top ten inconvenient truths about file-swapping
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Oh man, I got a kick out of this one. Thought I’d pass along this piece of FUD:
Top Ten “Inconvenient Truths” About File-Swapping
1. Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment “free music” rhetoric.
(Pirate Bay has ads. So goes Google, Yahoo, and Ask which link to Pirate Bay. Does this make them disreputable web sites?)
2. AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
(This is true today; it wasn’t when AllOfMP3 started. Unfortunately, it is only true because the Western countries pressured Russia into changing its copyright laws from consumer-friendly ones into company-friendly ones.)
3. Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
(Actually, I think people are hurting the organized gangs by using something like bittorrent, since they’re cutting out the middleman, but that’s just me. Most of the gang related stuff comes from “third shift” type scenarios where they have an insider at a DVD or CD replication factory. The solution? Move those manufacturing jobs back to the US! At least here, it’ll take more than $20 to bribe someone to fork over a DVD master of Casino Royale. Again, why is this relevant to file-swapping? It isn’t.)
4. Illegal file-sharers don’t care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
(I think it’s the other way around. The independent labels don’t care about file-sharing as it promotes their work whereas the major labels have various types of bugs up their butts on this issue.)
5. Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on “underground” artists and more inclination to invest in “bankers” like American Idol stars.
(No, reduced revenues just mean that the CEO can’t afford his fourth penthouse in Europe. And, did you ever consider that the revenue is falling because the music sucks?)
6. ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
(Yeah, the internet has no other uses than sharing music. This sounds awfully like the Chewbacca defense.)
7. The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth–it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.
(Rarely have I see people use the “because you are stupid, you can’t understand our world” defense when the truly stupid one is the one making that remark. This would be like having Osaka, the Baka Rangers, and Maho lecture you at once on differential equations.)
8. Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle- or higher-income earners.
(Love how communist China has as large of wealth disparity as the capitalist West, but let’s focus on the fact that most of China do not have internet access and only the middle and higher income folks do.)
9. Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won’t stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI.
(I think the law already forbids piracy. Most people don’t care, mostly because the law is so skewed anti-consumer right now… DCMA anyone?)
10. P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.
(You know what, I’ll be honest. Most of the anime DVDs that I have purchased are because I watched a fansub and enjoyed it. I don’t think I’d own anywhere as many if I never watched a fansub, and I don’t think I’d be giving the industry free advertising in the form of this blog if it weren’t for that either. People want to have choices… if you release a movie in the US but don’t release it in China, don’t the people who live in China want to see it as well? If you don’t legally provide this option, wouldn’t they turn to other means? Of course, these people don’t get it. They force dumb laws into place and force standards like region encoding that suppress sales more than garner them. The DS is region-free. Do you think Nintendo is crying all the way to the bank? Do you think Phoenix Wright would be as popular if people didn’t import those games like mad? Same with anime… I never understood why we need to wait so long for a series to show up in the US, and why can’t they do a parallel release outside of studio idioticy. If they provided an English version concurrent with the Japanese one, that itself would kill off more fansubs than take-down letters could accomplish. The end problem is that the companies, instead of giving the consumers what they want, are telling the consumers what they want. Big difference.)
38 Responses to “top ten inconvenient truths about file-swapping”
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The article makes some sense, but at the same time I think there are people that don’t buy DVDs because they’ve got the fansubs. Meh.
First.
Woohoo! NIA FTW!!!!
Oh wait, we’re talking about illegal downloads right?
.
.
.
Hmm… all I can say is… NIA WINS!!!
Fansubs can definitely become an excuse to not buy a released version. They’re in a more convenient format and often-times easier to read too, which can also make the excuse that much easier to live with. Combined with college costs vs. the price of most DVDs as well, it’s hard sometimes to ‘do the right thing’.
Companies that release anime in the US market should thank fansubbing groups for the underground advertising they do though. There are people like myself who prefer the approach to storytelling and the stories themselves that would otherwise not have the time to experience their content and buy what little we do if a fansubber didn’t first give us the chance. Most people don’t buy anything without first some idea about what it’s going to be like. You don’t even borrow a book without probably reading a bit into it first, beyond just what’s inside the flap. The peak into a series that most groups offer is a great opportunity to find the series that you really would like to have around and purchasing them.
TBH, I’m not surprised that fansubbers are propositioned by producers and given help with distribution and/or access to very high quality raws just for the stats on downloads of a subbed series for marketing purposes. For relatively little investment a company could get hard numbers on what people are downloading and target those series.
At least you Americans have companies that actually take pride in producing R1 dvds. Anime fans from the smaller countries around the world have no such luck. We have to either import the freakishly expensive R2 dvds or the nearly-as-expensive R1 dvds. Either way, we lose out since our own countries have almost no legal way nor the market to provide us with what we need. There’s the occasional TV broadcasts of what, 10 year old animes? And with crappy dub? And sometimes censored due to weird ass government laws? Come on! we anime fans deserve to enjoy anime!
It doesn’t help knowing that the Japanese get to watch them everyday on HDTV just by paying their annual taxes. I pay my taxes too, but where’s my anime channel? I don’t condone the act of piracy (*cough*) and I did sell an arm and a leg to get my Haruhi Limited Edition R2 DVDS, so what about the other one hundred series that’s airing in Japan right now?? Do I have to sell my sister to watch another… what, 3 full series of animes?? So I’m gonna hafta sell crack to get my NIA fix??
Ah I get it, let’s all go live in Japan! That’ll solve all my anime needs. :P
Oh btw NIA WINS!!!
I completely agree with this post. Although I can understand why corporations want to protect their copyrights (they have a right to) and ensure that consumers purchase their products, how can they still overlook the massive benefits of information exchange through the internet? Of course they’re afraid of hardcore pirates, who don’t buy anything they download, but are those pirates going to buy anything when the law prohibits all forms of piracy? No, they’re just going to find other ways to pirate them… (ie: borrow from friends LOL). Unfortunately, this is an ongoing struggle with no end in sight. I guess once the current generation’s jackasses in suits step down from their corporations, things will change. And some people wonder why the U.S. anime industry is going to hell. Reminds me of a friend of mine who wants to start a company that only licenses Japanese anime shows to release them as subbed DVDs in the U.S. No wasted money on dubs. Hurray.
This post is one of the reasons why I follow this site (the other being Jason’s love of meido). This was actually very informative, and many people should be made aware of the current trends in the market, and where things really stand.
You wouldn’t mind if I link to this?
[quote post=”1099″]Reminds me of a friend of mine who wants to start a company that only licenses Japanese anime shows to release them as subbed DVDs in the U.S. No wasted money on dubs. Hurray.[/quote]
Yeah. Like that’ll ever happen.
Face it … the law is the law. If you don’t like it, you have to inform your lawmakers that the law has to be changed. Yes, it’s an uphill fight, but that’s things are.
It would be chaotic if everything decides to ignore laws that are not convenient for them.
[quote post=”1099″]And, did you ever consider that the revenue is falling because the music sucks?[/quote]
A-f**king-men.
The music industry is rotten to the core.
Its not unheard of labels signing a contract, record a disk and never release it because what they really wanted is the lyrics to be used by another group.
[quote post=”1099″]And, did you ever consider that the revenue is falling because the anime sucks?[/quote]
My tears go out to you, victims of Odex as well as 3rd world countries.
At the meanwhile; I have this super-special-awesome idea!
How about these anime companies over in Japan stop creating crap that only one culture can enjoy.
Bandai Visual / $unrise with their anti-US (government) bias.
Bandai Visual again for their idiocy over how “ice-picking” WORKS in the US as oppose to in Japan.
Japan’s overall “fear” of the dreaded “reverse importing” when Oh My God the Region 1 is more superior than the Region 2.
$unrise’s reliance on the fat, drooling otaku inside their company and out.
Another of Japan’s overall fear: Male leads that aren’t weak wimps.
Japan’s 3rd fear: A guy socking a girl in the face and getting away with it.
The fact that that country’s got a high freaking suicide rate.
I know it’s just me. But I have a message.
discussion about copyright and copywrong usually just don’t float
i just don’t care anymore ; ;
f*cking signed
[quote post=”1099″]How about these anime companies over in Japan stop creating crap that only one culture can enjoy.[/quote]
I consider that a terribly ironic and funny statement, given that it’s in English, presumably by an animé fan, and on an English-language animé blog.
True but that somewhat does have a point.
Something like Lucky Star cannot be sold outside Japan because of how deeply cultural the references are, a lot of it would be missed by mainstream western public.
I can also point out the manga “Kodomo no Jikan” that been licensed to Seven Seas because of “disturbing” content.
Anime series are broadcasted, just by airing they should be paying themselves so DVD sales or licensing should not be needed to make then financial viable so what fansubs and sharing then do should never affect it.
What we have is greed and finger pointing, if a series is not very good its easy to point out to fansubs and the whole piracy as a excuse for poor sales … I am inclined to show on how people blamed “Looking Glass Studios” (game developer) downfall on piracy when in fact this is what happened: http://ttlg.com/articles/lgsclosing.asp
But there some point to that, somethings are deeply cultural and would be utterly lost for western mainstream.
You think they could get the references in Lucky Star?
Also there is culture shock, for example “Kodomo no Jikan” that Seven Seas have the license but canceled it due to “disturbing content” (in short … too loli sexor for selling in the US of A).
And western Otakus are really not that much of a market to make a profit.
the fact is if i hadn’t downloaded music i would have barely any cds instead of like 90 i have now, although i definitely agree that a lot of the bands that complain of music piracy are shit, don’t good bands make most of there money from touring anyway. ive bought dvds only cause ive watched fansubs as well
Oddly enough, I finally ran across John Ledford’s interview by ANN today, and when I posted a bit on part of it that I found interesting, an ex-ADV employee stopped off to make some comments relevant to the subject. I can’t direct link to the post on my blog (they seem to get eaten, strangely…), but you can click on my name and go down one post.
“…keep in mind that a lot of the time, licensing arrangments have been made before any episode of the show airs, or at least they’re in negotiation. And more and more often now, we’re seeing the Japanese companies want to hold on to the reins and just use the US translation companies as one more contractor … theoretically the companies build up institutional knowledge and get better at dealing with the US market as time goes on. That certainly happened at BEI USA… but it doesn’t seem to have helped Bandai the parent company any…”
Joe Satriani is a guitar hero from the United States. He specializes in all-instrumental (no lyrics) songs with displays of mad guitar skill. Although he isn’t as technically proficient with the electric guitar as the likes of Paul Gilbert and Yngwie Malmsteen, Satriani is an excellent songwriter who just happens to be good enough with the guitar to put the fear of Haruhi into even Yuki Nagato-level players.
Now what does a guitar hero have to do with this piracy thread?
Satriani has his two latest albums available in their entirety for streaming from his official website, along with many other songs from his previous albums. This, I believe, is a reasonable compromise between strict copyright standards and the free advertisement of file sharing. You can’t easily place the songs on your local machine, but the albums are available to anyone with a decent Internet connection. That way, fans and newcomers alike can listen to an album from end to end – more than once, if they so choose – before deciding whether to buy it.
Someone who listens to the album once and thinks it isn’t his type never has to spend any money on it or listen to it ever again. Therefore the musician must rely on his songwriting and performing abilities to impress listeners enough that they would want to own the album. Which is what all musicians should be striving for anyway.
This will not of course prevent anyone from making multiple copies of a CD anyway, or from streaming the albums repeatedly until they get taken offline. But Satriani’s continued commercial success is a testament to both the caliber of his musicianship and the effectiveness of the advertising model of having the entire album semi-freely available.
Which begs the question: Could anime use this model (assuming logistical constraints like streaming an episode to a really large number of viewers were not an issue)? What if a streamable episode of an anime was available for a few days – with your choice of subtitle language – a week after it aired in Japan? Would the DVDs still sell?
I, for one, own all of Satriani’s studio albums.
[quote post=”1099″]How about these anime companies over in Japan stop creating crap that only one culture can enjoy.[/quote][quote comment=”151657″]…that somewhat does have a point.
Something like Lucky Star cannot be sold outside Japan because of how deeply cultural the references are, a lot of it would be missed by mainstream western public.[/quote]
True, but I wonder how many Japanese would get all the references in Family Guy or South Park, for that matter? I doubt those that would would be considered “mainstream.” I think a lot of us in the west have already been spoiled by how much Japanese culture in general, and anime especially, uses western ideas, and when they incorporate a little too much of their own, I think it confuses and (dare I say it?) even frightens some people, like it’s a danger to their way of thinking or something.
Besides…since when does a culture have to make entertainment for other cultures anyway? I don’t hear the French saying to the USA, “We don’t like this ‘baseball’ of yours, so…we’d like you to stop playing it unless you add more wine and romance.” I don’t hear the Japanese saying to Israel, “Yeah, that Torah thing, it’s just not going to work out. Come back when it’s got more giant robots and lolis.” When you start trying to make everything palatable to everyone, it ends up pretty tasteless. Anybody ever been to a Tex-Mex restaurant outside of the Southwest US? Or eaten a New-York Style pizza outside of New York? That’s what I’m talking about.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on how I think that kind of thinking has already killed the mainstream music industry…
I personally like anime exactly because it is different from what else is around. I know I won’t get all the references in a given episode of Lucky Star or Hayate no Gotoku. Hell, I doubt I get a quarter of them. But I want to broaden my mind a bit and find out about what’s so funny, and I certainly enjoy the jokes I do get. I imagine a lot of you feel the same, or you wouldn’t be here, Anyone waiting for the next anime reality show or anime “sexed up lawyer” drama has probably already gotten the clue and moved on.
[quote comment=”151664″] I think a lot of us in the west have already been spoiled by how much Japanese culture in general, and anime especially, uses western ideas, and when they incorporate a little too much of their own, I think it confuses and (dare I say it?) even frightens some people, like it’s a danger to their way of thinking or something. […]Besides…since when does a culture have to make entertainment for other cultures anyway? When you start trying to make everything palatable to everyone, it ends up pretty tasteless.[…]
I personally like anime exactly because it is different from what else is around. I know I won’t get all the references in a given episode of Lucky Star or Hayate no Gotoku. Hell, I doubt I get a quarter of them. But I want to broaden my mind a bit and find out about what’s so funny, and I certainly enjoy the jokes I do get. I imagine a lot of you feel the same, or you wouldn’t be here, Anyone waiting for the next anime reality show or anime “sexed up lawyer” drama has probably already gotten the clue and moved on.[/quote]
Pure. Gold. Honestly guys. We’ve been babied by the Japanese too much if people are complaining about cultural references. Isn’t this THEIR entertainment? We just decided on our own that we wanted access to it. And then we forced their hand so that they came over here. I’m not an ingrate though, rather I’m glad we did this. However, as this is their entertainment, expect it to be entertaining to THEM first, then us. We’re just lucky that Japan has sucked up so much American culture like a sponge in the last 5 or 6 decades. Otherwise it’d be like Bollywood or something. Mind you, I like some aspects of Bollywood but because I’m so Americanized, and a Texan at that, having little access to my own culture, I don’t get a lot of their entertainment. Anyway, I LOVE Hayate no Gotoku BECAUSE it’s tough to catch everything, BECAUSE it’s culture specific. (I STILL think they used a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reference.)
Anyway, props to fansubbing for encouraging the Japanese to consider simultaneous broadcast. Here’s hoping they pull a Steve Jobs and learn what online distribution is. If they want to simultaneously broadcast, I hope they have the sense to just go the Subtitle route. If they’re desperate for dubs, they should take a page from India’s book on “Call Centers” and start requiring voice actors to get bilingual educations and teach them American Standard Dialect. Hey if you doubt me, just look at the Indians who do tech support. Somehow they convinced my psuedo-countrymen to become fluent and drop those horrid accents in return for a very lucrative white collar job. It can be done!!~ Now imagine that, the same great voices doing English as well?! Scary, no?
[quote post=”1099″]The end problem is that the companies, instead of giving the consumers what they want, are telling the consumers what they want. Big difference.[/quote]
Just wanted to say I loved that line.
[quote comment=”151642″]Fansubs can definitely become an excuse to not buy a released version.[/quote]
I hear this argument a lot from the music companies too. It’s bull crap. These people wouldn’t have purchased even if they didn’t download. You know, just because someone downloads something doesn’t mean that they would have purchased it irregardless… that’s another fallacy of the industry, but that’s for another time.
[quote comment=”151652″]How about these anime companies over in Japan stop creating crap that only one culture can enjoy.[/quote]
This comment is a lot more fun if you picture Tyrenol shouting a la Mace Windu in A Time to Kill… “They deserve to die, and I hope they go to hell!!!”
(But the best counterargument has to be all the “Please stop talking about basketball, I don’t know who ‘LeBron James’ is” e-mails that I get. The Global Icon needs some global PR.)
[quote comment=”151649″]It would be chaotic if everything decides to ignore laws that are not convenient for them.[/quote]
You have never driven on a California highway before, I take it.
[quote comment=”151674″]This comment is a lot more fun if you picture Tyrenol shouting a la Mace Windu in A Time to Kill… “They deserve to die, and I hope they go to hell!!!”[/quote]
I’m more along the lines of Jules Winnfield shouting “English, [censored]! Do?! You?! Speak?! It?!” But I haven’t watched “Pulp Fiction.”
I always thought that (first) impressions are always important. The male lead from Beck; that hot girl offered herself to him(?) and he ends up doing his gutiar in effigy. That’s known as “being a loser / retarded.” And men tend to take the so-called “quest to get laid” very seriously.
Companies keep asking why something is “big there but not here.” I’ll go ahead and say it: The “One Piece” toys and “Naruto” headbands being sold over in Target & Wal-Mart. The Transformers were originally Japan-based, and the Robot Chicken tells the joke of Optimus Prime “draining his lizard.”
[quote comment=”151644″]Reminds me of a friend of mine who wants to start a company that only licenses Japanese anime shows to release them as subbed DVDs in the U.S. No wasted money on dubs. Hurray.[/quote]
Tell your friend to wait for the results from Bandai Visual and JapanAnime. Either that or for Hell to freeze over. :P
[quote comment=”151667″]Pure. Gold.[/quote]
Where I come from—the Interwebs—this is most often used sarcastically when you disagree with the person you’re quoting. Just, you know, fyi. Dawg.
[quote comment=”151674″][quote comment=”151649″]It would be chaotic if everything decides to ignore laws that are not convenient for them.[/quote]
You have never driven on a California highway before, I take it.[/quote]
Word. As long as everybody’s breaking the same laws, things tend to flow pretty smoothly. The whole P2P network thing was working pretty well as long as it was just copyright theft, but then the RIAA had to come along and throw in invasion of privacy and anti-trust violations to muck it all up. I can only assume your “California highway” example is a good analogue, as I’m plenty familiar with the paradox of a neat, orderly freeway full of drivers all going 20 mph over the speed limit from my experiences here in Houston.
Another interesting anti-establishment viewpoint.
[quote comment=”151678″][quote comment=”151667″]Pure. Gold.[/quote]
Where I come from—the Interwebs—this is most often used sarcastically when you disagree with the person you’re quoting. Just, you know, fyi. Dawg.[/quote]
Really? What are interwebs? Sorry I’m Asian. My understanding of “Pure Gold” is the same as the first dude who used it. So gold in the interwebs means crap?
[quote comment=”151679″][quote comment=”151674″][quote comment=”151649″]It would be chaotic if everything decides to ignore laws that are not convenient for them.[/quote]
You have never driven on a California highway before, I take it.[/quote]
Word. As long as everybody’s breaking the same laws, things tend to flow pretty smoothly. The whole P2P network thing was working pretty well as long as it was just copyright theft, but then the RIAA had to come along and throw in invasion of privacy and anti-trust violations to muck it all up. I can only assume your “California highway” example is a good analogue, as I’m plenty familiar with the paradox of a neat, orderly freeway full of drivers all going 20 mph over the speed limit from my experiences here in Houston.[/quote]
Unfortunately I’ve never been to the US, nor do I profess to know much about your cultures except through Hollywood. Traffic over here is pretty orderly so I can’t really imagine drivers going haywire on roads. Then again your roads are huge and long… very long…
But there is one thumb of rule we use here “You can do anything under the sun, just don’t get caught”
Oops, seems like the quote button works bad with quotes within quotes, or I’m really bad at this.
[quote post=”1099″]Pure Gold[/quote]
Don’t let it bug ya miyamiya, it’s news to me too, and I’ve been here since before it was called the internet.
Well, if you count Compuserve.
Viel Dank, meine Kameraden! (Ubu Roi, & Miyamiya). I too have been on “teh interwebs” since I was 11, I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how long ago that was. That aside, terminology is subjective online, moreso when a younger generation found their way online and took the net back from the academics. We’ve had definitive ages here, (’96 – 2000 comes to mind) in which very particular conversational dynamics changed. So I don’t pretend to keep up with what’s what anymore.
So instead, the fastest acknowledgment of our disassociation of values is this; let’s just agree we’ve got different perspectives on terminology, and leave it at that? That said, I have actually seen people use it sarcastically on forums, so I don’t disagree on its usage. I just don’t use it that way myself.
Anyway, the bold part of my silly diatribe wasn’t the only thing worth quoting I hope. I’d enjoy discussing the rest of the issues if you would.
What I really want to hear more about is that John Ledford ANN interview. What a gold mine. And to think, they’re based in Houston! (Apparently Quigonkenny lives there too?) I never knew that. But being born there, that interests me. Along with his (seemingly?) strained relations with the Japanese side of the business? Back when http://japanmanship.blogspot.com/ was still active, I used to read all sorts of realist takes on the way things work there, and what struck me the most was his take on the way the business inefficiencies were the result of a sort of social quagmire built from the culture. As an Indian who reads about his own political sphere (More like………………..burnt political sphere) I know how this works. Anyway I recommend it for a good, if somewhat opinionated and (some people consider it) biased, read on Japan as just a place to live and work as opposed to a fictional magical anime wonderland. As a freakish travel addict, I appreciate that perspective. (Well I was, back when the middle east was moderately easier to travel through.)
Abayo, minna. (I hope I don’t have to come back to see 3 posts quoting my first two words again. I’ll end up depressed and have to play 3 hours of Natural Selection just to get over it.)
I just HAVE GOT to learn to use the linebreak tag.
Or is it not enabled here?
[quote comment=”151689″]Back when http://japanmanship.blogspot.com/ was still active, I used to read all sorts of realist takes on the way things work there, and what struck me the most was his take on the way the business inefficiencies were the result of a sort of social quagmire built from the culture. [/quote]
Omg, you just introduced me to a really wonderful blog. Makes for good reading when ur bored at work.
Too bad it’s closed…
The sad thing is that fansubs often have better translations than the ones on R1 DVDs, not to mention a better overall experience in many cases. Translated song lyrics, karaoke, subs coloured based on the character speaking, properly typeset sign translations: Ever seen all that on an R1 DVD? I sure as hell haven’t.
>It would be chaotic if everything decides to ignore laws that are not convenient for them.
That’s one of the best ways to get laws changed, actually. Segregation didn’t get stopped by blacks sitting in the back of the bus.
I still say that instead of doing in house work, anime companies such as geneon, viz, bandai etc (the american companies not the japanese) should outsource to the good fansub groups to do the translating and subtitling etc. Most (even mediocre to bad fasub groups) often do a better job than what is released on DVD. I think if fans knew that when the DVD’s came out they were going to get the quality of the DVD with extras and the subtitle quality they have come to know from fansubs, it would greatly boost sales. It would also probably get rid of the whole C&D crap due to liscenced shows being fansubbed. (Not that I care whether its liscenced or not when i download it :-p)
Just my take:
Movies, music and animes possession is NOT a right. If you can’t afford it, don’t own it. If you don’t like the licensing restriction placed on it, don’t buy it. The quality is not worth your money? Then don’t purchase it. It’s not anyone’s right to own these kinda medias.
So what if the pricing is expensive? Or the original quality sucks? That’s simply the producing companies shooting themselves in the foot. If there weren’t any piracy to promote them, then sure, we’ll probably see a huge hit in their sales, and hopefully after that, they will react by producing better (quality and price) products.
Now, ahem, after saying all that so-called righteous stuff,… my take is: I aint gonna care. So screw myself. :D:D
CN: Born in Houston, eh? Guess by that you mean you moved away? I moved here in ’86. And yeah, that Ledford interview was a gold mine, all right, that’s why I linked it. :-) Glad you liked it.
Great post, jayars.
My take, as an elderly anime fan, (o.k., only 50) is that downloading and watching fansubs is not much different from watching a show on U.S. tv and recording it. If I like a show, like Firefly, Arrested Development, or Rozen Maiden, I buy the DVDs. I think it helps the industry that fansub groups are willing to put the time and effort into making a great product (sub quality that a commercial outfit will NEVER match), and releasing it for free as a means to get the word out.
I have MANY box sets in my collection because I read the reviews, downloaded the subs, and enjoyed a show. I’m presently filling up Rozen Maiden, Guu, and Haruhi box sets because of fansubs, and will be getting Mushishi and Pani Poni Dash. Monster, too if someone will get off their ass and license it!
Am I the exception? Maybe, but I steer new fans to the same resources I use, loan out box sets (currently 8 sets loaned out-I’ve got plenty more), and repeatedly tell them to buy it if they like it.They do, in some cases, not in others.
I can’t hold their hands, too.
It’s like sixten said in his Satch post. Some people will always abuse the privilege, (notice I didn’t say right) some wont, but the artist profits because the word is out.