Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 40 posts

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#21

Post by guelo »

DarkShikari wrote: post #13
astrange wrote: post #12

That article skips over some of the actual details of the way the site was founded, like how the founders uploaded US DVD rips/pirated content to the site themselves, or the way they started charging for accounts _before_ removing that content, or the way all the site announcements were written in textspeak to make them look like teenagers. I guess that's called bootstrapping.

Beyond pirating the content, they also went out of their way to steal fan translations. They eventually hired their own translators, but not before making boatloads of money off selling other peoples' work.

I don't see selling pirated works as any worse than creating the pirated work. There is no honor among thieves.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#22

Post by TikiTDO »

dangrossman wrote: post #18

I get really angry with this site. I signed up and paid for a premium membership to watch a TV series the same day it aired in Japan each week. When the series finished I cancelled my membership. Ever since then, I get almost twice daily "private messages" from fake people, which generate e-mails to me asking me to log in and read them. When I log in and open the PM, it's an ad from Crunchyroll offering me a discount…

I found that I had the same problem. My solution was quite simple; Crunchyroll has the distinct honor of being the second domain to be wildcard forwarded straight to the trash folder.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#23

Post by DarkShikari »

guelo wrote: post #21
DarkShikari wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond pirating the content, they also went out of their way to steal fan translations. They eventually hired their own translators, but not before making boatloads of money off selling other peoples' work.

I don't see selling pirated works as any worse than creating the pirated work. There is no honor among thieves.

It's legally dubious as to whether or not translating someone else's text is piracy.

But that's irrelevant: this is supposed to be a legitimate business. Legitimate businesses aren't supposed to build a business model around selling others' works without permission.

Unless you're claiming that Crunchy are just as equally "thieves" as the pirates they supposedly work against, in which case I agree.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#24

Post by rick888 »

ZoFreX wrote: post #14
wccrawford wrote: post #3

Actually, it doesn't quite treat it as a 'market failure'. It does indeed take it seriously and beat it at part of its own game (releasing shows when people want them) but it still can't compete on price. And I think that doesn't matter. Give people easy, legal access to the shows at a decent price and they'll pay. (Well, some won't, but some never will.) That's the best you can hope for.

I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content. There is no system by which I can pay money to watch TV shows as soon as they are done airing in the USA, I either have to wait for the DVDs, hope the show airs here too, or pirate it. To regurgitate a popular TV quote: Shut up and take my money! Those services that do exist are all…

"I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content."

It's the beginning of the entitlement generation. People aren't getting what they want, so they take it. Unless the content is $0 and you can get it whenever you want, the vast majority of people pirating will not stop.

I've haven't seen the end of the excuses. There are plenty of legal services for music (trying for free and buying for cheap). Yet, piracy is stronger than ever. What makes you think it will be any different for movies?

I also think about piracy when I start a new business idea. I no longer release any commercial apps..only commercial services.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#25

Post by modeless »

dangrossman wrote: post #18

I get really angry with this site. I signed up and paid for a premium membership to watch a TV series the same day it aired in Japan each week. When the series finished I cancelled my membership. Ever since then, I get almost twice daily "private messages" from fake people, which generate e-mails to me asking me to log in and read them. When I log in and open the PM, it's an ad from Crunchyroll offering me a discount…

Strange, I did the same and didn't get these messages.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#26

Post by r00fus »

guelo wrote: post #21
DarkShikari wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond pirating the content, they also went out of their way to steal fan translations. They eventually hired their own translators, but not before making boatloads of money off selling other peoples' work.

I don't see selling pirated works as any worse than creating the pirated work. There is no honor among thieves.

I'd argue it's ethically worse

On one hand, you have someone who loves the content (but who would not buy it) and so pirates it - this is "unrealized" revenue for content owners.

On the other hand, you have a company that makes money and pays no royalties - this is outright theft from the content owners.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#28

Post by jarin »

tantalor wrote: post #7

The iTunes Store works the same way. In general, if you offer content on reasonable terms, people will pay for it, otherwise they will pirate it.

The other reason the iTunes Store works is ease and speed. No matter how good your connection is, it's really hard to beat a one-click preview (which torrents don't offer), one-click purchase, and having the entire album in your iTunes library in less than a minute.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#29

Post by pyre »

dangrossman wrote: post #18

I get really angry with this site. I signed up and paid for a premium membership to watch a TV series the same day it aired in Japan each week. When the series finished I cancelled my membership. Ever since then, I get almost twice daily "private messages" from fake people, which generate e-mails to me asking me to log in and read them. When I log in and open the PM, it's an ad from Crunchyroll offering me a discount…

Personally, I would post the entire conversation between you and them somewhere (pastebin, blog, etc) and try and point a lot of publicity towards it. Especially now that they are getting some good press from Arstechnica, you could reach critical mass with disseminating that information. Perhaps you could even point the author of that article at your information, which may even get an update to that article.

Re: Anime Site Treats Piracy as Market Failure

#30

Post by tsotha »

michaelpinto wrote: post #15
jamaicahest wrote: post #9

Silly that the anime studios have not learned anything from the recording industry's last 10+ years battle with internet piracy and the success of online music stores. But I suppose it is difficult to accept that your business strategy, which has worked for many years, is now no longer working.

Actually America is a secondary market for anime — it's only recently that the Japanese have started selling here directly (in fact companies like FUNi are licensing anime not producing it). Most anime is broadcast TV so they make their real money from advertising and the marketing of merchandise, it's only in America where the DVDs were a primary point of consumption. So they have different issues (and blind spots)…

This is a key point. Part of the reason they have such a piracy problem with anime is until very recently only a handful of series were released in the US. For most titles a fansub was your only option if you wanted to watch at all.
Post reply on HN