Regarding the policy of " no asking for Mp3...or illegal stuff.."
 

Please forgive me if this is forbidden as well, but well, these are my comments regarding the " no asking for Mp3...or illegal stuff " policy.

First of all, I've got to say that this policy is kinda unfair. Think of it this way, there are people who can't get it, ( due to money reasons, or problems with buying online CDS ), and those people who are lucky enough to get them just sit back and say, " check ( Link to a online shop ) " when someone requests for a Mp3. Come on, isn't this,...hmm..kind of rude..?

Now, another quote from a post I saw at the Music forum, it went somethign like this, " If you do not have the money, then you're out of luck..". If you do not want to give them a link to Dl the file, then fine, do you even have to discriminate them..? think about it, again, it's kind of offensive from my view.

Just not to get any wrong idea, I do not come from any poor family...., so I'm not speaking for my own " group " of people...so..er...you know.

Next is the problem regarding online shops. You got to know that not everybody trust online shipping and disclosing their credit card number on the internet. I know most people here are teenagers/adults who have their own credit cards but how about kids that try to get their parents to buy for them, and worst online. Come on, if you're the parent, your kid asks you to give put your credit card number on some page on the internet, and remember that not every single parent out there are IT educated.

I'm 14, and my parents do not trust online shops due to some cheating companies on the net.

Thats all I got to say. I'm not trying to "break" this policy, but just letting you guys know how "rude" you can actually be. Instead of being arrogant, expecting everyone to be able"buy" CDS online...why can't you just send someone the file instead.

The policy is there for a reason, but first to your arguments:

Argument: It's rude to suggest to people that they should buy music instead of supplying a method of downloading.

Response: If your friend looked in through a window and saw (for example) a nice shiny new computer and said "Me wants!", would you consider it rude not to tell him the best method of stealing it? In the eyes of the law, there is no difference between a computer and a song.

Argument: It is rude to suggest that when you do not want to pay money for something, you can't have it.

Response: I don't know your background, but in most western countries (and eastern too, in fact) we have something called a "market economy". Basically, this is an economic system in which commodities and services is priced according to what the market will bear. In such a system, it is a fact that aquireing goods for which the owner wants compensation without paying is illegal. Rude or not doesn't enter into it.

Argument: Not everyone wants to shop online.

Response: This is a personal preference, and hence has more to do with the person refusing to shop online than any policy enforced in these forums. If you don't want to shop online, there is certainly enough mail order companies out there willing to take your order by phone or snail mail. Even better than that: There are shops in which music can be bought by you (or your parents) physically. The latter alternative might take some travelling though.

Argument: I am under-age and earn no money to buy stuff.

Response: This does not entitle you to steal everything you want. Can't really say it much nicer than that.

The policy is there in order to lessen the target presented by AnimeSuki to solicitation happy copyright holders. Oh, and by the way, you do argue for abolishing the policy...But I won't hold that against you ;)

Truly sorry if I come off as snobish or mean, but you did ask for an defense of the policy :D

Well, as a guest in this forum, a fine facility that is generously provided to you free of charge, there's not really much room to rightfully complain about its rules, especially one that is made for the safety of the forum. (Minimising risk from irate copyright owners.)

But as regards the people who tell people to "just go and buy it *gives online music store link*", you've got a point there. It is rather unpleasant to tell someone to go and do something with the implication that to do otherwise is morally wrong, when you don't have verification that they can indeed do this in the first place.

But if you really want to track down illegal mp3s, I think I would say that this forum is not a suitable place in which to search for them, so you should use alternative methods.

(BTW this doesn't really fit in "general anime".)

Erm, actually there is. Stealing a computer is a criminal offence, and the police can prosecute you for it. Copying a song in breach of copyright is a civil offense, and the police should not do anything about it unprompted. The only way it can get you in trouble is by giving the copyright holder the right to sue. Oh, and copyright infringement is not stealing.

But bear in mind that we are not talking about a traditional good or service. A song can be replicated at negligable cost, which is not being borne by its owner. Traditional goods and services cost the makers money to produce each time a "copy" is made.

If you steal a physical object, you are directly depriving the owner of that object. Illegal copying does not directly deprive anyone of anything (which is why it's not stealing), it merely breaches an arrangement, (invented several hundred years ago when easy copying didn't exist, so possibly rather outdated), established to help reward the creators of such things for their work, making it more difficult for them to profit from their rightful temporary monopoly on it. (Although often it can actually help instead.) It's an entirely different issue, and comparisons between the two are not helpful.

I don't think that many people deliberately set out to be rude - well, most of them anyway :D - but stay with the forum awhile. People, eventually, asks for links to anything and everything, it seems, and it gets tiring to deal with.

Can't really deal much with your parents' unwillingness to let you buy stuff on-line. There's ato's suggestion of going to stores, but the selection can be less, natch. Aside from your succeeding to convince them that you'll be careful and they shouldn't let a few bad apples ruin the reputations of everyone else?

No idea if that'll work, but in the end, it's their house so they make the rules.

The most common reason for these rules would be that if the moderators let those things happends I think they could have trouble (at least GHDpro).

Well, there's a greater theoretical risk, at least. Personally, some of them seem faintly ridiculous to me, given how tiny some of these "risks" are, but then I'm not the one potentially in the firing line.

I've been wondering about this rule myself. I support making it so we can't give methods of downloading music that's being distributed across the United States, but what about music that hasn't left Japan yet?

For instance, say a particular series is lasting for a long time and a new opening comes out. I really want to listen to the full version of this song, but it's apparently against the rules to ask for it. Now, here's my question: what's the difference between providing links for unlicensed anime and unlicensed music?

I can be argued that you don't need the translation to enjoy the music -- and in many cases you'll not get a translated version of the song, even after it ships from US companies.

excellent question... the thing is, I don't know any anime music that has been licensed across the US for release (don't really know how music business works across countries). so wouldn't ALL anime music be ok to download now?...

I don't need a translation to enjoy an anime either.

I'm sure anime music in licensed anime is probably licensed. Hmm... maybe I'm just thinking of the edited songs, though. If only the edited versions of the songs are brought to America, wouldn't that still leave the singles unlicensed?

Well animenation sells anime related music cds. So it is possible to to acquire such cds, but of course the original poster isn't allowed to order online. You can use money orders if you don't want to use your credit cards and animenation is a well respected online retailer.

It's purely an ethics thing. Downloading Fansubs is entirely illegal. The only reason that it's considered ethical to download the fansubs is that the majority of english speakers won't be able to understand what is going on.

Music on the other hand, is instruments and vocals. It is very possible to enjoy their music without an understanding of the japanese language. Infact it's alot easier for most people.

I think what a lot of people are forgetting here is that getting things like anime and listening to anime music is a privilege not a right. It's simple. If you can't afford to buy it, you go without. "because I want to listen to it" or "i don't trust online shops" or "I can't afford it" are all inadmissible reasons for resorting to dloading MP3's. It may only be a civil offence according to Lambda, but it's still an offence nonetheless. As we can see by the actions over here by the RIAA against music dloaders, more and more actions are being taken against freeloaders.

Anime soundtracks are also coming over here more as companies like Bandai and Geneon are producing localized domestic versions of Anime OSTs now like ones for Witch Hunter Robin, .hack//SIGN, etc. so they are getting to be more available over here now for cheaper prices than importing the same thing from Japan.

I'm not talking about Anime OSTs for licensed series, I'm talking about Anime OSTs for unlicensed series like Da Capo and Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. If it's okay to ask for where I can download the entire series, why is it not okay to ask for where I can download the ending theme?

How is listening to the music in an anime any different from listening to it in mp3 form? The only difference is that, in some cases, it's slightly shortened. If I turn off my monitor and listen to the music, I'm practically doing the same thing as listening to an MP3. I don't have a translation (thus I don't understand the lyrics), but I'm still able to enjoy it. I'm just not enjoying it for as long as I would if I had the full version.

hai hai hai... the jellyfish has a point.
there is no difference. if anything, we should create a forum that allows us to post links to retrieving anime music that are from unlicensed anime (so they'd be more than likely unlicensed over as well).

but i'd like to hear on what the mods think about this subject again... what is the logic in not allowing this?

If I recall correctly, GHDpro put up a poll some time ago (may be on the old board) about whether or not in addition to providing links to unlicensed anime, he should also offer OSTs. I and a great number of other folks voted against the idea saying we didn't want to plunge animesuki further into illegality as it is. We also said that we could probably find the music we wanted elsewhere. Well, I still feel the same way now about it, why add to the number of illegal things animesuki does needlessly by allowing links to be posted to mp3s? Anyway, all you need to be able to download anime OSTs is a tiny knowledge of IRC and it's easy. I've seen tons of Fserve's offering OSTs both licensed and unlicensed to download when looking to download the latest episodes of the shows I watch.

I also can't see why the rules should be changed. Because anime OSTs are now being licensed and sold in the US it just adds more burden on the moderators and forum users to check against lists of licensed music. As mentioned it creates further murky legal stuff (which plenty of people enjoy debating, but don't take it up with me, thank you).

All it makes possible is that people get to ask a lot of questions about something they ought to be able to figure out for themselves. AS IF that doesn't happen way too much already...

I agree that it's just not worth it for Animesuki to get into distributing anime music, I think there are plenty enough websites that distribute anime music (I've found quite a few, and I don't even look for them) that animesuki does'nt really need to step in. The best thing to do is to get to know which people are really into anime music like yourself and use PM to share links, or just get on something like MS Messanger and swap music directly with them.

To put it mildly, what you do yourself is your business, but AnimeSuki
will not help you getting MP3's or anything else we consider piracy
(licensed anime, warez etc).

And as mentioned: I personally put up this topic before, and the general
consensus was that it was unwise for AnimeSuki to allow or support
Anime OST trading (which is a bit to bad, I've got a huge collection
I could share, but alas).

Now to help you out a bit, Anime OST links are frequently posted
to that "other great Anime BitTorrent site" -> I'll let you figure that
one out yourself.

Second, if you can get access to Usenet binary groups, there
is also a lot of Anime OSTs being posted to:
alt.binaries.sounds.anime