You know you’re on the right track when…
Here’s an interesting idea…
After the conversation mentioned in my previous post – an interesting thought sprung up. Let’s say Company X has offices in Japan and Europe, owning their company in whole they want to bring anime out quickly in the EU after Japanese TV release to recoup the money using undefined model of release Y. You need a source of quick and cheap subtitles.
But those aren’t easy to come by are the….oh wait a minute – they ARE!
How does this go:
- You inform fansub groups 1 month before you do so that their efforts translating your license are greatly appreciated by the group and that they will be used for their plan to distribute over internet TV shortly.
- In this mail you note they will of course be accredited for their work and a small royalty from any advertising may or may not be paid. If this is a problem they are free to stop subtitling at anytime.
- You pay a translator to check these subs and prepare their own as well in case fansub groups stop subtitling releases. But so long as those subs are accurate you can find loops to allocate that as part of your license release, after all what will a fansub group do…sue you for stealing their subtitles?
Suddenly there is far less incentive to pirate the titles both in the eyes of fans and the effort factor involved for fansub groups. No longer are they doing something daring and impossible, their work is just being yoinked and used by Japan to distribute the anime quicker.
Yes, two wrongs don’t make a right and stealing is inherently a very bad thing to do no matter what the reasons for it. But putting it bluntly, if you take a company’s work such as, say, Death Note and subtitle it KNOWING it will be released in the US very soon – then if a company takes the subs and uses them to speed that process up surely they’re helping a great deal? Especially if they have their own paid translator there to pick up the work as soon as fansub groups quit it. You have to admit it’s a double edged trick that takes a lot of tenacity and guts to try – but the irony of it is delicious…
I ran this idea past colleagues at each company in the UK market and the powers that be and it echoed as not a bad idea.
With that all done, I shrugged it off until I read this article on ANN. Japan seems to have come up with the exact same idea about a month after.
Small world really, but not bad for being on the ball with current thinking across the world…
The question is, piracy to fight piracy – is it really a solution?
February 18, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Well, if fansubbers were going to start sueing over use of their subs, they’d allegedly have sued Odex by now…
It’s a nice concept, but the bit I’d question is “to recoup the money on undefined model Y”. Are you talking about merchandising here, or DVD sales?
If merchandising (i.e. figures, t-shirts, etc) then that market in the west is tiny (and I so wish it was bigger, my HLJ order list attests to that). If DVD sales though, then if your saying to use the subs for official DVD release, how would this still hope to contend with the current fanbases concept of “anime for free”?
However, if your talking about the Japanese companies producing streaming or time expiry torrented English sub’d episodes for free or limited expense distribution, then we’re talking business (I know I’d personally pay upwards of £30 per month for a full access service of all the current series from Japan…)
February 18, 2008 at 6:38 pm
OK, I’ve been running this one through my head on the walk home; think of mmorpg’s, and why they are so popular. They normally require a monthly subscription cost, but it’s paid because it’s normally not out of the reach of those (kids) who want the service, and they *want* the service. Why are they popular?
It’s not just a game, it’s a community.
Community is also one of anime’s biggest draws (just look at the websites/forums: ANN, AUKN, Anisuki, AoDVD, etc, etc).
Now make an anime service out of that idea.
Specialist download software and custom media formats keeps it more exclusive (although judging from downloads .avi seem to far outweigh the visually superior .mkv by normally 4 to 1, mostly I’m guessing due to cross platform compatibility).
Subscription or instant purchase buys you tokens. Tokens give you the download of an anime show, or merchandise. Those fans who buy to download fansubs of Naruto prove that even “cheap” anime fans will buy anime if the price is right. Series popularity can also be tracked by download figures.
By itself it’ll still have a hard time competing with the free fansubs. Bring in the community, and you may have a seller though.
Make it so subscription gives you access to the biggest anime community on the planet, not just a download service.
Make it multilingual, make it something for both the Japanese and the rest of the world. I’m sure even Japanese anime fans who can’t catch TV airings would want the service. Bring in *all* the worlds anime fans, and let them mingle and breed.
Bring in the fansubbers to do the high speed translation work (pay them in tokens if you want), but also bring in the likes of ANN’s editorial staff. Bring in the publishers, the artists, the creators, *all* of the industry. Bring in the dojin and the fanart. Make it an anime multimedia haven.
Have reviews of products, have figure producers touting their wares. Show us the keychains, the wallscrolls, the cosplay outfits.
Expose even a casual anime fan to the sheer amount of merchandise and fan related goods out there, and chances are you’ll more than likely hook them for more than just watching anime
Don’t just make it an anime VOD, make it *the* anime world, and I think it might just sell.
Something like that is probably a pipedream. Bang enough heads together though and convince the community that something like this has to happen to make anime *work*, and you could build an anime utopia.
Perchance to dream….