Japanese Government to Start Anti-Anime/Manga Piracy Operation

[milan kyuubi]

http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1235745

In cooperation with 15 major anime production companies and manga publishers, the Japanese government will next month start a huge extermination operation against foreign sites which have illegally uploaded anime and manga contents on the web without the copyright holders' permission, NHK reported on July 28th. While the government has started supporting the genre as one of their important cultural exports, there appears to be no end of illegal uploading of anime and manga via pirate sites, mainly operated by Chinese. The Cultural Affairs Agency estimates the loss caused by the Chinese pirate sites last year was amounted to at least 560 billion yen (about US$ 5.5 billion).

On August 1st, the government will start simultaneously sending requests to delete illegal anime and manga contents to the operators of the 580 foreign pirate sites which they have found. In addition, the operation will launch a new site to guide the fans to a legitimate site offering some 250 titles including the latest ones at a cost of several hundred yen.

Official Manga-Anime Guardians site: http://manga-anime-here.com/

Source: NHK News

News submitted by BydeFinition


Update July 30
METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) has published a press release stating 500 manga works and 80 anime works are being targeted, not websites. The press release includes a PowerPoint that contains an actual list of websites they are targeting. Included are scanlation sites (slides 11-12), fansub upload websites (slides 13-15), direct download websites (slide 16), torrent sites (slides 17-18), and redistribution websites (slides 19-20).

Source: METI press release

This is a pretty bold move on their part. But I don't see it working. There will always be piracy. At least AnimeSuki is safe.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by milan kyuubi

http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1235745


This is a pretty bold move on their part. But I don't see it working. There will always be piracy. At least AnimeSuki is safe.

Not quite. This is a tracker you know? The law doesn't usually know the difference between linking to something and actually hosting said thing (sadly).

[GDB]

...Myspace is on the list. What the actual hell?

[Cosmic Eagle]

Target Nico Nico...wtf

Sense not found. Considering Nico IS an official anime watching site....

And seriously...how are you going to target DDL sites? I mean, you can hammer them but how do you expect them to enforce?

Unfortunately the games sections are being targeted too.. =.=



This will end up hurting them even more. Everyone here should know that many downloaders also pour considerable amount of cash into actual stuff (books, merchandise, games etc) Cut off the primary source, people lose interest and that's it...forget about anyone buying anything...ever.

[Qikz]

The big reason people pirate anime and manga is that there's no real way to legally watch it as it airs. Unless they sort that out for western countries then it's always going to be the same deal and also as Cosmic just pointed out, the people who watch anime via download usually buy merchanidse and stuff anyways.

Then again much like companies who target the piracy of games and movies, not much is really going to come to this as piracy exists and will continue to exist for a reason, it's impossible to stop and it's never killed an industry since piracy began no matter what the large companies say.

You shut down one site and either a proxy will come up ala piratebay or someone else will start another service.

[GreyZone]

Attack on Titan producer George Wada stated during an interview in Germany that he'd rather that as many people as possible are able to see his works, when asked about the anti-piracy measures. So it is not as if everyone in the industry actually wants this.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Well, from the power point, it seems like the main target is population of Japan who DL from outside sources.


Wonder if targeted sites will then go the way of Minori except they block JP IPs instead...

[GDB]

So he shares the same views as the Game of Thrones producers. That's encouraging.

[SaintessHeart]

The point of implementation means you get triple income. Sale of JP BDs on the home ground, and licensing fees from dubbers/subbers, and royalties from foreign market redistribution.

Someone loves money a little too much.

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Attack on Titan producer George Wada stated during an interview in Germany that he'd rather that as many people as possible are able to see his works, when asked about the anti-piracy measures. So it is not as if everyone in the industry actually wants this.

But the ones calling the shots in the industry (usually) aren't the original creators, but the publishers.

So far, this seems to have only affected the Japanese (as I heard that a lot of the sites listed were blocked there), but with 5 months left to go, who knows what they'll try?

I do believe it's been shown several times that piracy helps boost sales of physical media (more people get to see it, as compared to official sources), yet all the industry does is throw lots ans lots of money on fighting it, basically throwing it down a bottomless well. If anything is gonna kill the industry, that will, not the piracy itself.

[Jan-Poo]

The Cultural Affairs Agency estimates the loss caused by the Chinese pirate sites last year was amounted to at least 560 billion yen (about US$ 5.5 billion).

I guess that, as usual, those who make those estimations always unrealistically assume that anything that gets downloaded would have been bought in the same amount in case file sharing never existed.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I guess that, as usual, those who make those estimations always unrealistically assume that anything that gets downloaded would have been bought in the same amount in case file sharing never existed.

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

But the ones calling the shots in the industry (usually) aren't the original creators, but the publishers.

So far, this seems to have only affected the Japanese (as I heard that a lot of the sites listed were blocked there), but with 5 months left to go, who knows what they'll try?

I do believe it's been shown several times that piracy helps boost sales of physical media (more people get to see it, as compared to official sources), yet all the industry does is throw lots ans lots of money on fighting it, basically throwing it down a bottomless well. If anything is gonna kill the industry, that will, not the piracy itself.

The problem is, they are using textbook economics for their conclusion - where a product gotten for free is a sale lost by the company.

We all know that that kind of thing does not work in the real world because the market is too dynamic - it would be easier to see things from a demand approach where exposure to the knowledge of a certain good results in a market being created, rather than assuming that the market is already there in the first place. All in all, anime and manga still fall under the entertainment industry and each segment is a niche market itself - if I don't watch anime, I may be watching one of those American serials.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by Qikz

The big reason people pirate anime and manga is that there's no real way to legally watch it as it airs. Unless they sort that out for western countries then it's always going to be the same deal and also as Cosmic just pointed out, the people who watch anime via download usually buy merchanidse and stuff anyways.

Then again much like companies who target the piracy of games and movies, not much is really going to come to this as piracy exists and will continue to exist for a reason, it's impossible to stop and it's never killed an industry since piracy began no matter what the large companies say.

You shut down one site and either a proxy will come up ala piratebay or someone else will start another service.

Regarding manga, I believe that quite a few mangas get licensed and are never published or get halted after awhile. Couple with below average translation and overpriced manga, it is really hard to support manga translated in the west.

[Biohazardous]

If they subbed the stuff as it airs or very quickly after it would help piracy. Another big help would be the cost of items to be lower. Most Westerners do not want to pay the price they pay for one set of bluray that has only 2 episodes instead of it being the whole series at that cost. Unless both issues change it wont stop anytime soon. Lets not forget getting light novels and manga translated. Our options for reading would be alot lower if people didnt translate for us and even then we still dont get to see/read all the stuff we may want.

[GreyZone]

There is also the "licensing" problem though. In Germany one would have to be stupid to make a crunchyroll subscription, because 95% of all shows are blocked because they were already licensed in Germany, though here they are far behind the simulcasts and censoring is the worst here.

To add to what I said about George Wada before: He also stated that he'd prefer even more if simulcasts were possible in all countries in their respective languages and at the same time. But of course as I mention that is not realistic at all.

[Subpyro]

I cannot believe this topic has only been created and brought up yesterday. The matter is two weeks old as of right now. At any point, it's a little bit funny how the Chinese were meant to be the main target of the operation. The Chinese and Japanese government were never really on good terms, so I highly doubt the former will accept any requests from the latter. I assume this movement will end up in a failure, but cannot say I would like all the websites to stay. Some truly deserve to be taken down, but it's hard to find an objective line and say "here is where we cut".

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Not quite. This is a tracker you know? The law doesn't usually know the difference between linking to something and actually hosting said thing (sadly).

We're not a target. Our database still has some old trackers listed but it's woefully out of date, and we don't allow any licensed links on the forums. If we ever did get a C&D letter, it wouldn't be difficult to comply. Most members wouldn't even notice the changes.

We're just not a big fish in terms of content sharing anymore, just in content discussion.

In a broader sense, these moves have been made before. I wouldn't sweat it too much. If you still don't want to pay for anime/manga, there will be places to get it. They just might not be so out in the open as they used to be, at least until things cool down for a bit.

Like Saintess points out, these moves are done because of a poor understanding of economics, including consumer trends. It's an attempt to try and control a change in market forces that they don't really understand. They simply see each download as a lost sale, and they don't care, or at least don't want to understand, why consumers are abandoning their controlled channels in droves.

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Subpyro

I cannot believe this topic has only been created and brought up yesterday. The matter is two weeks old as of right now. At any point, it's a little bit funny how the Chinese were meant to be the main target of the operation. The Chinese and Japanese government were never really on good terms, so I highly doubt the former will accept any requests from the latter...All in all, I assume this movement will end up in a failure, but cannot say I would like all the websites to stay. Some truly deserve to be taken down, but it's hard to find an objective line and say "here is where we cut".

There were attempts to create threads like this, but they always focused around mentioning the ramifications on specific tracker sites, raw distro or scanlation sites, which we discourage even mentioning/naming on the forums.

Thisis the first thread that has discussed the overall event or action proper is all.

[GDB]

I knew I wasn't crazy thinking I saw a thread like this back around the 28th or 29th!

[Subpyro]

It's actually really tedious to post anything useful if you are restricted from naming the sites you specifically know the hip & happening about. In the end, it is what kills the potential highly informative posts on the thread. Rather ridiculous if you would ask me. Since that is the case, does this thread actually hold any more discussion value? The OP states it all, everything else can only be baseless speculations without taking any examples, which is basically running around in blind circles.