That pretty much says it all. Here's a hint - you're wrong on both counts.
You're free to explain why. In fact, I could run through the last election with and without my vote and you can show to me the difference it would have made.
Well, stop thinking you're a special snowflake, and you'll understand why pretty quickly.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Well, stop thinking you're a special snowflake, and you'll understand why pretty quickly.
You mean, if I assume that I am everybody else or somehow control their thoughts and actions then I will suddenly observe crazy disproportional effects?
I kid, I kid.
I assume that you are running along the lines of either "if everybody thought that way..." or "you are part of a larger whole, and separating yourself from that is disingenuous". Is that correct?
Well, stop thinking you're a special snowflake, and you'll understand why pretty quickly.
You mean, if I assume that I am everybody else or somehow control their thoughts and actions then I will suddenly observe crazy disproportional effects?
I kid, I kid.
I assume that you are running along the lines of either "if everybody thought that way..." or "you are part of a larger whole, and separating yourself from that is disingenuous". Is that correct?
Yes, you're being disingenuous. Your actions alone might not amount to much, but guess what - you're not alone.
AH is talking about the Golden Rule; and for once I agree with him. Cue creepy music.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? How does that at all apply here?
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Yes, you're being disingenuous. Your actions alone might not amount to much, but guess what - you're not alone.
Right, other people are doing the same thing. However, whether or not I was doing what they were doing... they would still be doing it. Their behaviour is independent of mine. So, why is my decision to vote or otherwise going to have an effect on the outcome other than the vanishingly small chance that I happen to becasting the deciding vote (or an "effective" vote, depending on electoral system etc)?
The problem is that piracy doesn't equate to 100% lost sales, but neither does it equal zero percent of lost sales. The problem comes in estimating the number in between.
Then again close to 100% of pirates, whether they would have bought the show if there were no alternative or not, will come up with some sort of bullshit rationalization for their actions.
"I wasn't willing to pay for the shows because I do not have the money or they are not worth it to me, but it was easy enough to watch anyway without causing harm (theft) so I did."
That's a rationalization and it's not at all bullshit. It does undermine the rationalization for intellectual property law though.
Irresponsibility
You have drawn an illogical connection. If a person has made the choice not to pay, I'm not sure how their actions have any effect whatsoever.
There is one case you could make though. Someone decides not to pay for a show due to high cost and pirates it. Later, the price comes down to a level they would have been willing to pay originally. Unless that official set has something they really want or they're totally enamored with the show, they're not going to buy something they've already seen just for the hell of it.
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman! How about this: if the seller charges "too high" a price, you don't buy the product. And then you don't pirate it either. Shocking concept, I know.
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman! How about this: if the seller charges "too high" a price, you don't buy the product. And then you don't pirate it either. Shocking concept, I know.
Especially considering that a price that is "too high" is entirely subjective and no doubt varies heavily from person to person.
I find it usually doesn't take too long for prices to fall anyhow so I am perfectly fine waiting whilst keeping an eye on Amazon and Rightstuf.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
And just quickly, before anybody assumes too much about my likely buying habits, I would offer my steam profile:
I virtually never pirate anything. On the other hand, I do not vote. I have never, ever, heard an adequate refutation of the near flawless piece of sophistry I just offered you - and I'm pretty sure one doesn't exist. One of my philosophy teachers once observed that it is absolutely true, and the first step of anybody doing anything is to ignore it.
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Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman! How about this: if the seller charges "too high" a price, you don't buy the product. And then you don't pirate it either. Shocking concept, I know.
It is a shocking concept! Mostly because of how thoroughly divorced from reality it is. What I presented was not a false dichotomy in the slightest. There are two ways to reduce piracy:
I virtually never pirate anything. On the other hand, I do not vote. I have never, ever, heard an adequate refutation of the near flawless piece of sophistry I just offered you - and I'm pretty sure one doesn't exist. One of my philosophy teachers once observed that it is absolutely true, and the first step of anybody doing anything is to ignore it.
PROTIP: When an argument is described as sophistry, that's not a good thing. It's true, and it's a worthless statement. The refutation of it is pointing out that one's moves to change the world can have an impact, not only on their own, but in aggregate.
You're right that the first step is to ignore it, because it's a bullshit excuse.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
vThe refutation of it is pointing out that one's moves to change the world can have an impact, not only on their own, but in aggregate.
That is not a refutation. One person's actions do not an aggregate make.
The reason I bring it up is simply that people confuse the general statement:
"In general, it is a good thing if most people vote"
with the idea that it therefore must make sense to vote in the calculus of an individual. When often, it doesn't. Both are true simultaneously. To insist that one person's piracy is a significant hit by simply conflating it with everybody else's is tragically without persuasive force.
EDIT: Consider a guy who wants to learn to ride a bike.
Every day he says "It doesn't matter of I start today, I can always start tomorrow". And every day he puts it off. It is a good thing for him to learn to ride the bike; it is simultaneously true that there is no one vital day for him to start learning it. The fact that he must eventually ignore this argument in order to learn to ride the bike doesn't make the argument any the less true! If you try and tell him that today is the day that he MUST learn to ride the bike, you will be wrong and it will be logically obvious why you are wrong. It is completely the wrong approach to take both for logical and persuasive purposes.
The only thing I can see the Western Anime distributor's doing to keep from going hilariously under is jumping on the online bandwagon full force.
We're talking full HD content downloadable straight to your harddrive. License some cheap ass anti-pirating software, so it's just enough of a hassell that most people won't bother trying to pirate it. Offer high quality streams, and hell, even reach out to some of the better subber's to host their content on the site(After being viewed, of course.)
It'll cost a fuckton of money, but you cut out the middle man of the DVD/Blue Ray format. Of course, you wouldn't want to faze it out completley. The high demand things you can always keep available in DVD or Blue Ray, with popular stuff available on request/demand.
vThe refutation of it is pointing out that one's moves to change the world can have an impact, not only on their own, but in aggregate.
That is not a refutation. One person's actions do not an aggregate make.
The reason I bring it up is simply that people confuse the general statement:
"In general, it is a good thing if most people vote"
with the idea that it therefore must make sense to vote in the calculus of an individual. When often, it doesn't. Both are true simultaneously. To insist that one person's piracy is a significant hit by simply conflating it with everybody else's is tragically without persuasive force.
EDIT: Consider a guy who wants to learn to ride a bike.
Every day he says "It doesn't matter of I start today, I can always start tomorrow". And every day he puts it off. It is a good thing for him to learn to ride the bike; it is simultaneously true that there is no one vital day for him to start learning it. The fact that he must eventually ignore this argument in order to learn to ride the bike doesn't make the argument any the less true! If you try and tell him that today is the day that he MUST learn to ride the bike, you will be wrong and it will be logically obvious why you are wrong. It is completely the wrong approach to take both for logical and persuasive purposes.
No, the point is that someone thinking "oh, what's the harm in me doing [x]" without considering the impact of other people making the same choice as him is a self-centered gander who deserves mockery. Again, you're not a special snowflake - stop acting like one.
I would say that for a subset of the population piracy represents complementary goods, some it represents substitute goods. For the vast majority it represents neither. I have no idea about how the elimination of piracy would affect sales, except for that effect being minimal regardless of direction.
But what's the channel for this? Try before you buy?
While I don't support pirating, yes, I think this can be a large issue.
I don't think there's a very large consumer base for buying DVDs of shows before people have seen them. Alot of Anime, by virtue of not being on TV much, probably gets hit with this pretty hard.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
So self-righteous, yet not interested in the best way of getting people to behave better. How comical.
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman! How about this: if the seller charges "too high" a price, you don't buy the product. And then you don't pirate it either. Shocking concept, I know.
It is a shocking concept! Mostly because of how thoroughly divorced from reality it is. What I presented was not a false dichotomy in the slightest. There are two ways to reduce piracy:
Though I suppose we could pretend that user education works if you want.
I'm not talking about what the company should do. Obviously they are getting hosed by piracy. I'm talking about how "too high" prices or sellers being dicks or whatever is no justification to pirate. It's justification not to buy.
I would say that for a subset of the population piracy represents complementary goods, some it represents substitute goods. For the vast majority it represents neither. I have no idea about how the elimination of piracy would affect sales, except for that effect being minimal regardless of direction.
But what's the channel for this? Try before you buy?
While I don't support pirating, yes, I think this can be a large issue.
I don't think there's a very large consumer base for buying DVDs of shows before people have seen them. Alot of Anime, by virtue of not being on TV much, probably gets hit with this pretty hard.
The problem I see with this is the following. Once someone has downloaded a show to "check it out," they will rarely buy it, even if it would have been worth it to them.
I would say that for a subset of the population piracy represents complementary goods, some it represents substitute goods. For the vast majority it represents neither. I have no idea about how the elimination of piracy would affect sales, except for that effect being minimal regardless of direction.
But what's the channel for this? Try before you buy?
While I don't support pirating, yes, I think this can be a large issue.
I don't think there's a very large consumer base for buying DVDs of shows before people have seen them. Alot of Anime, by virtue of not being on TV much, probably gets hit with this pretty hard.
The problem I see with this is the following. Once someone has downloaded a show to "check it out," they will rarely buy it, even if it would have been worth it to them.
Perhaps. But it is a way in which pirating and DVDs can be complementary goods.
Part of the problems starts in Japan too. The Japanese companies have such a sweet deal with their fans paying ridiculous prices that it can be hard to license something for a competitive price in the West.
I'm not an expert or anything, but this definitely makes sense with what I know.
I was really into anime for a while when I was 14 or 15. Limited availability on TV, so I'd go to big box stores to find it.
Everything was box sets that cost 100 - 150 dollars.
Some times weren't even box sets containing an entire series and they still cost over 50$.
Just could not justify purchasing. Eventually started downloading subs instead, before I just quit caring all together.
So self-righteous, yet not interested in the best way of getting people to behave better. How comical.
In other words, you have no defense. Which, frankly, isn't surprising.
And I'm surprised that your philosophy teacher didn't point out the tragedy of the commons and the prisoners dilemma, which are both excellent refutations of your "individual calculus" sophistry.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
In other words, you have no defense. Which, frankly, isn't surprising.
And I'm surprised that your philosophy teacher didn't point out the tragedy of the commons and the prisoners dilemma, which are both excellent refutations of your "individual calculus" sophistry.
Actually, I already pointed out why it is logically correct, and you simply repeated your exact same point about not being a special snowflake.
Tragedy of the commons and prisoners dilemma are both irrelevant, and if you had actually read what I wrote you would understand why. But you aren't here in good faith, so all is good.
Part of the problems starts in Japan too. The Japanese companies have such a sweet deal with their fans paying ridiculous prices that it can be hard to license something for a competitive price in the West.
I'm not an expert or anything, but this definitely makes sense with what I know.
I was really into anime for a while when I was 14 or 15. Limited availability on TV, so I'd go to big box stores to find it.
Everything was box sets that cost 100 - 150 dollars.
Some times weren't even box sets containing an entire series and they still cost over 50$.
Just could not justify purchasing. Eventually started downloading subs instead, before I just quit caring all together.
Prices are quite different nowadays, especially if you buy online as most of the good retailers charge a fair amount under MSRP, and that's even before they have sales.
The piracy thing is a moot point. You aren't going to be able to convince people to stop pirating in any meaningful way, and so far attempts to prevent it technologically have all failed. Stopping piracy should be a non-priority for them, they need to concentrate on luring in sales, and expanding their market. They can do that through various promotion schemes, but also they need to improve their product.
I'm not a fan of anime, but one of the things I noticed my friends who were complained about at length were the "filler" episodes of series. It seems like a couple hundred episodes is a pretty standard(bleach is at 270 in <6 years, wiki) run for an anime series(A US TV season is 20-25 episodes), Its hard to keep a coherent meaningful story through that kind of time frame and expecting to be able to extract $1000+ for people to watch the show is absurd.
The piracy thing is a moot point. You aren't going to be able to convince people to stop pirating in any meaningful way, and so far attempts to prevent it technologically have all failed. Stopping piracy should be a non-priority for them, they need to concentrate on luring in sales, and expanding their market. They can do that through various promotion schemes, but also they need to improve their product.
I'm not a fan of anime, but one of the things I noticed my friends who were complained about at length were the "filler" episodes of series. It seems like a couple hundred episodes is a pretty standard(bleach is at 270 in <6 years, wiki) run for an anime series(A US TV season is 20-25 episodes), Its hard to keep a coherent meaningful story through that kind of time frame and expecting to be able to extract $1000+ for people to watch the show is absurd.
Actually the 100+ episode series are more the exception than the rule!
You hear about them more often because they're incredibly long and thus have a lot to talk about, really.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Actually the 100+ episode series are more the exception than the rule!
You hear about them more often because they're incredibly long and thus have a lot to talk about, really.
They are so popular though that I think it is a significant point. What I've always wondered is how much lower or higher their production costs are versus something with really good animation/production values - e.g., how much did bakemonogatari cost per episode against filler episode of bleach number 150?
Actually the 100+ episode series are more the exception than the rule!
You hear about them more often because they're incredibly long and thus have a lot to talk about, really.
They are so popular though that I think it is a significant point. What I've always wondered is how much lower or higher their production costs are versus something with really good animation/production values - e.g., how much did bakemonogatari cost per episode against filler episode of bleach number 150?
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques, but even with that I'd imagine the budget was higher per episode than the average Bleach filler. I once saw a writeup of costs in the industry and such that was fairly informative on average costs and the like, I'll have to see if I can dig it up...
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I thought that iTunes had proven that piracy decreases when people have easy, affordable, and instant access to content. Am I wrong here?
If the argument is going to be "Piracy is killing us!", then then answer is to make your material more convenient to buy than pirate.
It decreases, but it will never be enough.
a) the chaps selling this stuff see any copy downloaded illegally as a lost sale, so they will always be up in arms over what they see as theft
b) While itunes has been relatively successful, I don't think it has actually decreased piracy that much. It's just made buying slightly more common (which as a percentage of the numbers downloaded illegally is pretty tiny)
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques
Which ones? I always thought it looked beautiful, and there were very few scenes where I noticed "oh look they're just repeating the same animation over and over again" or "oh look, they're just sliding frames past each other". Not saying they didn't, just interested in specifics!
Although I'd imagine increased use of computers in the anime industry would have resulted in costs plummeting already... is this the case?
I thought that iTunes had proven that piracy decreases when people have easy, affordable, and instant access to content. Am I wrong here?
If the argument is going to be "Piracy is killing us!", then then answer is to make your material more convenient to buy than pirate.
I wish ZUN could hear you.
Pew Pew.
Is Rosaio Vampire's manga translated? I would considering purchasing it. It's all nice and action-y. I now know the anime is a perverted abomination compared to it. The one and only manga and anime I've purchased is Fooly Cooly.
A quick Amazon search reveals Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are totally fucking cheap...
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited May 2010
careful
this thread is for discussion of the business of anime, esp as it pertains to america
it is not for discussion of our favorite anime titles
Is Rosario+Vampire's manga translated? I would considering purchasing it. It's all nice and action-y. I now know the anime is a perverted abomination compared to it.
Yeah, Viz licensed both seasons of it. The first season is completed and already in stores. The first volume of the second season is released as well.
I remember an article about how piracy affected sales of even a great popular well-selling series like R+V.
Much of the blame for a 20% drop in North American manga sales is being pinned on scanlation.
The annual report originates from “pop culture” industry information peddlers ICv2.
Their white paper describes how manga sales in the US and Canada fell 20% in 2009, down to $140 million from $175 in 2008. In 2008 sales declined as well, dropping 17% from their all-time peak of $210 million in 2007, meaning the market declined in size by one third in from 2007-2009.
An excess of titles and the industry’s failure to successfully market josei manga to maturing fans of shoujo manga are cited as reasons for the decline, along with a decline in TV exposure “[keeping] hot new titles such as Rosario + Vampire from achieving the kind of success that previous Shonen Jump hits have enjoyed.”
However, the bulk of the blame appears to be reserved for scanlation and fansubs, the perennial publishing industry bugbears:
Another key factor in the slowing sales of manga is the presence of so many volumes of manga in translated form on the Internet.
Just as the anime market in the U.S. was gutted by fansubbed downloads available on the Net for free, manga is now facing its own crisis created by the availability of free unlicensed scanlations on the Web.
Manga readers lack the “collector mentality” of comic book fans and also tend to be both young and tech savvy.
The fact that manga is “long-form” entertainment, with many series running to dozens of volumes (Naruto Vol. 48 is due out in June), even taking into account the fact that manga is very attractively priced compared with traditional American graphic novels, it is very expensive to collect the entire series in paper.
Increasingly retailers who saw their once strong anime sales shrink away to nothing are telling ICv2 that manga readers are sampling new series online and only buying their favorite one or two series in printed form.
The almost total lack of digitally distributed manga capable of competing with such versions by now hardly needs mentioning – strong demand for convenient digital manga is apparently something publishers in both the US and Japan are desperate to ignore.
Oddly, the report completely fails to mention that there was a major global recession commencing in 2007 – apparently macroeconomic climate has no effect on manga sales worth mentioning, just like in Japan.
Actually the 100+ episode series are more the exception than the rule!
You hear about them more often because they're incredibly long and thus have a lot to talk about, really.
They are so popular though that I think it is a significant point. What I've always wondered is how much lower or higher their production costs are versus something with really good animation/production values - e.g., how much did bakemonogatari cost per episode against filler episode of bleach number 150?
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques
I don't think those were "budget saving techniques", it was the studio taking on more work than they could meet the deadlines for and so you had the broadcast version suffer. The DVD releases had the missing material added, scenes re-animated, etc.
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Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
I thought that iTunes had proven that piracy decreases when people have easy, affordable, and instant access to content. Am I wrong here?
If the argument is going to be "Piracy is killing us!", then then answer is to make your material more convenient to buy than pirate.
It decreases, but it will never be enough.
a) the chaps selling this stuff see any copy downloaded illegally as a lost sale, so they will always be up in arms over what they see as theft
b) While itunes has been relatively successful, I don't think it has actually decreased piracy that much. It's just made buying slightly more common (which as a percentage of the numbers downloaded illegally is pretty tiny)
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques
Which ones? I always thought it looked beautiful, and there were very few scenes where I noticed "oh look they're just repeating the same animation over and over again" or "oh look, they're just sliding frames past each other". Not saying they didn't, just interested in specifics!
Although I'd imagine increased use of computers in the anime industry would have resulted in costs plummeting already... is this the case?
It's a lot of the weird directing that's budget savings (which the studio and director are (in)famous for): things like using photos instead of drawing things out, stuff like closeups of eyes, weird stylization that takes less effort to draw, weird surreal scenes (all of the cars/bikes are the same!) all of the shots of text on background colour, etc.
I thought that iTunes had proven that piracy decreases when people have easy, affordable, and instant access to content. Am I wrong here?
If the argument is going to be "Piracy is killing us!", then then answer is to make your material more convenient to buy than pirate.
It decreases, but it will never be enough.
a) the chaps selling this stuff see any copy downloaded illegally as a lost sale, so they will always be up in arms over what they see as theft
b) While itunes has been relatively successful, I don't think it has actually decreased piracy that much. It's just made buying slightly more common (which as a percentage of the numbers downloaded illegally is pretty tiny)
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques
Which ones? I always thought it looked beautiful, and there were very few scenes where I noticed "oh look they're just repeating the same animation over and over again" or "oh look, they're just sliding frames past each other". Not saying they didn't, just interested in specifics!
Although I'd imagine increased use of computers in the anime industry would have resulted in costs plummeting already... is this the case?
It's a lot of the weird directing that's budget savings (which the studio and director are (in)famous for): things like using photos instead of drawing things out, stuff like closeups of eyes, weird stylization that takes less effort to draw, weird surreal scenes (all of the cars/bikes are the same!) all of the shots of text on background colour, etc.
Yeah those were most of what I was thinking.
I'm not saying these are inherently bad things mind you, just that they save money.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
It's a lot of the weird directing that's budget savings (which the studio and director are (in)famous for): things like using photos instead of drawing things out, stuff like closeups of eyes, weird stylization that takes less effort to draw, weird surreal scenes (all of the cars/bikes are the same!) all of the shots of text on background colour, etc.
Fair enough. I just remember watching the first episode and noticing the guy clicking the pen around being quite carefully animated and thinking "they're spending time on a dude messing around with a PEN?"
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Well, stop thinking you're a special snowflake, and you'll understand why pretty quickly.
You mean, if I assume that I am everybody else or somehow control their thoughts and actions then I will suddenly observe crazy disproportional effects?
I kid, I kid.
I assume that you are running along the lines of either "if everybody thought that way..." or "you are part of a larger whole, and separating yourself from that is disingenuous". Is that correct?
Yes, you're being disingenuous. Your actions alone might not amount to much, but guess what - you're not alone.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? How does that at all apply here?
Right, other people are doing the same thing. However, whether or not I was doing what they were doing... they would still be doing it. Their behaviour is independent of mine. So, why is my decision to vote or otherwise going to have an effect on the outcome other than the vanishingly small chance that I happen to becasting the deciding vote (or an "effective" vote, depending on electoral system etc)?
I am a person who create intellectual property (specifically, I'm a software developer.)
I do not want the work I do, either for myself or my employer, to be taken without proper compensation.
Therefore, I do not take the intellectual work of others without properly compensating them.
...it's like the Internet never went to kindergarten. Which, frankly, would explain a lot.
You have drawn an illogical connection. If a person has made the choice not to pay, I'm not sure how their actions have any effect whatsoever.
There is one case you could make though. Someone decides not to pay for a show due to high cost and pirates it. Later, the price comes down to a level they would have been willing to pay originally. Unless that official set has something they really want or they're totally enamored with the show, they're not going to buy something they've already seen just for the hell of it.
Then it's a matter of what lesson to take from this. Should there be a crackdown on piracy or should the seller suffer an economic penalty for pricing too high and effectively trying to squeeze the market for all it's worth?
Since fighting piracy has all kinds of nasty side effects and the seller was being kind of a dick, I know where my opinion lies.
I fucked up. I meant the Categorical Imperative.
But you could spin it using the Golden Rule too. If you don't want others illegally claiming the fruits of your labor, then you shouldn't either.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman! How about this: if the seller charges "too high" a price, you don't buy the product. And then you don't pirate it either. Shocking concept, I know.
Especially considering that a price that is "too high" is entirely subjective and no doubt varies heavily from person to person.
I find it usually doesn't take too long for prices to fall anyhow so I am perfectly fine waiting whilst keeping an eye on Amazon and Rightstuf.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197962109094/games?tab=all
I virtually never pirate anything. On the other hand, I do not vote. I have never, ever, heard an adequate refutation of the near flawless piece of sophistry I just offered you - and I'm pretty sure one doesn't exist. One of my philosophy teachers once observed that it is absolutely true, and the first step of anybody doing anything is to ignore it.
It is a shocking concept! Mostly because of how thoroughly divorced from reality it is. What I presented was not a false dichotomy in the slightest. There are two ways to reduce piracy:
Attack piracy: DRM, law enforcement, ISP-level filtering
Reduce pressure: Lower prices, convenient online distribution, sanctioned ad-supported options
Though I suppose we could pretend that user education works if you want.
PROTIP: When an argument is described as sophistry, that's not a good thing. It's true, and it's a worthless statement. The refutation of it is pointing out that one's moves to change the world can have an impact, not only on their own, but in aggregate.
You're right that the first step is to ignore it, because it's a bullshit excuse.
That is not a refutation. One person's actions do not an aggregate make.
The reason I bring it up is simply that people confuse the general statement:
"In general, it is a good thing if most people vote"
with the idea that it therefore must make sense to vote in the calculus of an individual. When often, it doesn't. Both are true simultaneously. To insist that one person's piracy is a significant hit by simply conflating it with everybody else's is tragically without persuasive force.
EDIT: Consider a guy who wants to learn to ride a bike.
Every day he says "It doesn't matter of I start today, I can always start tomorrow". And every day he puts it off. It is a good thing for him to learn to ride the bike; it is simultaneously true that there is no one vital day for him to start learning it. The fact that he must eventually ignore this argument in order to learn to ride the bike doesn't make the argument any the less true! If you try and tell him that today is the day that he MUST learn to ride the bike, you will be wrong and it will be logically obvious why you are wrong. It is completely the wrong approach to take both for logical and persuasive purposes.
We're talking full HD content downloadable straight to your harddrive. License some cheap ass anti-pirating software, so it's just enough of a hassell that most people won't bother trying to pirate it. Offer high quality streams, and hell, even reach out to some of the better subber's to host their content on the site(After being viewed, of course.)
It'll cost a fuckton of money, but you cut out the middle man of the DVD/Blue Ray format. Of course, you wouldn't want to faze it out completley. The high demand things you can always keep available in DVD or Blue Ray, with popular stuff available on request/demand.
Other then that, I got nothin.
No, the point is that someone thinking "oh, what's the harm in me doing [x]" without considering the impact of other people making the same choice as him is a self-centered gander who deserves mockery. Again, you're not a special snowflake - stop acting like one.
While I don't support pirating, yes, I think this can be a large issue.
I don't think there's a very large consumer base for buying DVDs of shows before people have seen them. Alot of Anime, by virtue of not being on TV much, probably gets hit with this pretty hard.
I'm not talking about what the company should do. Obviously they are getting hosed by piracy. I'm talking about how "too high" prices or sellers being dicks or whatever is no justification to pirate. It's justification not to buy.
The problem I see with this is the following. Once someone has downloaded a show to "check it out," they will rarely buy it, even if it would have been worth it to them.
Perhaps. But it is a way in which pirating and DVDs can be complementary goods.
Only if it results in an actual sale. We really need some numbers on this, but I don't know any reputable studies on the topic.
I'm not an expert or anything, but this definitely makes sense with what I know.
I was really into anime for a while when I was 14 or 15. Limited availability on TV, so I'd go to big box stores to find it.
Everything was box sets that cost 100 - 150 dollars.
Some times weren't even box sets containing an entire series and they still cost over 50$.
Just could not justify purchasing. Eventually started downloading subs instead, before I just quit caring all together.
In other words, you have no defense. Which, frankly, isn't surprising.
And I'm surprised that your philosophy teacher didn't point out the tragedy of the commons and the prisoners dilemma, which are both excellent refutations of your "individual calculus" sophistry.
Actually, I already pointed out why it is logically correct, and you simply repeated your exact same point about not being a special snowflake.
Tragedy of the commons and prisoners dilemma are both irrelevant, and if you had actually read what I wrote you would understand why. But you aren't here in good faith, so all is good.
Prices are quite different nowadays, especially if you buy online as most of the good retailers charge a fair amount under MSRP, and that's even before they have sales.
I'm not a fan of anime, but one of the things I noticed my friends who were complained about at length were the "filler" episodes of series. It seems like a couple hundred episodes is a pretty standard(bleach is at 270 in <6 years, wiki) run for an anime series(A US TV season is 20-25 episodes), Its hard to keep a coherent meaningful story through that kind of time frame and expecting to be able to extract $1000+ for people to watch the show is absurd.
Actually the 100+ episode series are more the exception than the rule!
You hear about them more often because they're incredibly long and thus have a lot to talk about, really.
They are so popular though that I think it is a significant point. What I've always wondered is how much lower or higher their production costs are versus something with really good animation/production values - e.g., how much did bakemonogatari cost per episode against filler episode of bleach number 150?
If the argument is going to be "Piracy is killing us!", then then answer is to make your material more convenient to buy than pirate.
Bakemonogatari had a fair amount of budget saving techniques, but even with that I'd imagine the budget was higher per episode than the average Bleach filler. I once saw a writeup of costs in the industry and such that was fairly informative on average costs and the like, I'll have to see if I can dig it up...
It decreases, but it will never be enough.
a) the chaps selling this stuff see any copy downloaded illegally as a lost sale, so they will always be up in arms over what they see as theft
b) While itunes has been relatively successful, I don't think it has actually decreased piracy that much. It's just made buying slightly more common (which as a percentage of the numbers downloaded illegally is pretty tiny)
Which ones? I always thought it looked beautiful, and there were very few scenes where I noticed "oh look they're just repeating the same animation over and over again" or "oh look, they're just sliding frames past each other". Not saying they didn't, just interested in specifics!
Although I'd imagine increased use of computers in the anime industry would have resulted in costs plummeting already... is this the case?
I wish ZUN could hear you.
Pew Pew.
Is Rosaio Vampire's manga translated? I would considering purchasing it. It's all nice and action-y. I now know the anime is a perverted abomination compared to it. The one and only manga and anime I've purchased is Fooly Cooly.
A quick Amazon search reveals Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are totally fucking cheap...
this thread is for discussion of the business of anime, esp as it pertains to america
it is not for discussion of our favorite anime titles
mostly you guys have been good about this
please continue to toe the line
I remember an article about how piracy affected sales of even a great popular well-selling series like R+V.
I don't think those were "budget saving techniques", it was the studio taking on more work than they could meet the deadlines for and so you had the broadcast version suffer. The DVD releases had the missing material added, scenes re-animated, etc.
Yeah those were most of what I was thinking.
I'm not saying these are inherently bad things mind you, just that they save money.
Fair enough. I just remember watching the first episode and noticing the guy clicking the pen around being quite carefully animated and thinking "they're spending time on a dude messing around with a PEN?"