Anime, Profits, and Pirates - Fortune Magazine

**D.Shaffer** · 06-22-2006, 08:24 PM

I found this link while reading CNN.com, of all things. Interesting article.

CNN.com Link

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Movie execs this Christmas have one common request on their list to Santa: an end to piracy. But just in case he doesn't deliver, the showbiz world is doing whatever it can on its own to crack down, from placing spies in theaters to look for rogue video tapers to Sony recently bundling a program on its CDs that closed its music to copying -- but also opened up customers' PCs to all kinds of viruses.
As mainstream showbiz continues its cat-and-mouse quest to protect its intellectual property, one tiny niche has figured out a way around the problem: Anime, the Japanese style of animation that typically features saucer-eyed women and giant mechanical men, and manga, its print cousin.

**William C. Maune** · 06-22-2006, 08:33 PM

So, in regards to fansubbing they talk to TokyoPop, who has pretty much abandoned anime to focus on manga instead? Anyway, the article struck me of being more about how people hope things work, instead of how they do work. Especially statements like this:

Once a U.S. company licenses the show, most fansubbers -- operating off a strict code of conduct -- scour the net to make sure their versions of the show don't show up anymore. That way, they say, they're ensuring that the companies that bring anime to the U.S. can make money on their DVDs -- and spread the religion.

I also found this interesting:

Though small -- the retail market for both is worth just $625 million – this animated world is growing rapidly, with sales up 13 percent between 2002 and 2004

They went all the way back to 2004 instead of 2003-2005, 2004-2006, etc.

**Chris Wood** · 06-22-2006, 08:50 PM

One always has to remember that news articles, even on CNN.com, were just written by some guy with a deadline who may have gotten back from his Hawaiian vacation a few days late.

**Nobuyuki sama** · 06-23-2006, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by William C. Maune

They went all the way back to 2004 instead of 2003-2005, 2004-2006, etc.

Kind of hard to cite 2006 figures in and article written in December 2005.

**Karl Olson** · 06-23-2006, 05:15 AM

Originally Posted by Nobuyuki sama

Kind of hard to cite 2006 figures in and article written in December 2005.

Plus, but there was no growth 2005 anyway. It stayed level at 625 million.

/did the research for a paper I did for an english class.
//I recieved an A- in the class.

**Go-chin** · 06-23-2006, 11:14 AM

Anime, the Japanese style of animation that typically features saucer-eyed women

This dumbass stereotype consistently succeeds in pissing me off.

**The Weed Of Cri** · 06-23-2006, 12:00 PM

There's so much more to this issue than what the article says. For years, the American anime companies have had a love-hate relationship with fansubbers. The more unscrupulous fansubbers do rip off the "legitimate" companies, but the companies have also used feedback from fansubbers to find out what's popular (and therefore what's a good investment), and many fansubbers take materials out of their inventory when it gets officially licensed, not out of fear of legal difficulties (which has lagged behind both the influx of fansubbed material and the technology used to obtain it), but just out of loyalty to the product. Most fansubbers are fans, too, and they want to see anime succeed as a viable form of entertainment in America.

There's also the bigger picture of video piracy in general. While Hollywood revenues plummet further with each passing year, the film studios are scrambling to preserve every buck they can reach. Of course, they've gotten hyper about piracy and, typical of any large bureaucracy that hears the wolf at the door, their defense is largely misplaced. While communist countries like China rip off Hollywood and Japanese anime studios to the tune of several billion dollars a year, Hollywood wastes their anti-piracy efforts sending the FBI after couch potatoes with DSL connections, and forcing draconian film-handling procedures on movie theaters, who are Hollywood's primary outlet for getting their product to the public. I am the projection booth manager at a megaplex movie theater, and some of studios' anti-piracy tactics are ridiculous, especially considering that most of them are aimed at protecting the copyrights of crappy movies that no one wants to see, anyway. (And I'll wager the quality of films (or lack of same) still plays a larger role in reducing movie revenues than piracy.