Re: The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)
Rui said:
I agree that Digimon will probably do fine. It's other Toei titles this silliness upsets me about more. I am going to keep banging on about this forever until someone can adequately explain to me why this situation exists:
Television: ok
Illegal streaming where third parties make money: ok
Circumventing their own region locks on legal streaming where third parties make money: ok
Legal streaming where they could monetise a small number of fans: DESTROYS THE ANIME INDUSTRY
Knowing how to circumvent region locks requires no great feat of technical knowledge; even my mum and Jerome can do it. I know that Jerome has said and insinuated that legal streaming and specifically only legal streaming harms sales, and you've built up a case based on the facts we have been told. But he isn't basing it on any solid market research, just his personal views as someone who remembers the pre-streaming world. Other countries don't work like this; the UK isn't special. I maintain that all they're doing is stifling growth in one sector of their potential market for no valid reason.
R
I'd note that Toei will allow streaming for titles that stand no chance of TV. World Trigger was simulcast after three weeks into it's run (premium members only, but still), Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold was simulcast on both Crunchyroll and Daisuki. And they have allowed streaming deals for big shows in the past, TF1 has streaming rights for One Piece in France, but it has a TV simulcast on Mangas I belive. We've seen how much Crunchyroll offer, for potentially as low as $150 an episode, it's probably not worth the risk. Especially with a show like Digimon, given the attitudes of many people now, legal streaming would probably lose more buyers than it gains. It might gain more, but there's a
very strong possibility it won't. People on this forum seem to wilfully and deliberately underestimate that possibility to support their argument, but Manga (Manga is not just Jerome no matter how much people may act like it is) can't necessarily risk it. They have to justify the risk to their investors, and their investors don't care about the flimmy flammy idealistic reasons people on this site employ.
There is no magical bullet to kill piracy. If Toei wants to C&D the illegal site KA [Not it's full name, but you know the one], a) Toei Europe probably can't do it, b) even if they could, they probably need to get the permission of everyone involved in that production to do it. So for World Trigger for example, they would likely need to contact Toei Animation Japan, Shueisha and Daisuke Ashihara at the bare minimum (as all three co-own copyright), but potentially also people at Toei Company and TV Ashai. For something like Dragon Ball Super, they have an advertising network involved too (Yomiko Advertising), and for production committee shows, they'd probably have to find and reassemble the entire production committee. To do that for every show on their roster and every illegal site would likely be impossible. And that's assuming KA even listens to C&Ds*, it's quite plausible they've relocated their servers to somewhere they can get away with piracy. And even if you do C&D them, it's quite plausible they'll just relocate their servers to somewhere where they can get away with it.
*I believe their hoster got C&D'd a while back and they were forced to kill everything, but just they moved and reuploaded everything(?).
Also, when you fake or spoof your IP, you are in breach of Crunchyroll's TOS. Crunchyroll will probably, at some point, be asked to start enforcing this. If you're comfortable breaching CR's TOS then go ahead, but you can't blame them if they start enforcing it.