If you’re a member of the anime fansub community, then you’ve no doubt heard the big fuss going on in Singapore right now. To fellow North American readers that are unaware of the situation with Odex, here’s a Wiki article to bring you up to speed. Even if you don’t live in Asia, this should still be relevant news to you. Now the question at hand is could this kind of lawsuit happen across the Pacific Ocean? It’s very unlikely. Here are a few reasons why.
1. The US has a significantly smaller ratio of anime downloaders in the population. I think the cost of filing lawsuits against such a small population of people isn’t worth the cost of going to court. In addition the courts would probably throw the case out without any appeals.
2. We don’t have an anime monopoly over here. There are several different licensors and distributors here that compete for sales like Bandai, ADV, and Funimation. Competition is what keeps them in line to seek your business.
3. While fansub downloading is a giant grey area legally, it’s hardly worth mentioning. Fansubs are a drop in the bucket compared to more lucrative fields such as music. I’m sure you all remember the RIAA’s campaign against music piracy. Besides, the American companies don’t seem to mind using fansubs to gauge how popular a series will be before licensing it.
4. The US companies don’t want public backlash from lawsuits. If Bandai was as unethical as Odex, would you ever want to buy from them again? The distributor loses their reputation once they resort to unethical lawsuits to bully around the everyday people.
5. US anime DVDs are pretty good quality for the price. You’ll usually get 4 episodes for about $18 on average. I’m not going to go on a giant “Support the industry” rant, but you get your money’s worth as far as translation and video quality. Whole series bricks can also be nabbed for a very reasonable price too. I can’t say the same about Odex from the many bad things I have read about them.
6. Even if the downloading of licensed series cuts into sales, the distributors are more likely to just pack their bags and leave. Geneon’s sales were sagging for a long time, but they didn’t take legal action against fansub downloaders to recoup their lost costs. While it is true that they overextended themselves by trying to sell CDs in addition to DVDs, they could have easily blamed the fansub community. It was sad to see them go but at least they were classy about it.
So if the Odex situation most likely won’t happen over here, why did I even bring it up? It’s just something to think about. We should count ourselves lucky that we don’t have to buy $60 DVDs with only two episodes like Japanese otaku have to. We should be even more thankful that we don’t have an Odex over here. It makes me shudder to think about it.
Tags: odex
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The truth of the issue is that it really is dependent on how “greedy” the anime industry in America will get/become. If they are anything like the MPAA/RIAA, then it could quickly be an issue. On Digg, there were a few bumped posts about how Comcast sent users who were “abusing” bandwidth to seed fansubs a threat of legal action or termination of rendered services. Though it isn’t clear if Comcast (or other various ISP’s) is making the legal threat or if it is the distributors doing it.
Some companies like Media Factory had an issue like this one posted in AnimeSuki: http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/legal/mediafactory.html
If Japanese companies step up, rather than their American distributing counterparts, I could quickly see it become a rising issue very soon. It will all become more apparent with time…
I actually forgot all about Comcast’s wannabe crackdown on torrenting. They’re really hurting themselves with that move since the turnover will undoubtedly be very high. It’s also very true about the Japanese companies actually wearing the pants in the anime industry. Everything is really in their hands since they’re at the top of the food chain.
At any rate, the fansub community will always remain a giant grey area. While fansubs may cut into the royalties that the Japanese companies receive from licensed shows, it’s probably not enough to warrant taking legal action against downloaders. There’s way more money to be made in the merchandising sector than DVD sales.
It’s quite apparent that downloading has become a problem, but let’s be frank - The poor college student without their money isn’t going to buy them DVDs in the first place, while those who already have their lump sum will always buy their favourite DVD products because they like having the extras. However, seeing groups like Funimation in trouble makes me wonder about the whole situation, since Funi is supposed to be the biggest distributor in America. What the American companies need to do at this point is really research what’s hot and not.
Gone are the days of reckless licensing sprees. Funi has made some terrible choices lately like overestimating the success of Detective Conan. For the most part they do make good choices so their sales should recover with properties like Darker than Black and Ouran High School at their disposal. DtB has Adult Swim material written all over it and could probably be their next breakaway hit.