Funimation website geoblocking certain parts of the world

[tyrionlannister]

This is not exactly recent news, as it appears to have begun in the summer, but it seems that the Funimation website redirects users outside the USA and maybe other English speaking countries to their corporate Navarre website.

They claim that they are forced to do so by contractual obligations.

Note that this is about their whole website, not just some streams.

My question is, does this indicate that they have no desire to sell their goods in the blocked areas, and if so, who is allowed to do so?

[Carnivus]

Maybe they'll sale the rights to some restricted sites in the respective areas.Or maybe they would restrict CR for USA only.A company will always desire money,so very unlikely to say "no" to any opportunity they encounter.
The thing with the whole site indicates either that they are serious,or that they are pretending to be.Normally,anyone should consider the first one as the logical choice,but in this times nothing seems to be logical anymore...

[Havoc10K]

Funimation are simply doing the best thing to protect their interests, however the way they do it is simply missed, they try to lower piracy, but that will only increase it. also you can always buy stuff on amazon.

tbh, they will keep screwing themselves up, really stupid ways of protecting themselves by uhm, kicking themselves in the ballz, not a very useful way to do it.

[Jarudin]

Stuff becomes so much more complicated when money is involved 

--Jarudin--

[morrefule]

Stuff becomes so much more complicated when money is involved 

--Jarudin--

QFA&T

Funnie is doing something called CYOA or Cover Your Own Ass.  There could be so many things that could go wrong especailly when legal contracts and millions of dollars are involved.  Could be as easy as one company wrote it into a licensing contract so they CYOA themselves by applying it to all Media they carry on thier sight.  Think about it, if one of Funnie's suppliers told them to pull thier line, Funnie would be stuck with a whole bunch of DVD's that are now junk, and waisted Money on Producing and Distributing the Disk.  Probably wouldn't put the company under, but would be enough to hurt it big time.

And I don't care what anybody says about Funimation, but they play a big part in bringing Anime to the Masses over here, and yes i'll support them everytime they release something i like, just like i would with any other company.  I love anime and I want the industry to flurish, not die by the wayside.  If Funimation helps just a few people get into Anime who wouldn't otherwise, it is a Plus in my book!

[harlock81]

I think i remember a funi rep talking about this during the fansub panel. If i recal correctly he said they are having a hard time dealing with distribution rights and infringements. They have to be careful as they have distro rights in the us but other compaines are buying rights in other regions so funi has to be careful how their media is viewed by the world. It more or less comes down to them not wanting to deal with the headache of protecting them selves from losing money in lawsuits so they can focus on C&D's to "protect" their rights.

[WinglessOne]

That's precisely it. Funimation only has the rights to distribute the anime they license inside the U.S. That's why they block IP's that aren't from the U.S. and such, to prevent the distribution and viewing of anime they hold licenses for in areas they aren't authorized to do so. A lot of television station websites that stream their content block non-U.S. IP's as well for this very reason. Probably a bit more to it than just that, but that's my two cents.

[Havoc10K]

but that way they harm more anime fans than protect naything, and they harm themselves, restricted acces was always a bad choice.

l'm not against Funi, as there is not Funi for me in my country, and l will buy almost any anime that is sold in my country and l can get a hand on it to support those that make it, however it's still not enough, the anime market is huge, and restricting acces to websited outside of US or other countries is harming bussiness, how on earth are ppl supposed to know about some anime if they have no acces to it via Websites ?

l know there are anime websites info like ann adb and the like, but if l would like to know more details on it or find out how much it costs l have no acces to it and that hurting bussines, such actions are always bad choice.

[WinglessOne]

Blame the contracts they make with the Japanese companies that own the anime. I'm sure Funimation would love to distrubute their licensed titles outside of the U.S.

[Havoc10K]

l would welcome them in EU and in my country, a lot of their licenced stuff is on my burned DVDs/BDs but their current way of protecting their rights is only harming themselves.

[gleen]

It's kind of funny...
I live in sweden and i buyed a lot of dvds from the US. And I entered funimations website a lot before to check out what new dvd's that were coming, to see what i whant to buy. Is this what they what (that foregins dont buy there dvd's). Or do they what us not to downloade ther shows. Just sad that they have to region block websites. I thot internet was free

[Havoc10K]

It's kind of funny...
I live in sweden and i buyed a lot of dvds from the US. And I entered funimations website a lot before to check out what new dvd's that were coming, to see what i whant to buy. Is this what they what (that foregins dont buy there dvd's). Or do they what us not to downloade ther shows. Just sad that they have to region block websites. I thot internet was free

well l been to their sites as well , and gotta admit their reasoning is more than weird, l can buy any DVD from any country and have it shipped to me, l bought Samurai Warriors 2 original Japanese version, by simply kontacting KOEI and paying for it to them and they shipped it to me lol, l can buy anything, and so can you if you play it hard enough, but their actions are really weird, instead of opening market to buyers they try to close it.

[Takeshi]

It's kind of funny...
I live in sweden and i buyed a lot of dvds from the US. And I entered funimations website a lot before to check out what new dvd's that were coming, to see what i whant to buy. Is this what they what (that foregins dont buy there dvd's). Or do they what us not to downloade ther shows. Just sad that they have to region block websites. I thot internet was free

Well, times change, my friend. This internet is becoming a censored place.

So this is what happened to Funimation, I thought this applied to all people, but only U.S. outsiders, it seems, kind of sad I think. I mean, we're not even allowed to browse their site. I can understand that they don't have the licences for us to view videos, but this is kind of stupid.