Educating new fans/parents about legal anime sources

GolGotha

Death Scythe
Basically, I got fed up of local cons doing nothing about dealers selling bootleg products, so I want to create a flyer or a brochure for parents/young fans to explain about why you should watch anime legally, buy official products, how to spot bootlegs etc...

The reason I want to also direct it towards parents is, not just to encourage their child to watch anime legally, but a decent percentage of bootleg items are purchased by parents as they aren't aware there's a difference, especially when these days the unofficial items are the same price as the official ones.

I was also planning to ask crunchyroll for a code to be placed on them for a free trial, to encourage new fans to use it, rather than using the first website that comes up in a google search.

And whilst I have a rough plan in my head, I thought, perhaps some of you have some input you would like to add to it?
 
Just adding my wholehearted support for this idea and stating that if anyone wants to debate fansub ethics or other such issues, please keep it to other threads (and within the forum rules!) - I'll be pruning any derailments in this thread quite strictly to keep things on topic.

The premise of this thread is based on the assumption that new fans and their parents will benefit from being directed towards licensed goods and legal sources and trained to avoid fakes :)

R
 
Hmm, perhaps a template for sending a complaint to the right parties at Trading Standards? I remember that MCM didn't give a hoot about the complaints people were making, but they can't stop the police and councils from dropping in and looking for evidence in person if they've been tipped off. If it's easy to look up the right places to send a complaint and fill in a template with their details, then it's possible people who realise that they were scammed will start filing reports instead of feeling powerless. And if it becomes a big deal then the con organisers will eventually have to stop being so feckless.

A list of known reputable traders is probably a must too so that people know which stalls are safe to buy from, then others can be pressured to join it by adopting a zero-bootleg policy...

(Heck, we could even rate cons themselves for how seriously they take reports and check their merchants are following the law. Overseas cons do this regularly; not sure why the English speaking world acts like it's the wild west.)

R
 
I did contemplate doing that as soon as I was home from the convention, but I thought that doing this first might be the best idea as then it would hopefully reduce the amount of sales at their stall, as I imagine the police wouldn't be there for when the doors opened.

Ah yes, great idea. I was so focused on doing lists of companies for DVD licensors/distributors and merchandise manufacturers, I forgot all about the actual retailers/traders lol
 
Any way you could link in MVM's Deal of the Week? I know not all of their catalogue is suitable for younger audiences, but £9.99 is a great price to encourage people to buy a series, rather than acquire it by other methods.
 
I was going to mention that VoxPhantom, thanks for reminding me.

Hmm, well that's disappointing. Guess an email can't hurt though, right? I mean, they already offer them for new users so it's not like they would be going out of their way...
 
A list of reputable traders is definitely a good idea. Especially considering that certain well-respected publications still advertise bootleg sellers....
 
Not sure if I could contribute much in terms of content, but I would be happy to help collate everything into a printable flyer, if it helps any. I deal with brochures and things for a living, so it wouldn't be much out of my way.
 
Thank you very much Prof, you're so kind! :)

st_owly said:
A list of reputable traders is definitely a good idea. Especially considering that certain well-respected publications still advertise bootleg sellers....

That's very true....sadly.
 
Yeah that is true.

I've also been having my own little 'tiff' with my parents as of late, they were showing me shops they had found on google and when I told them the items were bootlegs they got very defensive and insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and that I couldn't tell etc....sigh.

Hopefully everyone else's parents will be easier to deal with.
 
GolGotha, what a wonderful idea! Well done you for wanting to do something so productive and helpful. When I first got into anime, bootlegs were a thing that really confused me. I would look up every release I wanted, to find out the company who had officially released it and to be honest I really struggled to get my head round it all. I'm lucky in a way that I've never ended up with a bootleg.

Anyway, good luck! I'm not technically savvy in any way but if there was anything I could do to help I would be more than willing!
 
I know it was a while since I started this discussion, but would anyone on here be able to help me with writing some paragraphs? I don't have the same way with words as some people on these forums.
 
At the moment I was focusing on writing info on the streaming side of things, rather than bootleg merchandise, as that will take a bit longer, but as a lot of you will know from reading my stuff on the forum, I tend to be rather blunt...So, I will need someone to soften down my tone.

Topics I'm going to try and cover are:
What is streaming?
Where to legally stream
Why you shouldn't use illegal websites and/or download
The affect legal streaming numbers have on home releases
How much it costs to make anime
Watching anime on TV

Possible topics:
Why you shouldn't buy bootleg DVDs
How to spot bootleg DVDs

Any input on these topics would be ectremely helpful!
 
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