Comments on: Could the Odex situation happen in North America?

By: Yamcha

Yamcha — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:42:28 +0000

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.

By: Meultima

Meultima — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:16:33 +0000

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.

By: Yamcha

Yamcha — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:14:47 +0000

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.

By: ZeroXR

ZeroXR — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:36:01 +0000

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…