It's just as a matter of theory. However, with copyrights being granted to all sorts of useful rather than artistic things these days (software comes to mind) it becomes less a matter of money and more a matter of creative control.
YA Article that doesn't know codec from format
on
More on MPEG4
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· Score: 2, Informative
The point everyone seems to be missing in and about this article is that it's totally erroneous and misleading. Salon spends all it's time discussing alternative codecs (the compression/decompression algorithms that work on tracks) when the debate is really over format (the way in which the various tracks and data of a file are stored and coordinated). The MPEG 4 architecture, like Quicktime and Video for Windows and to a lesser degree Real and Windows Media, can use many different codecs, including VP3, ogg, mp3, DivX, and so forth, in addition to the default codec (which is also called MPEG4). Designing and implementing a robust architecture that can handle many different classes and instances of data in many different ways is much more complex than writing a simple compression algorithm. VfW, WMP, and Real all have severe limitations, which is why MPEG4 was based on Quicktime. Indeed, if MPEG-LA doesn't get it's act together, they may find Apple pulling the rug out from under them with an updated version of Quicktime itself. Apple didn't spend all that time and effort developing Quicktime 6 around MPEG-4 for nothing, and the similarities between the two architectures would make switching relatively simple.
They do run separate feeds, but you do raise the important point that as Digital cable and satellite systems that carry both feeds proliferate, and automatic PVRs that enable time-shifting proliferate, the whole issue of when is an appropriate time to show a show is moot. Ultimately, preventing kids from watching naughty stuff will have to rely exclusively on restricting programs based on ratings.
Well the obvious solution to the fansubbing "problem" is for them to take care of the international licensing, dubbing, subbing, and production while they're making and marketing the show so it can be released worldwide nearly simultaneously, while taking advantage of the larger market to lower costs for the shows. They should also invest and market/work with channels like Cartoon Network that actually put TV anime where it belongs - on TV. Then there'd be no demand for fansubs in the first place.
Instead the Japanese producers ignored the international market for forever, and even now make few efforts to distribute internationally directly. Meanwhile independent international distributors take a "wait-and-see" attitude to decide whether to bring a show over, which ironically enough depends largely on the response of the fansub community to the show to make the decision and generate pre-release hype. Neither of them puts any money into marketing to the general audience, instead focusing purely on the existing fanbase and the youngest audiences. They may lose some profits, but that's the price they pay for playing it safe. Maybe if these companies stopped blaming their market and started catering to them instead, they might actually make some money.
Are you sure this wasn't just your local UPN affiliate broadcasting syndicated cartoons? That wouldn't be the same as the UPN network having a cartoon block. It used to be many cartoons were syndicated, before the networks got involved.
For the record, MIB is a WB production, and DBZ is now basically a WB property since they took over Cartoon Network.
Kids don't wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. Even if they did, it's easy enough to prevent them from doing so, and more importantly worth the effort.
Now WB and Fox have to compete with Nickelodean and Disney/ABC. The market is oversaturated and not particularly profitable, which is why Fox is bowing out.
Plus, I don't remember a time when UPN ever had cartoons, seeing as how they're only a few years old.
I already knew that. Nobody expected Evangelion to be the way it was, so it ended up being shown (inappropriately) at 5:00. But they didn't pull it. Berserk, obviously, would have to be the latest of the late night. (2 sounds about right).
Since the swordplay in Kenshin rarely gets anyone killed, and borders on fantasy, they should have no problems showing it (not if they can show worse stuff on Cowboy Bebop anyway). There was only one scene in the whole series that I think deserves to be cut out (the one where Shishio cuts that guy in half).
I also prefer subs, but I don't expect them on TV - however, more anime on TV means more audience in general, and therefore bigger budgets and larger staffs to pick up and translate more shows for the video market. Possibly even rentals at the video stores. Actually since I mainly watch fansubs, that doesn't affect me much either.
Are you kidding? There's no end of shows they could air. Anime has been going on a looooong time in Japan.
The main thing would be to bring the titles that haven't made it to the American video market either to mix up the subject matter. Lupin, for instance, was a huge series, but only the movies and a couple of episodes have distributed commercially.
I think the only thing that will top the maelstrom of parents and the religious right screaming about all the sex, violence, and religion in Evangelion, will be the fans screaming a disbelieving "What the hell is this?!" when they air the last two episodes.
LOL... Evangelion with a TV-Y7 rating would be about 30 minutes long.
While I think Kenshin could air on Adult Swim with a TV-14 (and should), you raise a good point that a lot of anime has to be edited significantly even to bring it down that level. But why should they? Certainly parents will object, but we're not talking about shows for kids anymore. At some point CN is going to have to suck it up, ignore the parents, and start pitching AS to the advertisers for an older audience. Many, many shows get away with much, much more than CN is allowing.
One question that wasn't asked and I wish had been is: would Adult Swim, under the right circumstances, be willing to produce TV-M shows? For popular shows like Evangelion, Berserk, Love Hina, and so forth, that's what it will take. If they can do that, THEN we can really start going down the unedited path.
Also, I find it ironic that the two most heavily edited shows in the AS lineup air late at night, after FCC guidelines no longer apply. I don't understand why they can't just go back and splice in the original dialogue and scenes - it's easier than painting them out, that's for sure.
I suppose it was inevitable that while the majority of the world wrangles over the ethics of this technology, it would be developed anyway by a government with a total lack of them. While I am not opposed to cloning technologies on philosophical grounds, as a practical matter I trust the chinese government about as far as I can throw them.
You think slippery slime could have derailed the Civil Rights Movement by virtue of it being a non-lethal way of stopping a march? No way. When they turned the fire hoses and tear gas on the masses, people noticed. It only strengthened the movement. What mattered was that people were there demanding their rights, even when people were trying to stop them. Especially when people were trying to stop them. That just made them try harder to find way, which they did, and people noticed them more.
The only thing that works against non-violent protest is a populace that refuses to acknowledge their humanity. When Ghandi took on the British Empire, and MLK took on the US, they confronted peoples who admitted their fundamental humanity but had ignored it for economic and cultural reasons. Conversely when the Jews protested against the Nazis, and the Blacks against the Afrikaaners in South Africa, they were much less successful because the populations there regarded them as subhuman.
I'll assume "Hao Can" means good, or something. I don't speak the mandarin. Actually I've found the VCD for sale (under the name Taipei Sex Scandal) as a VCD, somebody probably just ripped and converted it to Windows Media.
I'm sure it seemed just awful for her in Taiwan, but now that it's become a worldwide phenomenon it crosses over from sad to hilarity. She ought to critique the film - give us the humorous play by play. After all, it's only sex. Well, I'm glad she's getting to make some money with her tell-all, the roommate that screwed her went to jail, and life goes on.
... Where can I get a Chu Mei Feng VCD before it goes bad?
South Carolina != Media Industry
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 2
It has not escaped my attention that Sen. Hollings hails from a state that, AFAIK, has absolutely nothing to do with the media industry, tech industry, or their adversaries. As such, any legislation he pursues in this arena will have little or no effect on his ability to be re-elected or to receive perks from the industry, despite what others may think.
I think you're on to something.
on
SSSCA Hearing
·
· Score: 2
The problem with all these copyright issues is that the general public doesn't know or care to know enough about it to care. This allows the corporations to run roughshod not only over matters of fair use but how and whether you get to use it at all. Their sole tactic with the public is to erroneously characterize anyone who objects as pirates, and they have a tremendous edge on the perception of the matter.
Well, two can play at that game. Start telling your friends that this will make their VCRs illegal. Get a couple of friends together on friday night and go hang out in front of your local movie theater to tell the patrons about this and claim there is a boycott going on. Make insinuations about the porn industry. Comment on the corrupt internal dealings of the media industry, and its lobbying power in government.
Anyone else have some good implications that will cause hyperventilation in the general populace?
Well duh... Japanese society is too cramped for there to be much privacy (or personal autonomy) at all. Their society is built around families and communities rather than individuals. It's been that way for ages. I doubt they see much point in worrying whether some company is watching them and tracking their habits - since plenty of people and organizations are doubtlessly doing it anyway and feel perfectly entitled to do so.
And yet, for all its restrictions and lack of privacy their society has not devolved into some drab 1984-ish autocracy. In fact it's one of the richest most cultured nations in the world. What a paradox.
Slashdot Mirror
He's made a career out of playing green characters.
It's just as a matter of theory. However, with copyrights being granted to all sorts of useful rather than artistic things these days (software comes to mind) it becomes less a matter of money and more a matter of creative control.
The point everyone seems to be missing in and about this article is that it's totally erroneous and misleading. Salon spends all it's time discussing alternative codecs (the compression/decompression algorithms that work on tracks) when the debate is really over format (the way in which the various tracks and data of a file are stored and coordinated). The MPEG 4 architecture, like Quicktime and Video for Windows and to a lesser degree Real and Windows Media, can use many different codecs, including VP3, ogg, mp3, DivX, and so forth, in addition to the default codec (which is also called MPEG4). Designing and implementing a robust architecture that can handle many different classes and instances of data in many different ways is much more complex than writing a simple compression algorithm. VfW, WMP, and Real all have severe limitations, which is why MPEG4 was based on Quicktime. Indeed, if MPEG-LA doesn't get it's act together, they may find Apple pulling the rug out from under them with an updated version of Quicktime itself. Apple didn't spend all that time and effort developing Quicktime 6 around MPEG-4 for nothing, and the similarities between the two architectures would make switching relatively simple.
They do run separate feeds, but you do raise the important point that as Digital cable and satellite systems that carry both feeds proliferate, and automatic PVRs that enable time-shifting proliferate, the whole issue of when is an appropriate time to show a show is moot. Ultimately, preventing kids from watching naughty stuff will have to rely exclusively on restricting programs based on ratings.
Well the intersting nature of Japanese pronunciation and transliteration means Lupin can also be spelled Rupan, thus dodging the issue.
Oh yeah. Also, fuck the French and their perpetual and overly-restrictive copyrights.
Well the obvious solution to the fansubbing "problem" is for them to take care of the international licensing, dubbing, subbing, and production while they're making and marketing the show so it can be released worldwide nearly simultaneously, while taking advantage of the larger market to lower costs for the shows. They should also invest and market/work with channels like Cartoon Network that actually put TV anime where it belongs - on TV. Then there'd be no demand for fansubs in the first place.
Instead the Japanese producers ignored the international market for forever, and even now make few efforts to distribute internationally directly. Meanwhile independent international distributors take a "wait-and-see" attitude to decide whether to bring a show over, which ironically enough depends largely on the response of the fansub community to the show to make the decision and generate pre-release hype. Neither of them puts any money into marketing to the general audience, instead focusing purely on the existing fanbase and the youngest audiences. They may lose some profits, but that's the price they pay for playing it safe. Maybe if these companies stopped blaming their market and started catering to them instead, they might actually make some money.
Are you sure this wasn't just your local UPN affiliate broadcasting syndicated cartoons? That wouldn't be the same as the UPN network having a cartoon block. It used to be many cartoons were syndicated, before the networks got involved.
For the record, MIB is a WB production, and DBZ is now basically a WB property since they took over Cartoon Network.
Kids don't wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. Even if they did, it's easy enough to prevent them from doing so, and more importantly worth the effort.
Tiajuana Bibles. Hentai Doujinshi. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Bring on "Dickey Mouse".
I don't know that any law specifying "life+x" is a good idea, particularly if x is small... it's too easy to set life=0.
Good point. Shitty parents like that aren't likely to complain either (and if they do we ought to sling their parenting habits right back at them).
Now WB and Fox have to compete with Nickelodean and Disney/ABC. The market is oversaturated and not particularly profitable, which is why Fox is bowing out.
Plus, I don't remember a time when UPN ever had cartoons, seeing as how they're only a few years old.
I already knew that. Nobody expected Evangelion to be the way it was, so it ended up being shown (inappropriately) at 5:00. But they didn't pull it. Berserk, obviously, would have to be the latest of the late night. (2 sounds about right).
Since the swordplay in Kenshin rarely gets anyone killed, and borders on fantasy, they should have no problems showing it (not if they can show worse stuff on Cowboy Bebop anyway). There was only one scene in the whole series that I think deserves to be cut out (the one where Shishio cuts that guy in half).
I also prefer subs, but I don't expect them on TV - however, more anime on TV means more audience in general, and therefore bigger budgets and larger staffs to pick up and translate more shows for the video market. Possibly even rentals at the video stores. Actually since I mainly watch fansubs, that doesn't affect me much either.
Or walking in on two guys in bed together and shoving a gun in one of their mouths.
Oh wait... that scene was edited. Didn't make much sense without it though.
Are you kidding? There's no end of shows they could air. Anime has been going on a looooong time in Japan.
The main thing would be to bring the titles that haven't made it to the American video market either to mix up the subject matter. Lupin, for instance, was a huge series, but only the movies and a couple of episodes have distributed commercially.
I think the only thing that will top the maelstrom of parents and the religious right screaming about all the sex, violence, and religion in Evangelion, will be the fans screaming a disbelieving "What the hell is this?!" when they air the last two episodes.
LOL... Evangelion with a TV-Y7 rating would be about 30 minutes long.
While I think Kenshin could air on Adult Swim with a TV-14 (and should), you raise a good point that a lot of anime has to be edited significantly even to bring it down that level. But why should they? Certainly parents will object, but we're not talking about shows for kids anymore. At some point CN is going to have to suck it up, ignore the parents, and start pitching AS to the advertisers for an older audience. Many, many shows get away with much, much more than CN is allowing.
One question that wasn't asked and I wish had been is: would Adult Swim, under the right circumstances, be willing to produce TV-M shows? For popular shows like Evangelion, Berserk, Love Hina, and so forth, that's what it will take. If they can do that, THEN we can really start going down the unedited path.
Also, I find it ironic that the two most heavily edited shows in the AS lineup air late at night, after FCC guidelines no longer apply. I don't understand why they can't just go back and splice in the original dialogue and scenes - it's easier than painting them out, that's for sure.
I suppose it was inevitable that while the majority of the world wrangles over the ethics of this technology, it would be developed anyway by a government with a total lack of them. While I am not opposed to cloning technologies on philosophical grounds, as a practical matter I trust the chinese government about as far as I can throw them.
Sounds perfect for transfering large quantities of ripped Indian Porn... wonder if they're all musicals.
You think slippery slime could have derailed the Civil Rights Movement by virtue of it being a non-lethal way of stopping a march? No way. When they turned the fire hoses and tear gas on the masses, people noticed. It only strengthened the movement. What mattered was that people were there demanding their rights, even when people were trying to stop them. Especially when people were trying to stop them. That just made them try harder to find way, which they did, and people noticed them more.
The only thing that works against non-violent protest is a populace that refuses to acknowledge their humanity. When Ghandi took on the British Empire, and MLK took on the US, they confronted peoples who admitted their fundamental humanity but had ignored it for economic and cultural reasons. Conversely when the Jews protested against the Nazis, and the Blacks against the Afrikaaners in South Africa, they were much less successful because the populations there regarded them as subhuman.
I'll assume "Hao Can" means good, or something. I don't speak the mandarin. Actually I've found the VCD for sale (under the name Taipei Sex Scandal) as a VCD, somebody probably just ripped and converted it to Windows Media.
I'm sure it seemed just awful for her in Taiwan, but now that it's become a worldwide phenomenon it crosses over from sad to hilarity. She ought to critique the film - give us the humorous play by play. After all, it's only sex. Well, I'm glad she's getting to make some money with her tell-all, the roommate that screwed her went to jail, and life goes on.
... Where can I get a Chu Mei Feng VCD before it goes bad?
It has not escaped my attention that Sen. Hollings hails from a state that, AFAIK, has absolutely nothing to do with the media industry, tech industry, or their adversaries. As such, any legislation he pursues in this arena will have little or no effect on his ability to be re-elected or to receive perks from the industry, despite what others may think.
The problem with all these copyright issues is that the general public doesn't know or care to know enough about it to care. This allows the corporations to run roughshod not only over matters of fair use but how and whether you get to use it at all. Their sole tactic with the public is to erroneously characterize anyone who objects as pirates, and they have a tremendous edge on the perception of the matter.
Well, two can play at that game. Start telling your friends that this will make their VCRs illegal. Get a couple of friends together on friday night and go hang out in front of your local movie theater to tell the patrons about this and claim there is a boycott going on. Make insinuations about the porn industry. Comment on the corrupt internal dealings of the media industry, and its lobbying power in government.
Anyone else have some good implications that will cause hyperventilation in the general populace?
Well duh... Japanese society is too cramped for there to be much privacy (or personal autonomy) at all. Their society is built around families and communities rather than individuals. It's been that way for ages. I doubt they see much point in worrying whether some company is watching them and tracking their habits - since plenty of people and organizations are doubtlessly doing it anyway and feel perfectly entitled to do so.
And yet, for all its restrictions and lack of privacy their society has not devolved into some drab 1984-ish autocracy. In fact it's one of the richest most cultured nations in the world. What a paradox.