Comments on: Geoblock your face

By: bateszi

bateszi — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:32:38 +0000

What this comes down to is the Japanese refusing to take the responsibility for their anime outside of Japan. They out-source to others because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves. Of course, them changing that will detrimentally effect the businesses that rely on localising anime, Funimation amongst them, but sooner or later, it has to happen.

By: bateszi

bateszi — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:27:37 +0000

That’s a really logical way of putting it, Celeste. I guess that’s why it’s difficult for me to understand their mindset too, since I’ve basically grown up with the internet and ceased thinking about nationality a long time ago. We’re all just anime fans, I don’t know why borders have to exist online.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:45:34 +0000

I’m sure this is something that both you and Bateszi are familiar with: just because English is your first language people assume you’re American! Unfortunately, while this case is a step in the right direction there’s still a ways to go.

By: Brack

Brack — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:26:05 +0000

“On another note, try out Tor (the Onion Router), and try routing your connection through a North American server? that might work, though it’d be slow and a little garbled.”

Funimation’s video site is like that anyway, due to the bloated flv files they use.

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In fairness to Funimation, I’m sure they’d love to not geoblock the content, as there’s plenty on their video site that isn’t. The problem is likely that the rights are tied up with someone else in the UK at the moment as we’ve not seen hide nor hair of their One Piece DVDs over here either.

By: Celeste

Celeste — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:33:00 +0000

It’s simply a result of a dated world view from the generation previous to ours, I think.

The thing with the internet is that in reality, it makes physical space nonessential. It doesn’t matter that I’m on the West Coast of Canada, you’re in the UK and Owen is somewhere in the States, we can all converse, albeit in a staggered manner on the same topic at our will and with relatively little effort. On the same strand, this is how we all get fansubs: it doesn’t matter that the members of gg are scattered around the globe, nor does it matter that the people seeding that torrent are either: while speed does decrease over distance, the decrease is fairly small, and in the end we can still get the file.

Geoblocking doesn’t make sense to us because we live borderlessly, in the same way that the region’ed DVD system probably makes little sense to you as well. However, the generation before us - those at the helm of the industry - grew up in a world where physical location was paramount. So, they try to impose an old worldview onto a new system, and everyone punches their monitors in anguish.

On another note, try out Tor (the Onion Router), and try routing your connection through a North American server? that might work, though it’d be slow and a little garbled.

By: Owen S

Owen S — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:13:03 +0000

There will always be fansubs around, as long as this geo-centric approach exists–apparently it’s something that the licensors request, according to what I’ve read of interviews.

Which is still facetious bullshit, and doesn’t change the fact that the internet isn’t solely composed out of Americans; neither do they make up the majority of English-speaking anime fans.