tags: anime news fagwork, i made a funny, justin sevakis, lululu
Ok then, I decided to start doing a random article where I randomly lambaste and berate members of the American anime industry or generally just take to task anything I feel like taking to task. It should be fun. No promises on frequency. So let’s get right to the first target of my scorn and boredom, Justin Sevakis. Aside from his name, I am mostly annoyed with his terrible lack of insight or usefulness to a community he still feels like writing bitchy articles about. So let’s get started with my open letter to Justin Sevakis. tl;dr incoming.
Ok, so if you didn’t read the open letter, which I don’t recommend, basically Sevakis goes on like a little girl about need for change in the industry without putting forth a single founding idea or useful thought. He also uses his near superhuman abilities for pandering to both call fansub consumers snotty shitheads who take things they don’t deserve, and partially justified thieves. Of course, he has to play this angle to keep from pissing off his readers and his industry colleagues at the same time. Why does this bother me aside from the obvious? Well, let’s get into that.
First, I’d like to address Japan and their whole thing over there. Sevakis plays the card here as much as anywhere with “you don’t offer this, but you guys are totally still right. Hugs and kisses.” Basically, the entire article, however, he says Japanese rights holders are getting fucked and then he dances on the line of saying “do what the RIAA did to your own fans and sue the fuck out of them, or at least the fansubbers.” Ok, yeah, mostly he says sue the fansubbers, but here’s where I get to my point. It’s a two part point.
Firstly, Japan is claiming loss and damage for shit they aren’t selling to begin with. The shit airs for free (to the consumer) in Japan, and if the number of people watching it in Japan triples, it is not likely that the production company is the one to see the ad revenue. So let’s cut the shit. With over 40 shows coming out every season (that is to say, the four anime seasons in a year), often more, you are playing a violin to a deaf crowd man. If the production companies want more money, international fans ain’t the crowd to petition. It’s the station owners and ad companies. Likewise, this further answers the question about how watching it free online removes the ads. Well, likewise for the ads, we can’t fucking buy something they ain’t selling to us, so the ads would be about as fun as a punch in the dick while I am trying to see who dies after the eyecatch. Moreover, I hear this bitching, but how many billions of yen do anime tourism dollars bring in every year as well?
Secondly, as he addresses, there is no method for getting new shows to people in an affordable manner. While this STARTS to address the issue of fansubbing, it ignores the same point that I have tried to make on numerous occasions. America is NOT the world. We suddenly noticed Odex was around, but Singapore is a shithole anyway, so we will ignore their existence. Basically, there are fans in tons of countries which these shows, that is to say the new Japanese ones and the fuck-old American licenses, will never see the light of day. Large parts of Europe and South America and all them other inhabited countries won’t have the chance to see these shows if you kill off the fansubbers. This brings me to my next point quite nicely.
The anime companies, both in Japan and here, will fuck it up if they’re left to do it themselves. This point isn’t just limited to anime companies, it’s common throughout all industries. People are fuck-all terrified of just letting their IP fly fancy free. That is to say, imagining that there was a cross-platform version of fansubbing that you paid for, it would be set up the following way, I imagine. It would be a low-quality stream, that you wouldn’t want to archive and maybe an optional SUPER-DRM version for Windows users. Do I have a solution to this? Yes. It’s fairly simple, but scares the shit out of the companies because they are visionless jackasses who can’t get past their own greed and fear of having to work to make money anymore. The idea is simple: When people like you and realize you aren’t trying to fuck them, they will pay for your shit.
What does this mean specifically in this case? Well, take the music services and pull the DRM and you have a similar concept. Not iTunes. Rhapsody and the like. Basically, you give consumers XviD encoded video, with modest, REALISTIC prices per episode or per series. No DRM, open codec, and you offer them per episode or per series. You also sit down and calculate bandwidth prices and shit like that. Why? So you can figure a good price for a subscription based service. If GameTap can manage for $10 a month, I consider the idea that the anime industry could not to be a disgusting idea. And no I don’t mean the American industry. They are all big swinging dicks, so they won’t play together to save their lives. Largely the same in Japan. Basically, you work on the principle that people will, by and large, be honest. The people who like you and CAN pay, WILL pay. People are more willing to support things they love than not. The problem here, is the industry is still in the habit of equating one download to one copy sold, Sevakis seems to point out that this is the case with all the gusto of a freshly raped virgin teenager. So, in this system, you could count on the idiots in the expensive suits to expect a report on how many copies were “stolen” rather than focusing on how well the sales were going.
Take the recent Radiohead case as an example. Ignoring the dodgy statistics that were garnered from “a few hundred” users (not enough for a valid scientific study last time I checked. Need a few thousand at least.), they say that most people didn’t pay for the record. But here’s where that logic gets sort of fucked up. Did Radiohead LOSE money overall? Most likely not. And this still isn’t counting purchases from the super fans who will buy the expensive boxed set. Or people who just buy the CD after the fact anyway. I’m willing to bet Radiohead’s members don’t go filing for bankruptcy any time soon. It’d work the same in the anime industry. People who want to steal can keep on doing it and it’ll be fine, because honest people, like I tend to be when I feel I am not getting fucked, will pay them their fair asking price often enough to get by. IF they do it correctly. It has to be easy, extensive, and not a crock of shit.
Moving along from that, I have a few more issues with the whole thing. Sevakis doesn’t really address how anime fans are supposed to get a hold of unlicensed shows, regardless of their country. Is that to say that you can’t be an anime fan unless you speak Japanese or are content with hacked up edits and years before the show is released in your country? I mean, I know the obstinate assholes in the audience will just say “YEAH! You blah blah blah don’t deserve blah blah.” And that’s a problem I have with how the world has been working of late. For some reason, companies have convinced themselves that the consumer doesn’t matter and they it is our SWORN DUTY to just fucking buy what they say and let them have sole control over it even after we pay them good money for it. What companies are clutching to, the same as the American government of late, is this idea that they own the consumers, rather than the consumer dictating what is acceptable. The internet has allowed the age of consumer power to come into being and companies are fighting it with their last gasps. Trying to find ways to weasel their bullshit control schemes into our free world. The problem they’re facing is, well aside from that they’re doing it to begin with, the internet has infinite possibilities.
As such, those “worthless” fansubs are a real competitor. And as we can see, from Sevakis being a flubbery cunt, that sort of idea still hasn’t really sunk in with people even on his level. Trent Reznor has already said this same shit about the music industry. If you have a service that costs WHAT IT SHOULD COST ($10/month) and doesn’t make it a point to fuck people over as a matter of practice, then you’re probably going to see people turn away from piracy. Basically, if it costs a reasonable amount, if it’s faster, easier, and more consistent (which is what companies were made for in the first place), then BitTorrent becomes obsolete. Likewise, if you start this service, don’t fucking piggy back BT, man. You’re asking for trouble if you do. Just do HQ and LQ streaming and Direct Download. No DRM, no bullshit.
There is your solution, anime industry. Stop counting the money you don’t fucking make. Create a proper, one-stop anime shop online with no DRM and good options and ease of use, all that shit. And do your fucking damndest to make it international. Money is money is money. Work with Japanese houses to get new sorts of licensing that allows for immediate subtitling and quicker releases. Take the shit seriously if you want to ever overcome market saturation. The store shelves don’t want your fucking DVDs, so go where the kids are already getting it. Sure, keep putting out the best of the best series on DVD, but cut cost by subbing tons of shit and selling it online. It’s obvious, man. OBVIOUS! And work together or you will just watch the industry continue to fall over in America. Japan is doing fine, despite Sevakis’s assertion. But if FUNi and ADV keep acting like they will be the monopolistic big dicks, the already piss poor, dub-filled world of shit we call an anime industry is going to disappear. I’ll be happy about it, personally, but then I don’t need the US industry nearly as much as other people do.
Fuck yeah, this is the best blog post ever. I agree with pretty much everything you said, because it makes perfect sense. Especially Singapore being a shithole and all.
The thing is, industry doesn’t want to change. They’ve been making money until now with their conventional piss-slow DVD sales and are reluctant/afraid to do any drastic changes. Too bad that at the rate things are going, DVDs are turning into novelty/collector stuff and the primary watching is shifting online.
An effective online distribution system would work if it’s done well, but I doubt the industry’s ability to carry out such a thing. It’s easier to take the music record industry’s path, play butthurt and push all the blame on consumers.
Wow, you’re blog post is even stupider than the article it was responding to. Try adding in a few more expletives and sophomoric insults, then people will take your ideas and arguments even more seriously.
Services like Game Tap can get away with $10/month because they are going to inherently have a larger user base than any anime centric online distribution. Plus the content on Game Tap has been on the market already for at least a year, and probably in most cases can be licensed very cheaply because the publisher has broken even on the content.
If there was an online distribution service, what would be a fair price that the majority of anime fandom would accept? Of course this is a trick question because there isn’t one and will never be an acceptable rate because the same people who whine and complain about pricing would never subscribe to the service as long as there is a free alternative in the fansubbing community. The same people would more than likely find something to complain about the online service.
Future business models need to figure in traditional, there are still many of us who still like purchasing shiny discs, and online distribution methods.
Firstly, let me make clear. I didn’t write the article giving a fuck how you read it. That’s how I talk, it’s how I write, and it doesn’t change my intelligence level. That you perceive the use of expletives and insults as invalidating an argument, well, then you’re just one of those shithead kids who can die in a fire. As a sort of related point, what people think of me has long been one of the farthest things from my mind that I could imagine. Just wanted to clear that up before your like minded types ran in telling me how to run my shit.
As it is, the EXACT fucking reason I picked $10 was because that has largely been the magic number for online subscription services that most nearly match the sort of service the anime industry would need to set up.
And again, look at your post. You’re a visionless shithead who is just running off at the mouth about shit you don’t understand. Normally I like to respond to comments in a decent manner, but you just make ignorant claims that really miss the point. Do you KNOW what AllOfMP3 was a PROBLEM? Or oink? Or ZML? Any of those things? It’s because they do shit RIGHT. They are doing what the movie, music, and, in this case, anime industry SHOULD be doing with their online offerings. People are still trying to find the magic way to fuck over the consumer. And the bands could still get paid. They have you idiots convinced that these people need to be millionaires or whatever. And DVDs sell so shit that HOW COULD IT HURT?! My god, man. It’d just be free money at that point, considering the minor overhead of a properly put together site like that. Anyway, the whole point of the solution I put forward is that you hard making it EASIER and BETTER than BitTorrent, just for a bit of money. So those that bitch about pay, LIKE I FUCKING SAID (I’ve already assumed you either have the reading comprehension level of a child or didn’t read the article), will just do what they want. They are a NON-ISSUE. You cannot — READ THIS: CANNOT — start counting the sales you DON’T get. Moreover, a lot can be learned from GameTap even if it doesn’t directly correlate. The free games for example.
As for the future business models, I covered that pretty well I thought. They can keep putting out the boxed sets. Again, this lack of vision among all sides of the American anime scene leads to the idea that for some reason FUNimation would need to set up their online service, and then ADV, and maybe try to get the others to play along
GameTap isn’t run by game companies. Steam is, but carries games from lots of other places because they turned it into a non-Valve branded thing and just made a good product. Likewise with iTunes (Apple), Rhapsody (Real) and the now defunct, and good test case for what not to do Connect music store (Sony).
In the smart people world, we call these test cases and you apply the relative parts to what you are trying to achieve. Of course, the smaller demographic means that you can’t run the fuck out fill the world up with that shit, but take another similar service with a relatively tiny userbase. Joost. It seems to be doing fine.
So yeah. When you tell people shit is cheap, legal, easy, and DRM-Free, they feel at ease on all sides, especially when it actually IS those things. Or maybe you were just pissed that Sevakis got insulted. No clue.
I was not telling you how to run your site. My point was how was anyone suppose to take you seriously on an issue when your sense of a logical argument consists of the liberal use of insults and words like “shit”?
Okay,okay… I’ll translate that for you in your own language. You’re a shit-for-brains otaku who comes off as a prick instead of the cool person that you think are. A self-centered douchebag who doesn’t have any clue of economics or how businesses and markets work.
Happy now that I wrote something on your level?
Let’s break this down again…
While $10 might be the magic number for games and music, is it really going to be right for an anime specific service? No and you should know better. There are costs that are not associated with games and music that have to be considered with anime. If the anime is going to be distributed is it going to come with a translation? Of course it is and paying for a professional translator, a person to write from the translation a couple of scripts for the subtitles and dub, probably another to add subs to the video, actors for the dub, and additional people to create the final product all add up. There are also costs associated with starting and maintaining the distribution service.
Ever notice in GameTap’s catalog that most of its content is old stuff? To reiterate what I said in the first post, GameTap is getting the license for its content for dirt cheap when compared to what any anime company pays to license a series. Take a look at GT’s top Strategy Games list, http://www.gametap.com/home/profile/playlist?sys=23. Notice that most of these games have been around long enough before GT came into existence to break even?
Except on a very basic level, music services are no different from GT in that they are not applicable “test cases” for an anime distribution services because the licensing structure and product is different. Heck, I don’t think you would know how to apply a test case or let alone even recognize a relevant one.
The plan you suggest would bleed companies dry. There are not only the costs previously mentioned, but the lack of any DRM is just asking for people to abuse the distribution service. You so naively think that people all of a sudden are going to suddenly give up on file sharing because all of a sudden a company is going to offer both streaming and downloadable DRM-free files for that magical $10 a month fee. I’m sorry, but you are the shithead with that kind of thinking.
With the exception of storage a DVD is going to have better overall quality and can be played on any size screen. You pay for what you get.
Haha, ok, I guess this bears repeating. I WANT to come off as an otaku prick. I WANT you people to think that shit about me. I like it that way. You’ll notice the sentiment doesn’t change no matter how far back you go.
$10 would work just fine if you knew what you were doing. Translators are not so highly paid as you might believe, and freelancers are even cheaper. As with any venture, a lot of the overhead we see from things like this are a product of poorly set up companies with out of whack requirements, and again, unskilled, visionless people. Or should I say, tons of people who are not multitalented.
Again, if I wasn’t aware of the fucking costs, I would suggest it be free, wouldn’t I? HURRRR. But no, I suggested both subscription and per-episode. A Joost-style free service could still offer popular shows to draw in a large crowd and sell ad-space. Why I am basically typing up a fucking venture capital proposal to you, I have no idea.
Just to touch on GameTap, it’s a matter of the licensing scheme. Primarily. It doesn’t need to be old shit, look at the deal they have with CodeMasters. New games, etc, etc.
Moving along to your bitching about the product being different. It’s media, for one. And for two, that doesn’t even matter, because product is product is product. Doesn’t matter what it is. The licensing structure, hey, here’s a wacky idea. The licensing scheme for this idea doesn’t exist BECAUSE NO ONE HAS DONE IT YET. It’s the same as arguing that computers can never exist because you’ve never seen one. Similar licensing deals exist in other media formats. Breaking the barrier with the Japanese is the key there, but HEY, that’s only my problem if I make the system. And it’s a loooot longer than I want to spend explaining shit in a comment.
And you say the plan I propose bleeds companies dry. How? No one has done it. And anyone who tries gets sued to high fuck by the millionaire shitheads. You are one of those pricks that thinks in the box that they hand from one prick to another. You have no imagination, and you sure as shit couldn’t make that imagination reality successfully. You lack vision. You are still not getting the point here, man. People take shit online. They will. I do. And I will forever. Shit I can’t afford, shit I wouldn’t willfully pay for. And there are those who are like me in that regard, and some who will never pay for shit they genuinely enjoy. That’s fine. You people are all concerned with that stock-market mentality where if you don’t up profits 10% quarter over quarter, then the company must be failing. 1% is an improvement. As long as you don’t lose money, your company is fine, aside from the bullshit mentality that greedy fuckers put into place.
You sit around and judge success based on how well others are doing instead of just doing shit your own way. I’m SO glad you think I’m a prick with the shit you put on here. If you can say with conviction that it couldn’t work, when other versions already have (legal in the country they were founded makes it a legit company), then I wouldn’t want you agreeing with me. You’re what’s wrong with most companies and most of the progress we could be making. You live a boring life of things that can’t happen, even though that’s just a pussy way of saying you don’t want to fail if it doesn’t work.
Boring. That’s all it is. Nothing wrong with making less money than the other guy if you follow your dreams and ideals.
As for you assertion about the DVDs. I welcome you to look at the price of HDDs versus DVDs to get the same amount of storage. Now consider that you can fit the same quality video in a smaller package with more common codecs (~250mb for a h264 encoded HD episode, less for a DVD quality XviD or h264, all with good MP3 sound that most people aren’t going to want, and if they do, you could easily offer it.), DVD loses all day and all night. The HD disc standards aren’t keeping up well either. From MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, both used sort of poorly compared to web available downloads, and a good amount more space. Most of that is eaten up by the multi-channel audio in multiple languages in Uncompressed ACM or whatever.
If all you have is “nuh uh” then you’re dismissed. All you’re giving me is what can’t be done and I don’t need to explain how it will work to begin with, let alone as much as I already have.
Still, you are again ignoring the arcade, console, new PC, custom PC, and etc, games. I’ll remind you that my stance here isn’t about serving businesses. Businesses are about serving people. Now if you were a good little cocksucker and went out and bought all the consoles, arcade cabinets, PC games, etc, how much would you have spent? A fuck ton. A lot of it might have come out a number of years ago, but if it’s popular it means people want it. And if they can’t fucking get it easily, and you are offering the ability to get it easily, ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME HERE?! WHERE THEY GONNA GET IT?!
Go do a fucking poll at an anime con. Ask them. Would you use a cheap download/streaming service that offered subbed new shows from Japan as well as an extensive library of subbed/dubbed shows that have been released here? Would you watch the free channels subbed/dubbed as is possible since the dubfags can have a slice too, if they each contained ___ seconds of commercials (30, 60. Figure it out when you get the revenues and all that)?
I think it’d go pretty well. And I think the economics of it, which I know plenty about kthxomomgomgomg, are perfectly sound. Maybe not by your unethical fuck-the-consumer mentality where infinite gain is the only goal, but for people who aren’t so stuck in that “me first” way of life that’s fucked the world up, it could be pretty fucking nice. And people could be pretty fucking happy.
I doubt Japanese production studios would give in to freely distributed anime online that easily, otherwise I belive ADV would pick it up pretty quickly.
Japan’s the main market, so you want the shows from them, you’ve got to suck their genitals.
I read this post, and it sounds fine and all but it’s pretty ignorant of reality and the red-tape ridden back end that is causing this (and the open letter) to begin with. It’s easy to point to your neighbor’s kid and say to your own child “hey he got an A+ on his AP calc class, and until you bring home that A+ there’s no allowance!” to your own child, but that’s shitty parenting at work. And that’s what this post sounds like.
Let’s just say non-lawyers and non-industry insiders can still make lucid points about the whole situation, but most aren’t, and don’t, and they aren’t suppose to be able to generally. And that’s fine because at least you gave it a nice try, Randall. That’s what counts.
I’m not trying to parent. And really, my whole point here is that the system as a whole is fucked up to begin with. The red-tape is one of the many lingering problems of the way the business world was set up. To say it’s ignorant of reality is fine, but I’m not ignoring reality, I am talking about a path that can be taken to a new reality. Or at least one that dumps off some of the boring misconceptions today’s reality has decided adopt.
After all, any thing that man makes should really be made for the benefit of all those who consume it, not for the benefit company that created it. I get that every one thinks ideals and dreams are stupid and impossible, but it’s just not the case. I’m a bit weary of arguing about it.
So I’ll stop now. :D It’d work. Not saying it’d be easy, but it’d work.
Hell, all this drama.
For me, one thing is sure : The american anime industry has serious fucking issues.
In Europe, especially in the French-speaking anime industry, we don’t have any issues like that.
We are pirates, and what ? We buy dvds, sometimes.
We have collectors boxset with shitload of goodies.
We have really cheap boxsets for old series.
Maybe it’s because of the fast licensing.
Anyway. The American anime industry is a fucking bunch of whiners.
LOL France. Speaking of anime, the US gets way more than France and the rest of Europe combined and multiplied by a factor of 2 or 3, so whatever.
Anyways @ Randall I wasn’t saying that you are parenting or whatever but meh, learn more about your kid or hobby before mouthing off too much :) I know it sounds awfully ironic coming from me but yeah.
And the whole made-for-freedom thing you got going is fine too, but just realize there’s a balance in knowing that anime will not exist as we know it without the corporate backing that went into in the first place. The consumers are not at odds against the middleman or the people trying to make a buck. They are both in it together to get what they both want.
USA, Factor 2 or 3, more than Europe ?!! That’s a fucking lie, you know that ?
If you say the English speaking world, that’s another story.
Well, not like a give a shit, i’m more a manga-fan.
And :
1) France have more manga publishers than USA.
2) France is the second country, after Japan, reading manga worldwide.
You’re damn right Singapore’s a shithole! Malaysia Truly Asia!
Dolby AC3, btw, is lossy compressed.
I do think Sevakis makes a valid point, though. It also explains why all this ‘moe’ shit is coming out nowadays – I personally find it boring.
Randall, your attitude makes me glad my blog is hosted on your site. Rants like these calm my soul sometimes. However, your proposed solution is quite idealistic. What company nowadays wouldn’t distribute their content without some measure of DRM embedded? That’s like asking computer game people to stop putting copy protection technology in their games. Seeing as a new version of SecuROM or whatever comes out every two weeks or so and Alcohol 120% needs to be constantly updated to get its neck above the water I’d say DRM is already a part of today’s PC games. I mean, name a recent game that has no content protection whatsoever. Heck, even an old game like System Shock or something had copy protection!
Another thing is the price. I’m sure many people in the world would still download. I’m sure not as many people as you might think would pay. Why? Because I fall in the latter category, and I will stay there until I get a job. Then I might consider. Notice the word ‘might’. It’s kinda sad, but the option’s there, so I’m choosing it. My parents sure are grateful for that.
If you can’t afford entertainment products, then you shouldn’t have them. Stealing is stealing, and fansubs clearly disregard the right of the original producer to distribute their work the way they determine fit. If you went into a store, took something and then give it to someone on the street for free you’d still be arrested, right? Many of the points made in the original letter are 100% valid.
As far as the idea of an anime download service, the idea is fine but realistically (as others point out) why would someone pay for something that they always downloaded for free? On top of that, the small amount of people who buy R1s or R2s aren’t going to switch to downloaded videos because of the inherent superiority of disc formats.