Educating new fans/parents about legal anime sources

[NormanicGrav]

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!

I hope this helps, though anyone can feel free to correct any of the stuff I've mentioned below (also my wording may be off on some points):

For 'Where to legally stream' my thread is a good help for that topic, I've covered every possible legal site so far.

For 'Why you shouldn't use illegal websites and/or download' I feel it's got something to do with this:
- Illegal sites use ad-revenue and YouTube players (with videos set to 'Private' judging by it) to stay alive. None of it goes towards the creators.
- Downloads have a combination of people who want to fansub shows because that particular show has been ignored or forgotten. While others are against certain companies like Crunchyroll and Funimation for various reasons, HorribleSubs in particular is against Crunchyroll as far as I'm aware. Stuff like this can affect the legal sites.

For 'The affect legal streaming numbers have on home releases':
- I think Aniplex, Sentai and Funimation check their streaming numbers to determine whether a show should get dubbed in English.

For 'How to spot bootleg DVDs':
- Any product sold that has 'END' (like 01-52 END) on the front cover is a bootleg, no official product does something like that.
- (UPDATED WORDING) Products with multiple descriptions in English and Cantonese/Mandarin generally are bootlegs, however the official Hong Kong and Korean versions have done this I think.
- Any product with a 'Malaysian Government approved' sticker is a bootleg, the sticker means nothing to anyone.
- If the product states it's a complete Studio Ghibli collection with every possible film released, it's a bootleg. Customers should take note that licensing restrictions can prevent certain films from appearing in one big collection. Grave of the Fireflies had some licensing issues I think which would prevent a proper collection release outside Japan.
- If they cram multiple episodes on one disc (like say 13 episodes or 5 movies) it's obvious they are bootlegs because the quality would be very low (like 240p resolution).

 

[GolGotha]

Thankyou Grav. I was going to use your thread as a template for that section.

Ah, see I wasn't aware they used youtube players for their content. I was aware of the ad revenue though...

On that topic, on facebook I commented on a post saying that the link they used was an illegal one and redirected them to a legal one, they said the reason they thought their link was genuine was because the website either asked for donations, or offered a subscription service. I dread to think how much money they make off of that.

 

[Buzz201]

For 'Why you shouldn't use illegal websites and/or download' I feel it's got something to do with this:
- Downloads have a combination of people who want to fansub shows because that particular show has been ignored or forgotten. While others are against certain companies like Crunchyroll and Funimation for various reasons, HorribleSubs in particular is against Crunchyroll as far as I'm aware. Stuff like this can affect the legal sites.

The Crunchyroll beef is a weird one, HorribleSubs seems to be mainly upset that the quality of CR's subs isn't as good as they believe they can do it.
Other people seem to have a problem with the fact CR covers it's own costs and actually employs members of staff, so not all of the money goes to Japan. (The first one I kind of understand, but the second one is so stupid it makes me question whether those people are actually intelligent enough to read subtitles in the first place.)

For 'How to spot bootleg DVDs':
- Any product with multiple descriptions in other languages (mainly English and Cantonese/Mandarin) is a bootleg, however the official Hong Kong and Korean versions have done this I think.
- If they cram multiple episodes on one disc (like say 13 episodes or 5 movies) it's obvious they are bootlegs because the quality would be very low (like 240p resolution).

I belive there a lot of official Scandinavian releases that have multiple Scandinavian languages (or a Scandinavian language and English) on the back to save money. So perhaps the wording would need to be a little more careful, like pointing out anything purporting to be a UK release with multiple languages on is a bootleg.

For 'How to spot bootleg DVDs':

- If they cram multiple episodes on one disc (like say 13 episodes or 5 movies) it's obvious they are bootlegs because the quality would be very low (like 240p resolution).

I don't own it, but from what I've heard Code Geass has about 12/3 episodes a disc on blu-ray.

 

[NormanicGrav]

For 'How to spot bootleg DVDs':
- Any product with multiple descriptions in other languages (mainly English and Cantonese/Mandarin) is a bootleg, however the official Hong Kong and Korean versions have done this I think.
- If they cram multiple episodes on one disc (like say 13 episodes or 5 movies) it's obvious they are bootlegs because the quality would be very low (like 240p resolution).

I belive there a lot of official Scandinavian releases that have multiple Scandinavian languages (or a Scandinavian language and English) on the back to save money. So perhaps the wording would need to be a little more careful, like pointing out anything purporting to be a UK release with multiple languages on is a bootleg.

I've changed the wording slightly if that helps, might be better or worse.

For 'How to spot bootleg DVDs':

- If they cram multiple episodes on one disc (like say 13 episodes or 5 movies) it's obvious they are bootlegs because the quality would be very low (like 240p resolution).

I don't own it, but from what I've heard Code Geass has about 12/3 episodes a disc on blu-ray.

I was generally referring to DVDs (in particular Bootlegs use DVD9). I know there's tons of space for multiple episodes on Blu-ray (for example with Discotek's Samurai Pizza Cats release they managed to cram 52 episodes on one disc, because it's all SD 480p).

 

[GolGotha]

Bootleg is a term to describe merchandise that was made without the approval of the official copyright holder. If you purchase a bootleg product this means that the money you are spending on the product doesn't make it back to the creator/s. When you buy officially licenced DVDs and/or merchandise you are helping to fund future projects, such as second seasons.

How to spot bootleg DVDs:

Being region free / region 0
while there are a few exceptions to this rule, such as Aniplex releases, the general rule of thumb is that region free/region 0 DVDs are bootlegs.

Languages
Whilst some official Hong Kong DVDs, such as the recent Space Pirate Captain Harlock movie, will contain English subtitles as well as Traditional Chinese subtitles, they are usually locked to a specific region, where as bootlegs are region free. So, as with region 0 dvds, the general rule of thumb is that DVDs with chinese subtitles are bootlegs.

Number of discs in a DVD boxset
A season is usually made up of 24 - 26 episodes and spread over 4 – 8 discs, not 3 or less. The more episodes on a disc, the lower the image quality, which is why official DVDs will have a higher disc count.

Boxset design
Bootleg DVDs will often say things like 'Vol. 1 - 24 END' rather than ‘Complete Collection'. They often use blurry or washed out images, sometimes even fan art, for their covers, as well as having a golden sticker stating that it's 'Malaysian Government approved'. Sadly, this sticker isn't worth anything.

I know this isn't perfect, but I quickly typed this up whilst I was eating a bowl of cereal. Will add to this later this evening.

 

[st_owly (witch)]

I would highly recommend linking to Justin Sevakis' "The Anime Economy" series on ANN for information about how much it actually costs to make anime and where the money goes.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I would advise noobs against buying anime on eBay as there's so many fakes out there. Key things to look for are sellers based in China, Malaysia, Singapore etc and all the stuff you mentioned about episode count etc.

Some old UK Beez releases also have multiple languages for the subtitles (English, French and/or German)

 

[Lutga]

I once saw someone trying to sell a fake Malaysian version of Yu Gi Oh which had something like over 200 episodes on a single DVD.

 

[GolGotha]

Thanks Owly! I had completely forgot about multiple languages on Beez releases. Will ammend

Really Lutga? I dread to think what that would look like...urgh.