FUNimation lawyers working their asses off.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-10-28/funimation-sues-ca-retail-sites-over-alleged-bootlegs

The North American anime distributor FUNimation Productions is suing a group of related companies in Southern California for allegedly selling counterfeit DVDs of its licensed anime on a website. FUNimation is alleging that a California resident named Hae Yong Ro and four affiliated businesses — N Trading, Inc, Discount Anime DVD, BuyDVD.com, and DOES — infringed on FUNimation and its licensers' copyrights and trademarks by selling unauthorized copies of Fruits Basket, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragonball GT, and Fullmetal Alchemist. Some of the DVDs are said to have included English dubbing.

FUNimation stated that it first became aware of the defendants' activities around 2006, and it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the defendants in February 2008. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants received the letter "but failed and refused to respond or to cease the advertising and distribution of the works." After FUNimation informed the defendants' website hosting company, the hosting company suspended the defendants' website in April. The defendants allegedly promised to remove the infringing content to have their website restored, but "instead failed and refused to remove all of the infringing DVDs." Once notified of this, the hosting company shut down the website. "Within 36 hours, [the] defendants' website was posted again with a new website host based in Korea," and the new website "continued to advertise, offer for sale, distribute, and sell the works." The lawsuit further alleges that the defendants have been manufacturing and selling unauthorized DVD copies since March of 2002.

Click the link for the rest of the article. The lawsuits started about two months ago, but I didn't know about this until I tried to go to discountanimedvd.com. I guess their site is down until the lawsuit is completed. Guh. That place had some the best imported (I guess illegal) wall scrolls.

On a related note, I've noticed that Funi is suing and sending cease and desist letters all over the internet, to torrent sites, fansub groups etc. I read something about some anime companies keeping their eyes on irc channels now for copyright infringement.

What do you think, good or bad for the anime industry?

And good or bad for you? -p

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I think its bad. They act like they show a lot of shit on TV.. and they don't. They aren't getting any marketing income form commercial time during anime they don't show on TV.

[Myk JL 1,731]

:goodjob:Partly good for me. Looks like The Dub Fans have something more over the "sub" fans.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

They see Hollywood doing it so they figure they could jump in on this bandwagon of suing people as well. Not saying suing Illegal sites is bad or anything but I think the fact that they've been targeting Subbing groups and fans is a little stupid. Sub groups are like free advertising for these company's.

Heres how the future is gonna go.

1) FUNimation and other groups will continue to sue and put out S&D letters to Sub groups and illegal web sites (faster, harder, stronger).

2) Subbing groups will slowly dwindle due to fear of being sued (it's already noticeable right now). Only the larger groups seem to ignore these warnings.

3) English fans will end up being stuck watching only the shit they want to offer on streaming sites or public TV making subs harder to find.

4) Fandom and willingness to buy DVDs and items will slowly decline because the fans wont have any way of testing out a show to see if they like it before buying the dvds. This will cause profits to dwindle.

5) FUNimation and CO will cry because of the profit drops and claim that the anime industry is losing business due to piracy thus falling into the MPAA and RIAA's rut of staying alive by suing people.

6)????

7) Profit.

Lets hope these company's start hosting all there content on HQ streaming sites because if they don't they're only going to lose buisness.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

They're already starting to give most fans what they want by allowing free streaming now (crunchyroll and all the anime it can stream now is a big example of this) and if what they're doing with Naruto on the 15th of Jan catches on we'll probably be seeing high quality streams of anime subbed/dubbed within a week of it airing. For the industry as a whole this is a good thing, in their minds, as it'll kill fansubs and direct more attention towards the companies (though offering free streams will kill them in the long run revenue wise). Plus the cease and desist thing has been plaguing fansubbers forever, it's just gotten worse recently with the advent of streaming anime online (and companies insistance on licensing anime before it's even finished airing).

As a whole I could care less these days. I have little to no time to watch anime anymore (1 to 2 days a week) and I'm having to cut back on the amount of shows I pick up each season because of this. If this was going on a year and a half ago my opinion would probably be different. It's a good move on the industries part in killing illegal fansubs but on the other hand it's not that great of a move for fans as some shows will never get picked up (sad but true). Double edged sword for them, something they'll find out quite fast as sales get killed off (and we all know that they're only interested in the money).

Edited December 10, 2008 by Strider Hiryu
Tired, leaving my thoughts jumbled

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Heres how the future is gonna go.

1) FUNimation and other groups will continue to sue and put out S&D letters to Sub groups and illegal web sites (faster, harder, stronger).

2) Subbing groups will slowly dwindle due to fear of being sued (it's already noticeable right now). Only the larger groups seem to ignore these warnings.

3) English fans will end up being stuck watching only the shit they want to offer on streaming sites or public TV making subs harder to find.

4) Fandom and willingness to buy DVDs and items will slowly decline because the fans wont have any way of testing out a show to see if they like it before buying the dvds. This will cause profits to dwindle.

5) FUNimation and CO will cry because of the profit drops and claim that the anime industry is losing business due to piracy thus falling into the MPAA and RIAA's rut of staying alive by suing people.

6)????

7) Profit.

I agree with all that, especially number 4. I remember back in the day, people had money to drop on a new anime series. But now-a-days I don't know anyone that has $20 to spare just to buy a 3-4 episode dvd.

I think they need to focus more on the cheap thin pack boxsets. Entire seasons or series for $30 or less is a good deal to me. But unless you can start a fan base by airing the anime or having fansubs, the marketing will never reach the fans.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

I agree with all that, especially number 4. I remember back in the day, people had money to drop on a new anime series. But now-a-days I don't know anyone that has $20 to spare just to buy a 3-4 episode dvd.

I think they need to focus more on the cheap thin pack boxsets. Entire seasons or series for $30 or less is a good deal to me. But unless you can start a fan base by airing the anime or having fansubs, the marketing will never reach the fans.

True, people don't disk out $20 on a DVD anymore but they easily dish it out for manga, wall scrolls, and other merch related to a show. Years ago all we had was VHS and posters. Anime wasn't all that popular and the only way to get merch was to buy online which, at the time, people didn't feel safe doing. Now anime companys make up for the DVD sale loses by selling merch at video stores and online retailers. If fans don't buy merchandise anymore because they haven't seen the show then the Anime company's will lose money...at least until it airs on a public channel. This is why streaming will have to be done for every new show ASAP. if it's not they will run into longterm problems.

I agree with you on prices though. They really need to rethink their business model. It's good their getting into streaming but I think they should also think about offering up HD episodes for a low price (ie. itunes for anime) or sell DVDs at a much lower lower price.

I wrote up a pretty lengthy blog post on 11-28-07 discussing what anime company's could do to increase their profits. Looks like the streaming part's happening now.

http://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=3543