The reading of today’s newspaper is a very interesting one, considering about the timeliness of the various posts that have talked about this clampdown in Singapore. I have uploaded the document up on the server, but due to the fair use agreement, I will be doing a review and trying to educate the public in analyzing the article as to provide a better understanding for those who are unclear with the situation. The newspaper article dated June 1st will also be available for a limited time at the bottom of the post, and will be immediately removed within 24 hours. All concerned parties that did not get to read the article can email T.H.A.T Anime Blog at thatblog@gmail.com to read it.
To start off, I will personally just describe my personal view on the situation, as well as what is the exact problem that might be contributing to the loss of revenue, and how it can be acted upon to alleviate the situation. I do apologize for any factual errors, as me being just a common soul, commits errors sometimes.
1. Best solution to ban all?
Maybe, if this is a normal product if not one that is strongly related toward the fan base. However, various costs definitely have to be considered, and scrutinized carefully before adopting a hard stance in which to capture those who download. I am fully agreeable with people willfully and downloading an insane amount of anime, particularly those that have already been licensed and released by the local anime community to be captured. That is perhaps the people that AVPAS is intending to capture.
Their actions is simply a free mentality, trying to take a risk with illegal downloads and reducing the livelihood of local anime licensing companies who requires a period of handling, buying licenses, as well as creating a dub/sub for the anime to be released in stores. In a way, the action is a necessary evil, but there are some situations that will cause an equally disturbing amount of harm back to the profit margin. That is perhaps reason enough, as they are in the higher spectrum of downloaders and uploaders who share and grab a whole chunk of anime downloads on the web.
However, the line gets finer when it comes to capturing those where the series are not even released into local stores any time soon. In that case, the lack of publicity by causing a total embargo of information will result in a total information blackout throughout the local community. Without people who are interested in promoting the latest anime that is released in the oriental east, the news and popularity of series will never be actually noted. If people do not get to even watch anything, how can they be interested in anything in the first place? That is one blow that will hurt the very people they seek to protect: the producers of the art form.
For a note for those who might be unclear, any copyrighted material including raws/fansubs are considered illegal to download as they have technically infringed on the rights of the animation production who has copyright to the works. To quote the Berne Convention (Singapore signed it), an agreement under the WTO (World Trade Organization) and all the participating countries is made where the responsibility of enforcement and persecution of anyone infringing on the copyright law is put on the companies themselves who own the rights to that perspective works.
Yet, when the fansub helps to promote the good, is this fine line of legitimacy a problem as well? That line before shows the limitations of using traditional copyright licensing to a more dynamic medium such as the Internet. In layman’s terms, a total different ball game.
More will be explained below of the nature of fanbase products.
2. Is it a price problem?
I am not one for nit picking, but there are some details that somewhat puts ODEX in a far better light than they have been doing. Some of the quotes below are displaced and will be discussed. The first one is perhaps the price issue, considering that Singaporeans care most about the price compared to anything. Money is everything, as they say.
Mr Sing added that on a per-DVD basis, prices here were the world’s lowest, and that even when Odex bundled three DVDs for a $9.90 trial offer, fans did not bite (Chua, 2007)
I believed that the bundling of three DVDs for a $9.90 trial price did not receive much biting because no one knew that there is in fact such a sale. In most forms of work, advertising of the bundling will have helped very significantly to whether anyone will actually buy the goods. Considering that some of the anime blogs will be more than willing to advertise for this since this is perhaps the prime target group (the highly interested fan base) that will have some spending power, a bit of effort in order to promote the sale will be the situation.
The price is definitely attractive by all measures, and I am sure that many will in fact buy it simply for the price. However, if no one gets the news, no one will even know that such a price exists during that trial period. I believe a simple quantitive content analysis of all the articles in the recent online sources (since anime communities tended to be more active online) will display that most, if not all the outlets in terms of blogs and websites are not approached by ODEX.
I am sure that none of the huge anime blogs, many of which have audiences up to 4000-5000 visitors everyday, quite a portion of which are Singaporeans who are interested in anime, are also never approached by ODEX to promote. In that case, I am also very sure that they can be influential somewhat to promote it, and it will be surprising how cheap it will be as a cost to actually get almost free positive advertising for once.
3. Is it the downloading causing profits to plummet?
Yes and no.
Now they may land in the soup because a crackdown has been launched, and they are the targets for downloading these English-subtitled cartoons through file-sharing networks (Chua, 2007).
I do not think that the approach provided by ODEX is the most intelligent, yet it is somewhat understandable. In the first time, piracy is definitely one of the chief culprits when it comes to profit dwindling, especially when the company does not do any product innovation to improve itself. If the fan can get something for free for the same quality, why does it even make sense for them to actually buy the DVDs on the shelves.
I believe that the DVDs provided by ODEX are of decent quality, but I have no immediate checks on the exact quality since most of the DVDS i bought are imported and they often provide rather delicious incentives for us to buy. If anything, look no further to Geneon USA (Hellsing Ultimate), as well as Bandai USA (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) for how to reverse the trend from a deficit to a profit. For those who have not read Henry Jenkin’s entry on fandom, here are a few stark facts to show the situation of how fandom can be used to drive profits.
Bandai’s idea behind the ASOS Brigade is to reach out to everyone who has already become fans of the series through watching the fansubs. They have created their own amateur-style home movies and are posting them on the internet. They have also created a Myspace page and encourage fans.
Many people feel that Haruhi will never sell well in the US because most of the fans have already seen the show through illegal methods. This campaign is an attempt to target the fansub community into actually supporting the series financially when the opportunity is available to them. The movie ends with special thanks to “All fansubs lovers who buy the official DVDs and who help support more creative works,” and specifically gives no thanks to “downloaders/bootlegers who never buy the official DVDs.” This is a very bold statement, but I completely understand where they are coming from (Jenkins, 2007)
If anything, I believe that the fan these days is a harder fan to please, what with the many influences that are affecting it. What is wrong is that the companies are not coping well with the changing market and they are too slow to adapt to the new environment. The case above for Bandai will show that profits are definitely there for the earnings, if you engage the fanbase. As much as you can whine, you will be surprised how cheap it is to engage the major influences of the regional proximity, merely a short email and some small tidbits (the dvd set for review) can create a greater buzz in the whole environment within the wired world.
4. Factual errors/fallacies in the article?
One of the huge factual errors is that the 9.90 price is seemingly assumed to be on all available stores when it is in fact existent during a very limited period when they put it up on roadshows. Secondly, ODEX never brought any DVDs from Japan, merely the licensing rights. In addition, the comparison of fansubs and the real DVDs is a very weak point, considering that a bought product should be better than what can be found illegally. To state that the DVD is as good as the fansub, is as good as admitting that the product has no differentiation. There must be a huge distinctive difference in my opinion.
5. What can be changed?
For one, publicity for ODEX should be orientated toward the online community, as there is in fact a good amount of investment required to capture the fanbase that will actually buy your products offline. With little news on most sites, it is hardly surprising that most of the news regarding ODEX is bad, even if the situation in reality is not as bad as it seems. Most anime fans, especially those with purchasing power, definitely wants more than merely the DVDs.
I am sure that even a limited edition poster, with some small little trinkets packaged into each DVD, will seriously encourage those to buy. A very cost effective method to create buzz is allowing some of the bloggers/sites with high exposure to Singaporeans to review on them and help publicize the products. Only by advertisements can news coverage create some form of buzz. It’s perhaps a good chance to adopt some of the pro-active measures from overseas to see if it will aid in raising sales.
To end off, I have provided a download link for those who has no access to Straits Times and it will be taken down in 24 hours as I do not want to deal with anything that is related toward fair use, and this in itself is stretching it since I only have a fair case of using it. Nevertheless, the news article does shed some light into what has gone through the mind of AVPAS when they carried it out. Measured or not, the effect will be apparent in a few months.
Download link: anime-fansub-piracy.doc
Reference note:
Chua, H. H (2007, June 1st). Getting anime illegally online? Beware; Japanese animated cartoons distributor
- sending letters to culprits warning of legal action. Straits Times, p.3
Jenkins, H. (2007). When Piracy becomes promotion. Retrieved May 31th, 2007 from
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http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/02/when_piracy_becomes_promotion.html
