BRANCH: Anime/Manga piracy discussion

[MissMisa]

Originally Posted by noodle

EDIT: MissMisa, I can't be bothered to reply to your rant up there, but are you really gonna stand there and say the Anime industry is TEENY?????????!?!?!?!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? What world are you in?

Well yeah... compared to Japan, our anime industry is tiny. And compared to other industries like film and games, outside of Japan, the industry is tiny and struggling. We should support western anime releases as much as possible.

As you know probably know noodle the 'anime industry' in England is practically non-existant. We have a few websites run by fanatics and one magazine.

EDIT: Are you on about the whole anime industry or what noodle? I'm on about how western companies are struggling to make ends meet. Most of the anime we get in England is from the USA, and it doesn't make much money here. Japan, on the other hand, well anime is a regular part of life, and easily and cheaply available, without translation. So they'll be doing fine I imagine.

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by MissMisa

As you know probably know noodle the 'anime industry' in England is practically non-existant. We have a few websites run by fanatics and one magazine.

EDIT: Are you on about the whole anime industry or what noodle? I'm on about how western companies are struggling to make ends meet. Most of the anime we get in England is from the USA, and it doesn't make much money here. Japan, on the other hand, well anime is a regular part of life, and easily and cheaply available, without translation. So they'll be doing fine I imagine.

I'm actually glad you understand this. I love the UK, but I feel like Noodle has so much anti American sentiment built up for no reason. We can't control (in it's common sense) how the markets are, and it just so happens that the US market is the leading market for anime next to China outside of Japan.

For some reason, Noodle is trying to say that I'm acting like the US is the center of the planet, when all I've done is show that North America has plenty of data to suggest that it has a much larger market for anime than the UK, therefore the effects of a decline in anime in North America are a lot more detrimental than that in the UK.

This has nothing to do with US/UK relations.

Just out of curiosity, of the anime you watch in the UK, about how much of it is in American English since you've said a lot of it is from the US. I didn't know you guys got anime from us in a dubbed fashion, if that's what you mean.

[Nyororin]

The anime/manga market in Japan isn`t really what is being discussed to begin with, so it doesn`t have much of an impact on the subject. There is surprisingly little "stealing" of manga in Japan. Everyone buys it, and just because of the nature of it digital versions are not very popular.
"Stealing" of anime, yes, but only to an extent as most of the time it`s easier to just record the show yourself - legally - from television when it airs. People who will buy still buy. Right now the biggest neck for DVDs in the Japanese market is the fact that while everything is broadcast in 1180i, most of the time only a DVD comes out. But that doesn`t prompt people to copy the DVDs - it just makes them think very hard about buying them when they have the show recorded in full quality on their HDD recorder. The market has started to figure this out and is putting more stuff out on Blu-ray and even occasionally at a normal price, finally. But it will take a while to catch up.

People complain and complain about how much anime/manga costs in the "west".... Without realizing that the price is directly related to the fact that they`re not buying. Things cost money to publish - and if few people buy then it costs MORE money because the initial investment has to be paid off by fewer people. You can`t expect a company to sacrifice itself and go bankrupt just to supply anime/manga.
If people were buying it like crazy then the price would start dropping. It would become truly profitable to license and publish - so more companies would spring up and compete bringing prices down even more.

But everyone comes up with some complaint or other and doesn`t buy... So the companies that do go through the trouble have to charge a lot to scrape by.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

Is it greed from the consumer, or the high prices and long waiting periods of the market? There is a correlation, but these are two different things.

"High prices". Anything over $0.00 is a "high price" to thieves.

"Long waiting periods". Publishing a book into English is not like waving a wand. I realize in this Internet Now generation we must have everything now, but the physical publishing of a title takes months. There is little that is going to change that, but it doesn't excuse stealing.

Originally Posted by noodle

Why is everyone talking like the Anime/Manga industry is about to go bankrupt any minute now? Where the hell are the sources that say it's in that kind of trouble! And for all those geniuses that list a couple of companies that went bankrupt, then maybe you should go back to Economics 101, or whatever it is they teach you in school! A company going bankrupt does NOT necessarily indicate that the INDUSTRY is going down the drain! Most of the time, it's because the business is dumb!

EDIT: MissMisa, I can't be bothered to reply to your rant up there, but are you really gonna stand there and say the Anime industry is TEENY?????????!?!?!?!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? What world are you in?

Did you see my link about the comics industry in S. Korea?

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by MMM

"High prices". Anything over $0.00 is a "high price" to thieves.

"Long waiting periods". Publishing a book into English is not like waving a wand. I realize in this Internet Now generation we must have everything now, but the physical publishing of a title takes months. There is little that is going to change that, but it doesn't excuse stealing.

The question was essentially, "what drives a normal consumer to become a thief?" We've already pretty much declared that a thief is a thief, whether it's a penny or 100 dollars, but there are plenty of people here who have openly admitted to pirating here, albeit being general consumers. So why did they choose to take a piece of something, when they've also admitted they'd paid for the products as well? There has to be more than saying all of us are just natural born stealers.

The "long waiting periods" are relative. I never said it could be done quickly; in fact I said it takes a long time, hence why people feel the need to pirate. I don't condone pirating at all, so don't assume I do.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

There has to be more than saying all of us are just natural born stealers.

I never said everyone is "natural born stealers".

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

The "long waiting periods" are relative. I never said it could be done quickly; in fact I said it takes a long time, hence why people feel the need to pirate. I don't condone pirating at all, so don't assume I do.

Again, it is relative to anything being over the price of $0.00. Some people excuse their stealing because they think they are owed their favorite titles on the the day it is released in Japan. That isn't how the industry works (for now).

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by MMM

I never said everyone is "natural born stealers".

You've eluded the question, though. If any price is too high for a thief, then why do we continue to have consumers who do both? In this case, I think you're implying it. By this logic, if 0.00 was the determining factor, then we'd have zero consumers.

Originally Posted by MMM

Again, it is relative to anything being over the price of $0.00.

You have to look at when the average consumer is going to be turned onto pirating, not the thief who is already going to steal. People are going to steal regardless, whether it's anime, cars, jewelry, whatever, even when they know it's wrong. You can't form an argument around people who you already know are going to act a certain way; rather, it's more important to find out at what point the consumer is going to find an alternative means of entertainment.

[MissMisa]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

Just out of curiosity, of the anime you watch in the UK, about how much of it is in American English since you've said a lot of it is from the US. I didn't know you guys got anime from us in a dubbed fashion, if that's what you mean.

I don't usually watch the dubbed versions (there is usually the ability to choose Japanese with or without subtitles, or an English dub with or without titles.)

Dubs are always American English. Even English fandubs are usually always American English.

I can't think of an anime company that publishes Japanese manga in the UK, that's based in the UK. Viz Media abd Tokyopop are the major UK manga publishers, and they are American.

The only UK company I can think of is Sweatdrop Studios, but they don't publish Japanese manga, they publish their own.

I just looked up Viz Media on wikipedia, and this is what I found: 'Viz Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga and Japanese entertainment company that steals money and has a stick shoved up so far up their asses they can't even understand what half of their consumers want of them.'

Yeah. Really shows what the 'manga fans' think of the industry.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

I'm actually glad you understand this. I love the UK, but I feel like Noodle has so much anti American sentiment built up for no reason. We can't control (in it's common sense) how the markets are, and it just so happens that the US market is the leading market for anime next to China outside of Japan.

For some reason, Noodle is trying to say that I'm acting like the US is the center of the planet, when all I've done is show that North America has plenty of data to suggest that it has a much larger market for anime than the UK, therefore the effects of a decline in anime in North America are a lot more detrimental than that in the UK.

This has nothing to do with US/UK relations.

Just out of curiosity, of the anime you watch in the UK, about how much of it is in American English since you've said a lot of it is from the US. I didn't know you guys got anime from us in a dubbed fashion, if that's what you mean.

Dude, once again, get over yourself! Me looking at the global picture of Anime instead of looking at USA only does not mean I have anti-America sentiments. If you think it does, then you are ridiculously over sensitive!

Riiiiiight! You were comparing it to the UK when you didn't even mention the UK. Listen, you say something like the US has 5% of the worlds population and between 20 to 30 of the worlds economy, then I'm gonna point out you're being arrogant because that has NOTHING to do with the subject. If you feel that's insulting the US, then once again, get over yourself, it's about YOU and only YOU!

Lastly, would you care to show me your sources about the US being the second biggest seller of Manga/Anime next to China? Last time I read anything about this, the industry in France was 5 to 7 times larger than the US! If things have changed drastically since I read that, please let me know!

EDIT; will reply to the rest later!

[MissMisa]

I heard that France has a bigger anime industry than America but I'm not sure. Their anime/lolita/fashion/convention culture is HUGE. They even have a Baby, The Stars Shine Bright shop <3 Their conventions get so many people!

Englands largest anime convention (that's purely anime, so this doesn't include the London Expo) get's around 1200 people.