Re: Nabeshin/Ayres panel at Oni-Con: The anime industry might only have five years...

On Nov 9, 4:37 pm, Sea Wasp <seawaspObvi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
starc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Nov 8, 4:30 pm, Sea Wasp <seawaspObvi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Then why are people actually paying for stuff they can get for free?

But NOT ENOUGH TO SUPPORT A NON-ZERO MARKET PRICE!!

You make me physically ill.

No, you make yourself ill by your innumerate stupidity. Sorry, but I
have to be direct here.

Do you have ANY idea how stupid you sound above? You accept that
people pay for stuff they could get for free... then say that it won't
support a non-zero market price.

You seem to think that because two or three (comparatively few, just
throwing a small enough number so you GET IT) do pay for it, doesn't
mean the market can support a non-zero market price.

I mean, a few people paid for Deborah Gibson's last single -- not that
that had a real market _EITHER_.

(So much so that I bet you can't name it without looking it up!)

You seem to think that, since there's ONE PERSON who'll pay, that the
market can support a price that can be paid, especially once which can
sustain the industry and those within it.

Are you that fucking dense???

ZERO means *NOTHING*.

Right. There's no market. That one or two outliers pay doesn't make
a sustainable market.

If ONE person would pay $5.00 for anime, that's enough to support a
non-zero market price. Market size 1, price $5.00. Or if you assume a
market of 500 people, price $.01. If you assume a market size of a
billion, $5/1,000,000,000.

Aah, so since ONE PERSON buys it, there is a market which the industry
can be sustained by.

Laughable bull***. You ARE that dense.

For there to be a market, it has to recover all relevant costs of
production -- read: it has to be worth having been released in the
first place!

You see, it's this supposition you have that the fansubbers have lived
by. SOME_ONE_ ELSE will buy it, so I don't have to.

You may, possibly, note that this is still vastly more than zero.

Not nearly vastly. And not nearly enough. Tell that to Greg Ayres
and Nabeshin.

In that case, only one DVD should be made -- for that market size of
one.

SO you are 100%, incontrovertibly, incontestably, wrong.

Even if that were the case, you are so far out-of-scale to the
realities of the industry that it's a wonder I can even try to have a
discourse with you.

Now, in practical terms, we need more than that. So let's, once more,
look at FACTS. In point of fact, a SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE of those who
go to the Baen Free Library then pay for one or more of the books they
download. Significant as in rougly 10% or more, IIRC. A considerable
number of them actually pay TWICE -- once for the electronic copy they
carry around, and once for a paper copy.

Why? An "obligation" which most anime fans spit at?

YOU HAVE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FAILED TO ADDRESS THIS QUESTION.

No, you completely lack understanding of people taking anime.

You are not even making sense now.

I'm not making sense to a person who seems to think a market size of
one can sustain an industry!

How? Who's paying for it? You seem to want to have people believe
that the stuff is already paid for to the extent that Nabeshin and the

Nabeshin DOESN'T EXIST, by the way.

Fine. My friend Dominic: "You know what I meant and you know it."

Given your utter disconnect and refusal to accept reality in other
areas that it doesn't agree with you, no, I don't. For all I know, you
think Nabeshin is real and Watanabe is fiction.

Oh, *** you and the high horse you rode in on, Sea Wasp. They're
even calling him by that name in the AnimeonDVD thread referenced
earlier here. So don't give me that bull*** -- you know who's being
discussed and you use that designation to ignore the facts he
presents.

(Unless, as I'm hoping some of you might actually charge if you
believe half the *** you're posting, you believe he (and the
industry) are lying to get more money.)

(... which would amount to fraud.)

1) Someone comes up with an idea for the show.
2) Show is pitched to executives who decide it's worth a try.
3) Work begins on show. AT THIS POINT THE CREATIVE TEAM STARTS
GETTING PAID. (actually, some of them may have been paid at point 2)
4) Once things are far enough along, a slot for the show is created,
and advertisers solicited.
5) Advertisers contract to have their stuff shown during show. AT
THIS POINT THE SHOW IS PAID FOR.
6) Show airs.
7) After airing, everything's gravy.

Or at least that's the way it should work. What happens when the
television companies (as some here have said now happens) discount the
fees the network pays to the studios (which is who the advertisers pay
-- not the studios directly, but the networks!!), expecting foreign
sales to cover the difference.

Then (*gasp*) they need to ...

Adjust their approach!

To account for the open theft of their material within hours or days
to the Internet.

So they have to bend over and take it up the ass from "fans" who rob
them blind. Nice industry approach, there.

They can still make money this way. It's been done this way for
DECADES, and there is NO reason it shouldn't still work. It DOES still
work for many shows here.

No they can't. If they could, the industry wouldn't be near death,
even stated from some of the people who are IN IT.

(Unless they are lying to you...)

Once more, you try to duck and weave and avoid the fact that the
Falling Sky... isn't.

"The reason for this argment in the first place is that if we as fans
don't do something about it, the Animeindustry is going to be GONE.
Let Me repeat for anyone who didn't hear me the first time. GONE."

-- Chris Ayres, the animeondvd.com forum thread previously referenced

(and don't even try to tell me that's out of context -- I think he's
pretty clear here)

He's either lying or you are. And I trust his opinion a Hell of a lot
more than yours.

What intellectual property would you make, and what disincentive is
there for that intellectual property not to be disseminated all over
the Internet 48 hours (or however long it takes to get the raws on the
Net -- I don't think it's that long...)?

WOULD I make? You mean DO I make. I write. I have been paid, and am
being paid, for that. In several ways.

And what would happen if I were to take all that stuff you write and
plaster it all over the Internet within 48 hours (or similar time
frame to the anime), making your business model useless?

Guess what:

MY STUFF WAS. Except in most cases *I* put it up on the internet.

Ahh, but that's the prerogative of the person who *gasp!!* OWNS THE
MATERIAL (you!!!).

At that point, you're at the mercy of the people who take it.

The difference here is that the copyright holders -- the owners --
aren't the ones doing it.

Will you concede?

No. The difference is obvious to a flea.

ALL of my books are currently available on my publisher's site -- FOR
FREE!

With what disincentive for people which makes them pay for it?

None. It's identical to the pay version.

Then why would anyone pay?

Why would I pay for your book, under any circumstance, at that point
-- even if I found it The Greatest Book Ever Written [tm]?

And electronic versions of them are ALSO available... for PAY!

With what incentive for people to want to pay?

The feel-good of paying ME money for a good story.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH -- especially in anime.

(WHICH, by the way, has now become the most downloaded entertainment
mode on the entire Internet -- rushing far past even porn! So, now,
the Internet is for... Anime????)

So it all goes back to obligation -- an obligation many anime fans
spit at.

And -- surprise -- people DO buy them! Even though they can -- and
many of them ALREADY HAVE -- get them for free! The EXACT SAME VERSION!

Why?

This is because people actually DO feel an obligation to pay. When
they don't feel ripped off.

AHA!!! _OBLIGATION_... An obligation which most (many, if not a
majority) of anime fans DO NOT FEEL!

The same number of them feel it as do any other people.

BULL***. We wouldn't be having this discussion if this were the
case.

Because it wouldn't be an issue!!

Thank you. We finally get somewhere. So to get people to pay for it,
you "impose" (not really, but that's the best verb I could come up
with) an obligation on them to pay.

Nope. I assume people are basically decent. And they are. As long as
I don't ask a ridiculous price for it.

Good assumption for your books.

Fatal assumption for the anime industry -- an assumption they've made
for years.

(Unless, again, you're saying the industry is lying.)

Guess what? No such obligation exists in fansubbed-glut anime, on
enough of a basis to save the industry from the fans!

And your basis for this bald-faced claim is... what, exactly?

Did you even go to the damn interview that is referenced in this
thread?

How about the subject of the previous 500-post thread, where the
Japanese government is asking for American intervention against all
this??

If such a "right thing to do" obligation existed, the anime industry
would be as healthy as you choose to (unbelievably!!) believe it is!

IT ISN'T!

Who in the anime industry has DONE the experiment? Who's, for
instance, offered the entirety of their new anime Cool Stuff for free
download, and also for pay download at, say, $1.00 per episode or some
other reasonable download price?

Like $1 an episode will help sustain the industry in any real aspect.

Do you even have a clue as to how many downloads they would have to
have to cover the costs of production of that episode at that price??

Do you even have the faintest clue as to how much an anime episode
costs (and then add the stuff on this side of the Pacific)???

That's why the standard price is pushing $7 an episode (and that's if
you get 4 for your $29.99 and not 3)!

They don't even download episodes on iTunes for that price for a lot
of American TV series.

Unless you have a real good example, there IS no basis for your
assumption.

You honestly believe that $1/ep is a good price?

I suspect the people are very much similar throughout all markets of
entertainment, at least when it comes to "do I think the creators
deserve some money -- but not too much money -- for this?"

Who gets to determine "TOO MUCH"??

Not, at first, the fans. They get to determine whether it's too much
after the OWNERS of the material place a price that they don't believe
is "too much".

That's how it all works.

How is it getting more useful when 90% of what one gets in their e-
mail is spam, spam, and more spam??

Because you ignore the spam and do business. And more people do so
every day. Thus, more utility.

I think you need to take a look at what Robert does.

No, really, I don't.

Because you have no clue of how much spam he has to wade through on a
daily basis as part of his _job_.

And, as I've said: The more he sees, the less he believes e-mail to
be viable. That's why we've stopped e-mailing as a viable means of
communication.

That's the same syndrome that affects people in criminal
investigation; they always deal with crap, so pretty soon that's all
they see.

You mean people who do the investigating, or under the investigation?

And how much spam do you have to wade through?

Some. I've never had a real problem with it, except with one email
addy I had for over 10 years and used freely. That one I finally
abandoned, but hell, most people change their CARS more often than that.

You must have one Hell of a filter system.

None that I know of. I just don't hand out my address.

And people don't phish for it?

I send email. I get email. Works real well.

For one person. Not as a systemic thing.

For the hundreds of people I do business with.

Not for the millions who have to look at their spam folders and wonder
where the Hell meaningful e-mail went.

You are failing to convince me.

Of course. You defy all concept of logic.

I'm a writer, not an anime producer.

Maybe you should become one.

Not blessed with artistic talent, it's not my thing.

Shouldn't matter. You seem to have a better business sense than you
believe the people in the industry have -- since they need all the
money they can get to survive, perhaps that's all which is needed
anymore.

Mike

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