor or even a whore they are entitled to payment for the time you took. These people used the time and money of a lot of people to create a manga or an anime or what ever. Unless they owner deliberately gives it away, they are entitled to money from anyone who obtains or views a copy. Try patching into television cable without paying and then when it is discovered trying to convince a judge that "nothing was taken from them". Since pirate sites do not usually willingly give information about views, it is obvious that a lot of estimates are going to be inflated. That doesn't change the fact that everyone who read that manga or viewed that anime on a pirate site owes money. It is not limited just to the ones who would have paid given no choice. Piracy is not ethical or just. I have some sympathy for those who pirate anime because it is not available in their area but none for those who just don't want to pay for it or watch a few advertisements. If you are going to pirate anime or manga that you could have bought, don't try to justify it, just acknowledge you are not a nice person and enjoy your ill gotten gains. |
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Predictabo
Posts: 13 |
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I see you disregarded my arguments entirely. There is no "theft of services" if someone legally BOUGHT the anime/manga in question but pirated it for other reasons. Those reasons can include: - Better translation - Better editing - Easier to read subtitles - Official digital manga has severe moire patterns while pirated release does not - Preferring to read digital instead of physical, many manga aren't available digitally - Better video quality or encoding - Less censorship due to local laws or overzealous licensing companies. Example: You can read/watch JoJo without all the stupid name changes. There is plenty of legitimate reasons for a legal customer to pirate. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3561 Location: Finland |
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I have a specific user case which sort of mixes that. As a light novel reader, there are some series I follow where, while the physical editions are available everywhere on various platforms(amazon, kobo, etc) the digital editions are region-blocked from my part of the world. Now, I don't want physical copies because they take too much space, cost more, aren't exactly mobile, and costs with shipping etc easily doubles the prices. So do I still bite the bullet, because I want to read them? No. I still read them. And use that money saved to buy other series mainly from places which are more user friendly, like j-novel(no drm, no region issues). So I guess that makes me a 'bad' person by your definition. 
Also, there's another case that sort of mixes it. I'm reading The Ryuo's Work Is Never Done!, available exclusively on BookWalker. Now BW's stuff is notoriously hard to rip, unless you OCR it. So what do I do? I buy the volumes on BW, and while I download those volumes to my BW app on my tablet, I'm always waiting until a pirated(OCR'd) version appears, and read that instead on my Kobo reader, like I'm doing right now with volume 16(released 25/10 on BW) of the series.... |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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...uh..what? It's not theft. It's unauthorized reproduction. An entirely different matter in copyright. "Theft" implies that the original "thing" is no longer available to the original owner. Which is not the case. I do not justify piracy. However, I do not accept companies that put DRM in their online reading services. I refuse to buy anything that may be disappear one day or worse. (think about what happened when Amazon deleted all the copies of "1984" from Kindle readers when they found out they didn't have the rights). |
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Lolcat
Posts: 3 |
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It's simple, make it easy for me to pay for your stuff and I will. I don't pirate Jump because Mangaplus is free and Shonen Jump is only £2.99 a month. If I can't read a manga without a fansub then guess what? I'm not going to wait for an official release if it's going to be extremely delayed.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10012 Location: Virginia |
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@Predictabo
Sorry, I was more focused on the main point. The business of what is ethical is hardly black and white. There are a number of circumstances that mitigates any problem with having or using otherwise illegal copies of a work. If someone buys a legal copy, I see no problem with the making or obtaining any number of copies, as long as you keep the original and do not distribute in any manner the copies. That is, however going to constitute an extremely small number of copies pirated. The worst I can say about that practice is that you are to some small degree supporting the pirate sites. @Blanchimont Apparently you live in an area that is rather underserved with anime and manga. I see no problem in doing what you must to obtain content. Hell, after twenty-five years of collecting manga somewhat indiscriminately I'm drowning in physical copies so I can even accept your preference for digital copies only. My problem is with the large numbers of people from North America that pirate simply because they can. I also have a problem with all those people who come on here every time a publisher does something they don't like and loudly proclaim "welp, gonna have to pirate". @ximpalullaorg Feel free to use what ever weasel words you prefer. You are taking something from the owner without proper recompense and that is illegal and unethical. I should point out that it is not the unauthorized preproduction that is the problem, it is the distribution of that copy that is the problem. That deprives the owner the ability to sell that media to people. In the case of pirate sites, thousands of people. Sorry you don't like the terms of online reading services. Unfortunately you don't get to dictate those terms anymore than you can dictate Aniplex's prices. I'll tell you a secret that is worse than Amazon withdrawing copies from Kindle. At some point, probably in your lifetime, that Kindle or whatever you are using to store and read digital books will become obsolete. Amazon will stop supporting the format for the couple dozen people still using it and all that content will be lost regardless of DRM or other problems. |
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