AnimeSuki Forums

Zeroryoko1974 · 2011-01-25, 14:41

Funimation is showing the internets it is 1337 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...over-one-piece

solomon · 2011-01-25, 15:45

Woah, scary.

Nihokon · 2011-01-25, 19:23

the fractale incident must've been a hard hit for them.

SilverSyko · 2011-01-25, 19:27

They've really been cracking down on the One Piece anime for the longest time. Lost one of my Youtube accounts because of it.

You can barely even share AMV's of the series online anymore. It's very disappointing.

Dr. Casey · 2011-01-25, 19:43

I wish Funi the worst in this endeavor.

InitialGT · 2011-01-25, 20:01

delete pirated media, pay legal fees, and pay for the episode. target the older fanbase with the money

glad i only watch new anime these days

xanas3712 · 2011-01-25, 20:04

I agree Dr. Casey, in fact, if anyone knows who downloaded this file we should make sure they are aware of this especially after the names are revealed.

I want to make sure that everyone who is sued knows their rights, understands what can be known from the IP address, and is aware of plausible deniability (open wifi/kids/etc, and it likely is a lot of kids with this being One Piece).

That doesn't mean they should lie (which is a bad idea, even with a civil action), but they need to know the importance of how to handle the situation. The worst thing that can happen here is that hundreds of these people give Funi settlement money after admitting everything up front. If that happens Funimation will be convinced they need to continue to pursue this kind of ridiculous action.

And if anyone of these individuals is buying One Piece or any other Funimation product that information needs to be made clear to all.

If any individuals is clearly under hardship financially, that should play into this.

As a customer who spends thousands of dollars on Funimation products I wish this is a PR nightmare for them, so that they will reverse course.

SeijiSensei · 2011-01-25, 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Casey

I wish Funi the worst in this endeavor.

Not me. In this case I side with Funi. You want to watch One Piece? Watch the licensed streams; it's why they're there. The only people I sympathize with are those who don't have a legal alternative like we do in the US. Americans who download fansubs of series shown legally via streaming services in the US don't deserve our support.

Really, what more could you ask of a licensor like Funimation? They give away in streaming the product they're trying to sell you on DVD.

xanas3712 · 2011-01-25, 20:22

So are you saying you think Funimation should be able to take hundreds or even thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees from individuals who even in aggregate probaby did not cost Funimation more than 15$?

My 15$ figure is based on them earning a profit of 1 cent on every one of the 1337 people, but web advertising minus bandwidth cost is probably less than 1 cent, and is probably dependent on clicks in many cases. Even if it's 10 cents we are talking about only 150$, but I am seriously doubting it's anything like that. And even if you say that it's 20k people who benefited from the 1337s uploading because each one seeded well over 100% the actual damages is negligible.

I won't get into why people might make the decision not to use a stream that has to do with preferences/etc. I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, but I can't see how you can believe justice is served when the nature of the actual damages and what copyright allows for are entirely out of sorts.

Full disclosure: I admit that I'm entirely against intellectual property. I'm sure that's no surprise. But even if you aren't against intellectual property I don't know how you can support "deterrence" damages which are not just in anything else. Who these days would advocate that even regular thieves have their hands cut off or be shot? And yet the level of discrepancy with copyright is just as much, given that the law afforded such decisions as hit one woman with well over a million in damages for a few songs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas

I hope that answers your question, it's not about what I expect Funimation to do, it's about what I expect them not to do. I'd prefer that they offer non-DRM'd files themselves since they get out there anyway, and if they did this I'd pay them for it myself (if it was 720p I might prefer them over the DVDs and BluRay discs that I buy from them now, at least in some cases, though I do like to have a physical collection I actually rip everything that I buy as it's more convenient to watch off external hard drives).

Envy · 2011-01-25, 20:32

Glad FUNimation is stepping up.

I can't think of any reason to have sympathy for those who chose to download the anime episode even when it was available for free and legally.

In fact, I hope this really goes somewhere. The people who do the downloading should be held accountable, as well. This time they can't just go to another site, they need to know that what they are doing is illegal too.

SeijiSensei · 2011-01-25, 20:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by xanas3712

So are you saying you think Funimation should be able to take hundreds or even thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees from individuals who even in aggregate probaby did not cost Funimation more than 15$?

Funimation is asking for $150,000 in total damages from 1,337 people. You do the math. It's a slap on the wrist with the intention of discouraging them from further infringement.

Quote:

I won't get into why people might make the decision not to use a stream that has to do with preferences/etc. I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, but I can't see how you can believe justice is served when the nature of the actual damages and what copyright allows for are entirely out of sorts.

No, it doesn't. All the claims about stream quality, etc., etc., is blowing smoke to defend copyright infringement. I infringe, too, but I limit my activities to shows that are unlikely to get an R1 release. I also buy R1 releases of shows that I've enjoyed when they become available here. How about you? If I want to watch a show that's streaming in the US, I watch the stream.

It sounds like you think this is a suit for ridiculous statutory damages like those the RIAA has been pursuing. It's not.

xanas3712 · 2011-01-25, 20:46

Any reason?
1) They didn't take any action that hurt anyone else. Business has no right to profit or to have people visit it's website. If people prefer torrents to their website the individuals either deem an advantage to the torrent (quality, ease of use) or are ignorant of the alternative.
a) Provided it's ignorance, suing them is hardly positive advertising
b) Provided it's the advantage of torrents, you may not have sympathy, but you should at least understand why the action is taken. At this point I think you have to justify why you think force can be used against them to extract money.

If you believe business has a "right to profit" you should think through the implications of that. Whenever you buy from Walmart instead of Grocery Store X is Grocery Store X ok to take you to court? If not why not, the lack of government-granted monopoly?

2) The damages and legal fees are far in excess of actual damages caused by the sharing of these individuals. How can you advocate penalties that far exceed the damage of the crime? Even if you believe in meeting crime with equal force (an eye for an eye), this is hardly that, it's much beyond that.

The implications of a punishment system based on deterrence that doesn't work (more than a decade of evidence to support that conclusion) is that it's ok to hurt people permanently in order to accomplish nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Funimation is asking for $150,000 in total damages from 1,337 people.

100 dollars is still excessive by a large margin, but not hundreds or thousands. Do you have a source? I did not find this in ANN's article or where ANN linked to, but perhaps I missed it.

Quote:

I also buy R1 releases of shows that I've enjoyed when they become available here. How about you?

I mentioned this in my post above, but to clarify I buy perhaps half of what Funimation releases each year. I recently received Sacred Blacksmith and Phantom from them for example, and i have other shows on pre-order from them now.

But I made these decisions voluntarily, which is proof that one can indeed be against IP and still buy things. The desire of some to control others for their own benefit through the use of government-granted monopolies is not something I can respect.

InitialGT · 2011-01-25, 20:59

^i think u're forgetting something

Funimation has the license and rights to produce One Piece and these people are pirating copies of it. In other words, these people stole goods. It doesn't matter how smart you word it, you can't deny the truth.

xanas3712 · 2011-01-25, 21:01

Oh geez, I'm not intending to get into a debate about the meaning of "stolen" but suffice it to say you can read more here if you want to know other ideas on that topic
http://blog.mises.org/9486/whats-wrong-with-theft/
http://blog.mises.org/9499/there-are...tual-property/

Hooves · 2011-01-25, 21:03

Now this is actually a very scary move by Funimation here, good thing I watch online.

cyth · 2011-01-25, 21:28

Funi can go ahead and sue those leet people, it'll be a good lesson for them so that they'll move to streaming sites or IRC, but for me personally, this means I won't be buying their Phantom DVD sets. And you've almost made a new customer!

I hear the story will be picked up by TorrentFreak, hopefully /. later on. Funimation just might have signed their death warrant, probably unwillingly too.

bayoab · 2011-01-25, 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by xanas3712

If you believe business has a "right to profit" you should think through the implications of that. Whenever you buy from Walmart instead of Grocery Store X is Grocery Store X ok to take you to court? If not why not, the lack of government-granted monopoly?

Except in your example both groups have a right to legally sell the item. Here, Funimation has paid for the exclusive right to make any money from people watching the show. Therefore if someone is watching One Piece, they should be making money off of it somehow.

Quote:

2) The damages and legal fees are far in excess of actual damages caused by the sharing of these individuals. How can you advocate penalties that far exceed the damage of the crime? Even if you believe in meeting crime with equal force (an eye for an eye), this is hardly that, it's much beyond that.

How is that excessive? Who knows what kind of damages Funi has actually had that are related to this and not just from streaming but other effects such as contractual losses (the recent Fractale incident?).

flying ^ · 2011-01-25, 23:01

i guess downloading from bittorent is as risky as downloading from limewire

Vexx · 2011-01-25, 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by flying ^

i guess downloading from bittorent is as risky as downloading from limewire

well... duh, yeah if you're downloading something in violation of copyright. People don't seem to grasp that when you're sharing a file in a cloud it is necessary that the packets know where to go and that requires an IP. You have to advertise you're collecting the file. One of those thousand other IPs might be a legal eyeball.... duh.

Now...otoh, the court rulings are trending against equating an IP to a person but usually they just mail DMCA notes or C&Ds.

Dist · 2011-01-26, 00:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Envy

Glad FUNimation is stepping up.

I can't think of any reason to have sympathy for those who chose to download the anime episode even when it was available for free and legally.

In fact, I hope this really goes somewhere. The people who do the downloading should be held accountable, as well. This time they can't just go to another site, they need to know that what they are doing is illegal too.

Because funimation releases awful 480p stream, with watermark on the lower right and some weird transparent bar at the bottom ? Plus, the subs suck.

That's quite enough reasons to download OP from groups that use proper raws and have good subs.

2011-01-25, 14:41	Link #1
Zeroryoko1974 Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006	Funimation Sues 1,337 Torrent Users Over One Piece Funimation is showing the internets it is 1337 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...over-one-piece <p>No iframe support, please <a href="http://youtu.be/FmXwLxgym5A">watch on YouTube</a>.</p> __________________

2011-01-25, 19:27	Link #4
SilverSyko Okuyasu the Bird Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alberta, Canada Age: 32	They've really been cracking down on the One Piece anime for the longest time. Lost one of my Youtube accounts because of it. You can barely even share AMV's of the series online anymore. It's very disappointing. __________________

2011-01-25, 20:01	Link #6
InitialGT Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005	delete pirated media, pay legal fees, and pay for the episode. target the older fanbase with the money glad i only watch new anime these days __________________ http://www.youtube.com/user/fishing666

2011-01-25, 20:32	Link #10
Envy Band Nerd ♥ Graphic Designer Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Tornado Alley Age: 35	Glad FUNimation is stepping up. I can't think of any reason to have sympathy for those who chose to download the anime episode even when it was available for free and legally. In fact, I hope this really goes somewhere. The people who do the downloading should be held accountable, as well. This time they can't just go to another site, they need to know that what they are doing is illegal too. __________________ *“The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you.”*

2011-01-25, 20:59	Link #13
InitialGT Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005	^i think u're forgetting something Funimation has the license and rights to produce One Piece and these people are pirating copies of it. In other words, these people stole goods. It doesn't matter how smart you word it, you can't deny the truth. __________________ http://www.youtube.com/user/fishing666

2011-01-25, 15:45	Link #2
solomon Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Suburban DC	Woah, scary.

2011-01-25, 19:23	Link #3
Nihokon Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2010	the fractale incident must've been a hard hit for them.

2011-01-25, 19:43	Link #5
Dr. Casey Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Tennessee Age: 36	I wish Funi the worst in this endeavor.

2011-01-25, 20:04	Link #7
xanas3712 Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2011	I agree Dr. Casey, in fact, if anyone knows who downloaded this file we should make sure they are aware of this especially after the names are revealed. I want to make sure that everyone who is sued knows their rights, understands what can be known from the IP address, and is aware of plausible deniability (open wifi/kids/etc, and it likely is a lot of kids with this being One Piece). That doesn't mean they should lie (which is a bad idea, even with a civil action), but they need to know the importance of how to handle the situation. The worst thing that can happen here is that hundreds of these people give Funi settlement money after admitting everything up front. If that happens Funimation will be convinced they need to continue to pursue this kind of ridiculous action. And if anyone of these individuals is buying One Piece or any other Funimation product that information needs to be made clear to all. If any individuals is clearly under hardship financially, that should play into this. As a customer who spends thousands of dollars on Funimation products I wish this is a PR nightmare for them, so that they will reverse course.

2011-01-25, 20:22	Link #9
xanas3712 Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2011	So are you saying you think Funimation should be able to take hundreds or even thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees from individuals who even in aggregate probaby did not cost Funimation more than 15$? My 15$ figure is based on them earning a profit of 1 cent on every one of the 1337 people, but web advertising minus bandwidth cost is probably less than 1 cent, and is probably dependent on clicks in many cases. Even if it's 10 cents we are talking about only 150$, but I am seriously doubting it's anything like that. And even if you say that it's 20k people who benefited from the 1337s uploading because each one seeded well over 100% the actual damages is negligible. I won't get into why people might make the decision not to use a stream that has to do with preferences/etc. I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, but I can't see how you can believe justice is served when the nature of the actual damages and what copyright allows for are entirely out of sorts. Full disclosure: I admit that I'm entirely against intellectual property. I'm sure that's no surprise. But even if you aren't against intellectual property I don't know how you can support "deterrence" damages which are not just in anything else. Who these days would advocate that even regular thieves have their hands cut off or be shot? And yet the level of discrepancy with copyright is just as much, given that the law afforded such decisions as hit one woman with well over a million in damages for a few songs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas I hope that answers your question, it's not about what I expect Funimation to do, it's about what I expect them not to do. I'd prefer that they offer non-DRM'd files themselves since they get out there anyway, and if they did this I'd pay them for it myself (if it was 720p I might prefer them over the DVDs and BluRay discs that I buy from them now, at least in some cases, though I do like to have a physical collection I actually rip everything that I buy as it's more convenient to watch off external hard drives).

2011-01-25, 21:01	Link #14
xanas3712 Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2011	Oh geez, I'm not intending to get into a debate about the meaning of "stolen" but suffice it to say you can read more here if you want to know other ideas on that topic http://blog.mises.org/9486/whats-wrong-with-theft/ http://blog.mises.org/9499/there-are...tual-property/ Last edited by xanas3712; 2011-01-25 at 21:20.

2011-01-25, 21:28	Link #16
cyth Banned Join Date: Dec 2006 Age: 38	Funi can go ahead and sue those leet people, it'll be a good lesson for them so that they'll move to streaming sites or IRC, but for me personally, this means I won't be buying their Phantom DVD sets. And you've almost made a new customer! I hear the story will be picked up by TorrentFreak, hopefully /. later on. Funimation just might have signed their death warrant, probably unwillingly too.

2011-01-25, 23:01	Link #18
flying ^ Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010	i guess downloading from bittorent is as risky as downloading from limewire