Fenxy

Stinks for singapore.

Doubt this will happen in the US at all, of course licensers frown/fight those downloading licensed shows. They also can't endorse people downloading fansubs of unlicensed shows--but they all do it. This is how they pick their shows a lot of time, what is popular with those that watch fansubbers.

I'm sure this is more of an issue to stop/minimize bootlegers who are downloading fansubs then selling them as alternatives to the licensed versions for little to nothing. That's a huge problem all over that region.

Nearly all the bootlegs available in the US are from hong kong or singapore.

Well, they are going to do it in USA, if you are wondering. :) The pressure of such a move came ironically from USA who said that illegal anime downloading has caused the markets there to plummet with file sharing.

That's ridiculous. The USA anime market is stronger than ever. It's grown exponentially over the last few years. Probably a few sour grapes licensers that are picking the wrong shows are the ones pushing for this.

You think that's bad. Wait till you see Malaysia. Most of the pirated fansubs go through there as well. The thing thing is, Malaysia doesn't have as strong a legal base on Anime as they do with movies, series or music.

In fact, some people relate anime to porn so that causes quite a problem either way.

Well, from 2005 to 2006, the anime market in USA has dropped 50% (i forgot where i got the official details) but they can no longer afford to acquire that much licenses. It's not exactly best times for anyone who wants to get it via legal means. You can only get the popular series.

Want to watch Kemonozune or Kaze no Shoujo Emily legally?

Sadly, it's a "dream on" situation.

I saw that a while back and to be perfectly honest it makes a lot of sense. Anime has become a fairly big part of geek culture and I don't see it going away anytime soon.

To be perfectly blunt, there are several things about the anime community that make the whole situation a whole lot more complicated:

- The anime community, while growing is relatively small so getting the prices down on DVD's is going to be tough.

- A lot of anime fans...have a lot of time on their hands so they're going to watch a lot of anime. A lot of anime so...to pass the time they're going to download and pirate a lot of it.

But then you also have the people who are so adamant about buying the DVD and telling you that you should "buy the DVD's otherwise you're being immoral, eat babies; and start up harshly worded threads on anime discussion boards"...it's a tough call. Sometimes the debate over the piracy of anime can be better spent watching anime.

At Anime Expo last week, this was a BIG TOPIC in the industry. We talked to anime producers, marketing teams and a few others - there were some really interesting panels, especially this one:

Anime Expo 2007: Anime in America

"Some of these fans think they’re helping the industry, speculates Lance Heiskell. They want to expose more people to anime, but in fact, they’re hurting the industry. Matt Greenfield, however, feels “…that’s a pile of sh*t.”

The people who are doing the uploading - they know what they’re doing, he says. Mr. Greenfield says the fans who organize these downloading sites are well aware of the effect they’re having."

I think this is similar to what the music industry went through a few years back, except that anime is a much smaller industry (thus the delay of impact). They are well aware of their very vocal fan base though. So I think the good news is that people are talking about legal digital distribution along with other alternatives (cable), rather than prosecuting everyone.

With the success of iTunes for music, hopefully we'll see the anime industry survive in the same way!

Well, from 2005 to 2006, the anime market in USA has dropped 50% (i forgot where i got the official details) but they can no longer afford to acquire that much licenses. It's not exactly best times for anyone who wants to get it via legal means. You can only get the popular series.

I find that hard to believe, I'd like to see the numbers. I know for a fact that several of the big distributors have grown exponentially from 2004-2007. It wasn't long ago Funimation just had DBZ, and now they have a huge amount of licenses, picking up several each year, and producing releases with phenomenal quality and lots of value ads. That's not the sign of a hurting industry.

Also, take a look at con attendance. AX 2005 - 33k people. AX 2006 - 40k people, AX 2007 44k people +. The same goes for the smaller cons such as Otakon, A Kon, Anime Fest, AFO, etc.

Every con has a panel on bootlegging and or fansubbing. There's usually industry reps there. Bootlegging is bad, downloading licensed series is bad. I've never met a single person working in the industry that was against unlicensed or pre-licensed fan subs, and I've met a lot.

There are discussions exactly like this one on messageboards dating back to 2003. Or "the market is saturated," "conventions are getting smaller," "no one is buying anime." And yet, every single year there are more licenses, more titles on the shelves in the video stores, bigger anime sections in brick and mortars as well as rental places.

If anything, I'd say it is much like the music industry. The music industry that kept crying that it was dying despite cd sales going further and further up. I'm sure dvd sales will begin to decline as things become more available digitally, but I really don't see the industry hurting as a whole, maybe a few publishers (adv, media blasters, I'm looking at you.)

Well I think one of the things I realize is that companies are now offering anime to download for a price online if they are the ones to release it commercially in English in the U.S. Or they are something like iTunes.

Otherwise there are online hosts..which is okay for getting anime episodes.. because Mediamax is now having it's own can of worms since they moved to a new server.