State of the Industry

[mDuo13]

The original poster didn't plant a seed, they took a crap on the floor and called it a rose. I told him, his crap, was crap. Then you took another crap on the floor. Then I wrote down how things really are in reflection to that crap.

That's nice of you.

[Nyxyin]

A thousand dollars worth of DVD's isn't much

I know it isn't.  I own at least several hundred, maybe over a thousand anime <i>DVDs</i>, not "dollars worth of" DVDs.  According to my DVD tracking program, the retail value of the anime side of my DVD collection is over $20K.  For an individual, I think I do my part in supporting the American anime industry, partly subsidizing dubs that I don't care about and don't believe they should waste money on, paying a premium for anime compared to its competitors, and Geneon still decided to get out of the market.  Ironically, they're the ones with the highest retail price for their DVDs.  I listed the things that I thought would help make the American anime companies more efficient since I do have even more disposable income (about $100/month) that does go to American blockbuster DVDs and anime soundtracks and video games and manga instead.  (Manga isn't subbed, but I do find myself buying bilingual manga from Kinokuniya, and for a few series, I do get both Japanese and English versions even though I can't read Japanese.)

Most prefer it dubbed. The large majority prefers it dubbed. cortana already talked about how it's marketed towards teens

Older teens read faster than adults.  I don't know why people keep underestimating teenagers.  Many research studies claim that the brain starts declining at 20.

THEY WOULD HAVE MADE MORE MONEY BEFORE.

I don't think the entire dub market would vanish, and watching on Cartoon Network isn't the same as buying DVDs.  I'd be interested in seeing sales numbers for "Cardcaptors" vs "Card Captor Sakura".  When was the last time they could get real dub vs sub numbers?  Back during the VHS days?  The kids these days seem to have an interesting level of Japanophilia that was not present during the VHS days.  Assumptions of teenagers still wanting dubs might no longer hold.  Pre-teens might still want dubs, but teenagers are much more savvy today than they were a decade ago.

NOT TO MENTION that many companies force them to dub it for reasons cortana provided.

It's an interesting argument.  It just doesn't make much sense to me because making companies dub the DVDs doesn't remove the subs.  I don't consider it to be beyond the Japanese companies to be unreasonable, however.

I'm guessing you aren't very old and didn't live through fansubbing of the early 90's and purchasing of VHS tapes.

I have a dozen or so anime VHS tapes.

Firstly, it seems you don't know how/where to shop for dvds. I can get almost any anime DVD for 21.99 or lower.

In reality, I do not buy American DVDs unless they're less than $10/DVD, and I personally get plenty of American blockbuster DVDs for that price.  I was just using retail price numbers for the sake of argument.

You realize the quality of subtitles for licensed series, are usually about 10x greater than that of fansubs right?

It depends on how one defines "quality".  There are advantages and disadvantages to each.  Commercial companies are more likely to call takoyaki or a dango a "doughnut".

And frankly, I can't stand retarded karaoke lyric style text in op/ed. I want to see the animations and the op as intended... not half of the screen covered in multi colored text with bouncing balls and text flying every which way. Besides it being unprofessional, it makes seeing difficult.

I don't like the excessive bouncing ball, but many Japanese anime seem to air with Japanese subtitles for their opening and ending songs.  With DVDs, they can be made switchable, just like the episode subtitles.

Your average blockbuster is 1hour 40minutes long. +20minutes of features.

But I'm paying less than $10 for those.  The $20 ones have a whole second disk worth of extras, including director commentary, deleted scenes, and "making of" clips, which I enjoy a lot.

Your average anime DVD is 2hours long, + random features.

4 episodes is average, and at 25 minutes each, that's about 1 hr 40 min -- actually less if you're counting unique video because the opening and ending are often repetitive but still take up time.  Most anime disks don't have much in the way of random features: a few extra images, a creditless opening and ending, and random ads for other series at best.  I personally don't enjoy the very poorly done ads for other series.  And they scatter the few extras across the whole series, leaving some disks without any extras at all.

Legally, stealing technically includes the intent to deprive the original owner of the original object.  Therefore, copyright infringement is technically not stealing, although big media and software companies have done a very good job of convincing everybody that it is.

So you think you're a lawyer now too? Sorry, you're wrong, see cortana's post.

It's technically not "stealing" in a court of law.  It's "copyright infringement".  They're not legally "thieves", although big companies are trying very hard to change that, and they're getting closer and closer to succeeding.  I have taken college law classes.  Intellectual protectionism and copyright is a fascinating topic.  It didn't start with anime -- or with computers, for that matter, and no matter how people try to solve it now, the debates will come up again and again with every new technology.  It seems to be a hysteresis system with no good solution in this reality.  BTW, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/ has an interesting video.

There's amazingly talented people that don't put in enough effort, and aren't lucky enough to be spotted, that's too bad, but that's how life is.

But is it "good", and is it "moral"?  There are a lot of things in life that aren't good or moral.  Shouldn't we try to fix them?  People are always going to "share cultural goods".  That is also how life is.  It doesn't mean that you refrain from trying to convince people that they shouldn't be that way.

[Tony]

Fun stuff!

I should point out a few things.

- Subs are much less effective in the market. Even back in the VHS days, dubbed titles tended to be cheaper. Why? They outsold subs. And this was when the core market that started everything grew up with, loved, and vehemently promoted subs.

- Look at the top Anime properties, and you'll see a slew of network shows: Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach, FMA. They're all dubbed. They have to be. Subbed anything just doesn't get wide reception, and so it doesn't get wide exposure.

Yes, you could say that dub vs. sub profitability could have changed in the last decade - after all, the market has grown - and that the market would be more tolerant of subs. But the market has grown due to greater exposure of the dubs. If dubs disappeared tomorrow, then some of them would stay and learn to love subs, but lots probably would not.

That doesn't mean the reverse holds. Getting rid of subs would alienate a (smaller) part of the market. Some would stay and learn to love dubs, but lots probably would not.

In either case, it doesn't matter; as Pyron pointed out with his examples, if either piece is affected, the whole is affected as well. Doesn't matter about "how much" - the net amount is still negative.

So back to the original topic.

Do fansubs hurt the market? With no moral assignment, I'm going to say yes. Fansub distribution is much, much different now than it was a decade ago. It's actually quite amazing. I mentioned before that one of BitTorrent's major uses is in anime distribution, which I'm sure is entirely fansubs. Microsoft would be jealous of how fast fansubbers get their job done. Anime companies simply have no chance at competing.

[PyronIkari]

I know it isn't.  I own at least several hundred, maybe over a thousand anime <i>DVDs</i>, not "dollars worth of" DVDs.  According to my DVD tracking program, the retail value of the anime side of my DVD collection is over $20K.  For an individual, I think I do my part in supporting the American anime industry, partly subsidizing dubs that I don't care about and don't believe they should waste money on, paying a premium for anime compared to its competitors, and Geneon still decided to get out of the market.  Ironically, they're the ones with the highest retail price for their DVDs.  I listed the things that I thought would help make the American anime companies more efficient since I do have even more disposable income (about $100/month) that does go to American blockbuster DVDs and anime soundtracks and video games and manga instead.  (Manga isn't subbed, but I do find myself buying bilingual manga from Kinokuniya, and for a few series, I do get both Japanese and English versions even though I can't read Japanese.)

Wow, and now instead of arguing the point, you're defending YOURSELF. Doesn't apply to this conversation, and frankly, I don't care how much you buy, because you are an individual and you don't reflect the market as a whole.

Older teens read faster than adults.  I don't know why people keep underestimating teenagers.  Many research studies claim that the brain starts declining at 20.

Hasn't been proven anything that teenagers read faster than adults... and you don't understand that... "teenagers" include pre-teens as well. I'm fairly certain that 12-14 year olds cannot read/follow animations/comprehend it all at the same time as well as a 25 yr. old can.

I don't think the entire dub market would vanish, and watching on Cartoon Network isn't the same as buying DVDs.  I'd be interested in seeing sales numbers for "Cardcaptors" vs "Card Captor Sakura".  When was the last time they could get real dub vs sub numbers?  Back during the VHS days?  The kids these days seem to have an interesting level of Japanophilia that was not present during the VHS days.  Assumptions of teenagers still wanting dubs might no longer hold.  Pre-teens might still want dubs, but teenagers are much more savvy today than they were a decade ago.

It's the majority of the market though. Fans in the VHS days, were fans, not this fake retardo japanophile crap we have today. Why? Because things took effort and work to find. Teenagers THAT YOU KNOW are. You realize the market in California is not the same as say... the market in Lousiana, you realize that right? California has a huge and very powerful Asian(and more specifically Japanese) cultural base. The majority of the country does not have this same base. The majority of the country does not know a damned thing about Japanese culture(hell most of the people in california do not) and do not care to learn about it. They want to watch something in English because it is the language they know and understand. Once more I will state, you don't know crap about the market as whole, the nations base, or anything... and all you know and compare are the small circles and cultural bases that YOU are associated with. Here's some fun things you can try out. Go to the Cartoon Network forums, or go to much more mainstream bases. Try Amazon and read "normal peoples'" thoughts and ideas. Even in the more influenced circles, there is still an arguement of dub vs. sub, and that's with people that ARE more understanding and experienced. When you exit that circle, it gets even worse.

Let's take a blockbuster if you will.

Pan's Labyrinth. One of the most amazing movies of 2006, but before it got huge press reviews and releases, NO ONE WATCHED IT, for multiple reasons. It being a Spanish movie with subtitles is one of them. I saw the movie in theaters 3 times, and all 3 times I watched as multiple people walked out of the theatre because it was in Spanish. And this is a movie that was nominated for multiple awards and called the best movie of 2006 by hundreds to thousands of critics. This is the movie that got nearly any negative reviews at all.

It's an interesting argument.  It just doesn't make much sense to me because making companies dub the DVDs doesn't remove the subs.  I don't consider it to be beyond the Japanese companies to be unreasonable, however.

Huh? Nope, but it does create a longer time between the releases. Because dubs have to be created, and releases are spanned over time, money etc. a Japanese buyer would have to wait months instead of buying the JP DVD.

I have a dozen or so anime VHS tapes.

* PyronIkari claps

Should I care? You don't even understand or know about the market that exists now, god knows you wouldn't understand it back then when you were much younger.

In reality, I do not buy American DVDs unless they're less than $10/DVD, and I personally get plenty of American blockbuster DVDs for that price.  I was just using retail price numbers for the sake of argument.

Your personal preference has NO BEARING ON THIS CONVERSATION, so stop talking about it. I couldn't careless if you were a billionaire that owns every single licensed released media in existance, because you are not the market. You could rob video stores and own these DVD's or buy them, or pirate them, etc. and it has no bearing on this conversation.

It depends on how one defines "quality".  There are advantages and disadvantages to each.  Commercial companies are more likely to call takoyaki or a dango a "doughnut".

Incorrect. This is called localization. Have you ever worked in translation or localization before? Just to make sure you understand this... I have.

You have to know who you are marketing to and why. You use a horrible example seeing that no series calls takoyaki a donut. Onigiri is localized as donut occasionally for children's shows such as Pokemon, Zoids, Digimon and the such. The reason being is because the target audience is young children aging from 4-12. Your average American doesn't know what onigiri is. Your average American doesn't know what a rice ball is. God to hell knows that a 4-12 year old isn't going to in the majority of times unless they have a cultural root in Asian lifestyle. So why call it an onigiri, or a dango, or takoyaki... when neither them, nor their parents will know what it is? This is localization, translation so that the target audience will understand and can compare to it without problem. You realize subbers do things like this all the time as well right? Idioms in Japanese are very rarely explained in fansubs, and a lot of the time, the subbers do not understand the idioms. My good friend that I worked with, editors at our company and I would have long conversations about this when translating and localizing games. Puns in Japanese do not work in English 99% of the time, so how do you translate it? You change the literal and adapt a similar to it in English. Keeping in mind what the target audience is, you do it different ways. A change in a series for 16 yr. olds would not be the same change you'd use for a series made for 6 year olds.

But I will keep this simple. You don't know jack about the Japanese language, so don't argue with people that have worked in translation and localization for years on whether or not fansubbers do a good job translating. They simply don't.

I don't like the excessive bouncing ball, but many Japanese anime seem to air with Japanese subtitles for their opening and ending songs.  With DVDs, they can be made switchable, just like the episode subtitles.

Most US releases have them as well. It's based on the episode number whether or not it will be a translation or the romanji for the lyrics.

But I'm paying less than $10 for those.  The $20 ones have a whole second disk worth of extras, including director commentary, deleted scenes, and "making of" clips, which I enjoy a lot.

We're talking normal stores at time of release. Retail stores and the such.

4 episodes is average, and at 25 minutes each, that's about 1 hr 40 min -- actually less if you're counting unique video because the opening and ending are often repetitive but still take up time.  Most anime disks don't have much in the way of random features: a few extra images, a creditless opening and ending, and random ads for other series at best.  I personally don't enjoy the very poorly done ads for other series.  And they scatter the few extras across the whole series, leaving some disks without any extras at all.

Welcome to media. Now are you going to complain that VHS tapes costed about 20$ each back then as well and had no extras at all? You act like you are entitled to X amount of free stuff that are BONUSES and the such. The play times are etc. You can compare that to US releases in itself. Compare a box set for Family Guy to a blockbuster DVD. ZOMG BLOCKBUSTER DVD'S ARE NOT WORTH IT.

TV shows are a different media and a different type. Movie tickets cost 12$ now. For 1 3/4 hour of movie, 20min of trailers, and I don't get to keep it. Are you going to bitch about that now?

It's technically not "stealing" in a court of law.  It's "copyright infringement".  They're not legally "thieves", although big companies are trying very hard to change that, and they're getting closer and closer to succeeding.  I have taken college law classes.  Intellectual protectionism and copyright is a fascinating topic.  It didn't start with anime -- or with computers, for that matter, and no matter how people try to solve it now, the debates will come up again and again with every new technology.  It seems to be a hysteresis system with no good solution in this reality.  BTW, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/ has an interesting video.

Nope, it is stealing, but it's not charged under the same criminal act of larceny. It's still stealing of intellectual property though. Sorry, you lose again.

But is it "good", and is it "moral"?  There are a lot of things in life that aren't good or moral.  Shouldn't we try to fix them?  People are always going to "share cultural goods".  That is also how life is.  It doesn't mean that you refrain from trying to convince people that they shouldn't be that way.

People EARN things. But by your defention, I'm down. I'm coming over, give me your address so I can take your stuff under the idea that you're "sharing cultural goods" with me.

[/quote]

[Nyxyin]

Fun stuff!

Yup!  Completely agreed!

- Subs are much less effective in the market. Even back in the VHS days, dubbed titles tended to be cheaper. Why? They outsold subs. And this was when the core market that started everything grew up with, loved, and vehemently promoted subs.

I wish I knew more about those numbers.  Urusei Yatsura just isn't going to compare to Robotech.  And, overall, I find it very likely that Robotech (which is dub only) outsold tons of other series combined.  So, yes, overall, dubs would drastically outsell subs.  But, if we concentrated on one series like Urusei Yatsura, would dubs still have outsold subs?  Today, I'm sure all the Cartoon Network ones would drastically sell more dubs than subs, but not all titles end up on Cartoon Network.  Maybe something like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei would be more profitable as a sub-only release.

- Look at the top Anime properties, and you'll see a slew of network shows: Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach, FMA. They're all dubbed. They have to be. Subbed anything just doesn't get wide reception, and so it doesn't get wide exposure.

They're licensing a lot of series that aren't Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach, and FMA.  They're licensing so many series that there's no way all of them are going to get wide exposure.

In either case, it doesn't matter; as Pyron pointed out with his examples, if either piece is affected, the whole is affected as well. Doesn't matter about "how much" - the net amount is still negative.

Not necessarily.  Pyron was assuming no cost savings for removing the pieces.  If the American anime companies are in trouble, is the dub market buying enough to pay for the dub studios?

Do fansubs hurt the market? With no moral assignment, I'm going to say yes. Fansub distribution is much, much different now than it was a decade ago. It's actually quite amazing. I mentioned before that one of BitTorrent's major uses is in anime distribution, which I'm sure is entirely fansubs. Microsoft would be jealous of how fast fansubbers get their job done. Anime companies simply have no chance at competing.

I've been contemplating economic models in general, and the per-piece purchasing seems to not be working for lots of electronic media.  Monthly service fees seem to be on the rise.  Maybe anime companies can ask people to pay a monthly fee for access to a BitTorrent service with legal downloadable anime.  The fees would pay for licensing and production costs.  The anime companies don't have to print physical individual DVDs or keepsake cases or inserts, they don't have to worry about inventory or shelf space, and that should save some of the costs too.  It's not just anime, but technology is changing the way people are willing to behave towards all digitizable media.  The movie and music industries have to deal with this too.  Many TV shows have downloadable episodes.  They're doing great things with TiVo downloads.  It'd be interesting to see if anime can piggyback on that.

[Nyxyin]

I'm coming over, give me your address so I can take your stuff under the idea that you're "sharing cultural goods" with me.

"Under California law, theft crimes—also called Larceny—are crimes in which a person intentionally takes and carries away the property of another without permission with the intent to permanently deprive that person of their interest in that property."
-- http://www.california-criminal-lawyer.com/theft.html

If you deprive me of the original, it's theft.  If you come over and copy all my DVDs and take pictures of everything, it's not theft.  It's definitely sketchy (trespassing, invasion of privacy), but it's not theft.

it's important to discourage illegal downloads, but the industry needs to be mostly reactive to the market.

So...  The problem we're trying to address are the 40K people who download.  What do we know about them?  Well, not a whole lot.  In particular, we don't know if they actually watch the episodes they download, and we don't know if they are or aren't buying the DVDs when the series do get licensed.  We don't really know if they're part of the "market" or not, and we don't know if they can be converted to buying anime DVDs.  If fansubs were somehow magically stopped all at once, maybe all these 40K people wouldn't miss it and they would just download manga instead.  We do know that these 40K don't care about dubs, and they don't care about physical media.  We also know that they seem used to getting the anime for free.  Would it hurt the American anime industries less if, instead of having fansubs removed upon licensing, get the fansubs converted to make money for the company somehow?  Maybe link to where the official DVDs and related merchandise can be purchased.  Or have a link to omake which can be downloaded for a fee or subscribed to on a monthly basis.  Have reviews showing how the commercial DVDs are better.  Have fans compare the series to other series and have links to where you can buy the other series.  There can be a lot of potential for getting value out of the 40K users instead of just saying that they're wrong and getting them to stop doing what they're doing.

[PyronIkari]

I wish I knew more about those numbers.  Urusei Yatsura just isn't going to compare to Robotech.  And, overall, I find it very likely that Robotech (which is dub only) outsold tons of other series combined.  So, yes, overall, dubs would drastically outsell subs.  But, if we concentrated on one series like Urusei Yatsura, would dubs still have outsold subs?  Today, I'm sure all the Cartoon Network ones would drastically sell more dubs than subs, but not all titles end up on Cartoon Network.  Maybe something like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei would be more profitable as a sub-only release.

Dubs outsell subs in virtually all cases that existed in VHS times.

They're licensing a lot of series that aren't Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach, and FMA.  They're licensing so many series that there's no way all of them are going to get wide exposure.

You seem to not get this. The majority of people that buy these dvd's watch it dubbed. That's where the majority of the money comes from.

Not necessarily.  Pyron was assuming no cost savings for removing the pieces.  If the American anime companies are in trouble, is the dub market buying enough to pay for the dub studios?

Huh? Again... you seem to not realize, that the majority of the income... comes from dubs. You can't market something without a dubbed version, and the biggest market is dubs. WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, it's been repeated like 50 times by multiple people.

I've been contemplating economic models in general, and the per-piece purchasing seems to not be working for lots of electronic media.  Monthly service fees seem to be on the rise.  Maybe anime companies can ask people to pay a monthly fee for access to a BitTorrent service with legal downloadable anime.  The fees would pay for licensing and production costs.  The anime companies don't have to print physical individual DVDs or keepsake cases or inserts, they don't have to worry about inventory or shelf space, and that should save some of the costs too.  It's not just anime, but technology is changing the way people are willing to behave towards all digitizable media.  The movie and music industries have to deal with this too.  Many TV shows have downloadable episodes.  They're doing great things with TiVo downloads.  It'd be interesting to see if anime can piggyback on that.

And this is the first legitimate thing you've said in this entire thread. However, here's the issue, trackers, and bittorrent are public domain, and Bittorrent as a whole is VERY shakey. There would be a whole bunch of programs, locks, and other things that would have to be made for this to work correctly, and it would still be very iffy.

Now here's a big issue with this. Why would someone pay to download anime from a legitimate source, when they can download it for free using the exact same method with less of a hassle? With DVD's it's because there is a physical copy, boxes, art, bonuses extras, etc. Unless you're torrenting ISOs, you don't get those extras and bonuses, or you'd have to make them seperately downloadable on the torrents. Also, speed issues. People will sit there and leech them, will they also upload as well? If there are designated boxes and servers that will upload, the companies will pay for bandwidth. Bandwidth isn't cheap.

Now go quickly write up a budget on how much they will save by not using physical media, but how much it will cost for servers and bandwidth usage, and then do a comparison of how much people will have to buy/how many people would need to subscrive vs. how much they download, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

See, throwing out ideas sound good, but without the reasonable amount of background and thought put into it and how it'll work, it's virtually useless.

"Under California law, theft crimes—also called Larceny—are crimes in which a person intentionally takes and carries away the property of another without permission with the intent to permanently deprive that person of their interest in that property."
-- http://www.california-criminal-lawyer.com/theft.html

If you deprive me of the original, it's theft.  If you come over and copy all my DVDs and take pictures of everything, it's not theft.  It's definitely sketchy (trespassing, invasion of privacy), but it's not theft.

Who said I wouldn't leave you copies of the media? Regardless what you're saying is still incorrect. It IS stealing, it's just not filed under the same law as physical stealing. If I steal someone's idea for something, and make a product exactly the same after he showed it to me, it is still stealing, even if it's not under the jurisdiction and law of "theft/larceny".

So...  The problem we're trying to address are the 40K people who download.  What do we know about them?  Well, not a whole lot.  In particular, we don't know if they actually watch the episodes they download, and we don't know if they are or aren't buying the DVDs when the series do get licensed.  We don't really know if they're part of the "market" or not, and we don't know if they can be converted to buying anime DVDs.  If fansubs were somehow magically stopped all at once, maybe all these 40K people wouldn't miss it and they would just download manga instead.  We do know that these 40K don't care about dubs, and they don't care about physical media.  We also know that they seem used to getting the anime for free.  Would it hurt the American anime industries less if, instead of having fansubs removed upon licensing, get the fansubs converted to make money for the company somehow?  Maybe link to where the official DVDs and related merchandise can be purchased.  Or have a link to omake which can be downloaded for a fee or subscribed to on a monthly basis.  Have reviews showing how the commercial DVDs are better.  Have fans compare the series to other series and have links to where you can buy the other series.  There can be a lot of potential for getting value out of the 40K users instead of just saying that they're wrong and getting them to stop doing what they're doing.

Well I can without a doubt state that, some people would buy the DVDs if they couldn't get them for free. There is not arguing that statement. The two big draws of downloading are that, it's faster to get the media desired, and it's free. This isn't about coverting or anything, which is my original point. There are negative drawbacks from downloading, just as there are positive ones. You cannot say that fansubs hurt companies monetarilly as there are too many factors to consider, and the information is impossible to collect. So the one thing that can be stated is that...

The action is illegal to do and that it DOES remove possible business from the company(regardless if whether or not it also adds to possible business, as those are two different factors and stem from very different reasonings).

Therefore there is no justification of fansubbing as being "good". Simply put: If you are fansubbing, you are admittingly stealing media from a company.

[Tony]

I wish I knew more about those numbers.  Urusei Yatsura just isn't going to compare to Robotech.  And, overall, I find it very likely that Robotech (which is dub only) outsold tons of other series combined.  So, yes, overall, dubs would drastically outsell subs.  But, if we concentrated on one series like Urusei Yatsura, would dubs still have outsold subs?  Today, I'm sure all the Cartoon Network ones would drastically sell more dubs than subs, but not all titles end up on Cartoon Network.  Maybe something like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei would be more profitable as a sub-only release.

This is just my recollection of suncoast days, when I recall subs were generally $30/tape and dubs were $25.

They're licensing a lot of series that aren't Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach, and FMA.  They're licensing so many series that there's no way all of them are going to get wide exposure.

... not sure the relevance of this. But I agree. They're probably trying to diversify, either in an attempt at stability or as a symbolic gesture to the business side - but it's not working.

Not necessarily.  Pyron was assuming no cost savings for removing the pieces.  If the American anime companies are in trouble, is the dub market buying enough to pay for the dub studios?

Good point. But it's really complicated. There are arrangements where they could be losing money on the dub, but making it up in other areas. Or maybe they're barely making a profit, but are getting huge revenues. (It sounds great to say a property brought in $1 million in revenues, even if there's little net profit.)

I've been contemplating economic models in general, and the per-piece purchasing seems to not be working for lots of electronic media.  Monthly service fees seem to be on the rise.  Maybe anime companies can ask people to pay a monthly fee [...]

Not bad ideas necessarily. Fact is, the world changes, so the models are going to have to change too. You can't expect to distribute VHS tapes to Suncoast and call it a day, anymore.  :P

So...  The problem we're trying to address are the 40K people who download.

Yep. I pretty much agree with all of the qualities you've ascribed to them. I think stigmatizing downloading while ALSO working out more effective models will help convert them to customers. Few - maybe 10% at most - but it's better than none.

I once heard that the Transformers cartoon was created as a marketing vehicle for the toys. I.e. the show was only to get kids to buy toys. Maybe that model has an option. Ween the industry off of video sales and move it to publishing and merchandising.

[Nyxyin]

Now go quickly write up a budget on how much they will save by not using physical media, but how much it will cost for servers and bandwidth usage, and then do a comparison of how much people will have to buy/how many people would need to subscribe vs. how much they download, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

See, throwing out ideas sound good, but without the reasonable amount of background and thought put into it and how it'll work, it's virtually useless.

There's a "lame duck" period when a show is licensed before it comes out on DVD.  Right now, companies send cease-and-desist notes to the fansubbers, the material gets taken off the trackers, and the series basically goes black.  The "gray" people who are more likely to spend money on the series end up in a drought, and the series loses its fansub publicity with those people.  Instead, only the "black" people remember the series because they keep downloading it.

Instead of issuing a cease-and-desist, why not capitalize on the lame duck period?  Ask the fansubbers to link to publicity for the series while it is being subbed and dubbed.  Put up early sneak-peek omake on iTunes or Amazon Unbox or some other hoster that will charge people some small amount of money for them.  Maybe ask fansubbers to splice commercials for these omake or merchandise or soundtracks into the middle of the fansubs (in between the two eye catches in the middle of the show) in return for allowing them to continue distributing during the lame duck time.  Instead of making a series go black, maybe try using the lame duck period to generate even more hype and maybe some amount of revenue.  Somehow, these fansubbers are giving away BitTorrent tracker and seeder bandwidth and hosting some amount of series information for free.  Why shouldn't there be a way for an American anime company to capitalize on those freely donated resources during the period when they're currently unable to make any money on a license they've purchased?

The action is illegal to do and that it DOES remove possible business from the company(regardless if whether or not it also adds to possible business, as those are two different factors and stem from very different reasonings).

Therefore there is no justification of fansubbing as being "good".

There is also very little profit from declaring fansubs to be "bad" and begging people to stop downloading.  As far as I can tell, most of them already know that it's technically illegal at some level (whether they think it's moral or not is a different issue), but they do it anyways.  Even if it isn't good now, it can at least be made better.  Right now, the fansubbers are raising awareness and holding a bit of a line against some people turning to outright pirates.  Many people rip and pirate American DVDs right now.  I think the average fansub downloader has more respect and goodwill towards the American anime companies than most rippers have for the American Big Media companies because the fansub groups teaching downloaders about licensing.  Even if some groups are only paying lip service, I think even lip service helps prevent some number of people from crossing the line into outright piracy.  If fansubbing were fully suppressed, I imagine a rather large percent would just turn full pirate and torrent rips after they're released instead of respecting cease-and-desist requests.  Sure, the American anime companies can fully bring the legal system down on the pirates, but then costs would go up from lawyer fees, and from all the noise it's making, it doesn't sound like Big Media is having much success with that strategy.  We've already seen the recording industry piss off its talent and its consumers to the point that some artists seem to actually incite the customers to circumvent the big recording studios.  Hopefully, the American anime companies are smarter than that.  They claim they were once fansubbers too.  Don't they remember when they had more time and passion than money and would've been thrilled and delighted -- and ecstatic to comply if the companies had reached out to them and legitimized them?

Fansubbers are interesting creatures.  They do it even though they know it's illegal.  They do it even though it actually costs them time and money.  What do they get out of it?  And are they really fans?  How many of them are actually ego-subbers?  Even if they are ego-subbers, can ego be capitalized on by the American anime companies?  What do we know about them?  We know that they're giving their time away for free.  We know that they're also somehow acquiring bandwidth that they're giving away for free.  Can't the American anime companies take advantage of and make money on those freely given resources instead of trying to suppress them?

[cortana]

Now go quickly write up a budget on how much they will save by not using physical media, but how much it will cost for servers and bandwidth usage, and then do a comparison of how much people will have to buy/how many people would need to subscribe vs. how much they download, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

See, throwing out ideas sound good, but without the reasonable amount of background and thought put into it and how it'll work, it's virtually useless.

There's a "lame duck" period when a show is licensed before it comes out on DVD.  Right now, companies send cease-and-desist notes to the fansubbers, the material gets taken off the trackers, and the series basically goes black.  The "gray" people who are more likely to spend money on the series end up in a drought, and the series loses its fansub publicity with those people.  Instead, only the "black" people remember the series because they keep downloading it.

This is called production time. It takes time to re-encode, author, and develop a DVD, as well as translate, script and subtitle it. Then you have to design packaging, contract for distribution, advertise, market it, and get it to market. Oh, and you have to spend time and money dubbing it as well. Oh, and they have to wait for the masters from the Japanese licensor. That often does not happen until AFTER the domestic market's DVD run is at least partially complete.

Instead of issuing a cease-and-desist, why not capitalize on the lame duck period?  Ask the fansubbers to link to publicity for the series while it is being subbed and dubbed.  Put up early sneak-peek omake on iTunes or Amazon Unbox or some other hoster that will charge people some small amount of money for them.  Maybe ask fansubbers to splice commercials for these omake or merchandise or soundtracks into the middle of the fansubs (in between the two eye catches in the middle of the show) in return for allowing them to continue distributing during the lame duck time.  Instead of making a series go black, maybe try using the lame duck period to generate even more hype and maybe some amount of revenue.  Somehow, these fansubbers are giving away BitTorrent tracker and seeder bandwidth and hosting some amount of series information for free.  Why shouldn't there be a way for an American anime company to capitalize on those freely donated resources during the period when they're currently unable to make any money on a license they've purchased?

The simple answer? The US licensors don't have the rights to give away the property to sublicensors to sell bits of. They also don't have the right to give it to fansubbers to 'splice into' their pirate releases. By doing this, you would implicitly PROMOTE these activities. No lawyer would even let you CONSIDER this. It opens the licensing company to massive possible liability. However, let's look at things. Bandai did do this to some extent with Haruhi, with good results. We might be seeing a bit of a change.

Even if it isn't good now, it can at least be made better.  Right now, the fansubbers are raising awareness and holding a bit of a line against some people turning to outright pirates.  Many people rip and pirate American DVDs right now.  I think the average fansub downloader has more respect and goodwill towards the American anime companies than most rippers have for the American Big Media companies because the fansub groups teaching downloaders about licensing.  Even if some groups are only paying lip service, I think even lip service helps prevent some number of people from crossing the line into outright piracy.  If fansubbing were fully suppressed, I imagine a rather large percent would just turn full pirate and torrent rips after they're released instead of respecting cease-and-desist requests. 

In general, this is a fallacy. SOME fansubbing groups have ethics and do what they can to follow the 'rules'. MOST, however, do not, and could care less about licensing. They release it as fast as they can for ego, regardless of licensing. There are also sites DEVOTED to cataloguing entire series releases as torrents. Entire groups DEVOTED to ripping the US dvds for torrenting. The AVERAGE downloader just wants stuff cheap/free.

[PyronIkari]

...

I don't even understand why you're replying to us anymore or what the hell you're trying to prove. "Things should be done"... yeah but it's not that easy.

[Nyxyin]

I don't even understand why you're replying to us anymore

Because people are responding.

or what the hell you're trying to prove.

Why should I be trying to prove anything?  As Tony says, this is fun.  It's free entertainment.  Throwing out ideas of possible solutions is fun, and so is having people refine them.  After all, this is only a fan bboard -- if I were going to go through the effort to actually prove something, work up the numbers, and write up a viable plan, someone has to pay me for it.  There's a reason I can afford my entertainment.  Still, it's fun to dream.

[Nyxyin]

This is called production time.

Whatever it's called, it's a time when, from the point of view of the American anime companies, they hold title, but money is going out and not coming in.  If they're going under, maybe it'd be useful to consider strategies about how to make money during that time.

The simple answer? The US licensors don't have the rights to give away the property to sublicensors to sell bits of.

They have trailers.  They have producers, translators, voice actors, production crew, etc.  They can try throwing together their own "making of" material or producer's commentary or what not.

By doing this, you would implicitly PROMOTE these activities. No lawyer would even let you CONSIDER this.

True, the legal system and the Big Media ideas of protecting copyrights and such need changing, but the anime industry might still be nimble enough to do it.  The Japanese companies had a history of supporting fans, so maybe they can help if they haven't completely bought into Big Media's ideas yet.  Times are changing.

It's similar to the "legalize drugs" arguments.  If drugs are made legal, it does partly legitimize the drug use.  However, if drugs were legalized properly, the government would also be able to regulate them by requiring prescriptions and minimum standards (to try to prevent problems from impurities) and to make money off of them by taxing drug use and preventing sales to minors and all that.  For a company, the choice should be clear: companies should care more about profits.  Partly legitimizing something to regulate it and make money off of it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

However, let's look at things. Bandai did do this to some extent with Haruhi, with good results. We might be seeing a bit of a change.

Neat!  What did Bandai do with Haruhi?

SOME fansubbing groups have ethics and do what they can to follow the 'rules'. MOST, however, do not, and could care less about licensing. They release it as fast as they can for ego, regardless of licensing.

Sure, but their egos are causing them to donate free time.  Surely their egos can be exploited to a certain extent.  Ego-stroking can be rather cheap.

Entire groups DEVOTED to ripping the US dvds for torrenting.

I know that happens with US-made films, and yes, that's a larger issue.  I wouldn't know the numbers for R1 rips because I never bothered to figure out where to find them.  The unlicensed anime, however, do seem to have download numbers posted, and there are some series in which almost 40K people have download not-yet-licensed anime.  Previous posts have claimed that this number isn't insignificant.  If people are downloading R1 rips, they're not likely to be fans of what they're downloading.  If anime R1 rips vanished, they would probably give up anime and go for some other rip.  They'll probably just go for what's cheap, and with the Internet, there will always be something available for free, even if it's just a football-to-the-groin YouTube video.  Nobody is ever going to be able to make those people pay for anything, so it's a waste of resources to even try.  If they make Metallica unavailable for download, these people would decide that they just don't like Metallica, and they start liking artists that make their stuff free.  It seems like a more efficient use of resources to give up on the lost causes and concentrate on getting whatever money possible out of the cases that aren't quite so lost.

[PyronIkari]

Whatever it's called, it's a time when, from the point of view of the American anime companies, they hold title, but money is going out and not coming in.  If they're going under, maybe it'd be useful to consider strategies about how to make money during that time.

You act as if it's so easy and simple. You realize these companies have people that have gone to school specifically for reasons like this and in dealing with situations like this, and have been doing this job for years right? You act as if you somehow know some amazing secret that these people don't, and your idea could save them from hardship, make them billions of dollars and save the industry. You act as if these companies can just go "Hey, we're not making money during the time we are negotiating, designing and CREATING A PRODUCT TO SELL, we should make money while we're doing this magically". And have the rest of the company go "You're right... let's turn on the 'make money switch' right now!"

Once more, you sound like you don't know crap about business, sales, marketing, and the process that goes through it. It takes money, investments, and action to create and sell a product.

They have trailers.  They have producers, translators, voice actors, production crew, etc.  They can try throwing together their own "making of" material or producer's commentary or what not.

"Making of" material? This costs money too and what would they get in return for doing this? How would any of that make the company money instead of costing them more? Hell your response had nothing to do with what cortana even said. His response was about how giving things to fansubbers and/or other companies for promotional usage and side sales is ILLEGAL.

True, the legal system and the Big Media ideas of protecting copyrights and such need changing, but the anime industry might still be nimble enough to do it.  The Japanese companies had a history of supporting fans, so maybe they can help if they haven't completely bought into Big Media's ideas yet.  Times are changing.

Huh? Who said they need changing? They're created so that intellectual property is conserved and companies can't do whatever they want with someone elses(Or companies) intellectual property. WHAT IN GOD'S HELL ARE YOU EVEN TRYING TO SAY HERE? That companies should have the right to do whatever they want with someone else's property just because the company says they can release it?

It's similar to the "legalize drugs" arguments.  If drugs are made legal, it does partly legitimize the drug use.  However, if drugs were legalized properly, the government would also be able to regulate them by requiring prescriptions and minimum standards (to try to prevent problems from impurities) and to make money off of them by taxing drug use and preventing sales to minors and all that.  For a company, the choice should be clear: companies should care more about profits.  Partly legitimizing something to regulate it and make money off of it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

Wait... what? These two situations are nothing even close to being similar. Legalizing drugs is about gov't -> consumer. Fansubbing is Company A -> Company B with their rights, and allowing company B to release Company A's product in a different country. Fansubbers cannot be added into that equation without dealing with both Company A and Company B and legally paying to use what they have, which would in turn be dealing with more money.

*Added*
If you would want it to be similar it would be. Gov't has to farm and process the drugs, and then distribute, and while this is going on they're not making money. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD HIRE STREET DRUG DEALERS TO SELL DRUGS THAT THEY STOLE FROM THE GOV'T, OR THE GOV'T SHOULD GIVE DRUG DEALERS DRUGS TO SELL ON THE STREET, AND JUST GIVE SOME OF THE PROFIT TO THE GOV'T!

Seeing that you think ignoring distribution laws, screwing over legit companies that sell it, and all that is a good idea.

Neat!  What did Bandai do with Haruhi?

Viral marketing and using the already established fansub popularity to promote. The ASOS-Dan, and crap like that. They used the established to promote in a new way.

Sure, but their egos are causing them to donate free time.  Surely their egos can be exploited to a certain extent.  Ego-stroking can be rather cheap.

No it won't, because this will break hundreds of laws. Companies cannot make money off of the free labor of outside sources. In addition to they are not allowed to give said media to these sources without getting the okay of the parent company. There's so many laws that would be broken all over the place that it's terrible that this idea is even brought up.

I know that happens with US-made films, and yes, that's a larger issue.  I wouldn't know the numbers for R1 rips because I never bothered to figure out where to find them.  The unlicensed anime, however, do seem to have download numbers posted, and there are some series in which almost 40K people have download not-yet-licensed anime.  Previous posts have claimed that this number isn't insignificant.  If people are downloading R1 rips, they're not likely to be fans of what they're downloading.  If anime R1 rips vanished, they would probably give up anime and go for some other rip.  They'll probably just go for what's cheap, and with the Internet, there will always be something available for free, even if it's just a football-to-the-groin YouTube video.  Nobody is ever going to be able to make those people pay for anything, so it's a waste of resources to even try.  If they make Metallica unavailable for download, these people would decide that they just don't like Metallica, and they start liking artists that make their stuff free.  It seems like a more efficient use of resources to give up on the lost causes and concentrate on getting whatever money possible out of the cases that aren't quite so lost.

You've a phd in psych, and a marketing major now as well I see. What you say is totally untrue at all.

I like Mexican food, and someone offers me all the Mexican food I can eat for the rest of my life. Then he goes "Nope, you are no longer getting free Mexican food", then some other guy goes "HAYS I will give you free Indian food for the rest of your life." Does that mean I will no longer pay to eat Mexican food because I can get Indian food for free? People's tastes, and wants aren't so simple. Metallica didn't allow downloads, they didn't lose their fanbase and have everyone desert them after that... you realize. So even in your own example you are wrong.

So let me get this straight. To you, it's fun to say incredibly stupid and ignorant stuff, knowing full well you haven't a damned clue what you're talking about, and instead of putting in thought to what you say so that it isn't full of stupid, you keep doing it so that people have to constantly correct you.

God... I guess this makes me pretty pathetic that I spend the time to correct your stupidly written posts.

[Nyxyin]

I like Mexican food, and someone offers me all the Mexican food I can eat for the rest of my life. Then he goes "Nope, you are no longer getting free Mexican food", then some other guy goes "HAYS I will give you free Indian food for the rest of your life." Does that mean I will no longer pay to eat Mexican food because I can get Indian food for free? People's tastes, and wants aren't so simple.

I said that there is a subset of people who will swap from free Mexican food to free Indian food simply because it's free food.  For example, starving grad students will eat anything as long as its free, no matter how crappy it is.  They will even crash parties that they're not invited to just to get it.  Those people are just lost to the market, so it's not profitable to worry about them at all.  However, there are some subset of not-quite-so-staving grad students who would might pay $0.50 for food if that means they didn't have to embarrass themselves and crash parties that they're not invited to.  They might pay even more for a taco just because it's Mexican food.  And they might pay even more than that if they can buy tacos at 3am when all other food options are closed.  There is more money to be made by thinking about how to sell tacos to those people -- the true fans of Mexican food -- rather than trying to arrest all grad students if they try to crash parties with Mexican food.

Big Media has a whole lot more people being paid to market than American anime companies have ever dreamt of affording, and it didn't prevent them from losing sight of where their market is.

To you, it's fun to say incredibly stupid and ignorant stuff, knowing full well you haven't a damned clue what you're talking about, and instead of putting in thought to what you say so that it isn't full of stupid, you keep doing it so that people have to constantly correct you.

You'd know, wouldn't you.  ;)  If you don't find it to be fun, why do you insist on doing it?  You're obviously intentionally writing up the most stupid possible misinterpretation of what people are saying, and you're doing this over and over again to a lot of people.  Your ability to choose to interpret what people say in the worst way possible doesn't make other people stupid no matter how many times you try to assert it.

[PyronIkari]

Everything you say is "it'd be nice if..." then a bunch of crap that would be nice but doesn't work realistically in market.

Right now, Anime companies are marketing to the place that gives them the most money... and that is through dubs, and through TV.

You still seem to not understand this.

[Nyxyin]

Right now, Anime companies are marketing to the place that gives them the most money... and that is through dubs, and through TV.

OK, then, if it's working, then that's fine.  They're not in trouble, and downloaders aren't making an impact, and we don't have to worry about them.

[PyronIkari]

OK, then, if it's working, then that's fine.  They're not in trouble, and downloaders aren't making an impact, and we don't have to worry about them.

-_-

Holy crap. Do you honestly believe that business is that simple?

[Nyxyin]

-_-

Holy crap. Do you honestly believe that business is that simple?

Do you have any idea why you're posting to this forum?  I'm personally here to have fun, and so are a lot of the other people here.  Even if I did present a full-fledged, realistic business proposal here, it wouldn't help anybody because the people here aren't the people who can implement it.  I was interested to see if anybody here downloads or fansubs, and I was curious how they'd react to various possible plans for the various anime companies to make money off of them.  I was hoping that, if I threw out some fun ideas too (like mDuo and Tony were throwing out fun ideas), they'd maybe speak up and come up with some ideas of their own and tell the forum what they're willing to pay for.  However, your existence means that we'll never know.  They're never going to post because you're just going to be abusive if they even try to say anything isn't worthy of a dissertation.  We're never going to hear their opinions.  Your constant derision stifles interesting conversation.  Just because people here are anime fans rather than doctors, lawyers, MBAs, Japanese teachers, etc. doesn't mean that their input isn't interesting.  Heck, even if they were doctors, lawyers, MBAs, etc., they would probably have better things to do than to write something up so airtight that you aren't going to call them names for it.  If you don't want to hear the opinions of other anime fans, why are you here?

[Chun]

Do you have any idea why you're posting to this forum?  I'm personally here to have fun, and so are a lot of the other people here.  Even if I did present a full-fledged, realistic business proposal here, it wouldn't help anybody because the people here aren't the people who can implement it.  I was interested to see if anybody here downloads or fansubs, and I was curious how they'd react to various possible plans for the various anime companies to make money off of them.  I was hoping that, if I threw out some fun ideas too (like mDuo and Tony were throwing out fun ideas), they'd maybe speak up and come up with some ideas of their own and tell the forum what they're willing to pay for.  However, your existence means that we'll never know.  They're never going to post because you're just going to be abusive if they even try to say anything isn't worthy of a dissertation.  We're never going to hear their opinions.  Your constant derision stifles interesting conversation.  Just because people here are anime fans rather than doctors, lawyers, MBAs, Japanese teachers, etc. doesn't mean that their input isn't interesting.  Heck, even if they were doctors, lawyers, MBAs, etc., they would probably have better things to do than to write something up so airtight that you aren't going to call them names for it.  If you don't want to hear the opinions of other anime fans, why are you here?

Why does everyone pull the "You're being abusive" card so quickly? I've just been reading along here, a good back and forth argument, and all of a sudden a post that has nothing to do with the talk appears.

The reason I'm not posting Nyxyin has nothing to do with Pyron (I'm a fansubber, editor of subtitles, and did some research about the anime industry a couple of years ago). I just don't care enough to break down the arguments and cite resources when the debate gets to this length.

Ad hominem is never the answer.

~Chun