The second episode of the PodKAAst is finally up! We discuss Anime Boston, TokoyPop, Sony, and allude to guests for future episodes. We've also got a super secret special announcement waiting after the ending music of the PodKAAst!
During the PodKAAst we mention Funimation's new site, which is currently in Beta and you can check it out at beta.funimation.com!
As is quite fitting for the leading anime distributer in the United States, Funimation is also the leader in social media platforms. During Anime Boston, their Social Media Manager, Justin Rojas, stated that they have over 200,000 likes on their Facebook page (rivaling Capcom), and over 20,000 followers on Twitter. This is far beyond what any other US anime company has, so they are pretty good at it. It's only fitting that their new site, Beta.Funimation.com, has been heavily influenced by social media.
Beta.Funimation.com has been the pet project of Adam Sheehan, one of Funimation's Marketing Managers. He said that Funimation's new website isn't trying to be the Facebook of anime, however that is clearly what it is. Don't worry though, Funimation, we like that. We like that a lot.
In addition to having all of the things we're accustomed too with the old Funimation site, like show info, free streaming anime, the Funimation Update Blog, etc, there are many new and cool things available with beta. There are now forums, convention info and reports, cosplay photos, cool new videos, and users can even have their own blogs. On top of all that, the site design just looks really cool and clean.
So go and check out Funimation's new website, currently at Beta.Funimation.com until they move it over to the real site once all the bugs have been worked out!
Don't forget to check out the PodKAAst and look for the special announcement as well!
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Don't Blame Sony
By now it's common knowledge that Sony has been hacked and that massive amounts of personal data was stolen. Now, while not directly related to anime piracy, it was very interesting to observe people reaction in wake of the theft. So many people are very angry that Sony allowed this to happen, and are less concerned with the hacker group that did the actual stealing.
As a programmer myself, I know how hard it is to make something hack proof. It is nearly impossible to account for every way your programs might be cracked, and some new way might crop up the next day because of some development in technology. Sony doesn't just sit around and let people break in. That's not very good for business, as recent events have shown us. I don't doubt that they make every effort to try and keep their network secure, as evidenced by their move against George Hotz in January. Sony operated the PSN for almost five years without this problem, so it's not as if the way to break in was obvious to anyone. If someone has the skill and is determined to hack your network, it is going to happen sooner or later. Because of this, I find it very hard to be angry with Sony, even though my own account on the PlayStation Network has probably been compromised.
The real ones at fault here are the hackers. Regardless of who they are, they are the ones who purposefully broke into the network and stole the information. They are the ones that stole the personal information, not Sony.
As I thought about this, I found the parallels between this and when the Fractale Production Committee ordered the halt of the Fractale simulcast earlier this year. It was stopped in response to the massive amount of illegal copies of the show that were available for free on the internet. Since the revenue for Fractale comes from the legal viewings of the show, the Fractale Production Committee decided to halt the simulcast until the amount of piracy was cut down on. Immediately, fans of the show were very vocal and very angry at the Fractale Production Committee for this decision. No one was angry at the people pirating it, or the people making it available online for free.
It is really unfortunate that this has been the way people have reacted to this sort of thing. I suppose it's because people find it easier to blame companies rather than an unknown group of people spread out across the internet. I don't blame the Fractale Production Committee, and I certainly don't blame Sony. They are doing their best to correct the problem, and people aren't helping very much by laying all the blame on them.
Hopefully people will wise up and place the blame on the people who are really responsible.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1380050/Sony-admits-Weve-hacked-PlayStation-Network-outage.html
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Tokyopop Ends North American Distribution
You know those days where you wake up, eat some breakfast, and then log on to the internet and low and behold, it seems that the world ended while you were sleeping and blissfully unaware?
That's what it felt like Friday when I heard that Tokyopop had announced that it was closing it's North American publishing division. I've been buying from Tokyopop since I first bought Marmalade Boy way back in 2005, so hearing that Tokyopop was shutting down it's North American division was quite disheartening.
Tokyopop was one of the leading manga distributors in the United States, along with Viz Media and DelRey. They were the first to pioneer publishing manga in it's original right to left reading format, instead of flipping it to be read left to right. With the trouble that manga industry has been facing due to illegal scans of manga being freely and easily available on the internet.
Tokyopop also cited Borders' recent filing for bankruptcy as one of the reasons for them closing. People are spending less and less time in physical bookstores, and I have personally noticed that the bookstores I frequent don't keep their manga stock very current.
What's even more discouraging is that last December Tokyopop opened up a print on demand store for some of their older titles. I was very excited about this, and was hoping that it would be a change to help the manga industry increase it's sales, since it would provide them with an additional revenue stream without the risk of not being able to sell all the stock they've purchased. Unfortunately, the print on demand store, along with the rest of their publishing, is not closed.
I'm hoping another company, like Viz, which has some of the most popular manga series like Naruto and Bleach, will make a move to do a print on demand model with some of their titles. While the popular ones will always sell in stores, it will hopefully be more economically safe for them to sell the more niche or older manga as print on demand purchases.
Here's hoping things start to look up, and as always, don't be a parasite.
Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-04-15/tokyopop-to-close-north-american-publishing-division
That's what it felt like Friday when I heard that Tokyopop had announced that it was closing it's North American publishing division. I've been buying from Tokyopop since I first bought Marmalade Boy way back in 2005, so hearing that Tokyopop was shutting down it's North American division was quite disheartening.
Tokyopop was one of the leading manga distributors in the United States, along with Viz Media and DelRey. They were the first to pioneer publishing manga in it's original right to left reading format, instead of flipping it to be read left to right. With the trouble that manga industry has been facing due to illegal scans of manga being freely and easily available on the internet.
Tokyopop also cited Borders' recent filing for bankruptcy as one of the reasons for them closing. People are spending less and less time in physical bookstores, and I have personally noticed that the bookstores I frequent don't keep their manga stock very current.
What's even more discouraging is that last December Tokyopop opened up a print on demand store for some of their older titles. I was very excited about this, and was hoping that it would be a change to help the manga industry increase it's sales, since it would provide them with an additional revenue stream without the risk of not being able to sell all the stock they've purchased. Unfortunately, the print on demand store, along with the rest of their publishing, is not closed.
I'm hoping another company, like Viz, which has some of the most popular manga series like Naruto and Bleach, will make a move to do a print on demand model with some of their titles. While the popular ones will always sell in stores, it will hopefully be more economically safe for them to sell the more niche or older manga as print on demand purchases.
Here's hoping things start to look up, and as always, don't be a parasite.
Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-04-15/tokyopop-to-close-north-american-publishing-division
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Greg Ayres: State of the Industry Panel
Having finally finished uploading the Bootleg Panel from Bakuretsu Con 2010, I've moved on to the other panel Greg Ayres hosted concerning the welfare of the anime industry.
Greg Ayres talks about the state of the anime industry as it currently stands, detailing the damage he's seen done to the industry in his time, as well as the difficulties the industry has faced in attempting anime simulcasts.
Greg Ayres talks about the state of the anime industry as it currently stands, detailing the damage he's seen done to the industry in his time, as well as the difficulties the industry has faced in attempting anime simulcasts.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Bootlegs, Fansubs, Scanlations, oh my!
I've talked a lot about the illegal downloading and internet piracy of anime, and it is one of the most prevalent problems facing the anime industry today. However, because of that, I often tend to forget the other, closely related problem of bootleg anime DVDs and merchandise.
When visited Bakuretsu Con last year, I attended and recorded Greg Ayres' new anti-piracy panel focusing specifically on bootleg DVD's and bootlegs. The complete panel is now up for viewing on KeepAnimeAlive.com.
Greg Ayres, whom I've talked about previously, is by and large considered to be the spokesperson on the war against anime piracy. During the panel, he points out many ways to identify bootleg items, and not just DVDs. All sorts of items are subject to being bootlegged, from DVDs, to soundtracks, to posters, to wall scrolls, and even to figurines. One of the key ways he mentions to recognize a piece of bootlegged material is check and see if it's missing a copyright statement. Almost every piece of legitimate anime merchandise will have the companies copyright written somewhere on it.
After doing my own research on the subject, and looking at the Piracy FAQ Greg mentions, I looked at some of my own merchandise, to verify whether or not they were legitimate items. Unfortunately, I discovered more bootlegged items that I'm happy to admit among my collection. Over 3/4s of my anime posters are most likely bootleg, lacking any sort of copyright information at all. I'll be saving these for a future project involving fire and various implements of destruction.
Additionally one of the things that Greg mentions is a court case where some studios sued a flea market to knowingly allow vendors to sell illegitimate and bootleg items. The court ended up ruling in favor of the studios, saying that it was illegal for a marketplace to knowingly allow illegitimate infringing items to be sold. I believe the case he was talking about was Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc.
Now, my own stance on piracy is pretty solid. It's illegal, and it's hurting an industry that I am very passionate about. A benefit to this is that I have the motivation to start a website and blog about it, or go out and record interviews with industry professionals. One of the drawbacks however, is keeping a cool temper when I'm confronted with people defending piracy. In Episode 4 of Conflict of Interest the shows host discuss anime piracy, and specifically a study that was done earlier this year that implied that streaming piracy was helping anime DVD sales
According to the study every 1% increase of views on YouTube correlated to a 0.25% increase in DVD sales. This has been interpreted as meaning that piracy was contributing to DVD sales. Personally, this doesn't make any sense to me. You can't prove that the people that made up the 0.25% increase in DVD sales are part of the 1% viewing the show on YouTube. It makes far more sense to assume the the increase in both DVD sales and YouTube views were simply because the show was just more popular.
They do make many false statements in their podcast, such as the fact that Blu-Ray discs are not region encoded and will play on any bluray player in the world. Unlike with DVD regions, Japan and the United States are in the same bluray region, but there are regions none-the-less.
Now they also make mention of the common pro-piracy argument that piracy acts as free advertising for the show, and contributes to it's popularity in the United States. While this may have been true back when anime was barely known in the United States and didn't have as much of a following, more people are just using them as an alternative to purchasing the legal DVDs. Regardless of whether or not they help the industry, it is still illegal and infringing on the rights of the creators. For me, this is still the strongest argument.
I also listened to the bonus content of episode 116 of Anime Today, a podcast run by RightStuf.com. They interviewed Ed Chavez, the marketing director from Vertical, Inc. A very interesting thing that Vertical, Inc. does is that periodically, they will ask fans exactly which series that they would like Vertical to license. This really lessons the damages of piracy, since the titles they are licensing are ones that people are asking for specifically, so there are better chances of them having higher sales.
Interestingly enough, Chavez denies one of the claims that companies look at the number of illegal downloads to determine which series would do well in the US. Instead, he says that any heavily pirated series, they are far less likely to license that series. The anime and manga industry is already a niche market in the United States, and Vertical caters to an even more niche group of manga fans. They need to licenses things that aren't being pirated in order to make sure that they will get enough sales.
Additionally, they discuss that some Japanese authors, upon seeing their content being illegally translated and distributed, decide to never allow that series to be licensed by American companies as a result. They cite a recent development last year where many authors of Japanese work spoke out and voiced their disapproval of their content being pirated.
Chavez notes at one point that piracy and scanlations are making it less and less viable for companies to licenses content and distribute it over here, which could lead to the eventual collapse of the entire anime industry.
There are reasons why we have copyright laws in place, and reasons why we protect intellectual property. Unfortunately the internet has made it incredibly easy to infringe upon these rights with far less threat of ever being punished for doing so. It seems to me that the amount of pirated and illegitimate anime and manga far outweighs that which is legitimately obtained and watched. There is just so much out there, and very little means of controlling content available on the world wide web. At this point, there isn't much the anime companies can do. If they decide to exercise their rights and try to protect their content, they will be, as Greg Ayres has said, be "crucified" by the people who claim to be their fans.
It's clear that if the anime industry is to be saved, it has to be done by fans who decide to take a stand to protect the shows and comics that they love.
When visited Bakuretsu Con last year, I attended and recorded Greg Ayres' new anti-piracy panel focusing specifically on bootleg DVD's and bootlegs. The complete panel is now up for viewing on KeepAnimeAlive.com.
Greg Ayres, whom I've talked about previously, is by and large considered to be the spokesperson on the war against anime piracy. During the panel, he points out many ways to identify bootleg items, and not just DVDs. All sorts of items are subject to being bootlegged, from DVDs, to soundtracks, to posters, to wall scrolls, and even to figurines. One of the key ways he mentions to recognize a piece of bootlegged material is check and see if it's missing a copyright statement. Almost every piece of legitimate anime merchandise will have the companies copyright written somewhere on it.
After doing my own research on the subject, and looking at the Piracy FAQ Greg mentions, I looked at some of my own merchandise, to verify whether or not they were legitimate items. Unfortunately, I discovered more bootlegged items that I'm happy to admit among my collection. Over 3/4s of my anime posters are most likely bootleg, lacking any sort of copyright information at all. I'll be saving these for a future project involving fire and various implements of destruction.
Additionally one of the things that Greg mentions is a court case where some studios sued a flea market to knowingly allow vendors to sell illegitimate and bootleg items. The court ended up ruling in favor of the studios, saying that it was illegal for a marketplace to knowingly allow illegitimate infringing items to be sold. I believe the case he was talking about was Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc.
Now, my own stance on piracy is pretty solid. It's illegal, and it's hurting an industry that I am very passionate about. A benefit to this is that I have the motivation to start a website and blog about it, or go out and record interviews with industry professionals. One of the drawbacks however, is keeping a cool temper when I'm confronted with people defending piracy. In Episode 4 of Conflict of Interest the shows host discuss anime piracy, and specifically a study that was done earlier this year that implied that streaming piracy was helping anime DVD sales
According to the study every 1% increase of views on YouTube correlated to a 0.25% increase in DVD sales. This has been interpreted as meaning that piracy was contributing to DVD sales. Personally, this doesn't make any sense to me. You can't prove that the people that made up the 0.25% increase in DVD sales are part of the 1% viewing the show on YouTube. It makes far more sense to assume the the increase in both DVD sales and YouTube views were simply because the show was just more popular.
They do make many false statements in their podcast, such as the fact that Blu-Ray discs are not region encoded and will play on any bluray player in the world. Unlike with DVD regions, Japan and the United States are in the same bluray region, but there are regions none-the-less.
Now they also make mention of the common pro-piracy argument that piracy acts as free advertising for the show, and contributes to it's popularity in the United States. While this may have been true back when anime was barely known in the United States and didn't have as much of a following, more people are just using them as an alternative to purchasing the legal DVDs. Regardless of whether or not they help the industry, it is still illegal and infringing on the rights of the creators. For me, this is still the strongest argument.
I also listened to the bonus content of episode 116 of Anime Today, a podcast run by RightStuf.com. They interviewed Ed Chavez, the marketing director from Vertical, Inc. A very interesting thing that Vertical, Inc. does is that periodically, they will ask fans exactly which series that they would like Vertical to license. This really lessons the damages of piracy, since the titles they are licensing are ones that people are asking for specifically, so there are better chances of them having higher sales.
Interestingly enough, Chavez denies one of the claims that companies look at the number of illegal downloads to determine which series would do well in the US. Instead, he says that any heavily pirated series, they are far less likely to license that series. The anime and manga industry is already a niche market in the United States, and Vertical caters to an even more niche group of manga fans. They need to licenses things that aren't being pirated in order to make sure that they will get enough sales.
Additionally, they discuss that some Japanese authors, upon seeing their content being illegally translated and distributed, decide to never allow that series to be licensed by American companies as a result. They cite a recent development last year where many authors of Japanese work spoke out and voiced their disapproval of their content being pirated.
Chavez notes at one point that piracy and scanlations are making it less and less viable for companies to licenses content and distribute it over here, which could lead to the eventual collapse of the entire anime industry.
There are reasons why we have copyright laws in place, and reasons why we protect intellectual property. Unfortunately the internet has made it incredibly easy to infringe upon these rights with far less threat of ever being punished for doing so. It seems to me that the amount of pirated and illegitimate anime and manga far outweighs that which is legitimately obtained and watched. There is just so much out there, and very little means of controlling content available on the world wide web. At this point, there isn't much the anime companies can do. If they decide to exercise their rights and try to protect their content, they will be, as Greg Ayres has said, be "crucified" by the people who claim to be their fans.
It's clear that if the anime industry is to be saved, it has to be done by fans who decide to take a stand to protect the shows and comics that they love.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The L33T Lawsuit
Funimation made a big fuss in the anime community last month when they filed for a lawsuit against 1337 people who illegally downloaded a specific episode of One Piece through bit torrents. Initially, many people thought that Funimation's suit was a prank or publicity stunt, since the number of people being sued, 1337, is famous as the internet lingo for the word elite. However, there is an actual filing of the suit, and Funimation made clear their intention to follow through with it.
Unfortunatly for Funimation, suing the 1337 downloaders is proving to be harder than they had hoped:
Here's hoping.
Funimation asks the court to stop the defendants from infringing on Funimation's copyrights for this episode and any other videos now or in the future. If another request in the suit is granted, defendants "shall destroy all copies of Plaintiff's [videos] that Defendant has downloaded onto any computer hard drive or server without Plaintiff's authorization and shall destroy all copies of those downloaded [videos] transferred onto any physical medium or device in each Defendant's possession, custody, or control." Funimation also seeks compensation for damages and legal costs.
...
Original article at Anime News NetworkThis is something that has more or less never been done before in the anime industry. Previously, the anime companies have only filed suits against retails sites producing and distributing bootleg copies of their copyrights, but never against anyone who has downloaded illegal copies.
The North American anime distributor FUNimation Productions is suing a group of related companies in Southern California for allegedly selling counterfeit DVDs of its licensed anime on a website. [...] Some of the DVDs are said to have included English dubbing.
...
Original article at Anime News NetworkThe anime industry has carefully avoided going after users who have downloaded anime. This was mostly because Funimation, ADV, and the other anime companies were fearful of upsetting the anime community and losing more sales as a result. The closest they had come to this previously was when Funimation sent out cease and desist letters on the behalf of their Japanese partners, demanding that certain series (which were not licensed in the US at the time) have all fansubbing stopped. Now, just over 2 years later, this is the first time that the anime downloaders themselves have seriously been targeted by the anime companies.
Unfortunatly for Funimation, suing the 1337 downloaders is proving to be harder than they had hoped:
On February 10, Senior United States District Judge Royal Furgeson ordered the anime distributor Funimation to "sever" or remove all defendants except one from its copyright infringement lawsuit over an episode of the television anime One Piece. [...] According to the judge's order, the actions of each defendant did not constitute "acting in concert" but rather acting individually, although identically. [...] Funimation can choose to pursue the other 1,336 defendants in individual, separate lawsuits within the next 30 days, if it submits filing fees for each case.
...
Original article at Anime News NetworkWhether or not Funimation will chose to pursue the remaining cases is unknown, since each additional filing of a suit will cost them $350. Without the ability to sue down loaders en masse, it doesn't seem very economical to take action against downloaders. However, perhaps a lawsuit every once in a while will make people cautions enough to download less.
Here's hoping.
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