Piracy hurts the content industry. This has been the common line of thought in the piracy and copyright debate for years now, and even though study after study highlight that this is simply not the case – or at least, not as clear-cut a case – the content industry and its avid fans continue to spread this party line. Well, yet another study, this time from the Japanese government, has concluded that piracy actually increases anime DVD sales.
The study comes from the Japanese Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, a prestigious think-tank for the Japanese government. They investigated the effects of YouTube and the Japanese P2P program Winny on the rental and sales of anime DVDs, and came to some interesting conclusions.
YouTube does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it actually increases DVD sales. Winny, on the other hand, does negatively affect DVD rentals, but has no effect on DVD sales.
“YouTube’s effect of boosting DVD sales can be seen after the TV’s broadcasting of the series has concluded, which suggests that not just a few people learned about the program via a Youtube viewing,” the study’s abstract reads, “In other words YouTube can be interpreted as a promotion tool for DVD sales.”
We’re still in the middle of determining the effects of piracy on the market. You can talk about the financial aspect of the story all you want, but in the end, I find the effect it has on art much more important. Whether or not people make more or less money is of no relevance to me – what matters is whether or not piracy promotes the arts and sciences.
What we know for sure is that current copyright law has a detrimental effect on the arts and sciences. What we need to investigate now is whether or not piracy combats these detrimental effects of copyright law.
In the end, promoting the arts and sciences – the original goal of copyright – basically comes down to spreading them. I’d hazard a guess piracy has done more to spread especially the arts than copyright law has ever done.
Piracy increases Anime DVD Sales?
Well, possibly.
For me as a Anime-Freak this seems to be somehow false. I like watching Azumangah Daioh or Dragonball. But that are long series – buying the DVD is too expensive; At least youre watch it once.
So, this study could be true or false.
In fact, the target gruop of Anime DVD differs from the normal target group of DVDs. So even, if this study is true, it is may online for Animes.
That is the point. Actual illegal sharing impacts DVD rentals, not sales.
It’s as logical as sharing a DVD within a community has impact on DVD rentals, not sales. Why would you buy a DVD of something that you want to watch only once? If you are going to watch it many time, you will buy the DVD, it’s easier(at least for non technical users).
Why would you rent a DVD of something that you can ask your friend to loan it to you(aka share it with you)?
I’m sure I’m not alone in this practice. I download the fansubs, or sometimes untranslated if I’m feeling confidant (that doesn’t last much longer than two or three episodes when series jargon creeps in and overwhelms my limited skills…), and then once the entire series is dubbed and available as a full box set, I buy that. I don’t do this monthly DVD thing, otherwise I’d have a dozen incomplete series on my shelf. It’s often cheaper to buy complete boxed sets too.
I don’t rent DVDs either. Inevitably, the discs are unwatchably scratched, and I’m the kind of person who likes to seal himself in his room with a pile of snack food and not have to touch the control until the disc is done. Interestingly enough, I’ve found a cure for some scratched discs. Run the DVD through DVD Shrink, which compresses dual layer discs to something that will fit on a single layer disc. The scratches seem to get compressed to something most media players can manage, as well. Doesn’t work for all scratches, of course, but it fixes occasional scene skipping.
Dragonball ? No offence but how old are you 10 ?
They’re probably referring to grown up anime, for people who can afford it, so you’re out of the question.
No offence but how old are you 7 ?
This thread is prolly targetting mature readers, for people that are individual, starting a fight over personal interests is pretty childish, so you’re probably not in the target audicence of OS News.
As someone who watches Anime I can tell you that the YouTube selection and quality is limited and the videos themselves are compromised by advertisements.
If you legalized piracy everyone would just download perfect duplicates of the episodes without compensating the creators.
The article clearly indicated that it was both Youtube and P2P sharing via Winny.
Ultimately though, the study makes yet another correlation, and is not proof of causation. Your comments, on the other hand, are mostly speculation and opinion… so I guess it’s an even trade.
It’s speculation that most people wouldn’t compensate content creators?
Single player PC games already have piracy rates of over 50% and piracy is illegal. Legalizing piracy would put piracy rates past 99%.
Legalizing piracy would amount to having a donations based system and that is a lousy way of funding software development. I went over this on my blog recently:
http://www.binplay.com/2011/01/funding-software-with-donations-is.h…
Well, games and software like Gimp are different categories when it comes to ‘donations’ in my opinion. Games are generally a one time thrill ride, and then you’re off looking for the next one. Applications such as Gimp are more likely to do better than games when it comes to donations due to their larger scope of use. So why is Gimp suffering? I’d say it’s simply not popular enough, and this I say has to do more with the piracy rate of Photoshop than anything else. It seems everyone and their uncle has this expensive piece of software installed, and when price leaves the picture obviously Photoshop is a better program than Gimp (if not, Adobe should be ashamed given the resources they have at their disposal).
There are other foss projects that are doing well, Blender is one I’ve used extensively for instance. Despite not being quite in the same league as Maya/XSI/3ds Max, it’s a solid 3d application with a large set of features which is developing at a brisk pace, and backed by a strong community.
Piracy is a fact of ‘software’ life, while perusing your blog I found (apart from that for every linux/foss zelot there is obviously the equivalent microsoft zelot) it funny to see linux users continually defined as ‘freetards’ given that Windows has such enormous problems with piracy. And speaking of games, we’ve seen the indie games scene successfully using ‘pay-what-you-want’ campaigns in which those purchasing Linux versions paid the most.
No, I don’t think foss is the answer to everything when it comes to software, but neither is proprietary. Also using open source free operating systems and software doesn’t mean you are a freeloader/cheapskate. Just like using proprietary software and operating systems doesn’t mean that you pay for them.
I think you misinterpret the use of the term ‘freetard’, as it is mainly geared towards people who think that using anything where the source code is not available is akin to breaking the 10 Commandments.
That being said, it amazes me how many people using Windows who, when looking for a piece of software to fulfill a need, will insist that it should be free. Like, ‘can you point me to a free program that does xyz….’ I guess these people think that programmers should just write stuff and expect nothing in return.
In regard to piracy, it’s amazing the bullshit excuses that people give for doing it. On one hand, they’ll claim to be sticking it to ‘the man’ and protesting what they consider to be draconian copyright laws. On the other hand, they’ll claim that piracy actually helps sales, so there’s no harm in it. But, if we assume for the sake of argument that piracy was helping sales and thus making ‘the man’ richer, wouldn’t that sort of negate the first argument?
Edited 2011-02-05 05:58 UTC
My solution: not to use proprietary software if there’s a workable solution elsewhere.
I use firmware, rar (it’s rare, but I occasionally have to deal with encrypted rar files) and flashplayer (and that only on one machine)
What’s wrong with asking if there is a similar free piece of software? Because you think otherwise – “All software should be paid”? Or were you trying to make some other point.
What would you think about mine? I “use”* unlicensed version of Windows on my desktop, instead of using Windows on all of my 3 laptops that have had their HDDs wiped and Ubuntu installed. All three came with Windows 7 Pro.
*- I have it installed and sometime switch to play some games I own on Steam.
Why did you put that in quotes?
If you use it, you use it.
You didn’t say “use as my primary system”, and apparently you don’t.
That said, you’re still a pirate. If you think that you should be allowed to install Windows on your desktop because it came with <number> other machines, and you didn’t use it… that’s not what the EULA says, and if you’re in the USA, the EULA is valid.
This is where things get very grey quickly. He bought three licenses for Windows7; he has installed and is running three licenses of Windows7. Microsoft got it’s three pounds of flesh and copyright has not been infringed.
At worst, he’s broken a contract with the software vendor; civil law. This isn’t copyright infringement or piracy.
This is the reason EUlA are hard to support legally if not outright invalid in more rational jurisdictions.
Because for me Windows7 is a useless piece of bloatware that I have to start to get to Steam content.
Oh, that’s right, I’m not in US. Thank God!
I’m not trying to make me seem a righteous person, what I am trying to say is “FFFFFFUUUUUUUU Microsoft!”
It’s a derogatory term used mostly by morons. It’s just as stupid as “micro$oft” or “micro$haft”.
At download.com Gimp averages 10k downloads per week. It’s easily in the top 1% by user base and yet it can only attract 2.5 developers.
Oh so I am a Microsoft zealot? That must be why I have links to iphone games and have numerous blog posts on using Linux as a home server. Unlike FOSSologists I’m all for using what works best.
The Humble Indy Bundle was a fundraiser that benefited from a generous amount of free advertising. It’s an exception to the rule which is that donation systems can’t be relied upon. Linux Mint is the #2 distro on distrowatch and doesn’t get enough to donations to fund two developers. The typical open source project doesn’t have close to that kind of traffic.
I don’t think that it does but I do think there is a culture that goes with Linux that expects software to be free. But I also think there is a contingent of Linux users that is under-served when it comes to commercial software.
Doesn’t mean they stick with Gimp, especially when they can pirate Photoshop which is more powerful and hey, everyone seems to be using it.
Actually I was talking about the commenters on your blog who reeks of Linux hatred, sure you can’t be held responsible for them but they certainly seem to flock to your blog. Zelots are zelots, different sides of the same coin.
Well the second bundle also did incredibly well. Sure that doesn’t mean that it can be ‘relied’ on, but then again obviously neither can charging a fixed price. It requires that people think what is offered is ‘worth’ the cost demanded. Add to this the fact that piracy means they can still get the offering without paying, then it really makes sense to meet the potential customer halfway, and the pay-what-you-want is an attempt at doing so. The humble indie bundles have been huge successes, future will decide if this is an exception to the rule as I’m sure more developers will try this in one way or another.
Have they actually made a drive for donations? It sounds as if it is popular, and if the work in creating this distro is appreciated (I don’t know how much it differs from other distributions and how much work is involved) then chances are there will be sufficient donations if they announce the need.
I was hardly alone in being shocked at the low level of developers in Gimp, both because of how much work they’ve actually been able to do, but also because it had never surfaced until recently. After this became ‘public knowledge’ the donations had a dramatic increase. From the Gimp developer forum:
I just wanted to let you know that we have seen a dramatic increase in
donations since then. More than 120 people donated over the last 8 days
and sent us about 2,500 dollars. Perhaps it would be a good idea to
discuss how we can actually use this money to make the GIMP 2.8 release
happen soon…
I disagree, most software on Linux IS free, but I don’t think Linux users in general are less inclined to pay for software than Windows users (cue Windows piracy), to tie in with your second paragraph I think Linux users may be more inclined to purchase commercial software due to the platform being starved for it. The reason it is starved is because it is such a small market for desktop software. So the commercial software we see ported to Linux is mainly aimed at large companies using Linux, like special effects/3d where Linux is huge. This is why despite such a small desktop market Linux still enjoys the latest versions of top software like Maya, XSI, Maxwell, SideFX Houdini, Nuke, Renderman, Mudbox, not to mention constantly updated proprietary drivers from companies like NVidia (believe me, it’s not because they want to cater to the huge linux gaming community).
LOL so all these people that are downloading it aren’t using it? Steam users have it installed more than Winzip:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Just because people think something is of value does not mean they will contribute to development costs if they have the option of paying $0.
Even $2500 a week isn’t close to what is needed. It’s not a viable model. Linux Mint and Gimp have sky high traffic compared to your typical open source project and yet both projects can’t even fund a team of 5.
Windows has its share of cheapskates but the people who are inclined to pay for software are going to be using Mac or Windows where there is already a large selection, especially for professional software.
But that doesn’t meant that I think developers should dismiss Linux users entirely. Though Linux has 1% of the market it is disproportionately made up of teens and young adults so indy game devs especially should not discount it. Indy games operate on smaller budget and have low-end graphics so the numbers can work out. Porting something like Photoshop or Autocad is an entirely different proposition because people that need it for work have already bought a copy for Windows or Mac.
Needed for what? For Gimp to seriously rival Photoshop? Not even in the commercial market are there any apps that rival Photoshop.
Really? So people go to Linux because they desperately don’t want to pay for software? I thought that was why people pirated software.
Where are the statistics on this? I’m edging closer to 40 so there, my anecdotal evidence just disproved your anecdotal evidence (whatever it may be).
Certainly, but there are people who do pay, else there would be no software available for sale at all.
Now obviously there are those who will not pay unless they have no other choice (and perhaps not even then because they don’t think the product is worth the asking price and would rather be without it). But chances are they will feel more inclined to pay something if they are allowed to decide what it’s worth themselves. There are probably alot of people who justifies not paying for something because they tell themselves that it’s just too expensive and that they can’t afford it (and it might actually be true). But I’d imagine it would be harder for them justify not paying a dime for something if they can set the price themselves, especially if they actually appreciate the product.
It certainly seems obvious that chasing people pirating software with pitchforks isn’t doing the trick, and neither is the type of ‘screw you fucking pirates!’ speeches that you have made on your blog.
And it’s not as if consoles or the mobile space is the promised land either, as piracy is rampant there aswell.
As for piracy itself, I climbed down from my high horse a long time ago. Although I don’t really think of myself as a pirate I am guilty of downloading tv episodes from a place called eztv from time to time. But in my youth I certainly pirated alot (on the c64 and amiga), basically you bought what your allowance would cover and you pirated whatever else you came across from friends. Young people of today pirate on a much wider scale but that’s due to technological advances, not some lapse in morals. I had no problems pirating when I was young as such I certainly can’t blame the current young generation for not upholding morals that I didn’t. And it’s not as if morals today are in any way better than when I was young, I’d say it’s gotten far far worse which is not surprising when ‘utter greed’ seems to be the only characteristic recognizable across societies today, aptly portrayed by corporations and puppet politicians. We have taught our young generations that in this world you should ‘take what you can when you can’, morals be damned, and then we act surprised when they do?
End of rant, now get off my lawn!
And what does “Linux Mint is the #2 distro on distrowatch” mean?
It would mean only that in that web site, its distribution page would be the second most looked.
It doesn’t mean that is the second most used distribution, of course.
“PCLinuxOS” was the most looked page in that web site, because it was a new distribution or because another reason.
Making up conclusions through the commented fact misleads people.
It’s a high traffic website relative to other open source projects. They also post their traffic stats if you would like more data.
[/q]
Then statements like “Linux Mint is the #2 distro on distrowatch and doesn’t get enough to donations to fund two developers.” don’t make sense, since being in the #2 of that list doesn’t guarantee that it’s a success, just means that its link is clicked more than other distributions in a particular website (because it’s a new distribution or whatever).
A new distribution like “PCLinuxOS” was the most looked page in that web site, because it was a new distribution or because another reason. Being in the #1 on that site doesn’t mean it’s the most important distribution.
But Debian is listed below Mint.. how on earth can it possibly exist with such low figures on such a high traffic website…
or maybe, the conclusion requires more information to support it.
I’m pretty sure Debian isn’t smaller than Mint even if it’s distrowatch page isn’t ranking higher hit counts.
Obviously there are even more free-loaders and cheapskates in the non-OSS crowd, otherwise piracy wouldn’t be such a, supposedly, gigantic problem.
At least OSS ‘cheapskates’ aren’t pirating.
Nah.. there is a culture that expects retail products to justify there prices in comparison to competitive products. That definitely exists.
There seems a healthy dose of folks who prefer libre source software but have no issue useing closed source freeware when best fits the need. They tend to include the folks above who have no issue paying for software provided the price is justified.
One can’t claim there isn’t a focal minority of libre source, free of cost or die. But claiming that subset of the overall usership/developership is the majority.. please..
Piracy is legal in The Netherlands and most other European countries, yet piracy rates are no higher or lower here than in the US. In other words, you’re talking out of your ass.
No it is only fully legal in certain parts of Asia where piracy rates of games are over 99%.
Stores in the Netherlands are not filled with pirated material.
<quote>No it is only fully legal in certain parts of Asia where piracy rates of games are over 99%.
Stores in the Netherlands are not filled with pirated material.</quote>
You’re confusing downloading pirates for personal use with selling pirated material. They clearly aren’t the same thing.
But then again, you have the tendency of twisting things around.
I’d say you highlight a key difference between simple infringement and real piracy. bobby downloading a tv show to watch or movie he may or may not later afford a legitimate DVD license of is very, very different from professional theft and/or counter-fitting.
Jerkface’s example of asian software markets would actually be counterfeiting if he had any interest in using accurate terminology instead of sensationalizing his party line.
Oh stop with this complete bullshit that piracy is legal. The Netherlands and all other European countries are signatories of the Berne convention therefore copyright laws apply. More so the Netherlands is a member of the EU so the EU copyright directive will apply although maybe you haven’t implemented it quite just yet).
If there is a piece of legislation in your country that overrides international treaty then please identify it along with the section that states you are allowed to breach copyright law. There may be exemptions that state you are allowed to copy material you own for your own use but there will not be anything that states you can take anything you like legally.
There is, reiterated in various high-profile court cases and by several ministers of Justice. Our laws on the ‘thuiskopie’ (personal copy, paragraph 1, article 16b copyright law 1912) do not state the copy itself has to come from a legal source. As such, the consequence is that even if the source is illegal, you are allowed to download it. This is not just my interpretation – it has consistently been confirmed like this by courts of law and our minister of Justice.
There has been talk of changing this, but there is simply no majority for it in parliament. As our Justice minister explained several times, making downloading illegal would serve no purpose, since it would only criminalise the entire population with no way to actually do anything about it. The key concept is that you need to actually profit off breaking copyright law before it makes sense to prosecute.
In addition, there’s a levy on empty media.
This construction allows law enforcement to go after professional pirates, without clogging up the legal system as is happening in the US.
http://www.iusmentis.com/auteursrecht/nl/thuiskopie/
This is the way many European countries approach copyright enforcement, and it’s a good interim solution until copyright law is finally rewritten from the ground-up for the digital age.
I’m sorry if this annoys you, but it’s established fact. Remember that we do not have common law, and as such, judges do not have any influence on lawmaking like judges on the US do. As such, it is impossible for this to change without amendments being made to our copyright law – which is unlikely to happen since even several music industry groups are vehemently opposed to it. These music industry groups argue that art is supposed to be heard and seen, and making downloading illegal will hinder this.
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/70953/artiestenbonden-en-consumentenbond…
Finally a cited source for the constant claims, although how this covers the “many European countries” part I’m not sure so I will still remain annoyed at that part. Thank you. It is however possibly only just the case in the UK as our EU directive implementation only just came into force but I would have to check if it is as lenient as your laws. I suspect it is closer to what I have found for France. I’ve not found a canonical source yet but to quote from a passed amendment on their EU directive implementation:
“The author cannot forbid the reproductions made on any medium from an on-line communication service by a natural person for his personal use with no direct or indirect commercial purposes, except for the copies of a software other than a backup copy, provided the reproductions make the object of a royalty as stated by article L. 311-4 .”
My interpretation of this is a backup copy of software is allowed, other copies are not. Which if this went through would imply it would still be illegal in France for software subject to whatever article L. 311-4 says of course.
I believe, but can’t find the source sorry, that a European court judge has stated that publication of material occurs in the country the server is located. As such you are breaking the law in that country so the piracy isn’t 100% legal there just isn’t much that can be done about it.
Not sure if your “we” in do not have common law is just the Netherlands or Europe wide but the UK has common law, and also from a little bit of reading case law, i.e. decisions made by judges affecting future outcomes does happen in the Netherlands so they do have an influence based off their interpretation.
Now in order to save face a little I will argue semantics. You say piracy is legal. If it isn’t copyright infringement to download a personal copy then there is no piracy taking place in your country, this means that Piracy is illegal, just that you are not commit it
What makes you think that contents creators are the ones that get compensated? You keep bashing on about the same issue with the same tired arguments, which are nothing more than your take on the situation and clouded by your very obvious bias, for which you have yet to provide any real evidence. Yet any time someone, usually with a lot more credibility than you’ve ever mustered, comes out with any actual research, you poohoo it with yet more biased anecdotes again without a shred of proof.
Could you please let me know when you have any actual proof for what you’re saying? Oh, and please don’t start mentioning those appalling “studies” carried out by the MPAA and RIAA that have been discredited more times than you can shake a stick at.
– From a very tired content creator.
When you purchase an Anime Blu-ray a percentage of that sale went to the creators.
Or are you going to deny this?
If piracy was fully legalized then stores would just sell Blu-rays without compensating the creators. They would just sell them at the cost of the Blu-ray and packaging with a marginal mark-up. That’s already how it works in many parts of Asia.
Proof of what? Piracy rates of pc games? Well you can start with tweak guides
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html
I can provide a dozen more links that show how it is common for pc games to be pirated at rates over 50%.
But I like how you rambled about the RIAA even though I haven’t mentioned music.
Very, very nice article. I just wonder, in the end of page 7, why they still have not mentioned any way to avoid it (piracy).
Yes. People are less likely to pay content creators. That has been true for millennia. However software is not “content” and people will pay for software in a lot of cases. Games, however, are “99% content and 1% software”.
Games are mostly not “reusable” and non “reusable” software ends up to have the same fate as games.
With software, you can show functionality and usefulness. People are willing to pay for those things.
PS: The Linux Mint donations case is however a result of OS becoming a commodity, for that we can be thankful to Microsoft. See HumbleIndyBundle as a counterexample*.
* – The free OS loving hippies paid more for games that all Windows OS users and all “premium” Mac users. (At least that what the chart looks like.)
[EDIT] PPS: Just a quick scan of your blog, shows that you are quite anti Linux, maybe anti F/OSS. I find it quite funny, because most Linux users value and adhere to copyright as a cornerstone of F/OSS. And you are bashing most of your “own” in the post above(Windows users, that mostly “don’t give” a crap about copyright). The “fact” is Windows piracy results in it’s own market dominance.
Edited 2011-02-05 14:00 UTC
When it comes to open source “a lot of cases” means less than 1% of projects even get enough donations to fund a single developer.
Games are not 99% content and 1% software when it comes to the development. What are you saying here anyways? That programmers should be compensated but not artists? A modern game takes 50 professionals of all types that work long hours. They should all be compensated for their work.
Donations are not a viable solution to fund software development. Believing otherwise is delusion.
So the lack of donations to Linux Mint is the fault of Microsoft? Maybe you should blame bad weather on them as well.
LibreOffice, Gimp, Gnucash, and every other open source project with a donation button is underfunded.
The humble indy bundle was a fundraiser with a generous amount of free advertising. Linux users at some point viewed it as a competition against Mac and Windows users.
Well I guess you didn’t see the links to open source software.
A cornerstone huh
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=692682&page=9
And when it comes to proprietary software ‘a lot of cases’ means that 1% of projects even get enough customers to pay salary for a single developer.
Certainly, if people appreciate it and find it worth the cost. And no, I’m not saying that if they don’t they should pirate it. But just because 50 professionals worked on a game doesn’t mean it is worth the asking price, personally I find more enjoyment from the indie scene these days than I do from the likes of Electronic Arts, despite their hollywood budgets for game making.
Well, to take a project I use (and have donated to), Blender has been funded by donations since 2002 and it’s still going as strong as ever.
The proprietary model does not always work but is none the less responsible for the majority of consumer desktop software. It’s just a handful of high profile open source projects that get more than a few hundred a month in user donations.
They also receive corporate funding much like Linux and Apache. For certain types of software there is an incentive by corps to contribute but not for most software. When open source depends on user donations the tip cup is usually ignored. Just ask Linux fan Lunduke who tried his hardest to go the donation route and ended up disappointed.
Less than .01% of Linux Mint users donate even a dollar to the project. When users have no technical or legal incentive to pay only a minute fraction will bother. That’s just the reality of the situation.
”
When it comes to open source “a lot of cases” means less than 1% of projects even get enough donations to fund a single developer.
”
source please
As a simple point. PlaneShift developers quited state that developing a single sword swing takes an hour of coding and several hours of a graphics designer’s time. By the time spent on code vs content, games are mostly content not software. And my point is that games are treated as content is – disposable with low value.
Some are, some are not. Ever heard of “Never say never”?
Yes, they are at the core of commoditization of the OS. No other company has done more to make sure that people think that OS comes free with a computer.
More competitions like that I say… Yet that is irrelevant to my statement: Linux users contributed to the common pot more than all Windows users and all Mac users.
LOL! Man, just plain old LOL!
“Voters: 168. This poll is closed”
Find a better argument.
legalize piracy? Who in tehre right mind would make the hostile armed takeover of other transport vessels legal?
Oh.. right.. I forgot.. it’s all about sensationalizing an inaccurate word to generate an emotional response rather than critical thought.
Carry on then.
Hi,
I heard that (based on this study), Microsoft are planning to put some anime on Windows8 DVDs, to increase profit from pirates…
– Brendan
A chance to revive MICROS~1 Bob! 🙂
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html
What the Western public doesn’t know is the expensive license cost of airing an anime series through a non-Japanese television station. This is true in South Korea and Taiwan.
Hm?
Where does this come in?
This is a Japanese study about Japan.
Also, most people _are_ aware, though I think the US gets cheaper licensing fees, due to the high population and marketability. I do know that the cost of DVDs are lower here, but that goes for western films and all CDs as well. Roughly half the price of them in Japan. I’ve only once purchased a new DVD/CD in/from Japan: “Super Live Nippon Budoukan” by Yazawa Eikichi (great album, I have it on LP, as well)
The price for Japanese comics here is insane, though. 2-10 times the price, generally, though sometimes the price is the same… for something smaller, blurry, and on crap paper.
What I’m getting at is that often licensing costs aren’t about ‘outside Japan’ but more about old men being racist/xenophobic. That’s changing, though luckily.
…not that this has anything to do with the article…
But it was worth mentioning. And that’s all.
Was it worth mentioning _here?_
Couldn’t you have posted a blog somewhere?
I’m confused by this, and I dislike being confused.
So I couldn’t post something about Japanese when this thread is about Japan itself?
Stop being confused because you were never confused in the first place.
You’re making less sense with each post.
No, just because something happens in a country doesn’t mean you should comment about something entirely different.
Say a new OS should become quite popular in Korea, and it gets reported here.
Something I should _not_ do is post a comment about how some protesters quartered a live piglet in Korea once.
This is what is called a ‘non-sequitur’.
Assuming anything “about Japanese” is reason to say disparaging things “about Japanese” is just as racist as the people who jack prices up for particular countries.
You could have just put “THE JAPANESE!!!” in lieu of some vague “westerners don’t know shit about licensing fees for television”, which makes no sense regardless. Would have saved time.
It’s actually a nice country, and most people are very nice and tolerant. The problem is the same as the USA for the most part: old people hang onto old bullshit.
Stop hanging onto old bullshit.
PS
Don’t fscking tell me how I do or don’t feel. I stated my confusion in the first reply; by stating that your comment had nothing to do with the story, which is true.
Edited 2011-02-06 16:36 UTC
I merely said something about Japanese IP license issue when this is about some study held by the Japanese government.
Do you really complain about members posting off-topic remarks when this act itself is relatively common on OSNEWS?
You’re strange.
That “about Japanese” from my earlier post is “the license issue of anime overseas”.
If I would say about people living in Japan, I think the rule of thumb in the English grammar is to put the definite article, which will be “about THE Japanese”. Putting an article right next to an obscure adjective like “a nationality” would presuppose that it’s a noun. My earlier post didn’t presuppose that it’s a noun to describe people.
Anyways, 変ã ãªäººé–“ã§ã™ã。
(Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I’m a Korean-Chinese guy who understands the Japanese language.)
Edited 2011-02-06 23:26 UTC
More non-sequiturs.
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Some kind of encoding error happening…
HEY! ADMINS Make sure your stuff is UTF-8 clean
Edited 2011-02-06 23:36 UTC
Aho (a**hole in Japanese) is a pretty strong Japanese word to a Canadian (I’m actually Korean-Chinese-Canadian), isn’t it?
Are you really mad without a reason? Strange. Wwwww
Of course. I wrote “about Japanese”. Thank you for confirming that you can understand my English.
Edited 2011-02-06 23:54 UTC
You didn’t post anything ‘about Japanese’.
You posted something about the licensing policies of some Japanese companies to certain other countries.
Japanese is a language, an ethnicity. and/or a nationality.
What does regional export pricing have to do with any of those?
What does regional export pricing have to do with _internal Japanese_ economics.
It’s all a non-sequitur.
Also, you don’t know as much Japanese as you might like to think, because 阿呆 is harsh in é–¢æ±, but not so in 関西, and you didn’t identify which dialect I was using.
_NOWHERE_ does it mean “arsehole”. That would be 糞ã£ãŸã‚Œ or something even more vulgar.
The most harsh translation for 阿呆 is “jackass”; the least, “doofus”.
12 years of study, including 2 trips there of over a month each (both solo, with no bilingual assistance), and much experience doing translations to/teaching of English.
A more critical point than my choice of insult was that your Japanese is terrible. Doesn’t bode well for your understanding of their internal politics, their international politics, or the policies for the IP departments of what amounts to several large conglomerates.
I never claimed to be an expert, all I said was “well, the USA has it cheaper than Japan, so overseas licensing in general can’t be super-high” and “why did you post this here?” (those are para-quotes)
Stop. You’re less knowledgeable than you thought. That’s ok. It just means you need to study more.
As a recovering Weeaboo (it’s a rough habit to kick, especially once you have genuine friends over there), I’ve been through it a few times myself. It’s part of life in general, really. You reach a plateau of knowledge, and think you’ve figured it all out.
At a certain point you need to start taking a little time every day and thinking “The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing”.
Again, “This is about something in Japan. Anything related to Japan is totally appropriate to post” is an attitude that doesn’t wash.
For example:
Hypothetical story: “Microsoft releases blah blah blah”
Hypothetical comment: “CDs of American music cost alot more in Europe” (I don’t know if that’s true or not, tbh, not the point)
Microsoft may be an American company, but that doesn’t mean talking about America in some broad sense has any relevance.
Edited 2011-02-07 01:56 UTC
It’s also an adjective in referring a indefinite noun (singular or plural) relating to Japan in some uses. That is if it’s used with some kinds of prepositions.
And guess what? I was born in South Korea and I hate South Korea; I’m hardly anti-Japanese.
Were you really that offended just because you misunderstood my words? That’s not a problem. Anybody can misunderstand anyone’s words. You just need to control your temper.
I’ve lived in 5 countries (mostly in Asia, except Japan). I think I can say about the licensing issues proudly without any problem.
Stop being dramatic about meta-knowledge. You lack tact, just like me 5 years ago. But don’t worry too much about it. It’s a life experience.
Edited 2011-02-07 02:45 UTC
You’re over-confident in your english.
Your grammar is wonky at best, so that makes your statements unclear.
The licensing comment is a _non-sequitur_.
It has nothing to do with the article.
And you got extremely mad from that? You’re not an 11 year old kid.
I speak 4 languages daily due to my work and my personal life. And English could be more confusing. Ok. I admit that I need to improve my English, although my French is always at the top than English for some reason.
I see one member in this thread mentioning something about license and how it affects the illegal usage of IP contents. What about that guy? Are you just being angry towards me because I look so easy?
Stop trolling. Licensing issue is also related to internet piracy.
You said my argument is Non Sequitur. Well, yours is the opposite: Ignoratio Elenchi, AKA the twin sister to Non Sequitur.
This is a pointless flamewar. Especially it was started by a former Wapanese.
If you thought that the licensing issue was related to piracy, you should have stated that when I asked why you were bringing it up… any of the many times I asked.
Then you decide to go ad-hominem on my old hobby… though you claimed to know alot more about anime licensing costs than most people would (do you work in the industry? how else could you know the internal costs?)
It’s not too hard to find the licensing issues in the South Korean webspace. There were news around the year 2006 that licensing to air anime in South Korea was getting too expensive. Hence ChampTV, Tooniverse and Jeineung TV (three mainstay anime channels in South Korea) losing too much share. This sparked some issues how other countries license-related situations, etc, etc, etc.
When you post this:
All you talked was something personal and smearing my previous post in question forms. Would this be ad hominem? No. You just lack tact. I see some other members misunderstanding your intentions (not your words per se) when you post something in the past. You and I have unique flaws. Can’t complain.
Anyways, when there is a news entry about piracy in OSnews, handful of members mentioned about (IP) licensing issues in most articles. As you know, you’re the only person who is bragging about this. Why? I don’t know. I’m not you anyways.
One of the biggest reasons for piracy at least here in Kuwait, people are forced to download games / movies / anime from torrent websites is that we can’t get them here in the stores.
The government here follow strict rules related to media like movies and other contents (I don’t wanna discuss the reasons for that).
I know many people here in Kuwait will stop downloading from the pirate bay as soon as they can get there anime bluray / dvds from stores here in kuwait, for example.. I’ve been searching kuwait video stores for (Death Note) anime series but I’ve been told its not allowed to import it to kuwait, yet I don’t want to download it from torrent sites.
And when it comes to online services like Netflix and others, I’ve always get the message (This services is not allowed in your country).
Any solutions?
nope no solutions, same here in Romania, but regarding music piracy the effect can be seen when you have 10.000 – 50.000 people paying ticket on a concert of a band that is newer promoted on radio or tv, compared to the few hundred people on a radio/tv music “star”. Those ones are played all day long everywhere so nobody pirates their albums.
“In the end, promoting the arts and sciences – the original goal of copyright – basically comes down to spreading them. I’d hazard a guess piracy has done more to spread especially the arts than copyright law has ever done.”
I don’t think anyone can say it as well as that. Very well said. It’s disturbing what these assholish companies believe (and do).
because most anime are aired on TV first, and not in the cinema. So it’s free to begin with. In other words, since there is no loss of (cinema/album/etc) ticket prices, this kind of media is obviously less affected by the negative effects of piracy.
When one looks at the hundreds upon hundreds (or thousands) of movies/tv shows many people download you have to be realistic…….. most people could not afford to buy all those dvd’s/blu-rays even if they wanted to. So for the content industry to freak about losing out on content sales that they would never get anyway is ridiculous.
I know using myself as an example, I only download content that I would never think of purchasing anyway. If I can’t download that content, I simply go without… It’s simply not that important to me.
On the other hand, for anything that I really have a desire for or need to have, I will simply go out and buy the blu-ray or dvd if no blu-ray is available. If it’s valuable to me, I will purchase it.
Even if you end up buying it later, you still stole it in the first place.
What if one buys it in the first place and downloads alternative formats of the same licensed content? What of when it’s not yet available on DVD but long since been through the theaters; still an issue if one is going to be buying the disk upon release?
It’s really not a black and white topic like big content would have us believe.
I’d like to thank Thom for opening the thread for comments, before saying anything else.
The OSNEWS article says that “piracy increases anime DVD sales”, which is superficially correct, but not really correct when one reads the article.
First of all, the article says that youtube increases the sales of DVDs. Well, that’s true: youtube contains seriously degraded or partial clips of anime videos. It works as advertising. That does not mean it is not piracy.
Secondly, the article says that although DVD sales are increased, DVD rentals are actually hurt by piracy. That’s because the people that buy DVDs want best quality, but the people that rent DVDs don’t care that much about the quality and they may be satisfied with youtube clips or DVD rips.
Thirdly, Thom says that he doesn’t care about the economic aspect of piracy, he only cares about how arts and sciences are promoted. While that is a noble attitude, unfortunately it is linked quite hard to economics: quality anime could not be produced without having a product on the market, simply because producing anime requires working full time for it. Please watch the credits of any modern anime and check out how many people have worked for it. Does anyone think that this quality would be possible without a product being sold?
Finally, let’s not forget that piracy has killed computing platforms in the past (the Amiga, for example), and game companies chose to develop on consoles (and more recently, on closed platforms like the iOS) simply due to piracy.
So, piracy is not a good thing, despite what Thom is trying to say here. Sorry Thom, but that’s how it is.
Commodore killed the Amiga all on their own. Don’t go dragging “piracy” into it.
I’m gonna venture a guess here (since this is also my view) and say Thom’s problem with copyright law is that it no longer promotes the arts and sciences, but instead is a tool for “big content” to suck as much money out of the market as possible. I don’t mind people making money, in fact i am trying to myself. However, copyright lasting, what is it now, 100 years?, is f. ridiculous. The person who was suppose to be compensated for his work long ago turned to dust!
The problem is that copyright law is no longer to benefit of society, but “big content.”
/Uni
No. Piracy had a very big role in Amiga’s death. Software houses at the time where lucky to have sold a few thousand copies, but the whole world enjoyed the games. I was in the Amiga community for a long time, I had many friends with Amigas and Atari STs, so let me tell you something: nobody ever bought any game. We all copied them.
The copyright law never promoted the arts and sciences. It was conceived solely for the purpose of sustaining a business.
It’s not about persons, it’s about businesses. And businesses can easily outlast persons.
The copyright law is beneficial to society, because it allows businesses to live and to give people jobs. If there wasn’t such a law, there would be no progress, as there would be no financial motivation for anyone to push back the limits of science and technology required for arts to advance.
Well, it’s certainly true that piracy made it hard for those living on selling Amiga games, but Commodore made a living on selling Amiga HARDWARE. Piracy was just as rampant on PC aswell, and yet it totally took over the home computer market. Commodore’s failure was that they weren’t able to compete technically. The motorola 680×0 series was a dead end performance-wise, and the AGA chipset was simply much too slow with it’s dated bitplane technology.
At that time videogames like Super Nintendo and Genesis had as many colors on screen as the Amiga AGA chipset but could offer much better graphics overall using hardware sprites/hardware tiles. Meanwhile the PC had the one-byte per pixel VGA mode which allowed games like Castle Wolfenstein, Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander etc to perform great on same priced PC hardware as the Amiga 1200. Commodore had been resting on their laurels and ended up much like Atari did vs NES. Piracy is a flawed excuse since again, there was just as much piracy on the PC.
Amiga Software houses couldn’t afford developing for the Amiga any more, and that hurt Commodore sales seriously.
PC game companies were hurt by piracy as well, but the nature of the PC hardware market made it impossible for piracy to have an impact on the PC hardware. Advanced PC graphics and sound were created not for games, but for business applications.
When the time was right, game companies jumped ship to consoles, due to piracy of PC games.
Not true. Commodore had a chip in development that could render one million textured polygons per second, in 1990, but they didn’t have the money to complete their design.
Not true. Arcade games that used the 68000 showed that it did not matter what the main CPU was, as long as the custom chips were strong enough to handle the special fx.
Not true. Until the PC got accelerated graphics, the PC could not do the smooth scrolling and sprites of the AGA Amiga.
The PC smoked the Amiga in 3d games, because the Amiga didn’t have any custom chips for 3d graphics, which was the result of Commodore not having the money to complete the 3d chip, which was the result of fewer sales, which was mostly the result of piracy.
Not entirely true.
The Genesis was inferior to the AGA Amiga in every conceivable way: less colors, worse sound, less blitting power.
The SNES had mode 7, and more colors, but the AGA chipset could do the relevant effects and also present more than 256 colors on the screen due to palette tricks.
The AGA Amiga could do sprite rotation and scaling. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-IDcTW8JQ4.
If you check out the effects of that video game, you will see that Amiga could do what SNES could do.
Indeed, but this was largely due to piracy: less Amiga software meant less Commodore sales, which in turn meant Amiga hardware was more expensive.
I think I showed you why piracy hurt the Amiga.
Here are some interesting links for you to read:
Amiga with 3d texture mapping was in development: http://assemblergames.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-15227.html
links regarding piracy and Amiga:
http://www.giantbomb.com/amiga-corporation/65-6153/was-this-the-big…
http://blog.pdark.de/tag/amiga/
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4622
There are many more like these.
Many people rightly recognize the role of piracy in Amiga’s death.
Apple’s platform is successful and everyone wants to develop for it largely due to its closed nature, allowing for minimal software piracy.
Finally, there are lots of online resources explaining how piracy killed the PC as a gaming platform.