Japanese Government to Start Anti-Anime/Manga Piracy Operation Next Month

[megido-rev.M]

As noted earlier in this thread, Nyaa is indeed back up, but..... uTorrent reports that the Nyaa machine is actively refusing to allow uTorrent to hook up for some reason.

Fortunately 'peer discovery' and DHT is working fine, at the moment I'm getting down Maken-ki! (S1) and it's working nicely.

I guess they resolved that, then, as uTorrent works fine with nyaa for me (right now, at least).

I can confirm: tracker is now working.

[BronBron06]

BATOTO is useless now since they comply with dmca

[juggalojohn]

But, alright. Stealing is wrong.

So you never copied someone elses homework in grade school. or never quoted someone w/ out giving the author and source.Or you never lent a friend a cd/dvd/game so they could try it. stealing may be wrong but making a carbon copy of something isn't stealing its just producing a look alike.just a chinese knock off of the original.

[Freedom Kira]

So you never copied someone elses homework in grade school. or never quoted someone w/ out giving the author and source.Or you never lent a friend a cd/dvd/game so they could try it. stealing may be wrong but making a carbon copy of something isn't stealing its just producing a look alike.just a chinese knock off of the original.

The key concept here is whether or not your copy somehow causes lost income for the original creator, or somehow creates income for you. The stealing is not of the thing being produced, but of the revenue that could be generated from producing the thing. Things like Chinese knock-offs wouldn't be called stealing if they weren't making money off of them at the expense of the real product or otherwise taking profits away from them.

For the most part, I'm pretty sure that most people in the West would simply not watch anime if piracy didn't exist, rather than actually go and buy DVD/Blu-ray media, and for the few who do buy DVD/Blu-ray media, they probably do it even with piracy rampant because it gives a good way to see if they want to spend their money on it. Therefore I can't really call anime piracy in particular stealing, because no revenue is lost. If anything, anime piracy is like free advertising for the few who do buy media.

[Krudda]

I can concur with Freedom Kira here.
Most of my purchases, come from series' I've either pirated and liked or series' that look promising.
A large proportion of my purchases are based on whether I think something is even worth paying for.

[ConsiderPhlebas]

Half of the stuff I've bought are things I'd already watched as fansubs/rips. In fact, some of them I've not even re-watched with those boxes 

[Astara]

The key concept here is whether or not your copy somehow causes lost income for the original creator...

Halt. Stop.  ^^  This is the key.  Do you really think the creators of the anime will get 1 cent less for your download?  As others have already said -- if anything, they are more likely to generate sales for permanent copies (though less so for me, since most of the BR quality releases for anime don't happen in the US -- many do, but as a percentage of those released?  I'd _guess_ <20%).  They might generate more interest.  If it wasn't for the series and soundtracks of anime, I'd have no exposure to japanese artists and have none of their CD's (some at 50-60$!#()*#(%)*).   To get an idea of how anime affects my music tastes (and it's always the anime before the CD, though have sought out a few by Yuki Kajiura on her record alone) -- see my lastfm page:
http://www.last.fm/user/Astaras

But the real reason these outfits go after file sharers is that there is profit in extracting penalties.  The ones who are making money off of prosecution aren't the media companies or artists -- it's the professional "chasers" who make money via quantity of notices sent out and some percentage of those who will roll over and fork over a few - several K. 

I can see the business model where they offer to the record companies to do this for free for any penalties extracted up to some 'large amount'... they convince the companies that it will be good business to squeeze the pirates even if there isn't really much money there and they wouldn't really buy otherwise.  The argue that the pressure on pirates will drive some percentage toward legal purchases and keep downward pressure on the 'pirate market'.  All they need is permission to represent them and take legal action (cuz foreign companies don't want to be prosecuting overseas cases).  This is ESPECIALLY true with the US where copyright and penalty laws are especially favorable to corporations where those who 'pirate' don't even have to make money at doing it (vs. standards in most modern countries where it has to be shown the "perp" was making money -- thus showing some actual amount of $$ harm).  99% of the damages awarded in piracy cases are *statutory* not compensatory.  Even judges have commented on how someone listening to 20-40 songs being lit with a 1-2 million dollar fine is ludicrous.  But because the corps paid for their law, they have created an "illegal" profit market.

Times like this one realizes how corrupt the US legal system is -- and realize it's getting worse....  So the key is to try to figure out how to cost the US-profiteers money and keep them from profiting over *OTHER* people's "imaginary property*....

It's a patriotic duty to fight back against the corporate overlords in anyway we can.  So, really, "pirates" are today's patriots! 

[juggalojohn]

Things like Chinese knock-offs wouldn't be called stealing if they weren't making money off of them at the expense of the real product.

They're stealing the image of the original to sell a product at sub par quality.
would you rather own
this or this

If anything, anime piracy is like free advertising for the few who do buy media.

That is where I was trying to imply

Times like this one realizes how corrupt the US legal system is -- and realize it's getting worse....  So the key is to try to figure out how to cost the US-profiteers money and keep them from profiting over *OTHER* people's "imaginary property*....

It's a patriotic duty to fight back against the corporate overlords in anyway we can.  So, really, "pirates" are today's patriots! 

^this is my quote of the day

[Lord of Fire]

My stance on piracy has always been that there are four groups of people:
1. People who don't watch anime illegally and only buy. These are almost always the white knights you see on forums, proclaiming piracy directly hurts the industry and that you should support it anyway you can and that you should feel ashamed of yourself, etc., etc.
2. People who watch anime illegally and buy. These are the people the industry should focus their attention on, because they are the ones who can help them make that extra money they need to get a profit.
3. People who only watch illegally and don't buy. These aren't worth the industry's time and money, because no matter what you do, you'll never convince them to buy the legal product.
4. People who do neither. These people might need a trigger to watch anime, either through streaming or fansubs.

I used to be in camp 4, thinking anime was crap and not worth my time. Then, I got persuaded to watch one fansubbed show, enjoyed it, and got hooked ever since. Now, a few years later, I've bought anime (and would still like to do from time to time, provided I can get the money), figurines (too expensive to keep up. Plus, I don't have any room for them anymore) and currently, I'm focusing mostly on buying manga (as it's cheaper, and I can buy several volumes of multiple franchises at once). And I'm sure a lot of other people are like this, too, but good luck trying to convince the anti-piracy people of that.

[Krudda]

Just read an article (a few hours ago actually) stating that Google has had 10 million "do something about it" notices for a single pirated song (they've had hundreds of millions of notices about removing illegal content from search results) and it appears Google's response was: "Not our problem, the issue is not that we supply links, but that of a pricing and availability issue on your end"

I guess that's one in our favor.

[kitamesume]

My stance on piracy has always been that there are four groups of people:
1. People who don't watch anime illegally and only buy. These are almost always the white knights you see on forums, proclaiming piracy directly hurts the industry and that you should support it anyway you can and that you should feel ashamed of yourself, etc., etc.
2. People who watch anime illegally and buy. These are the people the industry should focus their attention on, because they are the ones who can help them make that extra money they need to get a profit.
3. People who only watch illegally and don't buy. These aren't worth the industry's time and money, because no matter what you do, you'll never convince them to buy the legal product.
4. People who do neither. These people might need a trigger to watch anime, either through streaming or fansubs.

I used to be in camp 4, thinking anime was crap and not worth my time. Then, I got persuaded to watch one fansubbed show, enjoyed it, and got hooked ever since. Now, a few years later, I've bought anime (and would still like to do from time to time, provided I can get the money), figurines (too expensive to keep up. Plus, I don't have any room for them anymore) and currently, I'm focusing mostly on buying manga (as it's cheaper, and I can buy several volumes of multiple franchises at once). And I'm sure a lot of other people are like this, too, but good luck trying to convince the anti-piracy people of that.

i'm in option 2, i'd buy manga IF they're locally available. otherwise its much better to just read them from online viewing sites.
anime though is just too expensive (BD 1080P), not interested in buying them, plus i doubt there are legal fansubbed discs around.

[sawakosadako]

Just read an article (a few hours ago actually) stating that Google has had 10 million "do something about it" notices for a single pirated song (they've had hundreds of millions of notices about removing illegal content from search results) and it appears Google's response was: "Not our problem, the issue is not that we supply links, but that of a pricing and availability issue on your end"

I guess that's one in our favor.

Any link on that article would be nice.

My stance on piracy has always been that there are four groups of people:
1. People who don't watch anime illegally and only buy. These are almost always the white knights you see on forums, proclaiming piracy directly hurts the industry and that you should support it anyway you can and that you should feel ashamed of yourself, etc., etc.
2. People who watch anime illegally and buy. These are the people the industry should focus their attention on, because they are the ones who can help them make that extra money they need to get a profit.
3. People who only watch illegally and don't buy. These aren't worth the industry's time and money, because no matter what you do, you'll never convince them to buy the legal product.
4. People who do neither. These people might need a trigger to watch anime, either through streaming or fansubs.

I used to be in camp 4, thinking anime was crap and not worth my time. Then, I got persuaded to watch one fansubbed show, enjoyed it, and got hooked ever since. Now, a few years later, I've bought anime (and would still like to do from time to time, provided I can get the money), figurines (too expensive to keep up. Plus, I don't have any room for them anymore) and currently, I'm focusing mostly on buying manga (as it's cheaper, and I can buy several volumes of multiple franchises at once). And I'm sure a lot of other people are like this, too, but good luck trying to convince the anti-piracy people of that.

I believe I'm in number 2. Although I'd rather not buy anything locally since it's in shit condition (censors, etc) compare to its japanese version.

[Krudda]

Just read an article (a few hours ago actually) stating that Google has had 10 million "do something about it" notices for a single pirated song (they've had hundreds of millions of notices about removing illegal content from search results) and it appears Google's response was: "Not our problem, the issue is not that we supply links, but that of a pricing and availability issue on your end"

I guess that's one in our favor.

Any link on that article would be nice.

Can't find the original site (I read a few, so it's buried in my history amongst one of them), but here's one that kinda says what I stated, though not in those direct words.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/15/google-riaa-ifpi-music-piracy