11–20 of 89 posts
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…
Interesting that it worked out for them, unlike what happened with music distribution, and then the Napster/iTunes/Spotify evolution. Probably helped that there was only extremely slow and expensive legitimate distribution channels and actual work was required to make the content accessible in other languages.
Rakuten's Viki service is another interesting model - they license content, then give people early access and crowdsource the translations, where the only benefit of translating is getting the $5-10 monthly service for free.
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…
Wasn't this the path of YouTube also?
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…
Anime fansubs have been around for 3-4 decades (ever since the early Amiga could overlay subs) and digital for 20+. Interesting that it worked out for them, unlike what happened with music distribution, and then the Napster/iTunes/Spotify evolution. Probably helped that there was only extremely slow and expensive legitimate distribution channels and actual work was required to make the content accessible in other lan…
It's still this way; you can buy anime box sets in the US for an entire series that costs less than a single episode in Japan. (They segment the markets by burning English subtitles into the actual video. No self-respecting Japanese person would buy that, right? Ironically region codes don't work because Japan and the US are in the same region! DRM fails again.)
20 years from now. Sony acquires Kissanime.
This is interesting because it means the two big distributors of anime in the US are now one. It's creating a monopsony from the perspective of the anime studios, though I suspect a rival will emerge shortly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't this the path of YouTube also?
Youtube’s owners didn’t upload copyrighted content to their own site with fansubs. It was all in: go legit or die in a lawsuit.
This is, I believe, actually incorrect.
(the bit about fansubs is irrelevant to the overall business model)
A billion dollars is not bad for a site that started as a fake-it-til-you-make-it piracy site. I only know the story 4th-hand. But, my understanding is that it started as a user-upload site (I.e. piracy with disclaimers). And, of course, the seed users were actually employees with puppet accounts pirating media to their own site. That kicked off real users who competed on getting the highest quality subtitle jobs upl…