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Piracy Boosts Anime Sales, Says Japanese Government Study
An anonymous reader writes "A new study seems to confirm what a lot of the Slashdot crowd thinks, and the opposite of what the **AAs say: 'A prestigious economics think-tank of the Japanese government has published a study which concludes that online piracy of anime shows actually increases sales of DVDs. The conclusion stands in sharp contrast with the entertainment industry's claims that "illicit" downloading is leading to billions of dollars in losses worldwide. It also puts the increased anti-piracy efforts of the anime industry in doubt.' More specifically, '(1) YouTube viewing does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it appears to help raise DVD sales; and (2) although Winny [a popular P2P program in Japan] file sharing negatively affects DVD rentals, it does not affect DVD sales.'"
due to the very large crowd of fansubbers and their fans. Almost universally, fansubbing groups place recommendations at the start/intercession/end of their subs urging their audience to buy the anime when it becomes licensed in their area. Many also suggest that everyone cease distribution of the series at that point as well.
Hard to say how many listen to that, but I know I've ordered box sets when they became available in my area, entirely because I was able to watch the fansubs and enjoyed the series and wanted higher quality and the extras they tend to ship with, and I know many others like me that way.
I'll hit up the anime fansubbing sites every week or two, and download a few eps of what's popular, and I go from there to decide what series I follow. It's too bad more things can't work that way normally.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
so what? Whether it's good or bad, it's still copyright infringement. The most this study could argue for is to encourage copyright holders to ignore piracy. It does not provide an excuse, or even a rationalization, for piracy. If you're looking for an ethical out, this isn't it.
It says nothing about the real problem with copyright, the continual extension of terms. Disney got rich copying from Mark Twain, Bros. Grimm, Aesop, etc., yet wants to prevent others from doing the exact same to them. THAT is the problem. As Lawrence Lessig has (unsuccessfully) argued, copyright exists to encourage the creation of works ("promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts," in the US), and extending copyright on existing works does nothing to achieve that.
I have no problem with laws protecting IP for limited periods (relative to the useful lifetime - longer for philosophical works, shorter for technological ones), but I do have a problem with keeping those works from the public domain indefinitely.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And legalizing everything and handing out heroin to addicts actually reduces drug addicts.
Don't expect Americans to actually take notice. They'll start imprisoning file sharers along with the drug users and promise it'll reduce piracy.
You think U.S. fans would know what to expect from a title like Bakemonogatari is without having seen a fansub first?
Turns out that the aforementioned title is a popular romantic fantasy story about a young ex-vampire and the various supernatural girls he meets. Its title is probably best translated as 'Ghost Story'.
Despite the relative obscurity of both the story and the source material, It has a fairly strong U.S. fanbase that will likely make publishing a run of Region 1 DVDs profitable for both the Japanese and North American companies involved.
Without fansubs, that market simply wouldn't exist and everyone would miss out.
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The article specifically mentions Japanese releases and sales within Japan. I don't think fansubbing has any relevance in this specific case.
Ask ten people if having an mp3 is to be considered a penal offence, and then work out the probabilities that such laws passed around the world represent the opinion of the people.
I must have said it here already. RIAA and all the others do studies too. They know that their public position on piracy = theft is utter BS. They don't fear pirated stuff, they fear the cropping up of alternative channels for the fruition of media. Because then the market fragments and the consumer becomes the Chooser.
From a numeric point of view, that should not matter to them if they spend 10 million to produce and promote a band or spend them producing and promoting 10 bands, as long that they make up more than 10 millions in record sales. On the other hand, Art has often been about entertainment on the receiving end, about influence on the producing end, and I see no reason why this should have never happened after WWII propaganda efforts.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Disclaimer: I am not very well versed in statistics and have only just read the Wikipedia article on Instrumental variables.
On page 14, the report discusses the model they use, which is a linear system of the log of the four variables they're trying to find relationships between. They then discuss 4 instrumental variables as well as two dozen or so dummy variables that describe aspects of the actual show, like when it is aired on TV, whether they have related drama CDs, net broadcasts, whether the anime was an original work or based on manga, novels, games, etc., who the target audience was and how many regions the show have been broadcast in. Table 3 has the full list, and also includes what I assume to be slopes in log-log space from their analysis as well as a "t" factor for which I'm not sure about. The four main instrumental (non-dummy) variables are: DVD price (number of thousands of yen per episode, how long a video on YouTube persists ... while the series is airing, within 1 month of that particular episode airing, and after the series is finished airing).
Table 4 is a chart highlighting that there is a negative correlation with DVD price and DVD sales, but a positive correlation of DVD price and YouTube views. There were also positive correlations between how long a video managed to stay on YouTube after airing of the TV show has been completed and DVD sales, rentals and YouTube views, but a negative correlation with Winny downloads.
According to Wikipedia, use of instrumental variables is one way to see if there is actual causation between two variables. However, I'll leave it to someone more well-versed in the subject to see if the report is accurate or not.
In 1930 if you asked 10 people if having some hemp should be a penal offence, you would have been laughed at. A couple of years later they renamed it and prohibited it. With a good propaganda campaign it didn't take long for most people to agree that possessing some marijuana should be a penal offence if not a capital crime.
It's amazing what you can get accomplished with control of the media and a good propaganda campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism