Internet Crisis : between Legal & Piracy

[r.bednarski]

Once again Internet will be faced with crisis. Japan has been launched operation, starting tomorrow at 1 August, targeting 500 manga works & 80 anime works that sharing it illegally, and also, this website also under list that being targeted even thoughI hear most of them are Chinese websites. I still don't understand why they should taking action like this. From my opinion, it's futile and there's no way to stop piracy now, even if they taken down a website, another one will pop up.

Here's the info about Japan Anti-piracy Operation, even though i believe most of you already know this.
http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/contents/downloadfiles/140414.pdf

 

[Monjster]

I remember also them mentioning that they would also make a cheap way of getting the good (manga and anime) in the same article. That's a good news, if the content is not expensive and available in a certain country people might switch to legal means and studios can make more profits. But still, them sending out notices to sites won't change much

 

[SpaceKat84]

Yeah, they are targeting a lot of sites and not just the chinese based ones.

Here's the full list of all sites targeted by this operation:
http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/contents/downloadfiles/140414.pdf
Anime-Sharing is one of them (pg. 19).

List of the mangas being offered at the planned 'legitimate' site for the cost of a few yen (so it's probably subscription based like the mangas at crunchyroll):
http://manga-anime-here.com/
I probably only read a handful of the titles available in this. Some of them are quite old titles.

Well I can understand why they're implementing this because the anime and manga industry is BIG BUSINESS. Japan is practically losing billions because of the pirated sharing stuff going on. The stuff practically gets shared worldwide. But in a way Japan is also kind of at fault. There's a lot of japanese content that NEVER gets translated into english (it being the main spoken language globally). It's like they don't really give much thought to fans outside of Japan. Sure, other foreign companies like Viz Media or Funimation or Madman can purchase the rights to get it translated but Japan would be earning so much more now if they actually just translated it themselves.

 

[XRaider927]

this is about to get ugly.....

 

[dane2011]

Hope anime-sharing is fine with the crisis. Since been already with Anime-Sharing so many years, if without anime-sharing it would be a hard time for me. No eroge, anime, manga and a lot of interesting things that share in this site.

It's not what so called pirate issues, and the only things they want is to mess up their culture. Without translate made most of the people tough to get what japanese means. Its like the people never consider the outcome and just implement the action.

Hopefully anime sharing can overcome this crisis. I will keep on with u guys in this hard time.

 

[XRaider927]

Agreed.... :)

 

[Ranley]

According to a friend, it's just a sample investigation where "illegal stuff" is being distributed, sorting them by visits, page rank, etc., and estimating how much loss they get from them. This also dates back to April apparently.

No action has been taken nor announced so far, so I guess for now it's a waiting game.

Again, this is from a friend so don't quote me on this :x

 

[pumasrevenge]

I think they will achieve precious little with this "operation". They have listed torrent-sites in the list as well and what do they want to achieve? The owner of the sites won't give out the data of the seeders and I don't think they will delete the torrent on their pages (it's the same as with piratebay). The same goes for the listed filehosters. Some of them will delete the files immediately (like Mediafire) and maybe the account will be banned too, but there will be also sites who won't give a shit about the copyright claims (I think MEGA will be in the list too). I don't know how it's with Rapidgator and the other listed sites.

Regarding forums: Most of the forums won't change if their servers aren't in Japan or any country who is friendly with it. But on the other hand it's possible that some forums will cease if their uploads are deleted on the filehosts. I mean, no one likes to reupload a few GB each day/week. And if the uploaders think so as well they will think twice about it. Same goes for streaming sites.

Everything just my opinion but yeah, the filehosters will be the first ones since they "offer" the things and the people on the forums just "link" them.

And since I'm a little bit gleeful ... I hope they will take down some sites I really hate.

From my opinion, it's futile and there's no way to stop piracy now, even if they taken down a website, another one will pop up.

Somehow you're right, but consider one thing: If one site goes down a few new ones will pop up, but mostly the new sites won't be as good as the old sites. Best example would be Megaupload. MEGA is not bad, but MU was much better (especially stability).

 

[r.bednarski]

I think they will achieve precious little with this "operation". They have listed torrent-sites in the list as well and what do they want to achieve? The owner of the sites won't give out the data of the seeders and I don't think they will delete the torrent on their pages (it's the same as with piratebay). The same goes for the listed filehosters. Some of them will delete the files immediately (like Mediafire) and maybe the account will be banned too, but there will be also sites who won't give a shit about the copyright claims (I think MEGA will be in the list too). I don't know how it's with Rapidgator and the other listed sites.

Regarding forums: Most of the forums won't change if their servers aren't in Japan or any country who is friendly with it. But on the other hand it's possible that some forums will cease if their uploads are deleted on the filehosts. I mean, no one likes to reupload a few GB each day/week. And if the uploaders think so as well they will think twice about it. Same goes for streaming sites.

Everything just my opinion but yeah, the filehosters will be the first ones since they "offer" the things and the people on the forums just "link" them.

And since I'm a little bit gleeful ... I hope they will take down some sites I really hate.

You're right about uploading. it needs a lot of times, not only about 1-2 hours uploading those "files"
And I think what did Japan do only wasting their time and money. I doubt this will be succeed.

Well, i want to see what filehosters reaction if they saw this operation, but not with Torrent.
Who can stop torrent distribution??

 

[Heavan]

Well the way I see it putting aside this moral or not illegal or not.

So they say they lose a lot of money from all these activities but really?
Coz i know people that buy japanese products like dakimakura by watching the anime or all those from sites like the ones to be banned.
I mean come on not everyone is rich so most will watch the anime, they like it then purchase the merchandise thru sites like J-list.

And speaking of which you think other companies don't lose money, like pirated music, and games.
You see loads of sites cracking games and letting others load it. The people that buy some of these games are so that they can have an online experience but really coming down to it.
Purchasing something for 100-200 USD for a single game that u may or may not play only ONCE.

So you say that illegal anime sites are hurting the business.
But then they are not doing anything to improve things.

Other games for instance and companies have done efforts before. Sales went up and they are popular enuf' to continue creating new, better games with what they have.

Not to slander but I feel there shud be other ways to deal with this.... -_-

 

[Daenerys]

nahh you don't need to worry about this

this is like some anti-piracy bill that has been passed a few years ago
it is most likely less to do any changes

I guarantee that :)

Piracy won't die they just multiply lol.

 

[r.bednarski]

nahh you don't need to worry about this

this is like some anti-piracy bill that has been passed a few years ago
it is most likely less to do any changes

I guarantee that :)

Piracy won't die they just multiply lol.

This is more like SOPA and PIPA 2nd Season. LOLOLOLOL :v

 

[pumasrevenge]

So, on July 30th someone on MAL posted a new info. Apparently the talk is about 500 mangas and 80 animes, not 580 websites.

If it's just 80 animes we might get lucky and nothing will happen with the uploads here and for the manga section ... meh, I don't know, but somehow I think some of the uploads could be targeted since 500 are a really high number and since AS is on the list of the websites too -_-

 

[Ignis]

Japan is practically losing billions because of the pirated sharing stuff going on.

Please. This is a notion that only the copyright industries are supposed to be echoing. Even you yourself made apparent in your other sentences the solidity of this idea of "losses" in the tune of billions, which is akin to wet paper with a big hole that an oil tanker just sailed through:

The stuff practically gets shared worldwide. But in a way Japan is also kind of at fault. There's a lot of japanese content that NEVER gets translated into english (it being the main spoken language globally). It's like they don't really give much thought to fans outside of Japan. Sure, other foreign companies like Viz Media or Funimation or Madman can purchase the rights to get it translated but Japan would be earning so much more now if they actually just translated it themselves.

Let's summarise it in a simple tautology: a large portion, if not the majority, of creative works coming out of Japan never legally make it outside the country. Therefore, even if you're perfectly willing to pay, you're out of luck if what you want isn't available in your country. What isn't commercially sold in a country can't possibly cause losses, because regardless of how many citizens of that country take it without paying, they were never customers to begin with. Why were they never customers? The people selling those goods they want never wanted to sell to them. This is to say nothing about the language barrier and people who do have a problem with it.

"Import those goods," some would suggest. This is a privileged notion by those who can afford the extravagant prices of creative works from Japan (as opposed to localised or standardised prices that apply in most other countries), live in a country where they're at liberty to import those goods with no restrictions (i.e. not in countries that ban hentai goods, and yes, I realise this is mainly about anime and manga, but the point stands), in a country that an online retailer actually does ship to, and aren't burdened by import taxes (which, in some countries, can soar beyond half the price of the item itself).

Also, there's a big difference between simply blocking access to certain websites and actually taking them down. The latter actually requires either the complainer to have significant financial or political muscle, or the target to easily cave in. I'm suspect of the notion that this move will actually take down websites the way Hollywood and its antics did, because Japan isn't Motherfucking Eagles.

 

[FlowerTradeWinds]

The report says 55.2% of the AS users are Japanese. The download stats are saying 80%+ however.
It wasn't about the people outside of Japan downloading, but sites that allow Japanese people to download Japanese content illegally.

About Importing, it is simply down to the fact that there is no chargeback free payment methods in the Western countries, so the deputy services charge massive markup to cover the risk, and they pay themselves much more. The bank also take a cut for the currency conversion.

In contrary, it is so easy to import from Japan to China and the fee is typically well below 15%.

 

[Monjster]

Japan is going to bring down Youtube! How evil are they? Just kidding, but youtube is first in their list lol. Nothing much is going to change around here.

 

[Ren Nanase]

I see nothing happening at all. I import some hentai mags from japan but the sad thing is the cost of shipping is almost equal to the cost of the mag in the first place. As for the anime, new zealand sucks for it and still have to import it from america or that since we dont sell much here so downloading is the only way to get it

 

[dane2011]

Indeed i hv just received the news about NYAA was been bought by Japan Government. Since it would not survive within 24 hours from now. How's this happen so big issues for the huge sources website. Really hope a new sites would come after this if NYAA going to shut down!

 

[Animaksiat]

here's something i made.... there's no point about complain about it now... just wait and see how it'll turns out, so far they claimed for 580 titles... but anime every season has a new 40 titles, maybe more...

like i said.... wait and see....

 

[Sakimichi]

Indeed i hv just received the news about NYAA was been bought by Japan Government. Since it would not survive within 24 hours from now. How's this happen so big issues for the huge sources website. Really hope a new sites would come after this if NYAA going to shut down!

How true is this? I've seen NYAA admins posting good-bye messages but I haven't heard about the site being bought by the JP government O.o

 

[FlowerTradeWinds]

How true is this? I've seen NYAA admins posting good-bye messages but I haven't heard about the site being bought by the JP government O.o

It was there for a couple days in the sticky of the chatbox.
Sold the front but not sukebei sitting on the same domain name?
Selling the site then build a new one right after with the same crew or even the same data?
No one in the right mind would NOT put a non-compete clause and NOT taking control of the domain name?

IMO it is quite a nasty, uncalled for, smear campaign towards the Japanese.
At the same time, free advertisement worldwide for Nyaa and most likely extra Ad income for them.
Or do anyone think this prank benefited the wider anime community?

 

[Joyjason]

This is actually pretty interesting considering the fact that I'm heavily dependent on Japanese Entertainment.
So they're going to shut down forums that they have no rights over, and remove torrents that they didn't even create? All I can say is that Japan is just naive if they think they can do those things for all "580" of the sites or so they claim.

I gotta agree with everyone else and especially with Ignis that Japan can't do anything about pirating sites. Period.

On the other hand, in a personal level, I find that with the quality of anime and games being relatively crappy nowadays, I don't see why it's so bad to pirate them. A member mentioned that ~100USD for a single game is too much, and DAMN right it is, especially if it sucks.

Oh, but those anime goods, I'm pretty sure whatever profits those incur do not actually go towards the studios that make the anime. Even for me, dakimakura from China are much cheaper and more readily available than if I was to search for them in Japan.

 

[Checkmate]

Usually you buy the game to get the exclusive goods, not the game itself.

This is especially true when it comes to Anime: It's aired almost free on TV, most of the income from it is selling related goods, everything in between from t-shirt to bed sheets. Some fan service are on bluray but I honestly think it won't net much sales going just that.

 

[FlowerTradeWinds]

This is actually pretty interesting considering the fact that I'm heavily dependent on Japanese Entertainment.
So they're going to shut down forums that they have no rights over, and remove torrents that they didn't even create? All I can say is that Japan is just naive if they think they can do those things for all "580" of the sites or so they claim.

I gotta agree with everyone else and especially with Ignis that Japan can't do anything about pirating sites. Period.

On the other hand, in a personal level, I find that with the quality of anime and games being relatively crappy nowadays, I don't see why it's so bad to pirate them. A member mentioned that ~100USD for a single game is too much, and DAMN right it is, especially if it sucks.

Oh, but those anime goods, I'm pretty sure whatever profits those incur do not actually go towards the studios that make the anime. Even for me, dakimakura from China are much cheaper and more readily available than if I was to search for them in Japan.

I think they don't want those site shut down but to better comply with DMCA alike, and guide people to sites that do provide legal content, something like crunchyroll?

Speaking of dakimakura, 12000 yen a pop might sound expensive, but you can't compare A&J quality stuff with the Chinese one. Not to mention the extra bleeding of the artwork.
If you want to buy cheap dakimakura, go order them when they are taking orders, not when it is already out for a long time and is only available on Yahoo Auction.
If you bought from Amazon JP or Yahoo Auction for less than 8000 yen a pop, most likely those are replica from China.
Dakimakura are meant to be collectables, so it is better NOT be readily available.

 

[Ignis]

So they're going to shut down forums that they have no rights over, and remove torrents that they didn't even create? All I can say is that Japan is just naive if they think they can do those things for all "580" of the sites or so they claim.

If you had rights over a site or some content, why'd you take it down? (Unless, of course, you're Universal Music...) And no, of course they can't, not for the majority of those sites (again, not Motherfucking Eagles). They themselves are possibly even well aware of this, but I reckon this much is already nice enough a gesture to please the major anime studios and manga publishers. But wasn't that the only goal of the entire move to begin with?

On the other hand, in a personal level, I find that with the quality of anime and games being relatively crappy nowadays, I don't see why it's so bad to pirate them. A member mentioned that ~100USD for a single game is too much, and DAMN right it is, especially if it sucks.

To be fair, on the plus side, most if not all eroge―those are what you're referring to by games priced at ~$100 each, right?―come with trials. In this regard, they're better than their western counterpart where in most cases trailers are all you're given to judge what something's going to be like without buying or pirating it. But the higher prices in Japan when it comes to media consumption aren't just limited to eroge. For example, a typical major label music single costs ~$15 and ~$35 for an album. (I must stress here that this includes more than just the typical mainstream pop: most anime songs are also handled by major labels or subsidiaries thereof. A record label that you probably think is totally Nippon has a good chance to be related in some way to Universal.)

Oh, but those anime goods, I'm pretty sure whatever profits those incur do not actually go towards the studios that make the anime.

I'm sure they do. Rights clearance and all those licensing schmlicensing costs. Now, how much of those actually go to the actual creators in the form of royalties instead of them getting paid one-time, flat-rate, licence costs upfront is a different question. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd expect Japan to handle these deals better than its western counterpart.

This is especially true when it comes to Anime: It's aired almost free on TV, most of the income from it is selling related goods, everything in between from t-shirt to bed sheets. Some fan service are on bluray but I honestly think it won't net much sales going just that.

To be fair, I think you're underestimating the value of Fanservice Unleashed™ that blu-rays bring. (Or, in other words, let's artificially limit the value of our fanservice by imposing visual censorship on TV and then unleash its full potential on overpriced plastic discs! Yay!) But, in fact, that adds more credibility to the notion that customers purchase something because they see value in it, not because they have no other option: when someone buys a blu-ray, she's getting all the extra value that the other option―watching TV―doesn't provide: uncensored content, better visual and audio quality, the ability to watch at her convenience, etc, etc.

Now, one could make an argument why blu-ray piracy causes the industry to lose money, but even that is underestimating the dedication with which blu-ray purchasers spend their money and the reasons they're doing so. I mean, even foreigners do buy blu-rays as well, despite having to pay extra for the shipping and all that. Buyers gotta buy.

And then the argument about "losses" loses a great deal of credibility when you extend it to non-blu-ray anime downloads: for those living in Japan, it's akin to being lazy and downloading a copy from someone who took the liberty of recording a show with her DVR instead of doing it on your own. For foreigners, what other choice do foreigners have? Oh, sure, it'll only take a couple years for most anime currently airing on TV to be available on foreign cable TV networks (not to mention the fact stereotype that most foreigners interested in Japanese stuff are probably cord cutters).

I mean, they gotta send letters to each other to clear the licensing matters and then ship the copies of those shows to the other countries, right? What's that? The Internet? No, no way a network with such capabilities exists. You young hippies and your fantasies.