Digital Distribution the Wave of the Future Panel Report

[Chris Beveridge]

Anime Expo Industry Conference Panel- Digital Distribution the Wave of the Future

Anime can now be easily found legally online, what does the future hold for this new medium of entertainment delivery? Security? Will this be an answer to solving the industry&rsquo...

More... (http://www.mania.com/digital-distribution-wave-future-panel-report_article_116153.html)

[Quarkboy]

Hehe, Sevakis is makin' trouble :).

[The Great Bear]

An interesting read. Looks like many in the American industry get it. Change or die.

[Doom85]

As someone who appreciates what digital distribution is doing but isn't as interested in watching it as much as DVDs, I'm glad the companies aren't viewing this as a replacement for DVDs, at least for now.

[Quarkboy]

An interesting read. Looks like many in the American industry get it. Change or die.

The problem is it's not them that needs to change, it's the Japanese. But it IS the american industry that will end up dieing first if the Japanese don't adapt.

[The Great Bear]

The problem is it's not them that needs to change, it's the Japanese.

It is, but the more strongly the American industry tries to get the message to the Japanese, the more likely they will get it. Left to their own devices, the Japanese, who don't care except that they will be left wondering why their licensing income has suddenly evaporated, will never really notice.

[Quarkboy]

The problem is it's not them that needs to change, it's the Japanese.

It is, but the more strongly the American industry tries to get the message to the Japanese, the more likely they will get it. Left to their own devices, the Japanese, who don't care except that they will be left wondering why their licensing income has suddenly evaporated, will never really notice.

As it is with these vicious cycle things, however, the influence the american industry has on the Japanese is proportionate to the amount of profit they make them, and it's precisely the lowering of that profit that is the reason the Japanese need to change.
I.e. the worse things get the less influence they'll have.

Also, there's something you are missing (that I've gotten a lot more familiar with myself lately).
The licensing companies in the US do not deal directly with the people in the animation companies that really could make a difference. Pretty much all negotiations and communication run through the international licensing departments of these companies, and those departments rarely if ever have any say over how things are done internally.

Funimation can yell at their contacts in Japan all they want, but it'll be pointless unless they can talk directly to either the internal production people or the real powers on the boards of directors.

That's actually why something most people passed off as trivial news a while back is actually a really important deal: Crunchyroll is now a member of the AJA (Association of Japanese Animators)... That gets them able to talk to the real people at these companies (if only informally at AJA meetings, etc) instead of everything being filtered.

[Bluecloud]

An interesting read. Looks like many in the American industry get it. Change or die.

It sounds like "Change AND die" to me. And even if they died you fandom wouldn't care and go get(or steal) another free stuffs, right?

[something]

An interesting read. Looks like many in the American industry get it. Change or die.The problem is it's not them that needs to change, it's the Japanese. But it IS the american industry that will end up dieing first if the Japanese don't adapt.
What I find interesting about it is how much of it doesn't involve R1 companies at all. The Japanese don't really need them in many cases, because we all know that most shows never get licensed, and didn't even during the R1 heyday. And that'll be true of many shows streaming now.

I think that's a really significant part of streaming that often gets overlooked in these conversations - there's a big big difference between an R1 company streaming a show they've licensed (whether they have DVD rights or not) and a streaming agreement between, say, Crunchyroll and TV Tokyo that has absolutely nothing to do with Funi or Viz or Bandai etc. Or Kadokawa directly streaming Haruhi 2k9 / Haruhi-chan in English on Youtube, for that matter. Streaming anime in English is broader than what we think of as the traditional R1 market.

[Mazinkaizer]

As long as there is a demand for it then it is only right for the companies to seize this and make profit from it else people will look somewhere else. Perhaps the US market can evolve before it's JP counterpart (if the latter ever change) by including digital distribution right in their licensing agreement or so. Llike what Funi did with some of their titles (such as: Black Blood Brothers).

Now for me, that does not interest at all as that i am bit old fashion and will only pay for the DVD/BDs, and will gladly continue to do so.

[Sensuifu]

The problem is it's not them that needs to change, it's the Japanese.

It is, but the more strongly the American industry tries to get the message to the Japanese, the more likely they will get it. Left to their own devices, the Japanese, who don't care except that they will be left wondering why their licensing income has suddenly evaporated, will never really notice.


There's one approach the Japanese can do that may net them revenue. The problem is, the American industry will potentially diminish to nothing by doing so. I'm not going to mention it because I like my discs. :P Thankfully, the R2 content holders won't consider it to be viable according to the subject matter mentioned in the first point of the report. So, the R1 industry will continue to be self-sustaining until both sides can evolve a profit-generating model. I had some lofty concepts regarding the DD model, but they probably won't pan out when implemented.