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Comcast Targets Unlicensed Anime Torrenters
SailorSpork writes "According to a thread on the forums of AnimeSuki, a popular anime bittorent index site, Comcast has begun sending DCMA letters to customers downloading unlicensed fan-subtitled anime shows via bittorrent. By 'unlicensed', they mean that no english language company has the rights to it. The letters are claiming that the copyright holder or an authorized agent are making the infringement claims, though usually these requests are also sent to the site itself rather that individual downloaders. My question is have they really been in contact with Japanese anime companies, or is this another scare tactic by Comcast to try and reduce the bandwidth use of their heavier customers now that their previous tactics have come under legal fire?"
Are we in the right to demand Comcast to reveal the name of the copyright holder upon receiving a DMCA notification?
I've been running a personal mailserver for the past four-plus years off of Comcast, this Thursday or so they just started filtering SMTP connections to it. The IMAP / IMAPSSL / etc connections all were working fine. Anyone else seen same?
Unlicensed doesn't mean uncopyrighted. It just means no company yet has the rights to produce an English-language version for local distribution. The original creators still own the rights to the work, and may enforce it as they see fit.
The "don't torrent licensed anime" rule held by many fansubbers or fans is considered a moral restriction, intended to get more fans turned on to anime in general or a specific series in particular without drawing revenue away from (and thereby discouraging future) English-language versions. It has no basis in law; licensed or not, downloading anime is copyright infringement.
That said, this story is still bizarre. Why care if an unlicensed anime is available with fansubs? I suppose if a future English-language release is forthcoming but not announced, they could think they're making sure they don't lose any customers. But if that's the case, it's still misguided for two reasons: 1) fansubs tend, historically, to increase sales of the released product, since they generate buzz about a show - hell, they're the only reason anime is popular here at all. And 2) the aforementioned "don't fansub licensed work" rule works in their favor, and such a bad-faith enforcement will shatter the basis for what's essentially a tentative moral code. Treat your fans like shit and they'll return the favor.
But even this foolhardy move seems unlikely, since these are releases from different companies being targeted, many of them tremendously unlikely to see a region 1 release. It really does look like Comcast is generating these DMCA notices itself, which is just... bizarre. I'd laugh if they weren't completely without competition in so many markets, meaning for some people this sort of bullshit is effectively inescapable. I'm not a libertarian, but can we get a LITTLE help from the free market here, people?
Add into that the fact that the internet is the only avenue for getting these shows in a translated format without having to wait for X years if licensed, or forever if not licensed. Standard domestic shows you can just watch it on regular TV or set up a DVR.
hehe, people in many parts of the US have no options. They've allowed their market to be dominated by a few players who are in cahoots.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Thus far the Japanese animeka's and mangaka's have never protested. I have also not seen any such hints in the Japanese media."
Not true. Japan has issued a formal statement to the US government asking it to take measures to prevent the illegal distribution of Japanese creative property.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-10-23/japan-asks-america-to-stop-illegal-net-releases-of-anime
But it wouldn't cut into their employees' bandwidth. With the right software, Comcast could just monitor their customers' downloads and get copies of all the anime for their own use. ... I think I just realised why the NSA tries to intercept so much traffic.
Hmm... Why do I watch anime? That's a good question. Several reasons that I can think of off the top of my head are:
:)
1) It's not the standard US crap that's all pointed at the lowest common denominator. Most US shows are so blatantly dumbed down that it's absolutely pathetic. Anything that strikes of being intelligent (and isn't a medical or criminal drama) usually ends up taken off the air in a season.
2) It gives a different perspective on life sometimes. The characters are of course larger than life and more extreme than reality usually is, but some of the differences in how Asians and Westerners perceive life is fascinating.
3) Anime doesn't need a $100 million dollar budget to put out a good solid high quality show.
4) Good anime is timeless. Just borrowed some old 80s anime from a friend, and it's just as irrelevant today as it was then. Still fun to watch though.
5) I don't have to put up with some annoying fluff head that thinks their opinion suddenly matters because they play a character on TV.
6) I don't have to put up with laugh tracks.
7) Voice actors on anime don't get paid a million dollars an episode like some American "actors."
8) I was a fan of Nagel http://www.patricknagel.com/ and Olivia De Bernardis http://www.eolivia.com/ so... The fan service can be fun...
9) Different mythos and cultures can really make a show interesting to me even if I think the premise is kind of dumb.
10) Did I mention no fluff headed "actors" that couldn't make me believe they were on fire if I doused them with gasoline and put a match to them myself?
I tend to like the longer story arc anime, although a few of the shorter works are just as interesting. Cowboy Bebop was one of my favorites. I wrote bail for 2 years, and sometime the characters just reminded me of people I knew in the industry. Hikaru no Go was an interesting series as well, since it showed a glimpse into what it's like to be a Go player in Japan. I don't usually like the "Big F**king Robot" anime, although I do have a few exceptions to that rule (Armitage, Bubblegum, GunBuster). And although Naruto is a secret (well, not anymore) vice of mine I'm not really a big fan of the "Ninja" crap. What I mostly like about anime though is that the characters actually tend to develop as the series continues, unlike the cardboard cutout US characters. Most of the time it really doesn't matter to me what the setting is, as long as I can find the characters compelling.
A better question though might be: Why do people continue to watch the crap that American companies have continued to foist off on the world as "art?" Like "Survivor." After the first couple of episodes, I kept hoping they'd drop a nuke on them to give the bastards something to survive. Or "Lost." I figured out why they didn't get rescued. No one gave a flying fsck if they ever got off the damn island. "Dresden Files" I liked, but of course SCIFI killed it so they could have more wrestling (True, it's fiction, but is there REALLY any Science in pro wrestling?). I have 200 channels and I usually end up on Cartoon Network, TBS, Nick at Night, Discovery Channel, or the History channel.
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
Now that Comcast is actively monitoring and selectively interfering with traffic doesn't that mean they are no longer a common carrier? Aren't they now obliged to detect and stop all the child porn and all the unlicensed & infringing material, and slander & libel, and terrorist threats ?
More importantly aren't they legally responsible for such content on their network? Can't they now be sued by various interests?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
However, the letter posted in TFA doesn't look like a DMCA takedown notice. It looks like just a warning about acceptable use policy infringements. If they'd been DMCA notices then Comcast would apparently be committing perjury.
It's interesting that so many folks don't understand what anime is. I've helped run a club for nearly a decade so what I can tell you and why it's loved has more to do with it's format I suspect. I prefer to call them anime series because most series are about 12-26 episodes long. Imagine going to watch a good movie and having it last for 12-26 episodes. It's why I like anime, they can go far more in depth than a good movie plus they cover topics that would give our censoring groups a heart attack. Some views on religion or god for example are interesting. Also there's a massive variety. Imagine the variety that a movie rental has. That's the diversity that anime has. Plus if you find something you like, you'll have a good 12-26 episode series versus only 2 hours of fun.
I find it sad that most folks still consider anime as being for kids only. That's as bad as saying Movies are for kids only. Or video games are only for kids. They arn't.
As for why torrenting is popular. Anime has an interesting distribution style which is something the North American companies should study. Originally when I first joined anime years ago it was tough to find it. Now you can find nearly anything licensed or unlicensed online. While the general idea is that once a North American company licenses it, the torrenting is suppose to stop it doesn't. Halariously most copyright holders don't entirely care. That's because they don't have to spend a cent on advertising and a series gets popular by it's own credits. Fans then go out and buy the overpriced series they like. So there you have it, it's all online for you to pick and choose and if you really like it you can shell out your hard earned cash. I guess in a sense this means that fans end up paying for the pirating but hell, if you really love a series don't you want more people to see it? Win-win for both consumer and producer I say. ISPs of course lose on this the most due to all the torrent traffic.
It doesn't necessarily have to be your employer to be acting on good faith. It could be someone else claiming an interest and you can be acting for them. However, good faith doesn't necessarily get you out of trouble.
Point is, if you don't know better then you cannot attest to the state of ownership so your complaint is false anyways. If I tell you that is mine, stop it from happening, and you file a DMCA take down, you better have a reason to believe I'm not lieing to you. Similarly, when you do this for a company, you are acting as an agent for that company so if it is something obvious, you and the company can be fined if not more trouble. Perjury is one of those crimes where you have to have some knowledge of your deception. Making a claim that you have no idea of can be part of the knowledge because you had no clue to the facts that you are claiming. so it would all depend on the facts associated with the greater reality of things.
Anime in general is not porn. Yakitate Japan for example. It centers around the idea of "Furansupan" (French Bread), "doitsupan" (German rye-based bread), "itariapan" (Italian bread), all exist. So a boy blessed with solar hands perfect for kneading bread decides to create a bread for the Japanese people, a Ja-pan.
This is something not likely to be licensed in the US.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Sure, in some countries.
In this case, however, the copyrights are explicitly held by the publishing companies. The Japanese government can ask the US government to do something about it.. but that doesn't mean that a private company can start sending c&d notices to people for copyrights they don't own..
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
That's easy and hard to explain: Good plots.
:)
The average TV show loses its appeal after a handful of episodes. It becomes repetitive, if it was any good and intriguing to start with. Most shows today are predictable and quite devoid of any plot twists. IMO, a waste of time, because you only get to watch what was a given after 10 minutes of the show. Rarely if ever a show manages to capture me, that's why Lost lost me after about half of the first season. It was a given that there will be no revelation, that the big obstacle they are about to solve gives them any more insight instead of yet another set of questions that will remain unanswered in suspense over the next couple episodes.
Here's where anime shine. You get resolutions, and quite often fairly surprising resolutions, yet the story can continue. They're also not so terribly set dead on a "happy end". Heros can fail. Heros can die. When you watch a common western show, it's a given that the hero either survives or dies some heroic death saving the day. That's not necessarily a requirement for anime. When the hero gets into a tight spot, it's not a given that he comes out somehow.
Animation offers a lot of freedom in that area. You don't need to go through a lengthy casting for your hero and have to cling to him, since it would certainly be a waste to "use" him only for a handful of episodes or a season, or have him die mid season because it would fit nicely into the plot. It's also easier to keep such deaths a surprise. If the actor who's playing some hero in a series takes a role in some movie for the same year, you have a good chance that he'll be gone soon. No such thing in anime. Moreover, you can have long term contracts with your voice actors even if their role dies. Assign him a new role, have him use a different tone and you're set. You can't do that with an actor.
Not to mention that SFX are a lot cheaper. Blowing up a building doesn't cost more than a lengthy talk in a cafe. Actually, it costs less.
Especially that last point leads to a lot more action and a lot faster paced story development. You'll rarely see "filler" episodes where you can actually smell that the budget wasn't big enough for anything but "characters sit down somewhere cheap and discuss their backgrounds".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As for your flamebait about "this proves the free market sucks!", why don't you tell us what country you are from, and what the population density is where you live? I'd bet that places in the U.S. with a similar population density have at least as much choice in the broadband market as you do.
I know this is kind of off topic, but apparently I've been blacklisted by Comcast for just uploading a hard drive back-up to Mozy.com.
I sent them an email and requested to know the bandwidth limits so I can stick to them from now on, instead of them just throttling me without warning.
We'll see how that goes over. I'm expecting a form letter back.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I was in college, I got a chance to join and play with an anime club. I still have the marks - anyway... I helped out with a fan sub, we had a library that people checked out tapes from, and had six hour drives to the regional all weekend long copy sessions. The way we'd copy them was to chain a whole bunch of VCRs together and have somebody play a master tape. Whoever went to the copy session would then drive the six hours back and enter the tapes into our library. The new tapes were hoarded until the weekly session and then we'd watch the shows.
I suspect that the amount of work required to bring new content to the US was very large compared to the level of profit (or lack thereof) for the effort to be worthwhile. With the advent of bittorrent being used to distribute fan subs, it's a heck of a lot easier to distribute and you get (in theory anyway) a higher quality of goods, with a much wider distribution network.
As a hardcore RPG player, I'm dismayed by the amount of space manga has eaten up in your average bookstore, but it's the same thing that's driving this move to lockdown fan-subbing - there's a market now and the company wants you to pay for it in money. You used to have to pay for it in effort.
You can thank my bad memory for all the oil we have now - I kept forgetting where I buried the bodies. Now, GET OFF MY LAWN!!
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I think the blank-media levy is a good idea; I'm not particularly fond of it. Regardless of how I feel, though, that doesn't change what the levy does and does not allow as it currently stands.
The supposed benefit of the levy is to reimburse any "loses" that copyright holders may incur due to their material being pirated. In an ideal world, the more money they make, the more music/movies/etc they are willing to create and release to the public. Artistic talent of any form is a valued cultural commodity, so the more we generate the better it is for society.
Now please keep in mind, this is what the levy is supposed to do. In my personal opinion, I agree with you with respect to your following statement, except for how you present it (see below):
I don't think its fair that we should all have to pay the levy to compensate for these loses; however, in fact, we don't. This is where your labelling of the levy as a "tax" is misleading; it is not a tax like those that we pay for roads/health-care/etc, because not everyone has to pay it. If you don't want to pay the levy, don't by blank media that it applies to. In the case of CDs and DVDs, you can buy "data" versions to which there is no levy.
How do you figure that the entertainment industry is receiving revenue they haven't earned? I don't have the numbers to prove it one way or the other, but the principle behind the levy is to provide them with revenue that they would otherwise have received if not for content piracy. I propose to you a third possible conclusion:
These are not the "only" conclusions, there are many more not listed here. The two you present may be the only two you are willing to accept, but that does not mean either of them is correct. I am not a government insider, so I can't tell you whether the government was acting in good faith or is dealing under the table with the industry (I have my beliefs, but they are irrelevant here). But either way, the letter of the "law" still implies that copyright infringement is not legalized by the levy.
HOWEVER (and this is why I hate these things.. so complex), note that there is a difference between your "free downloads" and copyright infringement. In Canada, it is still legal to download copyrighted material as it is considered "making a copy for personal use." The analogy used in court (I don't have the judges name or a citation handy) is that copies for personal use will be legal as long as there are photocopiers in libraries. In Canada, copyright infringement comes into play when you start uploading copyrighted material.
See, that's exactly why corporations have way too much power. I think if there was actually a threat of the corporate equivalent of jail (forced closure of the business for a period of time) and capital punishment (revoking of the corporate charter), corporations wouldn't be able to get away with a lot of what they do today.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz