FUNimation & Bandai Entertainment Speak on Crunchyroll Print E-mail
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Thursday, 13 March 2008

FUNimationI'd called yesterday for the US releasing companies to take a stand against the likes of anime streaming site Crunchyroll, in the wake of their recent injection of VC funding. Both FUNimation and Bandai Entertainment have issued responses, and the word isn't entirely good. Read on below the cut.

First up is FUNimation, who had the following to say:

Funimation has been carefully monitoring the activities of crunchyroll.com for some time. Since 2006 Funimation has provided several letters notifying the site's operators of copyright infringement issues in connection with content that has been made available through this site. To date, crunchyroll.com has complied with FUNimation's demands to remove the applicable content.

The battle against unauthorized distribution of anime is a battle that Funimation cannot fight on its own. Without proactive and effective copyright policing and enforcement by those that control anime content, sites like this will continue to gain a reputation as outlets for free anime. If this happens, the entire anime industry will suffer, making the expensive and time consuming work of producing anime content for the U.S. market impossible. As we've stated before, we will continue to act in the best interests of our Japanese licensors — and that includes ensuring that our industry as a whole has a commercial future in the U.S.
The key part there is the second paragraph - FUNi don't have the resources to fight this battle on their own, and with Crunchyroll apparently using the notify & takedown rules to good effect, there may not be much more that FUNi can do anyway. Bandai's own statement echoes FUNimation's:
Bandai Entertainment Inc. announced today that it echoes Funimation's concerns over copyright infringement by sites that illegally stream anime.

Bandai Entertainment Inc. also informed the website crunchyroll.com to remove content that infringed on its copyrights and furthermore has been working with licensors in Japan, educating them about the pervasive illegal downloading and streaming of anime that has negatively impacted the market. Bandai Entertainment absolutely agrees with Funimation's assertion that this is an epidemic that will undermine the future of the anime business in Japan and the United States.

Bandai Entertainment Inc. will continue to work with other U.S. companies and Japanese licensors to fight against downloading and its negative impact on the US anime industry.
The bottom line from both companies seems to be that it's up to the Japanese licensors - the people at the top of the copyright chain in these cases - to step up and protect their property, and it's their apparent reluctance to do so that is the real problem to be addressed now. This may be a cultural thing (Japanese copyright law apparently allows not-for-profit infringement in certain circumstances, but I'm not a lawyer so don't take my word for it), but when the funding base of your business is at risk, surely you should at least be looking at what can be done..?
 
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