EyeOnAnime Forum

Just Passing Through · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: Should anime online be freegal?

Licenses be damned! Let the floodgates open, unleash the fansubbers, and put everything online free and legal!

Will this help the anime industry?

I think it might. As the one thing that anime lacks, especially in the UK, is exposure. Films have the cinema to DVD route, television is obviously from small screen to silver disc, the point being that for any particular movie, millions will go and see it in the cinema, or hear about it from friends, or read a review. TV is even better, millions of people have access to shows for the price of a TV licence.

You're always going to have leechers, people who tape of the telly and never bother paying, people who buy a pirate copy of a movie, rather than wait six months for it to come out on DVD, and another six months for it to drop to less than a fiver.

But it's all about percentages. Right now, practically 0% of people in the UK have access to free and legal anime. Gonzo's experiment has turned me off ever since they started with Strike Witches, only available to stream once a week during the midnight hours in the UK, otherwise pay Crunchyroll and BOST for the privilege of downloading.

Take something like CSI, on Channel 5. A couple of million people watch it, most forget about afterwards. There will be those who PVR it, burn it to disc, or still tape it. But if something like 0.5% of the fans are committed to collecting it on DVD, that's still ten thousand sales.

Compare that to anime's audience...

So the answer is, make it all free and legal. After all, no matter the quality of the download or stream, it's never quite as good as DVD, certainly not Bluray. There are never extras, it may even lack a dub. So it will never match the quality of a physical product.

But if the studios unleashed it onto the net. Within reason of course. But say the studios get it subbed within hours or days of release, just as in Gonzo's experiment. Then they put on a stream for the world to watch, but here's the key, it's their own servers, so they can monitor who is watching and from where. They get the demographics and can judge the popularity. It's only streamed for a week until the next episode, but everyone with a broadband connection can watch it.

Most everyone will watch it and forget about it, just as with television. You can't do anything about the leechers, they'll take the stream and horde it on their hard drives until an EMP wipes it out. But if you do the same kind of math as with CSI, if your show gets a couple million hits during that week, you can assume that 10000 people will be willing to buy it on DVD, and with your demographic data, you can tell where it will sell best.

Stop fighting the problem, start using it.
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IanC · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:20 pm Post subject:

No. Fansubs are illegal and need to stay that way. Most (and thats like 95%) of fansub watchers never buy the DVDs (or if they do they buy bootlegs). If you just "open the floodgates" its only going to make that problem worse.
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Gawyn · Elite Poster Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 568

The biggest problem with fansubs, as they exist now, are that they represent no revenue for the producer of the anime. There is a big difference between taping off the TV and downloading it for free off the internet in that TV at least provides revenue for the producers even if you do not pay it directly.

If the anime producers can provide a service that is either ad or subscription supported then that would be the best solution but legitimising fansubs is plainly wrong. The biggest problem with fansubs in my estimation is the inflation of the cost of licences that goes on when a particular title appears to have a large following. Too often you will see "fans" giving all manner of excuses why they won't buy this or that series despite having enjoyed it while it was free. What we have right now is clearly not working perfectly but ventures such as those being trialled by Gonzo show some promise for the future.

Damo

Damo

Just Passing Through · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:59 am Post subject:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/UK-govt-to-monitor-all-telecoms/0,130061791,339290628,00.htm?feed=rss

With the UK government intent on monitoring all telecoms, including Internet usage, it's obvious someone will know what we are watching and when we are watching it.

We pay a licence fee for television, subscription for satellite, advertising pays for channels, and we also pay for Internet connections.

If the ISPs know what we are watching, listening to and downloading. Then it's a small step for them to reach into their grubby little wallets and actually pay out some royalties. Doesn't have to be much, just enough to make it legal, and if the shows being streamed also carry a little advertising between the eyecatches, then you can dispense with the royalties as well.

If TV companies are treating the Internet like a channel, then the studios can just cut out the middlemen and essentially broadcast their material themselves.
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Gawyn · Elite Poster Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 568

Damo · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:42 am Post subject: