[Lynk Former]

Btw spinkle, you read my earlier posts in this thread?

Also, I do only buy the anime that I like... I just happen to like a lot, which is why I own a lot of anime DVDs.

[spinkle]

@ spinkle: This is great, I've been given a free pass to steal. All I have to do is give people a logical reason why I need to do it and it's okay.

You don't even need a logical reason! :3 I see no problem with acquiring (ahem) media on a trial basis, for reasons I stated earlier. Any justification I apply will, I'm sure, sound like an excuse, however.

I did read your posts earlier in the thread, though apparently there was something I failed to parse correctly? (ADHD will do that.)

@black howling: as pipe sizes increase, media formats for delivery will also increase. we're pretty close to the point where music will be delivered in lossless formats (likely FLAC, since it is a license-free codec) instead of mp3 and the same trend will eventually apply to video.

[Lynk Former]

The reason I asked whether you read my earlier posts is because I've acknowledged quite openly that piracy in general is what gives life to anime outside of Japan, and is in fact needed for it to exist in the first place. I found it strange that I was being told the things I've already acknowledged in the first place.

However, while piracy is what gives anime life... pirates still rape and pillage... what makes you think that people don't abuse the system?


Okay I'll give an example of what I think is acceptable...

Let's take a company like Gonzo Digimation. They have decided that they want to affiliate themselves with a fansub group and they are willing to let these fansubbers create English subtitles for one of their animes. They'll be given certain materials they need to create an accurate translation, etc... now, the catch is that the fansub group cannot release this anime themselves. What will happen is that the fansub group will give the finished product back to Gonzo, and then Gonzo uploads the translated anime onto a server and open a website where people can watch it only through streaming. On the same site Gonzo will also be able to sell their other products, put up advertising, etc, to bring in revenue... because they deserve to.

Hell, they could even link you to an alternate site where a US company, say, FUNimation has made an English version of that anime and they can stream the English version online as well with all of the ads, etc, to bring in revenue...

Now, THIS would be perfectly acceptable with me... because it's like how TV works in a way. TV may be free for us, but there is advertising and to air these shows, the money eventually trails back to the company who made that show.

But that's not how things work when you download anime... at the moment at least. Right now we're able to download all we want and the companies who made it don't get fuck all from us... and sure, some people can say "well it's only for a trial period" but then I wonder how many of them buy legitimate copies at all? And then even more, how many of those keep the copies of the animes they've downloaded and simply view those as their master copies to be watched over and over?


So one solution has us actually supporting the industry in some way, and the other... well... not so much, at all.... if at all. It really is subjective to the person... and most people are comfortable to take advantage and abuse this great freedom they've been given with anime.






EDIT: Actually, the irony is that my solution could potentially be a big enough blow to kill the US anime industry...

[spinkle]

I apologize, I didn't realize how much of what I said was restatement.

Your solution wouldn't kill the industry, but it would certainly generate revenue. Streaming is certainly a viable option, as is on-demand programming or even a dedicated cable channel for recent or currently running shows. DVRs and tivo have changed the way people approach their TVs for media delivery--they receive an archivable backup of almost anything they watch. Packaged sets will likely still be in demand, no matter what other delivery structures are in place--use your remote to purchase sets of the show you're watching?

I think at root most of the people who download weren't going to be customers in the first place. In a way the industry isn't losing money on them--they were never going to pay for the product. The trade-off is that some of them end up becoming customers eventually, spending money they wouldn't have if they hadn't become exposed to the show through downloading.

[Lynk Former]

Your solution wouldn't kill the industry, but it would certainly generate revenue. Streaming is certainly a viable option, as is on-demand programming or even a dedicated cable channel for recent or currently running shows. DVRs and tivo have changed the way people approach their TVs for media delivery--they receive an archivable backup of almost anything they watch. Packaged sets will likely still be in demand, no matter what other delivery structures are in place--use your remote to purchase sets of the show you're watching?

I think the easiest solution for anime fans, seeing as they like to use PCs to download their anime, would be streaming. I was talking specifically about anime fans rather than digital distribution in general.

I think at root most of the people who download weren't going to be customers in the first place. In a way the industry isn't losing money on them--they were never going to pay for the product. The trade-off is that some of them end up becoming customers eventually, spending money they wouldn't have if they hadn't become exposed to the show through downloading.

Let me rewrite this for you to make a point...

Most of the people who watch TV aren't going to be customers in the first place. In a way the industry isn't losing money on them--they were never going to pay for the product. The trade-off is that some of them end up becoming customers eventually, spending money they wouldn't have if they hadn't become exposed to the show through television.




Now, of course the difference is that anime isn't that big on TV. So the best solution I can come up with is streaming anime online, using fansubbers to translate them because that's what people seem to prefer, and have it available for that large online community to view.


You're right though, people who don't want to pay for it, won't... but I like hearing those same people say they love anime, and support the industry when in reality, they don't.

And I would be fine with that idea around 15-20 years ago when piracy wasn't so easy. But piracy is extremely easy to do nowadays (refer to one of my previous posts in this thread for an example) and the US anime industry has gotten smaller because of it.

I kind of wonder though... what would people who are new to anime think of this? They enter this new world of anime and they see a path where they could get all of their anime for free and oh so easily, or they could go down a path where they could choose to pay for anime... I wonder which path they would choose to go down.

The trend is that each new generation of anime fan chooses piracy over legitimate products.

[Chimasterwang]

Can someone make any comparison between music downloading and anime downloading? XP
I might not be very good at doing it =P

[Lynk Former]

You mean how the music industry was threatened by people downloading music but they evolved and found a way to lessen the blow by creating legitimate services like itunes, etc?

[Chimasterwang]

Yeah thanks XD

[Lynk Former]

Hmmm... I seemed to have somehow deleted part of what I was meant to say in that last huge post of mine... the part that seems to be missing is the part where I say something about TV at least contributing something back to the companies who made the show in the first place... well, whatever... now you know









Anywayz, after all this debating I think we've finally come to something...

A great number of anime fans download their anime... we can't stop it because piracy is a big part of anime outside of Japan. As the number of anime fans grows, we find that a lot of them turn to piracy. And why not? It's certainly cheaper and easier to find anime online to download than it is to find it on TV or a shop. In fact, in today's culture, people feel that they deserve to do things this way, it is their right.

Fair enough... but I have a question...

What happens when there are too many pirates?

[Chimasterwang]

You Are A Pirate