VC for pirates.
Mar. 11th, 2008 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenCrunchyroll just got $4.05 million in venture funding. WHAT?!
[I link you to this post for background, but only because it's the only one I know of. (I just found this stuff off of AnimeOnDVD and haven't done any searching on my own.) Be warned that it's written by someone who doesn't seem to know anime or Crunchyroll or the industry very well, since he blithely declares that their content is "almost always dubbed for English speaking audience". (Wow, it's been so long since I've had to instruct someone in the difference between subs and dubs... It's like I'm back in my newsgroup days.)]
Even if all the content they have is unlicensed in the U.S., I can't imagine people letting this slide by. I mean, it's moving towards to the model fans dream of: domestic companies using (and preferably paying for) fansubbers' work to get shows to the fans as soon as possible rather than months or years after the Japanese air date. But something tells me Crunchyroll did not go about it the right way. Y'know, with the whole getting permission thing and all. (Almost definitely not from the copyright-holders. Possibly not even from the fansubbers.)
I mean, I have a lot of beefs with the copyright system, obviously, but this goes too far. And here I thought VCs were afraid to touch any company that even vaguely smelled of infringement. All you startups thinking the DMCA "chilled" innovation? It's all clear, come back out!
...man. I just don't know what to say.
But what I'm guessing will happen is that as this gets around, all of that $4.05 million is going straight into Crunchyroll's legal defense fund. I almost wish I was their lawyer.
ETA: I'm kind of annoyed by how AnimeOnDVD on its front page keeps saying $4.5 million instead of $4.05 million. They got it right in the forum post, and, I mean, what's $450,000 or so? 9_9;;
[I link you to this post for background, but only because it's the only one I know of. (I just found this stuff off of AnimeOnDVD and haven't done any searching on my own.) Be warned that it's written by someone who doesn't seem to know anime or Crunchyroll or the industry very well, since he blithely declares that their content is "almost always dubbed for English speaking audience". (Wow, it's been so long since I've had to instruct someone in the difference between subs and dubs... It's like I'm back in my newsgroup days.)]
Even if all the content they have is unlicensed in the U.S., I can't imagine people letting this slide by. I mean, it's moving towards to the model fans dream of: domestic companies using (and preferably paying for) fansubbers' work to get shows to the fans as soon as possible rather than months or years after the Japanese air date. But something tells me Crunchyroll did not go about it the right way. Y'know, with the whole getting permission thing and all. (Almost definitely not from the copyright-holders. Possibly not even from the fansubbers.)
I mean, I have a lot of beefs with the copyright system, obviously, but this goes too far. And here I thought VCs were afraid to touch any company that even vaguely smelled of infringement. All you startups thinking the DMCA "chilled" innovation? It's all clear, come back out!
...man. I just don't know what to say.
But what I'm guessing will happen is that as this gets around, all of that $4.05 million is going straight into Crunchyroll's legal defense fund. I almost wish I was their lawyer.
ETA: I'm kind of annoyed by how AnimeOnDVD on its front page keeps saying $4.5 million instead of $4.05 million. They got it right in the forum post, and, I mean, what's $450,000 or so? 9_9;;
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Date: 2008-03-12 10:28 pm (UTC)oh well good for them i guess ...
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Date: 2008-03-14 09:47 pm (UTC)I'm a bit curious where they'll make money, though. Didn't they recently remove ads?
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Date: 2008-04-02 08:48 am (UTC)Still, it's a step in the right direction, and having it legitimately streaming is getting closer to what fans would truly like.
Random tidbit: Ghost in the Shell is now available via iTunes. (BLEACH NEXT PLZ!!)