How to I get these messages to work???
ican
or MPG in it, it comes up with letters/numbers/symbols instead of the
file... How do I correct that?
Thanks!
Andrew Hollingbury
"ican" <ican...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y_Nva.138889$M81....@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
Don't use Outlook Express for downloading binary files. Try using something
like Agent (http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php) to download, since
the binary newsgroups often use things like yENC to encode them.
I don't use it, so you'll need a tutorial to work out how to join the
split-up AVI files together. Search around the Net, there'll be plenty of
stuff there.
Andrew H
Shez
Hollingbury <a.holl...@ukonline.co.uk> said:
>
>"ican" <ican...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:y_Nva.138889$M81....@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>> I'm new to all this and when Outlook Express downloads a message with an
>AVI
>> or MPG in it, it comes up with letters/numbers/symbols instead of the
>> file... How do I correct that?
>
>Don't use Outlook Express for downloading binary files. Try using something
>like Agent (http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php) to download, since
>the binary newsgroups often use things like yENC to encode them.
Another program to try is the freeware news reader Xnews
available from http://xnews.newsguy.com/ (1MB download).
This has the advantage that it can decode files as they are being
downloaded so you never actually deal with the messages themselves, you
just highlight the threads that make up the file and press f4 to
download. The files are then saved directly to disk with no further
messing about. Xnews also shows you which threads are complete and
therefore downloadable, and which have missing parts and are therefore
useless. (Most videos are posted in 10-20 parts, with each part being
sent in the form of a thread of 20-40 messages, all of which have to be
present to reconstruct the file.)
A lot of anime videos are posted not as plain AVI or MPEG files but as
multipart archive files, so you will also need to get Winrar to extract
the video from the archive after downloading. (Videos which are shown as
having file names ending in part01.rar, part02.rar, or .rar, .r00, .r01,
etc are Winrar archives.)
To deal with the fact that some posts go missing in transit, you will
also need Smartpar which can reconstruct missing parts. Nearly all
posters of anime post some "par files" (named .P01, .P02 etc) which can
be used with Smartpar to replace missing parts of downloads.
I don't have the URLs for the WinRar and SmartPar sites, but a quick
Google should reveal them.
Be aware that due to the huge size of modern fansubs (150-250MB is
typical), it takes a loooong time to download most anime. With broadband
you may be able to grab an episode in an hour or two, but with dial-up
you're talking about an overnight session to get just a single episode -
if you're lucky! (Of course if you're just getting a short clip then the
situation is different and it might only take a few minutes.)
-Shez.
--
______________________________________________________
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that
a tweed coat is good for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries
______________________________________________________
Anime at the Last Stop Cafe: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/anime/
Use http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/mailform.html for personal replies
John Moore
"Shez" <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
news:TcPTL4BL...@xerez.nospam.co.uk...
> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime, Andrew
> Hollingbury <a.holl...@ukonline.co.uk> said:
<SNIP>
> Be aware that due to the huge size of modern fansubs (150-250MB is
> typical), it takes a loooong time to download most anime. With broadband
> you may be able to grab an episode in an hour or two, but with dial-up
> you're talking about an overnight session to get just a single episode -
> if you're lucky!
An entire episode in one night?!?!?! I have been downloading Ep 1 of Figure
17 on and off for nearly 3 months now on my dial-up connection! Thats going
on a regime of 3 nights a week at a average of 45 mins a night. Thats about
38 nights at 45 mins each = 28 and a half hours total! And Im only at 57%
of a 300-odd meg avi file!
?R-DC no sedosipe rehto dna siht em reffo ot gnilliw ereh ydobyna sI
--
*****JCOM COMPUTER PRODUCTIONS*****
C64, SNES, VB and other rubbish
I want to show the world!
*****http://jcom.shorturl.com******
Shez
Moore <butter_...@jcom.freeserve.co.uk> said:
>> Be aware that due to the huge size of modern fansubs (150-250MB is
>> typical), it takes a loooong time to download most anime. With broadband
>> you may be able to grab an episode in an hour or two, but with dial-up
>> you're talking about an overnight session to get just a single episode -
>> if you're lucky!
>
>An entire episode in one night?!?!?! I have been downloading Ep 1 of Figure
>17 on and off for nearly 3 months now on my dial-up connection! Thats going
>on a regime of 3 nights a week at a average of 45 mins a night. Thats about
>38 nights at 45 mins each = 28 and a half hours total! And Im only at 57%
>of a 300-odd meg avi file!
The trick is to leave it going for more than 45 minutes a night! If you
have surftime or an 0800 connection just leave it going when you go to
bed. For instance 10pm-8am is enough long to download an episode of a
modestly sized fansub such as Witch Hunter Robin or Haibane Renmei.
Bigger ones (sadly the norm these days) will take more than one session
especially if you're using usenet and the poster used uuencoding instead
of yenc: uuencoding bloats the file by 40% which can be pretty
crippling, and if a series is being serialised at an ep. a day then it
becomes simply impossible. I prefer stuff that's serialised at one ep a
week, which some download sites thankfully still do (Kamikaze Kaitou
Jeanne for instance: a 100MB download once a week is pretty doable and
leaves time to look at other stuff too.)
Movies are the worst though - despite DivX having been invented so you
could squeeze a DVD onto a single CD, people persist in making 2-CD
sized DivX movies for download, which is just stupid and for most of us
impossible. Even a single CD (650-700MB) video is pretty crazy. I
managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable. The picture and
sound quality was crap but it was still very watchable simply because
it's such a great film.
-Shez.
--
______________________________________________________
A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
-- Prof. Steiner
Happosai
<snip>
> Movies are the worst though - despite DivX having been invented so you
> could squeeze a DVD onto a single CD, people persist in making 2-CD
> sized DivX movies for download, which is just stupid and for most of us
> impossible. Even a single CD (650-700MB) video is pretty crazy. I
> managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
> couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable. The picture and
> sound quality was crap but it was still very watchable simply because
> it's such a great film.
If it's such a great film (which I agree with), why don't you just simply stump
up the cash for the DVD, instead of pirating a commercial western release that
includes subtitles?
[Happosai]
--
|\ | \ / /V\ Bringing together fans of Japanese
| \| a n i m e \/\/ =(@;@)= animation, graphic art and pop
~(,,) culture in the North-West of England
<http://www.NanimeW.Org.UK/> -=*=- <mailto:Info[at]NanimeW.Org.UK>
Shez
>Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<DgPXEc
>>I
>> managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
>> couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable. The picture and
>> sound quality was crap but it was still very watchable simply because
>> it's such a great film.
>
>If it's such a great film (which I agree with), why don't you just
>simply stump
>up the cash for the DVD, instead of pirating a commercial western release that
>includes subtitles?
I found the dubbed VHS versions of the sequels in the shops, and bought
a couple of those, but I never saw a subtitled version of the film on
sale. It's a couple of years since I went looking though. If I'd found
the subbed version of the film in the shops at the time I would have
bought it though. One thing I've heard about the film though is that the
letterboxing is artificial and that it should really be fullframe 4:3,
but apparently only the laser disc version was made that way.
Happosai
> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime,
> Happosai <happosai.no...@nanimew.org.uk> said:
> >Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<DgPXEc
> >DyqSx...@xerez.nospam.co.uk>...
> >>I
> >> managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
> >> couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable. The picture and
> >> sound quality was crap but it was still very watchable simply because
> >> it's such a great film.
> >
> >If it's such a great film (which I agree with), why don't you just
> >simply stump
> >up the cash for the DVD, instead of pirating a commercial western release that
> >includes subtitles?
>
> I found the dubbed VHS versions of the sequels in the shops, and bought
> a couple of those, but I never saw a subtitled version of the film on
> sale. It's a couple of years since I went looking though. If I'd found
> the subbed version of the film in the shops at the time I would have
> bought it though. One thing I've heard about the film though is that the
> letterboxing is artificial and that it should really be fullframe 4:3,
> but apparently only the laser disc version was made that way.
All of Project A-ko is available on three R1 DVDs with subs/dub and lots of
extras -- the first disc contains the movie (the enhanced edition is full-frame
and also includes the soundtrack CD), the second disc contains the 3 OAV
sequels (I hear that these aren't a patch on the movie, and the quality of the
DVD isn't that great), and the third disc contains the two-part alternate
universe OAV (again, not great quality). These should be available from your
favorite importer either individually or as a complete collection. See the
Anime on DVD reviews <http://www.AnimeOnDVD.com/reviews/> for more info.
Justin Palmer
<happosai.no...@nanimew.org.uk> writes
>Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<Nmh0lrKK5Wx+EwK
>m...@xerez.nospam.co.uk>...
>> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime,
>> Happosai <happosai.no...@nanimew.org.uk> said:
>> >Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<DgPXEc
>> >DyqSx...@xerez.nospam.co.uk>...
>> >>I
>> >> managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
>> >> couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable.
> TAll of Project A-ko is available on three R1 DVDs with subs/dub and lots of
>and also includes the soundtrack CD), the second disc contains the 3 OAV
>sequels (I hear that these aren't a patch on the movie, and the quality of the
>DVD isn't that great), and the third disc contains the two-part alternate
>universe OAV (again, not great quality).
(snip)
Just want to say that though I agree with you about the OAV
sequels (though one of them has a rather wickedly observed Kimagure
Orange Road video), I was rather pleasantly surprised by the A-Ko
alternate universe OAV. Its not as well produced as the film (though as
the directors commentary on the original A-Ko makes clear, comparisons
are a bit unfair as they were in a fairly unique position when A-Ko was
made), but I found it rather better than I was expecting.
Of course, tastes may vary, and may also contain nuts...
--
"...a death blow punch that has the |jus...@briareos.demon.co.uk|
destructive power of a railway train. I | |
have the Takizawa Railway Train Punch!" | Oh, if only... |
Quick&Dirty Guide to Japan: http://nerv.org.uk/japan_jp.html
Justin Palmer
<jus...@briareos.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <28a9b26c.0305...@posting.google.com>, Happosai
><happosai.no...@nanimew.org.uk> writes
>>Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
>news:<Nmh0lrKK5Wx+EwK
>>m...@xerez.nospam.co.uk>...
>>> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime,
>>> Happosai <happosai.no...@nanimew.org.uk> said:
>>> >Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message news:<DgPXEc
>>> >DyqSx...@xerez.nospam.co.uk>...
>
>(though one of them has a rather wickedly observed Kimagure
>Orange Road video),
The "I swear that wasn't what I typed!" gremlins strike again.
Substitute "parody" for "video" and "Justin" for "someone who can think
& type at the same time!"...
(snip)
Matt
and decode every movie there, including yEnc-encoded files. It's easy to
use, though you will also need to use Mirror and WinRAR for RAR files.
There is a RAR FAQ here:
http://www.techsono.com/faq/rar.html
There is a yEnc FAQ here:
http://www.techsono.com/faq/yenc.html
You can get PixNewsPro here:
http://www.techsono.com/pixnewspro/index.html
Matt
"ican" <ican...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y_Nva.138889$M81....@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
Mrdini
Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime, John
> Moore <butter_...@jcom.freeserve.co.uk> said:
<SNIP>
> bed. For instance 10pm-8am is enough long to download an episode of a
> modestly sized fansub such as Witch Hunter Robin or Haibane Renmei.
<SNIP>
>week, which some download sites thankfully still do (Kamikaze Kaitou
> Jeanne for instance: a 100MB download once a week is pretty doable and
> leaves time to look at other stuff too.)
>
<SNIP>
> impossible. Even a single CD (650-700MB) video is pretty crazy. I
> managed to find the subbed version of Project A-ko as a 150MB file a
> couple of years ago, which is much more reasonable. The picture and
> sound quality was crap but it was still very watchable simply because
> it's such a great film.
..... Three out of four series you mentioned in your post is licensced!
Jeez, idiot.
Buy the DVDs, or don't watch anime. As a certain quote goes "Anime is a
privilege, not a right."
--
Yoav Felberbaum
E-Mail: y.m.fel...@wlv.ac.uk
Website (Not worth looking ^_^) : http://www.wlv.ac.uk/~c9807379/
Shez
<y.m.fel...@wlv.ac.uk> said:
>..... Three out of four series you mentioned in your post is licensced!
>Jeez, idiot.
In some foreign country maybe. As we've endlessly discussed before, all
anime is licensed somewhere, but people still watch fansubs. Anyway, let
he (or she) who has not watched the Haibane Renmei fansubs cast the
first stone...
If it makes you feel any better, I gave up on Robin after two episodes.
I only mentioned it because it's a well known series whose fansubs were
modestly sized. I am still watching Kaitou Jeanne though, but the
quality of the AVIs is frankly atrocious, in fact it's hard to imagine
how anyone could possibly have made such bad transfers of the Sachi
tapes (bleached out picture, misaligned chroma, PCM audio) and not feel
compelled to commit harakiri afterwards. (Incidentally I just discovered
that the Japanese have distinct terms for suicide by drowning, fire,
jumping into a river, off a waterfall, or in front of a train! The train
one we see in Lain is "tobikomijisatsu")
>Buy the DVDs, or don't watch anime. As a certain quote goes "Anime is a
>privilege, not a right."
Are you sure you got that the right way round?
-Shez.
--
______________________________________________________
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.
______________________________________________________
New Haibane Renmei page: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/anime/haibane/
Nick Roberts
Shez <see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> Once upon a time in the faraway land of uk.media.animation.anime,
> Mrdini <y.m.fel...@wlv.ac.uk> said:
> > ..... Three out of four series you mentioned in your post is
> > licensced! Jeez, idiot.
>
> In some foreign country maybe. As we've endlessly discussed before,
> all anime is licensed somewhere, but people still watch fansubs.
There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are not
available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first language. But
using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been available, even if
only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching that justification
beyond any credible breaking point.
> Anyway, let he (or she) who has not watched the Haibane Renmei
> fansubs cast the first stone...
The issue isn't really whether you've watched it, but whether you're
going to buy the commercial release. Yes, I have watched the fansubs,
and yes, I fully plan to buy them when available.
> > Buy the DVDs, or don't watch anime. As a certain quote goes "Anime
> > is a privilege, not a right."
>
> Are you sure you got that the right way round?
Yep.
--
Nick Roberts
tigger @ argonet.co.uk http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/tigger/
http://www.KISS.riscos.org.uk/ http://www.bookmaker.riscos.org.uk/
Stuart Dawson
<see...@nospam.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>Anyway, let he (or she) who has not watched the Haibane Renmei fansubs
>cast the first stone...
<Heaves brick>
>If it makes you feel any better, I gave up on Robin after two episodes.
>I only mentioned it because it's a well known series
Heh. Don't mistake "recent" for "well known".
>whose fansubs were
>modestly sized. I am still watching Kaitou Jeanne though, but the
>quality of the AVIs is frankly atrocious, in fact it's hard to imagine
>how anyone could possibly have made such bad transfers of the Sachi
>tapes (bleached out picture, misaligned chroma, PCM audio) and not feel
>compelled to commit harakiri afterwards.
<thinks about the quality of some of the tapes I've copied for people
in the past> So what? If you've got it for free then why should it
be a big deal what the quality is? If you really want quality then
buy it yourself.
>>Buy the DVDs, or don't watch anime. As a certain quote goes "Anime is a
>>privilege, not a right."
>
>Are you sure you got that the right way round?
It's correct.
--
Stuart Dawson - 335 art books now reviewed
http://www.jingoro.demon.co.uk/frame.htm
David Damerell
>There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are not
>available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first language. But
>using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been available, even if
>only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching that justification
>beyond any credible breaking point.
Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to make
it hard for us to use the US release?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Mrdini
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are not
> >available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first language. But
> >using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been available, even if
> >only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching that justification
> >beyond any credible breaking point.
>
> Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to make
> it hard for us to use the US release?
That's hardly an excuse. Almost all electronics stores worth their name
sell multi-region DVD players.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to make
>>it hard for us to use the US release?
>That's hardly an excuse. Almost all electronics stores worth their name
>sell multi-region DVD players.
Er, yes, it is. I may have a multiregion DVD player (we do, of course),
but the intent of region crippling is to make it hard for us in R2 to buy
R1 releases. If they don't _want_ us to buy it, why _should_ we?
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> > There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are
> > not available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first
> > language. But using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been
> > available, even if only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching
> > that justification beyond any credible breaking point.
>
> Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to
> make it hard for us to use the US release?
The 10-year-old Project A-Ko release is VHS, not DVD, so raising region
crippling isn't awfully appropriate (the earlier poster's example, not
mine).
And exactly how hard is it to get and play a region 1 disc, anyway?
<Quick check around room full of bookcases holding R1 DVDs..> Nope, not
very difficult at all.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are
>>>not available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first
>>>language. But using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been
>>>available, even if only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching
>>>that justification beyond any credible breaking point.
>>Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to
>>make it hard for us to use the US release?
>The 10-year-old Project A-Ko release is VHS, not DVD,
A-Ko's just an example, though - not chosen by me.
>And exactly how hard is it to get and play a region 1 disc, anyway?
Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it not?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are
> >>>not available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first
> >>>language. But using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been
> >>>available, even if only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching
> >>>that justification beyond any credible breaking point.
> >>Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to
> >>make it hard for us to use the US release?
> >The 10-year-old Project A-Ko release is VHS, not DVD,
>
> A-Ko's just an example, though - not chosen by me.
Not chosen by me, either. It was chosen by Shez, to which my post was a
reply.
> >And exactly how hard is it to get and play a region 1 disc, anyway?
>
> Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it not?
It doesn't matter what the intent is, what matters is the difficulty of
circumventing it. And the difficulty of circumventing region coding is
on a par with being able to watch NTSC rather than PAL.
Or can we expect NTSC vs PAL to be the next justification?
And for much anime that I want to watch, there's even a choice of
subtitles on the Jp DVD - you can hardly claim a region coding
justification for such.
Adam Jones
> In article <-rt*v4...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
> David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>> >There is some moral justification for watching fansubs if they are not
>> >available (subbed or dubbed, your choice) in your first language. But
>> >using Project A-Ko as an example (which has been available, even if
>> >only dubbed, for over 10 years) is stretching that justification
>> >beyond any credible breaking point.
>> Even when the Japanese licensor has insisted on region-crippling to make
>> it hard for us to use the US release?
> That's hardly an excuse. Almost all electronics stores worth their name
> sell multi-region DVD players.
Does the phrase "circumventing a copy-protection measure" ring any
bells? (Yes, yes, you and I both know that region-crippling isn't
anything of the sort, but tell that to the lawyers.) Given half a
chance, the content industry would have region-free players outlawed
in an eyeblink.
Personally, yes, I do my best to buy the original - after all, I can
play it. But when companies start effectively saying "sod off, we
don't want your money", I find it hard to countenance financially
supporting their stupidity.
(TBH, I'd rather download the darn thing and mail the creator a tenner,
but that seems a little unlikely to work out, sadly.)
--
Adam Jones (ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk)(http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/)
.oO("Ooh, Stout fcan be so evil a beverage!!!" )
PGP public key: http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/pubkey.asc
http://www.fanficrevolution.org/ - The Fanfic Revolution
Andrew Hollingbury
"Nick Roberts" <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0f2ba9f5...@bc63.argonet.co.uk...
>
> > Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it not?
>
> It doesn't matter what the intent is, what matters is the difficulty of
> circumventing it. And the difficulty of circumventing region coding is
> on a par with being able to watch NTSC rather than PAL.
Surely the intent does matter?
It's there for a reason - to control DVD availability to other countries due
to pricing structures and other reasons. Anime companies release in
particular regions and not in others because they want them released in that
reason. Otherwise, they'd just slap Region 0 on them, like CPM used to do
and Odex do/did with their releases (haven't bought anything except
Pretear). So surely by picking particular reasons they're actively saying
"we do not want people in Europe watching this" or whatever?
Andrew H
Nick Roberts
Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Personally, yes, I do my best to buy the original - after all, I can
> play it. But when companies start effectively saying "sod off, we
> don't want your money", I find it hard to countenance financially
> supporting their stupidity.
But the problem is that fansubs of such are punishing the wrong people.
The producers of the anime would love for US companies to buy English
language rights, but the companies would prefer to buy US-only rights.
But because the licensor has saved some money by buying more restricted
rights, fansubs punish the producer as well as the distributor. In the
best of all possible worlds, both producer and distributor would
recognise that the world isn't the way they might like it to be (i.e.
region-free players exist), and the license fee for English language
rights would be at most fractionally more expensive than US-only.
I also believe in reincarnation, ghosts, ghouls, and the theory of
Atlantis...
Nick Roberts
"Andrew Hollingbury" <a.holl...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> "Nick Roberts" <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:0f2ba9f5...@bc63.argonet.co.uk...
> >
> > > Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it
> > > not?
> >
> > It doesn't matter what the intent is, what matters is the
> > difficulty of circumventing it. And the difficulty of circumventing
> > region coding is on a par with being able to watch NTSC rather than
> > PAL.
>
> Surely the intent does matter?
Why? AFAIAA, the current state of the law does not prevent re-regioning
of DVD players after purchase, so in practice it's little more than a
minor hurdle.
> It's there for a reason - to control DVD availability to other
> countries due to pricing structures and other reasons. Anime
> companies release in particular regions and not in others because
> they want them released in that reason. Otherwise, they'd just slap
> Region 0 on them, like CPM used to do and Odex do/did with their
> releases (haven't bought anything except Pretear). So surely by
> picking particular reasons they're actively saying "we do not want
> people in Europe watching this" or whatever?
No, it's saying "we have not forked out the license fee for English
language rights".
I (try) to look at it from the perspective of the production company.
If I get a fansub and refuse to buy a region 1 disc because it's region
1, the production company gets nothing. If I buy a region 1 disc, the
production company gets a share, albeit not so much as if the US
companies had bought an English language license (presumably the
percentage of sales element would be roughly the same, but the base fee
would be higher). Given a choice of nothing at all (because no one has
the UK rights) or a slightly smaller fee than they would get from an
English language license, I suspect the production fee would work on a
"something is better than nothing" basis.
One of the problems is that region coding is designed for he
convenience/profit of Hollywood, rather than for producers generally.
almost exclusively with Hollywood in mind - it is difficult to map
"English language" rights onto the existing regions. This is
exacerbated by the fact that Europe and Japan are both region 2, so a
standard Japanese/English release with optional subtitles can damage
the Japanese domestic market.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>And exactly how hard is it to get and play a region 1 disc, anyway?
>>Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it not?
>It doesn't matter what the intent is, what matters is the difficulty of
>circumventing it.
Of course the intent matters! That's the whole point; they are saying "we
do not want you to buy this". When they say that, I think one is justified
in taking them at face value.
>Or can we expect NTSC vs PAL to be the next justification?
This is a ridiculous comparison - Japanese licensors do not release stuff
as NTSC with the intent of making it hard to watch in PAL countries.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>And exactly how hard is it to get and play a region 1 disc, anyway?
> >>Not at all. But the intent of region-crippling is clear, is it not?
> > It doesn't matter what the intent is, what matters is the
> > difficulty of circumventing it.
>
> Of course the intent matters! That's the whole point; they are saying
> "we do not want you to buy this". When they say that, I think one is
> justified in taking them at face value.
Except, as I pointed out in another post, you're punishing the producer
for a decision made by the distributor. It isn't the people who made
the anime saying "we don't weant you to buy this", it's the distributor
saying "we're not willing to pay the extra cost for English language
rights".
> >Or can we expect NTSC vs PAL to be the next justification?
>
> This is a ridiculous comparison - Japanese licensors do not release
> stuff as NTSC with the intent of making it hard to watch in PAL
> countries.
Japanese producers do not release stuff in region 1. It's the US
distributors that do that. So using it as an excuse to ensure that the
people who made the anime in the first place gets no income strikes me
as being bizarre, to say the least.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Of course the intent matters! That's the whole point; they are saying
>>"we do not want you to buy this". When they say that, I think one is
>>justified in taking them at face value.
>Except, as I pointed out in another post, you're punishing the producer
>for a decision made by the distributor. It isn't the people who made
>the anime saying "we don't weant you to buy this", it's the distributor
>saying "we're not willing to pay the extra cost for English language
>rights".
Wrong. The US distributors would always release stuff Region 0 if they
could; the requirement for region-crippling is always imposed by the
Japanese.
Adam Jones
> Japanese producers do not release stuff in region 1. It's the US
> distributors that do that. So using it as an excuse to ensure that the
> people who made the anime in the first place gets no income strikes me
> as being bizarre, to say the least.
I think you'll find that I (and, I believe, David) would very much like
the original creators to get our money in exchange for their work.
That's precisely what both of us have been saying all along this thread.
The point I'm making here is that the fundamental purpose of a
commercial enterprise is to take money from people. I'm standing here,
waving my money in the air at them and saying "please, take this money
in return for your product". However, the DVD producers are, by region-
crippling their products (and simultaneously refusing to release
a version which I can "legitimately" buy), effectively saying "no,
we don't want your money. You can wave it at us all you like, but
we won't take it. Also, we're trying our damndest to make it illegal
for you to give us your money. Sod off."
You'll pardon me if I think that sounds like an insane way to attempt
to relieve me of my cash.
--
Adam Jones (ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk)(http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/)
.oO("I dub thee the "Ninja Poster"!" )
Nick Roberts
Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In a futile gesture against entropy, Nick Roberts wrote:
>
> > Japanese producers do not release stuff in region 1. It's the US
> > distributors that do that. So using it as an excuse to ensure that
> > the people who made the anime in the first place gets no income
> > strikes me as being bizarre, to say the least.
>
> I think you'll find that I (and, I believe, David) would very much
> like the original creators to get our money in exchange for their
> work. That's precisely what both of us have been saying all along
> this thread.
Except DD has been using region-coding as a justification for
downloading fansubs. That doesn't quite tie up with "I really want to
pay to watch anime".
> The point I'm making here is that the fundamental purpose of a
> commercial enterprise is to take money from people. I'm standing
> here, waving my money in the air at them and saying "please, take
> this money in return for your product". However, the DVD producers
> are, by region- crippling their products (and simultaneously refusing
> to release a version which I can "legitimately" buy),
And exactly what evidence do you have that the anime producers have
refused anyone a license to sell the anime of their choice in the UK?
There's rather a difference between the UK distributors not being
willing to find the money and the Japanese producers "refusing to
release" a version that you can buy.
> effectively
> saying "no, we don't want your money. You can wave it at us all you
> like, but we won't take it. Also, we're trying our damndest to make
> it illegal for you to give us your money. Sod off."
As you so cogently point out, the producer's purpose is to make money.
They won't do that effectively if (1) they let UK anime distribs have
their product for free; and (2) they allow US distribs to release
region 0 DVDs when the distribs have only paid for a US license.
> You'll pardon me if I think that sounds like an insane way to attempt
> to relieve me of my cash.
And you'll pardon me when I suggest that you are (unwittingly or
deliberately) imputing non-commercial motives to the Japanese, when
they're simply trying to make an honest buck.
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Wrong - not in fact, but certainly in implication.
Of course the US distributers would like to release stuff as Region 0.
That way, they've effectively got world rights (or in practice, English
and Japanese language rights) for the cost of a region 1 license. If
they bought English language rights they would be perfectly entitled to
release it as region 1,2 and 4 (? - Australia).
All the Japanese are doing is insisting that the US distributers are
abiding by the license that was purchased. Reading that as some
fiendish Oriental conspiracy to prevent UK fans from watching anime is
taking paranoia to pathological levels.
Karl Goldsmith
regions 1,2 and 4!
Wednesday
>And exactly what evidence do you have that the anime producers have
>refused anyone a license to sell the anime of their choice in the UK?
There are cases where another licensor has gotten there first. Dynamic
Europe have pan-European rights, apparently including the UK, to the
Utena movie -- or did, last I checked, at the time where CPM would have
been trying to get it at all. Then there's stuff like Yohko and Nuku-Nuku,
which I can't believe ADV wouldn't really like the UK rights to.
Bah. "The anime producers" aren't a monolith; the biggest reason I hate
such discussions is that you get such daft, broad generalizations --
folks who have issues with certain labels and certain producers and
certain shows should name names, and we can get down to it from there.
And the last argument I heard from someone actually involved in selling
American anime discs about not using region coding, or CSS, or Mankyvision,
was about making sure their discs played under Linux, as I recall.
Just... bah.
--
[ w. ] ::::::::::: do we really *need* new brunswick? -- don ferguson
Tiggs Panther
[Fri, 23 May 2003 21:38:23 +0100] to uk.media.animation.anime:
>All the Japanese are doing is insisting that the US distributers are
>abiding by the license that was purchased. Reading that as some
>fiendish Oriental conspiracy to prevent UK fans from watching anime is
>taking paranoia to pathological levels.
Whatever the actual intention, the end-effect is still "to prevent UK
fans from watching anime", at least as far as the law goes.
Tiggs
--
Tiggs Panther =^.^=
"I think I might have been normal once."
Ryoko
news:bag3rg$qfa$1...@news.ox.ac.uk:
> countries due to pricing structures and other reasons. Anime
> companies release in particular regions and not in others because they
> want them released in that reason. Otherwise, they'd just slap Region
> 0 on them, like CPM used to do and Odex do/did with their releases
> (haven't bought anything except Pretear). So surely by picking
> particular reasons they're actively saying "we do not want people in
> Europe watching this" or whatever?
Perhaps I'm missing something ...
but in the case of Anime - it already is region 2 and some of the Japanese
disks do have English subtitles.
remember that licensing does not always tie up with the region coded
regions.
R.
Adam Jones
> In message <balspk$smf$1%proserp...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk>
> Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> The point I'm making here is that the fundamental purpose of a
>> commercial enterprise is to take money from people. I'm standing
>> here, waving my money in the air at them and saying "please, take
>> this money in return for your product". However, the DVD producers
>> are, by region- crippling their products (and simultaneously refusing
>> to release a version which I can "legitimately" buy),
> And exactly what evidence do you have that the anime producers have
> refused anyone a license to sell the anime of their choice in the UK?
> There's rather a difference between the UK distributors not being
> willing to find the money and the Japanese producers "refusing to
> release" a version that you can buy.
That's not quite what I'm trying to say. What I mean is more that,
given that those UK rights will otherwise remain unsold, there seems
little point in hoarding them in the hope of money which will never
come. There's surely more money to be made by letting the small
UK market import things (and hence pay the producers and owners) than
by pretending that the notional value of those rights will ever be
realised in any other way.
(Random thought: the standard "fansub ethic" is that one should cease
distribution as soon as a title is licensed. Given that most region 1
titles are *not* licensed for UK release, one could argue that it's
still legitimate to trade fansubs in the UK until that situation
changes.)
> As you so cogently point out, the producer's purpose is to make money.
> They won't do that effectively if (1) they let UK anime distribs have
> their product for free; and (2) they allow US distribs to release
> region 0 DVDs when the distribs have only paid for a US license.
I'm not suggesting that they allow anyone to have things for free.
I think, essentially, my problem here is that the DVD regioning system
is fundamentally broken. Besides being anti-competitive in the first
place (and this from the most avowedly free-market capitalists in the
world... competition is apparently fine so long as it happens to
other people ;) it's simply far too coarsely-grained.
I don't claim to know the ins and outs of copyright licensing decisions,
but it seems in this case that licensing by language rather than by
an arbitrary set of squiggly lines drawn up by Jack Valenti would be
both more useful and more profitable...
>> You'll pardon me if I think that sounds like an insane way to attempt
>> to relieve me of my cash.
> And you'll pardon me when I suggest that you are (unwittingly or
> deliberately) imputing non-commercial motives to the Japanese, when
> they're simply trying to make an honest buck.
I am? I'm not suggesting any sort of conspiracy here. All I'm saying
is that the current system of licensing and distributing copyrighted
works is fundamentally flawed, both from the point of view of
customers (who cannot legally purchase works that they wish to own)
and from the point of view of copyright holders (who cannot maximise
their return on investment because their potential audience is
restricted).
--
Adam Jones (ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk)(http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/)
.oO("(it's where he is just getting the feeling back in his legs)" )
Nick Roberts
Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In a futile gesture against entropy, Nick Roberts wrote:
> > And exactly what evidence do you have that the anime producers have
> > refused anyone a license to sell the anime of their choice in the
> > UK? There's rather a difference between the UK distributors not
> > being willing to find the money and the Japanese producers
> > "refusing to release" a version that you can buy.
>
> That's not quite what I'm trying to say. What I mean is more that,
> given that those UK rights will otherwise remain unsold, there seems
> little point in hoarding them in the hope of money which will never
> come. There's surely more money to be made by letting the small
> UK market import things (and hence pay the producers and owners) than
> by pretending that the notional value of those rights will ever be
> realised in any other way.
And I suspect that that is exactly how producers operate. There is
certainly no evidence that they are trying to close the market off,
beyond region coding the DVDs to those areas that the distribs have got
licenses for. They could do a lot more, like insisting that the
distribs RCE the discs, which would close off more of the market. That
they haven't rather weakens DD's case that they are actively trying to
make it difficult for people outside the US to buy the discs.
> (Random thought: the standard "fansub ethic" is that one should cease
> distribution as soon as a title is licensed. Given that most region
> 1 titles are *not* licensed for UK release, one could argue that
> it's still legitimate to trade fansubs in the UK until that situation
> changes.)
Exactly that is being argued, and I think it's pernicious. It's like
trying to apply some fine point of law when the whole thing is illegal
anyway. Ethics ought to ve about the spirit of the argument, not the
letter. Given the likes of United Pubs, there is no difference in
difficulty between ordering R1 and R2 discs.
> > As you so cogently point out, the producer's purpose is to make
> > money. They won't do that effectively if (1) they let UK anime
> > distribs have their product for free; and (2) they allow US
> > distribs to release region 0 DVDs when the distribs have only paid
> > for a US license.
>
> I'm not suggesting that they allow anyone to have things for free.
>
> I think, essentially, my problem here is that the DVD regioning
> system is fundamentally broken. Besides being anti-competitive in
> the first place (and this from the most avowedly free-market
> capitalists in the world... competition is apparently fine so long as
> it happens to other people ;) it's simply far too coarsely-grained.
>
> I don't claim to know the ins and outs of copyright licensing
> decisions, but it seems in this case that licensing by language
> rather than by an arbitrary set of squiggly lines drawn up by Jack
> Valenti would be both more useful and more profitable...
Here you are confusing the region coding with the licensing. The two
are not the same. If, for example, a US company bought English language
rights to some anime series, they would be perfectly within their
rights to sell it coded for regions 1, 2 and 4. Unfortunately, region 2
includes Japan; so the US company ould also be able to sell the DVDs
back to Japan, which could damage the producer's domestic market.
This is far from the ideal position for the distributors, but it's what
the Hollywood-centric DVD Consortium have dealt to us with the badly
thought-out, and even more badly implemented region coding.
Wednesday
>Here you are confusing the region coding with the licensing. The two
>are not the same. If, for example, a US company bought English language
>rights to some anime series, they would be perfectly within their
>rights to sell it coded for regions 1, 2 and 4. Unfortunately, region 2
>includes Japan; so the US company ould also be able to sell the DVDs
>back to Japan, which could damage the producer's domestic market.
But ADV do this with their world-outside-Asia properties, and the Japanese
don't mind -- I think the concern there is that the discs not have region
codes applicable to non-Japanese Asia.
And I think that this is more of a concern nowadays in general.
David Damerell
> David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Wrong. The US distributors would always release stuff Region 0 if
>>they could; the requirement for region-crippling is always imposed by
>>the Japanese.
>Wrong - not in fact,
"Wrong - not in fact"?
That means "what you have said is completely true", doesn't it?
>Of course the US distributers would like to release stuff as Region 0.
>That way, they've effectively got world rights (or in practice, English
>and Japanese language rights) for the cost of a region 1 license.
Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling discs to
European customers; they could do that whether or not the discs were
region-crippled.
>All the Japanese are doing is insisting that the US distributers are
>abiding by the license that was purchased.
This is not the case; otherwise, it would have been impossible to have
America-only licenses in the VHS days. The main effect of region-crippling
is to restrict the usefulness of the US doctrine of first sale.
>Reading that as some
>fiendish Oriental conspiracy to prevent UK fans from watching anime
Well, hyperbole aside, what you are saying is that what the Japanese are
doing _is_ intended to prevent UK fans from buying anime.
David Damerell
>Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>And I suspect that that is exactly how producers operate. There is
>certainly no evidence that they are trying to close the market off,
>beyond region coding the DVDs to those areas that the distribs have got
>licenses for. They could do a lot more, like insisting that the
>distribs RCE the discs, which would close off more of the market.
You know as well as I do that RCE is more or less dead in the water, and
certainly would not be feasible on discs to be sold to US anime fans, who
are more likely to have multiregion players than the average American.
>That
>they haven't rather weakens DD's case that they are actively trying to
>make it difficult for people outside the US to buy the discs.
That doesn't make sense. Merely because they have not done everything they
could does not mean that they haven't done _something_.
>Exactly that is being argued, and I think it's pernicious. It's like
>trying to apply some fine point of law when the whole thing is illegal
>anyway. Ethics ought to ve about the spirit of the argument, not the
>letter. Given the likes of United Pubs, there is no difference in
>difficulty between ordering R1 and R2 discs.
Except that what UP do is, er, illegal.
>Here you are confusing the region coding with the licensing. The two
>are not the same. If, for example, a US company bought English language
>rights to some anime series, they would be perfectly within their
>rights to sell it coded for regions 1, 2 and 4. Unfortunately, region 2
>includes Japan; so the US company ould also be able to sell the DVDs
>back to Japan, which could damage the producer's domestic market.
So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >And I suspect that that is exactly how producers operate. There is
> >certainly no evidence that they are trying to close the market off,
> > beyond region coding the DVDs to those areas that the distribs have
> > got licenses for. They could do a lot more, like insisting that the
> > distribs RCE the discs, which would close off more of the market.
>
> You know as well as I do that RCE is more or less dead in the water,
It's not that dead - there are still some discs some are using it (the
original teething troubles are now reputedly solved, although as I've
never had occasion to buy an RCE disc I can't comment on that).
> and certainly would not be feasible on discs to be sold to US anime
> fans, who are more likely to have multiregion players than the
> average American.
I'm not all that convinced that there are that many US anime fans with
multi-region players. Unless you have any statistics to back that claim
up, it's proof by blatant assertion.
> > Exactly that is being argued, and I think it's pernicious. It's
> > like trying to apply some fine point of law when the whole thing is
> > illegal anyway. Ethics ought to ve about the spirit of the
> > argument, not the letter. Given the likes of United Pubs, there is
> > no difference in difficulty between ordering R1 and R2 discs.
>
> Except that what UP do is, er, illegal.
Very possibly. But what I do when I buy stuff from them isn't.
> > Here you are confusing the region coding with the licensing. The
> > two are not the same. If, for example, a US company bought English
> > language rights to some anime series, they would be perfectly
> > within their rights to sell it coded for regions 1, 2 and 4.
> > Unfortunately, region 2 includes Japan; so the US company ould also
> > be able to sell the DVDs back to Japan, which could damage the
> > producer's domestic market.
>
> So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
Because those region codes are the nearest match to the geographical
region to which they have a license? They could, for example, have
English language excluding North America, or Australia and Europe, or
(possible but unlikely) Australia and Japan. The point I was trying to
make is that I think it unlikely that the licenses ever match exactly
with DVD regions (and given the definition of R2, I think it pretty
unlikely that they ever will).
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> > David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > > Wrong. The US distributors would always release stuff Region 0 if
> > > they could; the requirement for region-crippling is always
> > > imposed by the Japanese.
> >Wrong - not in fact,
>
> "Wrong - not in fact"?
>
> That means "what you have said is completely true", doesn't it?
Only if you have no understanding of the subtleties of language. Or do
you really believe that something that is accurate but misleading and
incomplete is completely true?
> > Of course the US distributers would like to release stuff as Region
> > 0. That way, they've effectively got world rights (or in practice,
> > English and Japanese language rights) for the cost of a region 1
> > license.
>
> Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling discs to
> European customers; they could do that whether or not the discs were
> region-crippled.
Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are making it
difficult, not the originators.
> >All the Japanese are doing is insisting that the US distributers are
> >abiding by the license that was purchased.
>
> This is not the case; otherwise, it would have been impossible to
> have America-only licenses in the VHS days.
Rubbish. It would just have been impossible to use an available
technology to help enforce it.
You are (deliberately, I would assume, given your normal level of
intelligence) conflating the limits of the license itself, and the
ability to use technological measure to enforce it. Yes, the
originators are enforcing region coding - I have never disputed this.
But that is in response to a decision by the distributor as to what
sort of license he buys. Is that really too much for you to understand?
> The main effect of region-crippling is to restrict the usefulness of
> the US doctrine of first sale.
>
> > Reading that as some fiendish Oriental conspiracy to prevent UK
> > fans from watching anime
>
> Well, hyperbole aside, what you are saying is that what the Japanese
> are doing _is_ intended to prevent UK fans from buying anime.
No. Just in case you missed it, I said "It isn't like that". If you've
taken that to mean "Yes, it is like that", it isn't the subtleties of
the language you're mssing out on, it's basic comprehension.
Do try to avoid devaluing your arguments by being cheap - it's really
not worthy of you.
Wednesday
>So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
(Tangent: are Madman's Pioneer sublicenses R2/4?)
Wednesday
>Because those region codes are the nearest match to the geographical
>region to which they have a license?
Madman only sublicense Australian (R4) rights. Now, the *parent* rightsholder
will have rights outside Australia. Some Madman discs are jointly-owned
masters (Manga and Madman were briefly trading off on masters early in
their game, and IIRC Madman were part of the Oh My Goddess! international
release project); many, such as ADV discs, are not. In ADV's case, I
think that might have more to do with their fairly pragmatic approach
to region coding (basically "we do it because we have to, and we slap on
all the codes we have a right to use") -- although I'm eager to see whether
this will continue as ADV UK further penetrates the market with
their own PAL conversions.
This is why I ask in the separate tangent about their Pioneer sublicenses.
(Pioneer US releases have been very often R1/R4, so obviously they've
always had Australia in mind -- if the Madman equivalent discs also
happen to be R2, then that suggests either a dangerous internal
policy at Madman or Pioneer holding English-language-territory
licenses.) Of course, I'm mainly asking because I'm a rights pedant.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling discs to
>>European customers; they could do that whether or not the discs were
>>region-crippled.
>Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are making it
>difficult, not the originators.
Er, one distributor who have a tiny fraction of the market.
>ability to use technological measure to enforce it. Yes, the
>originators are enforcing region coding - I have never disputed this.
>But that is in response to a decision by the distributor as to what
>sort of license he buys. Is that really too much for you to understand?
They do not have to make that response. They do so in an attempt to
restrict the usefulness of the doctrine of first sale, which otherwise
would permit third parties in the USA to buy discs from the US
distributors without violating a NA-only license, and resell them to us.
>>Well, hyperbole aside, what you are saying is that what the Japanese
>>are doing _is_ intended to prevent UK fans from buying anime.
>No. Just in case you missed it, I said "It isn't like that".
You can say that, but when it comes down to it that _is_ in fact what you
are saying. The Japanese do it; it is intended to prevent sales outside
region 1. We are outside region 1. What more do you need?
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
>(Tangent: are Madman's Pioneer sublicenses R2/4?)
No idea - I'm only going on what we've got on the shelves. :-)
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>And I suspect that that is exactly how producers operate. There is
>>>certainly no evidence that they are trying to close the market off,
>>>beyond region coding the DVDs to those areas that the distribs have
>>>got licenses for. They could do a lot more, like insisting that the
>>>distribs RCE the discs, which would close off more of the market.
>>You know as well as I do that RCE is more or less dead in the water,
>It's not that dead - there are still some discs some are using it (the
>original teething troubles are now reputedly solved,
The problem is not a teething one. The problem is that Americans (with
multiregion players) will not tolerate discs bought in American not
working with their equipment.
>>and certainly would not be feasible on discs to be sold to US anime
>>fans, who are more likely to have multiregion players than the
>>average American.
>I'm not all that convinced that there are that many US anime fans with
>multi-region players. Unless you have any statistics to back that claim
I didn't make that claim, whatever "what many" means. I made the claim
that anime fans are _more likely_ to have multiregion players than the
average American, which I hope any sensible person will believe is the
case - it ought to be evident that people with a keen interest in an art
form from another region are more likely to have multiregion players.
Hence, if RCE didn't fly for the mass market...
>>>argument, not the letter. Given the likes of United Pubs, there is
>>>no difference in difficulty between ordering R1 and R2 discs.
>>Except that what UP do is, er, illegal.
>Very possibly. But what I do when I buy stuff from them isn't.
No, but perhaps your scheme for ordering R1 discs easily ought not to
involve doing business with criminals? For instance, the difficulty might
rise sharply if the law was enforced.
>>>Unfortunately, region 2 includes Japan; so the US company ould also
>>>be able to sell the DVDs back to Japan, which could damage the
>>>producer's domestic market.
>>So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
>Because those region codes are the nearest match to the geographical
>region to which they have a license?
But why don't Madman's (even cheaper) R2 discs damage the producer's
domestic market?
Wednesday
>Wednesday <wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>(Tangent: are Madman's Pioneer sublicenses R2/4?)
>No idea - I'm only going on what we've got on the shelves. :-)
I wasn't asking you specifically, dear. Otherwise I'd have gone into the
other room and asked you. :)
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >>Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling discs to
> >>European customers; they could do that whether or not the discs were
> >>region-crippled.
> > Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are making
> > it difficult, not the originators.
>
> Er, one distributor who have a tiny fraction of the market.
Your example, not mine.
> > ability to use technological measure to enforce it. Yes, the
> > originators are enforcing region coding - I have never disputed
> > this. But that is in response to a decision by the distributor as
> > to what sort of license he buys. Is that really too much for you to
> > understand?
>
> They do not have to make that response. They do so in an attempt to
> restrict the usefulness of the doctrine of first sale, which
> otherwise would permit third parties in the USA to buy discs from the
> US distributors without violating a NA-only license, and resell them
> to us.
As you say, they don't have to make that response. But the licensee
doesn't have to buy US-only licenses, either. The licensor is insisting
that the licensee abides by the terms of the license - which is exactly
what any copyright owner would do where the technology allows it.
> > > Well, hyperbole aside, what you are saying is that what the
> > > Japanese are doing _is_ intended to prevent UK fans from buying
> > > anime.
> > No. Just in case you missed it, I said "It isn't like that".
>
> You can say that, but when it comes down to it that _is_ in fact what
> you are saying. The Japanese do it; it is intended to prevent sales
> outside region 1. We are outside region 1. What more do you need?
The Japanese are enforcing the rules of the license. They are not doing
this to prevent UK fans from buying anime, they're doing it to prtect
their profit margin. What I disagree with is not the end effect, but
the motive you are attibuting to them.
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>and certainly would not be feasible on discs to be sold to US anime
> >>fans, who are more likely to have multiregion players than the
> >>average American.
> > I'm not all that convinced that there are that many US anime fans
> > with multi-region players. Unless you have any statistics to back
> > that claim
>
> I didn't make that claim, whatever "what many" means.
Er - I didn't say "what many", I said "that many". I'm not sure what
you're saying here - did you misread what I said, or is the typo yours?
> I made the claim that anime fans are _more likely_ to have
> multiregion players than the average American, which I hope any
> sensible person will believe is the case - it ought to be evident
> that people with a keen interest in an art form from another region
> are more likely to have multiregion players.
But hidden in that is the assumption that the proportion of Americans
who watch R2 anime has more of an impact than the proportion that watch
imported French films, Hong-Kong martial arts movies, etc.
> Hence, if RCE didn't fly
> for the mass market...
RCE didn't fly for the mass market because some single-region players
wouldn't play it. This was what I meant by "teething troubles", and
these troubles are now reputdly solved.
> >>>argument, not the letter. Given the likes of United Pubs, there is
> >>>no difference in difficulty between ordering R1 and R2 discs.
> >>Except that what UP do is, er, illegal.
> >Very possibly. But what I do when I buy stuff from them isn't.
>
> No, but perhaps your scheme for ordering R1 discs easily ought not to
> involve doing business with criminals? For instance, the difficulty
> might rise sharply if the law was enforced.
It would rise marginally - I'd have to order from the US. Not what I
would call "sharply", anyway.
> > > > Unfortunately, region 2 includes Japan; so the US company ould
> > > > also be able to sell the DVDs back to Japan, which could damage
> > > > the producer's domestic market.
> >>So why are Madman's Aussie discs R2,4?
> >Because those region codes are the nearest match to the geographical
> >region to which they have a license?
>
> But why don't Madman's (even cheaper) R2 discs damage the producer's
> domestic market?
Very possibly they do. Presumably the licensor has decided that the
extra money they can get out of a license beyond Australia only
warrants the associated risk of re-import.
Adam Jones
> I wasn't asking you specifically, dear. Otherwise I'd have gone into the
> other room and asked you. :)
Yeesh... walking into the other room? What sort of geek couple /are/
you? ;)
--
Adam Jones (ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk)(http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/)
.oO("can anyone tell me if the unknown work was posted?" )
Tiggs Panther
posting [2 Jun 2003 21:10:37 GMT] to uk.media.animation.anime:
>In a futile gesture against entropy, Wednesday wrote:
>
>> I wasn't asking you specifically, dear. Otherwise I'd have gone into the
>> other room and asked you. :)
>
>Yeesh... walking into the other room? What sort of geek couple /are/
>you? ;)
Sometimes it's unavoidable for two geeks to be in the same room. There
are valid reasons.
Usually insufficient Cat5.
Ryoko
6B...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk:
>>>Except that what ** do is, er, illegal.
>>Very possibly. But what I do when I buy stuff from them isn't.
>
> No, but perhaps your scheme for ordering R1 discs easily ought not to
> involve doing business with criminals? For instance, the difficulty might
> rise sharply if the law was enforced.
ordering from amazon.com isn't that difficult - or are you now trying to
imply that buying R1 disks from amazon.com is illegal?
The only reason I know of that selling R1 disks in the UK is illegal is
because the disks do not have a BBFC clasification. You can quite legally
buy US published books and have you never seen "Import" CDs ?
If it were not for the BBFC there would be much more choice locally.
R.
Wednesday
>Yeesh... walking into the other room? What sort of geek couple /are/
>you? ;)
One with the Mac in the bedroom and the games PC in the living room.
David Damerell
>David Damerell
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>>Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling discs to
>>>>European customers; they could do that whether or not the discs were
>>>>region-crippled.
>>>Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are making
>>>it difficult, not the originators.
>>Er, one distributor who have a tiny fraction of the market.
>Your example, not mine.
So what? AnimEigo are only one distributor and they do only have a tiny
fraction of the market.
>>They do not have to make that response. They do so in an attempt to
>>restrict the usefulness of the doctrine of first sale, which
>>otherwise would permit third parties in the USA to buy discs from the
>>US distributors without violating a NA-only license, and resell them
>>to us.
>As you say, they don't have to make that response. But the licensee
>doesn't have to buy US-only licenses, either. The licensor is insisting
>that the licensee abides by the terms of the license
Er, they can insist on that anyway. Contractual provisions are easy to
enforce. What they are doing is attempting to prevent resale by third
parties, an activity which would not violate the license.
>>You can say that, but when it comes down to it that _is_ in fact what
>>you are saying. The Japanese do it; it is intended to prevent sales
>>outside region 1. We are outside region 1. What more do you need?
>The Japanese are enforcing the rules of the license. They are not doing
>this to prevent UK fans from buying anime, they're doing it to prtect
>their profit margin.
The idea that releases that will work in R2 will damage their profit
margin is just not consistent with the R2/4 Aussie discs that are cheaper
still than US ones.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in news:1Xp*
>>>Very possibly. But what I do when I buy stuff from them isn't.
>>No, but perhaps your scheme for ordering R1 discs easily ought not to
>>involve doing business with criminals? For instance, the difficulty might
>>rise sharply if the law was enforced.
>ordering from amazon.com isn't that difficult - or are you now trying to
>imply that buying R1 disks from amazon.com is illegal?
Nick's scheme for ordering R1 discs did not mention Amazon.
>The only reason I know of that selling R1 disks in the UK is illegal is
>because the disks do not have a BBFC clasification.
That is true. However, the "transient copy" provision of the CDPA makes it
illegal to play them, as I am becoming bored of explaining.
>You can quite legally
>buy US published books and have you never seen "Import" CDs ?
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make to me here; of course I have
seen such things.
Nick Roberts
Tiggs Panther <ti...@m-void.co.uk> wrote:
> Adam Jones <ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk> was incriminated by their
> posting [2 Jun 2003 21:10:37 GMT] to uk.media.animation.anime:
>
> >In a futile gesture against entropy, Wednesday wrote:
> >
> > > I wasn't asking you specifically, dear. Otherwise I'd have gone
> > > into the other room and asked you. :)
> >
> > Yeesh... walking into the other room? What sort of geek couple
> > /are/ you? ;)
>
> Sometimes it's unavoidable for two geeks to be in the same room.
> There are valid reasons.
>
> Usually insufficient Cat5.
How quaint. /Real/ geeks have gone over to airnet by now...
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >David Damerell
> >>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > > > > Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling
> > > > > discs to European customers; they could do that whether or
> > > > > not the discs were region-crippled.
> > > > Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are
> > > > making it difficult, not the originators.
> >>Er, one distributor who have a tiny fraction of the market.
> >Your example, not mine.
>
> So what? AnimEigo are only one distributor and they do only have a
> tiny fraction of the market.
Because you made a big thing of them only having a small share of the
market when I pointed out that this was a perfect example of the
distributor rather than the licensor making things difficult to buy
anime in the UK? You chose the example - you proved my point.
> > > They do not have to make that response. They do so in an attempt
> > > to restrict the usefulness of the doctrine of first sale, which
> > > otherwise would permit third parties in the USA to buy discs from
> > > the US distributors without violating a NA-only license, and
> > > resell them to us.
> > As you say, they don't have to make that response. But the licensee
> > doesn't have to buy US-only licenses, either. The licensor is
> > insisting that the licensee abides by the terms of the license
>
> Er, they can insist on that anyway. Contractual provisions are easy
> to enforce.
If you believe that, presumably you also believe that all US VHS tapes
other than AnimEigo were sold with an English Language license rather
than a US-only license? So AnimEigo are shooting themsleves in the foot
when they refuse to allow tapes to be exported?
> What they are doing is attempting to prevent resale by third
> parties, an activity which would not violate the license.
No, that's what you are /inferring/ that they are doing. You are
stating an unproven and unsupported supposition as fact.
> > > You can say that, but when it comes down to it that _is_ in fact
> > > what you are saying. The Japanese do it; it is intended to
> > > prevent sales outside region 1. We are outside region 1. What
> > > more do you need?
> > The Japanese are enforcing the rules of the license. They are not
> > doing this to prevent UK fans from buying anime, they're doing it
> > to prtect their profit margin.
>
> The idea that releases that will work in R2 will damage their profit
> margin is just not consistent with the R2/4 Aussie discs that are
> cheaper still than US ones.
Only if you are very naive in your calculations.
The US has a population of about 280 million. Australia has a
population of 19.5M, and New Zealand about 4 M. Add South Africa (due
to the very high proportion of English speakers, and ignoring the fact
that most of them are far too poor to be part of the market) at 44M. I
don't have figures for the all the countries in the Caribbean, but not
all that many. Unless the Madman discs don't have a Spanish or
Portuguese track (and I have no idea off-hand whether they do), they
won't get many sales in South America.
That gives a potential market in R1 for a Jap/English Dub/Sub DVD of
280M, versus about 70M for R4, or about 130M if you include the UK
element of R2. The license fee will take into account the likely
market, so (ignoring the possibility of re-import to Japan) given that
an R1 disc has a potential market of twice what an R2/R4 disc has, the
license fee for US-only rights will be much higher. Even if the
licensor puts a premium on for R2 to mitigate the risk of re-import,
the discs can still come in cheaper. Hell, even if you include the
entire Japanese population (127M), the US market is still bigger.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>David Damerell
>>>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>Not in the least. Consider AnimEigo's attitude to selling
>>>>>>discs to European customers; they could do that whether or
>>>>>>not the discs were region-crippled.
>>>>>Thank you for making my point. It's the distributers who are
>>>>>making it difficult, not the originators.
>>>>Er, one distributor who have a tiny fraction of the market.
>>>Your example, not mine.
>>So what? AnimEigo are only one distributor and they do only have a
>>tiny fraction of the market.
>Because you made a big thing of them only having a small share of the
>market when I pointed out that this was a perfect example of the
>distributor rather than the licensor making things difficult to buy
>anime in the UK? You chose the example - you proved my point.
I'm sorry, but this is totally demented. AnimEigo have a tiny share of the
market. They are the only distributor who takes the steps they do to
attempt to prevent resale to Europe. You cannot sensibly say "AnimEigo do
this, therefore distributors do this" - no matter who mentioned them
first.
>>>As you say, they don't have to make that response. But the licensee
>>>doesn't have to buy US-only licenses, either. The licensor is
>>>insisting that the licensee abides by the terms of the license
>>Er, they can insist on that anyway. Contractual provisions are easy
>>to enforce.
>If you believe that, presumably you also believe that all US VHS tapes
>other than AnimEigo were sold with an English Language license rather
>than a US-only license?
Not in the least. I expect the contract demanded sale to North Americans
only, the distributor abided by that, and some of those North American
third parties then (legally) sold them to people in Europe.
>>What they are doing is attempting to prevent resale by third
>>parties, an activity which would not violate the license.
>No, that's what you are /inferring/ that they are doing. You are
>stating an unproven and unsupported supposition as fact.
That's the actual difference that region crippling creates. I suppose I am
assuming that the Japanese licensors are sensible enough that when they
take an action with certain consequences, it is because those consequences
are what they aimed for.
>>The idea that releases that will work in R2 will damage their profit
>>margin is just not consistent with the R2/4 Aussie discs that are
>>cheaper still than US ones.
>Only if you are very naive in your calculations.
[A very lengthy but completely meaningless set of figures.]
I have no idea what you're driving at. Aussie discs are R2. They can be
grey imported into Japan. They're cheaper than US ones and hence _much_
cheaper than Japanese ones. Why don't they damage the profit margin in
Japan?
Wednesday
>I have no idea what you're driving at. Aussie discs are R2. They can be
>grey imported into Japan. They're cheaper than US ones and hence _much_
>cheaper than Japanese ones. Why don't they damage the profit margin in
>Japan?
Because the Japanese don't generally have PAL-supporting video equipment?
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>I have no idea what you're driving at. Aussie discs are R2. They can be
>>grey imported into Japan. They're cheaper than US ones and hence _much_
>>cheaper than Japanese ones. Why don't they damage the profit margin in
>>Japan?
>Because the Japanese don't generally have PAL-supporting video equipment?
True of VCRs, but DVD players generally have magic conversion - at least
some of ours have purported to spit out 30HZ NTSC from PAL discs (doubling
every 5th frame?), and Japan's the land of snazzy electronics. Plus, an
increasing number of people watch DVDs from DVD drives on computers...
Chika
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >If you believe that, presumably you also believe that all US VHS tapes
> >other than AnimEigo were sold with an English Language license rather
> >than a US-only license?
> Not in the least. I expect the contract demanded sale to North Americans
> only, the distributor abided by that, and some of those North American
> third parties then (legally) sold them to people in Europe.
As I recall, the argument here boiled down to where the sale transaction
took place. With many of the third party suppliers, the transaction takes
place in the US, then the sold product is shipped to the UK, hence there
is no contract problem. There was some talk about AnimEigo not supplying
anyone shown to be doing this, but I never heard of it officially, nor
have I heard of any third party that has been directly threatened. The
only change I ever saw as far as AnimEigo went was where they stopped
supplying overseas directly.
Question: I haven't checked lately, by have Viz stopped supplying
videos/DVD's overseas?
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki at crashnet.org.uk>
// \// MMW Crashnet <crashnet.org.uk>
... None of you exists, my sysop types all this in!
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>If you believe that, presumably you also believe that all US VHS tapes
>>>other than AnimEigo were sold with an English Language license rather
>>>than a US-only license?
>>Not in the least. I expect the contract demanded sale to North Americans
>>only, the distributor abided by that, and some of those North American
>>third parties then (legally) sold them to people in Europe.
>As I recall, the argument here boiled down to where the sale transaction
>took place. With many of the third party suppliers, the transaction takes
>place in the US, then the sold product is shipped to the UK, hence there
>is no contract problem.
Exactly, yes. A distributor can be required to supply to a third party in
a certain region, but unles they enter into an explicit contractual
relationship with all such third parties, there's nothing to prevent the
third parties from selling it on regardless of the nominal license (note
that UK law does not embody this principle, the doctrine of first sale -
but US law does). It's exactly this that region crippling makes more
awkward.
>There was some talk about AnimEigo not supplying
>anyone shown to be doing this, but I never heard of it officially, nor
>have I heard of any third party that has been directly threatened.
I think it has happened, yes.
Chika
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >There was some talk about AnimEigo not supplying
> >anyone shown to be doing this, but I never heard of it officially, nor
> >have I heard of any third party that has been directly threatened.
> I think it has happened, yes.
Did they follow through with the threat? The outcome could be an
interesting precident, methinks...
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki at crashnet.org.uk>
// \// MMW Crashnet <crashnet.org.uk>
... Screenwriters apply character personalities like Post-It notes.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>There was some talk about AnimEigo not supplying
>>>anyone shown to be doing this, but I never heard of it officially, nor
>>>have I heard of any third party that has been directly threatened.
>>I think it has happened, yes.
>Did they follow through with the threat? The outcome could be an
>interesting precident, methinks...
As I understand it, and this is now purely from memory, they did. When it
comes down to it, AnimEigo can do business with who they please, and if
the Japanese require them only to do business with third parties who won't
sell to Europe [1], that's all perfectly legitimate. Ultimately, however,
because any third party who doesn't sign a contract with AnimEigo can do
what they like, it won't really stop the trickle of discs into the hands
of people like UP.
[1] Incidentally, this destroys the idea that it's all about protecting
the Japanese market - otherwise, AnimEigo would be busy preventing resale
to Japan. By the time an American reseller _and_ a European intermediary
had taken their cuts on the way back to Japan, the price wouldn't be
_that_ competitive.
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
So if they have such a tiny share of the market, why did you take them
as an example of what could be done without region coding? Or was your
example as demented as you are suggesting my point was?
> >>>As you say, they don't have to make that response. But the licensee
> >>>doesn't have to buy US-only licenses, either. The licensor is
> >>>insisting that the licensee abides by the terms of the license
> >>Er, they can insist on that anyway. Contractual provisions are easy
> >>to enforce.
> > If you believe that, presumably you also believe that all US VHS
> > tapes other than AnimEigo were sold with an English Language
> > license rather than a US-only license?
>
> Not in the least. I expect the contract demanded sale to North
> Americans only, the distributor abided by that, and some of those
> North American third parties then (legally) sold them to people in
> Europe.
So why didn't AnimEigo do the same? IIRC, the AnimEigo ban doesn't just
apply to discs, but to VHS tapes as well.
> >>What they are doing is attempting to prevent resale by third
> >>parties, an activity which would not violate the license.
> >No, that's what you are /inferring/ that they are doing. You are
> >stating an unproven and unsupported supposition as fact.
>
> That's the actual difference that region crippling creates. I suppose
> I am assuming that the Japanese licensors are sensible enough that
> when they take an action with certain consequences, it is because
> those consequences are what they aimed for.
Or you could assume, as I do, that they are simply using an available
technological means to protect their copyright.
> >>The idea that releases that will work in R2 will damage their profit
> >>margin is just not consistent with the R2/4 Aussie discs that are
> >>cheaper still than US ones.
> >Only if you are very naive in your calculations.
> [A very lengthy but completely meaningless set of figures.]
I can only assume that you didn't read them. Or at least, if you did
you failed signalling to uderstand them.
> I have no idea what you're driving at. Aussie discs are R2.
Yes.
> They can be grey imported into Japan.
Yes.
> They're cheaper than US ones and hence _much_ cheaper than Japanese
> ones.
Yes.
> Why don't they damage the profit margin in Japan?
Read the supposedly meaningless set of figures again. It will explain
how any licensing system based on likely sales (i.e. just about every
licensing system I've ever encountered) can result in a cheaper selling
price, even allowing for damage to the domestic market.
One more time:
a) Ignoring the domestic market, the license fee for R2/R4 will be much
less than the license fee for R1 (or it will be if the disk in question
is limited to Japanese and English tracks - i.e. you can ignore the
South American market). This is because the base license cost will be a
function of the likely sales.
b) Now figure the domestic market into the equation. There is a risk of
loss of sales. Therefore, increase the license fee to mitigate that
risk. How much you increase the license fee to mitigate this risk
depends on a judgement call as to how great a loss of domestic sales
will occur, and the split between the base fee and the per-sale fee.
c) If the amount you increase the R2 license fee to mitigate loss of
domestic market is less than the difference between an R1 license and
an R2/R4 license, R2/R4 discs will /still/ be cheaper than R1.
Why is this difficult to understand?
Adam Jones
> True of VCRs, but DVD players generally have magic conversion - at least
> some of ours have purported to spit out 30HZ NTSC from PAL discs (doubling
> every 5th frame?)
I believe there exists NTSC-50 in much the same manner as PAL-60, so
this seems a more plausible method to me.
--
Adam Jones (ad...@yggdrasl.demon.co.uk)(http://www.yggdrasl.demon.co.uk/)
.oO("I don't want to know that you smoke wacky tobacie!" )
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Nick Roberts <tig...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>So what? AnimEigo are only one distributor and they do only have a
>>>>tiny fraction of the market.
>>>Because you made a big thing of them only having a small share of the
>>>market when I pointed out that this was a perfect example of the
>>>distributor rather than the licensor making things difficult to buy
>>>anime in the UK? You chose the example - you proved my point.
>>I'm sorry, but this is totally demented. AnimEigo have a tiny share
>>of the market. They are the only distributor who takes the steps they
>>do to attempt to prevent resale to Europe. You cannot sensibly say
>>"AnimEigo do this, therefore distributors do this" - no matter who
>>mentioned them first.
>So if they have such a tiny share of the market, why did you take them
>as an example of what could be done without region coding? Or was your
>example as demented as you are suggesting my point was?
Er, no. If AnimEigo do something, they serve as a perfectly good example
of what can be done. They do it; therefore it can be done. They do not
serve to prove your point that "distributors" do this, because in general
distributors do not.
>>Not in the least. I expect the contract demanded sale to North
>>Americans only, the distributor abided by that, and some of those
>>North American third parties then (legally) sold them to people in
>>Europe.
>So why didn't AnimEigo do the same? IIRC, the AnimEigo ban doesn't just
>apply to discs, but to VHS tapes as well.
I presume AnimEigo's contract is more restrictive - it seems most likely
to me that they use their willingness to enter into such contracts to
assist them in bidding for titles. Nevertheless, any third party who
obtains an AnimEigo disc or tape without explicitly agreeing not to resell
it to Europe may legally do so.
>>That's the actual difference that region crippling creates. I suppose
>>I am assuming that the Japanese licensors are sensible enough that
>>when they take an action with certain consequences, it is because
>>those consequences are what they aimed for.
>Or you could assume, as I do, that they are simply using an available
>technological means to protect their copyright.
They're not protecting their copyright. There are no illegitimate copies
here, and third parties have every right to sell to Europe. They are
attempting to grab power over and above what copyright law grants them;
specifically, they are trying to obtain the power to prevent R1 discs from
being sold to R2. Which is where we are. In other words, they are trying
to prevent us from buying R1 discs, which is kind of my point.
>>>>The idea that releases that will work in R2 will damage their profit
>>>>margin is just not consistent with the R2/4 Aussie discs that are
>>>>cheaper still than US ones.
>>Why don't they damage the profit margin in Japan?
>Read the supposedly meaningless set of figures again. It will explain
>how any licensing system based on likely sales (i.e. just about every
>licensing system I've ever encountered) can result in a cheaper selling
>price, even allowing for damage to the domestic market.
No, you haven't thought this through; once again, you've produced a
complicated explanation while neglecting to consider more simple facts. If
importation to Japan becomes significant, the total amount of money
extracted from consumers is much less. Someone's got to bear that loss. If
the license fee is predicated on an assessment of damage to the domestic
market, Aussie licensing fees for R2/4 titles would be prohibitively
expensive, and all Aussie releases would be R4. We deduce that importation
to Japan is not significant.
Wednesday
>With many of the third party suppliers, the transaction takes
>place in the US, then the sold product is shipped to the UK, hence there
>is no contract problem. There was some talk about AnimEigo not supplying
>anyone shown to be doing this, but I never heard of it officially
I know that AnimEigo will not supply to an individual via mail order if
they suspect there is any risk of that individual then immediately shipping
the product to someone outside North America. I know this because I have
discussed it with them.
>Question: I haven't checked lately, by have Viz stopped supplying
>videos/DVD's overseas?
I don't believe they ever officially were to start with. :)
Nick Roberts
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
There is actually a glimmer of understanding of my point in that. The
assessment of damage to the domestic market is a judgement call, made
before the license fee is agreed (and presumably based on prior
experience of similar license agreements). If the licensor judges that
there will be little damage to the domestic market, the premium for
region 2 to offset that damage will be small.
However, from that you cannot deduce that there is no damage at all to
the market - just that any damage to the market is sufficiently small
such that R2/R4 licenses are cheaper than R1, given the vastly bigger
market covered by R1.
Chika
Wednesday <wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >Question: I haven't checked lately, by have Viz stopped supplying
> >videos/DVD's overseas?
> I don't believe they ever officially were to start with. :)
Ah, yes. I have a few tapes and DVD's to hand that I ordered through them
a few years back; mostly Ranma stuff. I didn't do it too often though as
they charged silly money for P&P.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki at crashnet.org.uk>
// \// MMW Crashnet <crashnet.org.uk>
... I'm not schizophrenic. It's this guy beside me!
Wednesday
>True of VCRs, but DVD players generally have magic conversion - at least
>some of ours have purported to spit out 30HZ NTSC from PAL discs (doubling
>every 5th frame?), and Japan's the land of snazzy electronics.
My understanding is that, while PAL -> NTSC is *possible* (this is what
the Dr. Who fans and expats in the US have been buying), it's not
particularly common even on Japanese-market players - at least, not so
much on the low-to-midrange stuff, the cute little collector's bundles
Buena Vista do (and since they were selling those in ordinary stores,
I don't think it was just the pathetictaku who were buying 'em), and
so on. You'd have to really know what you want. Specialty thingie.
>Plus, an increasing number of people watch DVDs from DVD drives on
>computers...
At the point where it's going to make a real difference to overall sales,
I don't think they're significant yet -- if you have figures, I'd be keen
to see them.
Wednesday
> Wednesday <wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> >Question: I haven't checked lately, by have Viz stopped supplying
>> >videos/DVD's overseas?
>> I don't believe they ever officially were to start with. :)
>Ah, yes. I have a few tapes and DVD's to hand that I ordered through them
>a few years back; mostly Ranma stuff.
I'm not sure that was ever really "officially" so much as "we can get away
with it often enough to have established postal rates for individuals."
Chika
<wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Chika <miy...@spam.no.way> wrote:
> > Wednesday <wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >> >Question: I haven't checked lately, by have Viz stopped supplying
> >> >videos/DVD's overseas?
> >> I don't believe they ever officially were to start with. :)
> >Ah, yes. I have a few tapes and DVD's to hand that I ordered through
> >them a few years back; mostly Ranma stuff.
> I'm not sure that was ever really "officially" so much as "we can get
> away with it often enough to have established postal rates for
> individuals."
I guess you'd need to have someone on the inside to know that one. They
were, at the time, advertising rates (air and surface) to all countries,
and stuck by them, but beyond the fact that I used them a few times (very
few, considering that said rates could be up to 100% of the item cost in
some circumstances, so I had to be very desperate to go for it!) the
actual status of that supply remains unknown.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki at crashnet.org.uk>
// \// MMW Crashnet <crashnet.org.uk>
... I'm the person your mother warned you about
Jinzo Musume Lime-chan
news:N4l*Dd...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
I ordered a number of Ranma and Maison Ikkoku videos direct from
Viz-shop-by-mail a few years back.