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The Tragic Death of the Western [Anime Industry]
Posts
Wait, what? The Prisoner's Dilemma is pretty much the arch-proof of "individual calculus". The Prisoner's Dilemma results from each individual acting on their rational self-interest. The entire formulation is dependent on that.
Anyway, the problems of the anime industry have nothing to do with piracy, especially as defined in the OP as people ripping R1 dvds. That's not even a fraction of a fraction of an effect.
The simple fact is that the business model they have is not workable. There are basically three products that they can produce that anyone would actually want:
1) Dubbed anime on normal TV. This has to compete with original Western animation, and if from the looks of it, it can't except for a handful of series.
2) Simultaneous sub-titled releases on the internet.
3) Collector's edition boxed sets with lots of extras.
gog.com is successful for that reason. I can play Earthworm Jim on Windows XP without it crashing every five minutes for a couple bucks? Sold!
And Steam, to an extent
This might be because I live in a backwater nation (Austraaaaalia) but Steam is way faster at downloading (deals with ISPs, I think) than almost any torrent, is super convenient, relatively cheap, constant sales... convenience isn't a piracy killer, but at least it can stand toe-to-toe with it.
And without having to fuck with Dosbox or a thousand different settings, for that matter. There are games I still own on CD/diskette that I have rebought from gog.com just for convenience's sake.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
What should of happen is that they should of put this shit on the networks and have us watch T.V. ads to make a profit. I understand that they did tried that and it utterly failed. But, I honestly do not see anime becoming mainstream enough, like in Mexico and Russia, to survive in USA.
Which is my whole point - what is rational on the individual level may not be at the group or societal level. surreal's logic only works as long as he hyperfocuses on himself in a vacuum - once you pan out to higher levels, the problems of people focusing on the individual with no consideration for the group become clear quickly. Meanwhile the individual tries to convince themselves that they are not affected by the flow of society, and act independently - hence "no raindrop thinks itself responsible for the flood."
Except focusing on yourself is itself the logical choice.
Personally, I prefer to own shows, so I would buy tons of anime if it wasn't so costly.
I watch shows I like multiple times, so this works for me.
But yeah, more TV exposure would be great. Especially if we could get shows on the air relatively uncut.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Not really. There's a reason libertarians get chewed to pieces when their "logic" meets any level of intellectual rigor.
Granted, there are show's that are worth owning.
But what about Power Puff Girl Z? Do you really see yourself owning Power Puff Girl Z? There is only so many series worth owning out there, hell I say we're lucky to get 1 new series per year that's worth owning. The rest of it is stupid 'collect shit to kill other peoples collectible shit' and '29 minutes of underage pantsu shots!'.
I might, but then again I dig the regular Powerpuff Girls and have been curious about how the Japanese version turned out for years.
What the hell? What is this, what is going on?
Nothing I've said can be construed as a justification for piracy; I have yet to argue against Copyright or Patent legistlation.
You're being disingenuous, you're not arguing in good faith, you're being a total goose bag. You QUOTED the part where I pointed this out, explicitly. Where I explained that I am arguing only about the the economic strategy as commonly undertaken - in this instance Eric Sherman's strategy of attempting to convince people not to pirate rather than convince people not to buy. It couldn't be clearer. In fact, I have never actually made any comprehensive arguments on the forums regarding my opposition to Copyright and Patent legislation. In the Copyfight thread I presented a rambling and high level manifesto regarding the generalities of my position. You have no basis upon which to make any meaningful statements about the details of my moral position.
Of course, any normative position ultimately depends on a tautology, so from the most pedantic point of view, you might be right, but the same criticism applies equally well to the copyright as it does the copyleft, or indeed any position one might have.
As for my alleged separation of content requiring intellectual labour to produce - I've never denied this. Again, you're either utterly disingenuous or utterly without imagination if you are claiming that relying upon IP Legislation created monopolies is the only way to monetise infinite goods.
Also, regarding the Humble Bundle - it's considered a success by its organisers, disagreeing with their assessment makes puts you in an odd position. It made a lot of money, the organisers consider it successful. How does the apparent piracy rate change that?
Wait a minute, there is no tragedy of the commons with intellectual property. It's an infinite resource.
The free rider problem, as construed by the copyright, is "There are some people benefiting without paying. And I want them to because it is MINE." Which I reject, in and of itself, is even a problem. The free rider problem is a problem, in and of itself, when the resources are scarce. Content is not a scarce resource, the free rider problem qua free rider problem is not the issue.
The argument then, is that if everyone free rides then no one pays and no one can make MORE content. You can draw a longer bow by arguing that one person free riding encourages others to do so as well.
The fact remains that the solution is still getting people to buy, regardless of whether they infringe.
Es-annon NEVA 4GET
So basically you think the situation is fine the way it is, and the solution to piracy is for millions of individual consumers to look past their own rational self-interest and generously give of their wallot to support the poor misunderstood corporations. Do you also think that the solution for sub saharan africa is for all those individuals to forget their petty differences and pull themselves up by the boostraps? You can call piracy "immoral" till you're blue in the face and it's not gonna stop anyone from doing it.
First off, when you start conflating "creator" with "corporation", you're showing your biases.
And do I think that pirates will just stop? No, I don't. But I think that it's long past due for them to stop the bullshit about striking a blow for "freedom!" That was the whole point behind bringing up the piracy rate of the Humble Bundle - they addressed all the common complaints pirates make, and they still saw a piracy rate of 25%.
In short - if you want to be a pirate, own your choice - don't try to play yourself off as some Robin Hood.
And Ap0, I've never said that copyright is the only way to monetize IP. What I've argued is that it's one of the fairest and least problematic ways, for all parties involved. Also, the argument that IP is somehow "infinite" will always ring hollow when generating the master copy is an act that is not free.
Mainly I just don't care though, because I don't expect people to do the moral thing. I'm not going to get shocked or offended when somebody chooses to get something for free instead of paying for it. I'm just going to question the system that leads to such a weird choice. And as long as artists are still making money from their work, I'm not convinced it's a huge problem.
I swear to god, if you are counting people who chose to pay 0 as "piracy"...
The number comes from the HB organizers who say that based on URL tracking 25% of the downloads have come from people who didn't pay. The reason being the links were open to anyone not protected by session cookies and the like, for the conenience of those who did donate.
Es-annon NEVA 4GET
Pretty sure zero was an option. Or at least that was my understanding.
Regardless, this still would not matter.
What matters is how much money was made. This obsession with "lost sales" is both idiotic and counter-productive.
Verily, you and I are in complete agreement.
Es-annon NEVA 4GET
Friend Safari Type: Rock
I believe the point of bringing it up was to kick the legs from under any sort of "reason" for pirating. It's not about DRM or any of that shit. Alot of people just want shit for free.
What a shocking revelation.
EDIT:
Also, I decided to go check and the thing made over a million dollars.
But even though 25% of the people who downloaded it could pay a whole $0.01 for it they chose to pirate it anyway. It was brought up to show that the common excuses pirates use (DRM, corporations, etc) are just complete bullshit that they use to make themselves feel better for being morally and legally wrong.
Honestly I don't see any point in paying $0.01 for something instead of just downloading it for free. paying money for something online is annoying and inconvenient, you have to make a paypal account, get it verified, etc.
There are multiple ways to watch anime without stiffing the creators. Hulu, Funimation, Cartoon Network, a rental service, iTunes, etc etc etc.
I think it's the difference between at least making a token effort to say 'your work is worth something' and 'HUR HUR HUR I'MMA TAKE ALL I CAN GRAB'
/edit DC is dropping the CMX Manga imprint, too. Press release makes a vague statement about the challenges manga is facing in America.
Remember Bandai Visual's US branch? Remember how their absurdly high price point? That was actually how much you pay for that stuff in Japan. Apparently they did it here so Japanese consumers couldn't import their favorite shows for cheap.
Several factors including those drives up licensing fees. The Western anime market went overboard and threw out too much crap. Throw in a bad economy into the mix and you can't really expect sales to go very well.
Blaming piracy's the easy way out.
Paying anything less than 30 cents was functionally equivalent to piracy, as Paypal absorbs that much in fees (although if the amount is less than this, I'm not sure if they charge the payee or simply give them nothing). I would imagine that people pirating in this case had either 1) resolved to not contribute in any meaninful way (much like the people paying 1 cent), or 2) were functionally unable to contribute in any way (didn't have a credit card) but saw themselves as having as much 'right' to the content as those paying 1 cent.
It does indeed show that just about any attempt to rationalise copyright infringement beyond 'I want something for free' is inherently flawed, but what's new about that? My favourite example was a friend at Uni who was trying to justify his massive stack of burned PS2 games by saying that they were all made by wage-slaves in a despotic nation anyway, and that he wasn't contributing to the market forces that kept them in this state. I tapped the back of a legit case that clearly say 'MADE AND ASSEMBLED IN GERMANY'.
Actually, you brought it up in response to someone saying that lowering the piracy rate isn't going to do shit, which only makes sense if you think it shows that free viewings is tantamount to lost sales. There was no mention of "justifications," you're just talking about them because you're covering your ass.
Put that in the OP.
I'm guessing the answer is just to be a smart consumer and choose among the legit vendors that suits you best. Those mediums that succeed are the ones that send publishers the message that they're not gonna get away with their overpriced DVDs forever.
Which reminds me, my brother and sister are leaving for summer internships. I'm gonna turn off the cable and switch to Hulu. Those two brats refused to leave their precious cable that they don't watch.
When I first started looking into anime I was buying the episode dvds for up to three series at once every other week or so. This got be through Rahxephon, Samurai Champloo, Bebop, Wolf's Rain, Gungrave, etc etc to the point that now I look at what's on the market and I just don't see anything that interests me. I haven't bought anything anime in months, and that won't be changing unless I see something released that I actually want to see.
Hell, the only series I am finding interesting is FMA: Brotherhood, and I'm seeing that through the Funimation website. So for viewers like me it isn't pirating things that prevents me from buying titles, its not having any titles interesting enough to watch/purchase.
There not business men and thats why they get laughed out of the majority of the TV Upfronts and Conventions. They dont even dress like they give a fuck and when you trying to get that cash - you better understand the rules of the game. They dont - and thats why there stuck on blaming the otakus on the pirating issue - which bad hasnt killed them worse as dissing the business that made them the most money.
There is a reason why Haim Saban and Al Kahn succeeded where others failed. Until they get it - that there at the fringe of the mainstream and not in the mainstream as of yet they have to play it off as such.
That, and there anti union stance - kills your chances - Afro Samurai got awards because Funi worked with the Unions and the Unions got MONEY and SOME influence in the TV industry.
You also left out collectable merchandise for the franchise (wall scrolls/posters, figurines, etc) and music sales, which tie back into the anime partially.
This is actually a big part of the industry's problems than most people realize. Their work practices are designed around having young impressionable new hires get worked to death for little money in order to cut costs. It's unsustainable. Word is finally getting out that yes, this is a terrible industry to join as an animator, and so they're just starting to not have all those new hires from my understanding.
It's also pretty bad from the manga perspective. Most don't get contracts, so if anything happens to them, they're fucked. They also don't get paid much either, so they either can't afford to pay their assistants much or they can't hire assistants causing them to work themselves to death. There was a great article posted 3-4 threads ago that went into the economics of the situation from the POV of a famous mangaka who DID have a contract and how he still wasn't doing great because he actually tried to pay his assistants a livable wage.
It's also partially a lesson in economics, really. So long as your transaction costs are less than what you are selling your product for (marginal revenue > marginal costs), you have no real reason NOT to sell at that price to someone. That's actually one of the beauties of the model. (If you wanted to fully maximize profit per transaction, you'd attempt to charge everyone the highest price one single person would pay, then start stepping down, but this is generally a fairly unrealistic model.)
MyAnimeList | PAFC Season 2 Champion and Season 3 Champion
Let's Play/Learn: Ultimate General: Civil War - Union Campaign
Small correction:
Anime is a differentiated product, so marginal revenue is always less than the price you are selling the product for.
Look, the fanbase and the "business men" need to go at it and let all there anger out. On why its not selling and all the rest. When that ends, then the fanbase has a choice - they can split the industry i.e. they dont touch what is dubbed or licensed and they "take" what isnt dubbed/licensed. Or, they (the pirates) can agree to get bought out by the dubbers and in turn work for the industry. Or, the fanbase needs to split - into those into the fashion and tropes of anime (Cosplay/Gunaplu/Model), those who are intellectuals, those who are fans of the anime themselves, and the perverted ones. This way - the companies know where they are working towards. If there smart - and many are dumb, Funi would start working with clothing companies and market Cosplay items along with the DVD/Blu-Ray - the lifestyle branding I talked about before.
But i fear many people say the industry is dead too soon. The next time anime comes back (and I have on good authority that if there is a next time DC and others will NOT be jumping on the bandwagon) if the "reboot" of the Kids TV industry fails to produce fruit - the dubbers who do survive will be Disney/Warner/Paramount/Hasbro's biggest competitors and those former four are in HUMONGOUS trouble. So if they survive this, they can survive anything and that has some in the big 4 worried...
It may be performing less than ideally but the DVDs have been doing decently enough (Source. Keep in mind a little under 6k sales for a DVD doesn't sound like a lot but it still falls somewhere in the middle of the road compared to most anime sales, so it's not awful at all, though it certainly could be doing a lot better considering the show's pedigree).
And on the western side of things it's way too early to tell because the first DVD set comes out later this month.
That and I'm pretty sure all of their VAs are non union, which helps the bottom line considerably.