45 replies to this topic

[wtfhax]

apparently it seems like http://www.akb48wrapup.com/ will shut down, which is really sad to me, due to it being an overall awesome site.

If you care enough about the site, and don't want it to close, you could go here, and give them some feedback.

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓
http://www.akb48wrap...s-feedback.html

[goratnik]

I found this site yesterday and already closes down?!?

Spreading news.

[Picky]

I've posted a comment supporting them and offering suggestion on how to grow a community.

I hope they don't close down, I found out about it a few days ago and have been reading through all of the articles I can. It's a really good site.

[wtfhax]

I no longer support this website. The main author said he is actively trying to get trackers with idol related files shut down.

I even send notification to Japanese ministry to urge them regulate these online forums including hello-online.

[Erin.]

I've never heard of this site, but if they only started a few months ago, they shouldn't give up just yet. It seems to me that knowledge of the site has not spread around yet, and one thing they could do now is encourage people who do read the blog to share it with other fans. If their concern is the low amount of comments, they may need to recognize that not everyone wants to leave comments, but they can still appreciate the information. Most fans are used to forums, rather than commenting on news stories. In anycase, they should give it more time, and more people will likely come around.

edit: ^ Seriously?! Trackers and online streaming (etc) are foreigners' main way of accessing AKB material. Many people's fandom relies on it, and even Japanese fans use the tracker on H!O. If you want people to go to your site, attacking other sites isn't the best way to go about it.
He's probably just jealous of H!O.

[wtfhax]

Yes it is true . I said the exact same thing, but this guy is Japanese, so I guess he has a hard time understanding our position, and want AKB to get as large a revenue as possible. He said I should read his post on AKB0048, where he explains why he feel this way. To me it seems like there is nothing that will change his meaning on this lol. But whatever, I would much rather have my tracker than a news site :3 How would I even have become interested in AKB in the first place if it wasn't for illegal file sharing? It is not like I can turn on my TV and watch them by chance.

As I said again and again in this site, I'm all against illegal uploading. Some says it's because AKB items are ridiculously expensive overseas. But if you don't have a money to buy official distribution, why don't you work hard and earn more money? You can live without music and videos by the way? Some says it's because AKB items are not available in their countries or region code of DVDs in Japan are different from theirs. But that doesn't change the nature of what you are doing. It's illegal and can't be justified by any means. In addition it doesn't do any good for our girls. I don't want AKB48 to be called "idols who has become famous through illegal video sharing websites." Sadly though, I found myself that this is the most suitable description for the current state of AKB48 overseas.

Of course, those people who do fansub are basically passionate fans (before I said those people are not fans, but I have to admit that I was being mad. They are absolutely fans... passionate fans). But please remember. This Anime is a commercial products. TV programs are commercial products. I bought a DVD of this episode because it hasn't yet aired in my region. How easy can you findthis Anime online? That gives you an idea how much damage creators and voice actresses of this Anime suffers from illegal uploading.

But if I were not Japanese living in other parts of the world, I myself might do fansub, too. But at least I feel a sense of guilty that my illegal activity ultimately will give a bad name to AKB48 and ruin them. By the way one of the main reason why AKB48 is a target of social bashing is every contents related AKB48 are preyed on by illegal uploaders. Why does this happen? Because "some" people have no law-abiding spirit when it comes to Japanese contents, Anime and AKB48.

I rather want those people who can dare to commit a crime (yes uploading Anime is a crime) to direct their passion to do business for AKB48. Why don't you establish companies like Funanimation, officially distributing Japanese contests, if you are proud of being a fan of AKB?? I know some Singaporean who are engaged in the promotional activities for AKB48 in Singapore. Most of them are not fans of AKB48, yet, what they are doing is far better than illegal video sharing since what they are doing follows our basic rule, capitalism. We are living in capitalism not communism. Those who make contents with an intention to make money with them should be protected from those who wants to steal their sweating efforts. If you can't follow this rule, then you're not a member of our society.

Of course many people have their own occupation in the first place and can be involved in AKB related work or establish companies involving AKB contents. But current state where AKB48 produces contents just to be illegally distributed by overseas fans is absolutely lose-lose, isn't it? I hope those who truly love AKB48 understand what I'm trying to say. And I hope some people who have a entrepreneurial spirit take on the challenge to change this corrupted state.

And... please don't write your opinion on this in comments form. I don't want to bother about illegal uploading thing anymore. I've already come to the conclusion and I don't think there's room to discuss.

All of AKB0048-related posts on this blog is only dedicated to those who understand that illegal uploading can't be justified by any means, and those who have an intention to reward hardwork of creators and voice actresses. And if you're not, I think you might be in the wrong place. There's more suitable places for you. But I also want you to take a mental note. We can become friends if we try, even though we are enemy each other yesterday. Even if you can't agree with my opinion, if some day you change your mind, and came to understand my viewpoint, then I want you to come back here.

[Krusha]

Yawn.

OK, so he does a great job with translating news articles and Japanese blog entries, together with random 2ch stuff. Good job.

Then he wants to shut down the entire shebang because he doesn't get enough comments on his site. This to me just tells me that he doesn't understand how to run a site successfully at all.

And next he starts moralizing over file downloads with all sorts of speculative and rather nonsensical arguments. This in addition to his lack of understanding of how to run a site in the Western hemisphere so to speak, just makes me shrug my shoulders and think he is rather clueless as to how things really work.

Of course overseas fans knows very well how it is to be a fan of something you cannot get access to. If all files disappeared, it'd be near impossible to get to enjoy them the way it should be. Furthermore this is something I know very well from personal experience when I became a fan of Morning Musume 12 years ago. Getting files was hard as hell, and it was only a handful that had direct access to Japanese encoders who shared these files on private servers. What we did was that we traded with them, which was very hard since they usually had everything there was already. Next we would share with others so that everybody could get.

But overlooking this aspect of it, I would like to point out that so many studies today show that downloads of files itself is not something that necessarily means loss of money for the artist or company in question. At all.

All of this is incredibly complex, one must consider so many factors that it's just stupid to say "Downloading files hurts the artist. Also it is illegal, therefore it is bad", to put it like this. It just doesn't work to say this.

For one, there would not be a Western fan scene as large as it is today - for both H!P and AKB - if it wasn't for downloads. If we never ever could get ahold of audio or video and so on, and this was barred from our access from years ago, things would look very differently.

And we wouldn't have fans that buys their releases.

I always encourage people to buy what they like, as it should be.

But no artists are hurting because people downloads their TV shows. Nor companies. This is just stupid.


All of the things posted on that blog are translations of articles found on Japanese AKB blogs, or 2ch entries, or Japanese news articles. All of this is directly accessible to us already as it is, the only problem is that it is in Japanese which is a hindrance to some. Nevertheless we have Google Translate, Babelfish, and other translation services that works fairly well. In addition we have many other people who translates things, across different forums and blogs. Certainly not everything is translated, but it is available, and if you want to find out what an article is saying, you can get the main gist of it pretty easily.

His blog is not indispensable.

Files are. They are essential.

[wtfhax]

^ I pretty much couldn't agree more with this

[satchan]

What I do as a Western fan has no bearing on the Japanese market since anyone outside of Japan is not figured within the Japanese market. Me downloading a TV show in the United States doesn't hurt anybody in Japan because I don't have access to see it any other way and I am not figured into the ad revenue or television viewership anyway. Buying DVDs is a nice idea, but not all AKB related shows have DVD releases. As an NMB48 fan, I'm supposed to wait for DVD releases of Teens Hakusho to be able to see the show? When's that happening? When Kagai Jugyo Lesson gets one?

The idea of starting up a business to release AKB stuff in the West is extremely rose colored because it's not a viable business model. You can't possibly have a business run on AKB48 in the West and have it be successful, unless you can somehow ride the coattails of a local group, which I don't foresee happening in the nearest of futures. To the best of my knowledge, only two AKB48 items have been released in the US, Kamikyotachi and To Be Continued, and while I don't have the sale figures, I'd be shocked if either pushed a lot more than a couple thousand units. The amount of overhead to establish a company, deal with notoriously high Japanese licensing fees (I'm certain AKB licenses are not cheap, even by Japanese standards), and see such a limited payoff...you'd be out of business in months.

Lastly, I'm always skeptical on whining about file sharing for artists whose sales continue to increase. Claims of file sharing hurting the artist don't seem as plausible when they just came off their best sales week ever.

[Krusha]

Right.

It's an incredibly naive attitude to have, not to mention how he knows very little about how these things work.

Make no mistake, I congratulate him for his hard work on translating articles and similar, this is great - but he is totally clueless about the aforementioned issue.

[Picky]

Wow, after all the things he's said now I wish there was a way to delete my comment on it -_-

But looks like he's closed it to only invited readers now anyway. I don't want to give him any support at all if that's what he really believes.

[dev-null]

If it wasn't for the illegal downloads I wouldn't be a fan of the whole 48 groups these days. I downloaded by accident an AKBINGO! episode which started my fandom, illegally that is. As many here I'm also well aware that this is not legal.

But then... since I started my fandom I bought many photobooks, calendars, DVDs (even of shows I downloaded previously with 720p quality, like "Naniwa Nadeshiko"), concerts and uncountable amount of singles (well, lots of them... I just didn't count yet) — I even spend a huge amount of money to get photo sets directly from the official SKE48 and NMB48 shops (which costs a lot extra since those shops do not delivery overseas, so one has to go over an escrow service). All sums together to a huuuuuge amount of cash which I often wonder about if I'm not crazy because I spend so much.

So much about *lost* venue because of illegal downloads.

[Vodka]

Of course, those people who do fansub are basically passionate fans (before I said those people are not fans, but I have to admit that I was being mad. They are absolutely fans... passionate fans).

...how do we know this guy isn't just "being mad" again? :l

I agree with everything you guys have already mentioned. Buddy is just a little delusional.

You can tell even 48-management is starting to understand the growing level of the international fanbase.
Just look at all the ways they've opened up to the idea of welcoming international fans and making it easier for them to contribute their support! Expanding to groups outside of Japan, G+ and that oshimen message thing, broadcasting the elections live.....etc.

Online sharing is our gateway to discovery of these groups which otherwise, we would have never heard about! From there, as time goes on, we can find ways to support these new-found interests and in the end...that's a big win for "the industry". Plenty of re-sellers like CD Japan and YesAsia have long since recognized the need to include the global market -- and by us feeding through those re-sellers, we've been able to reach a high enough level for oricon to have international CD purchases from them included in the rankings.

But it all starts with getting it out there -- and that's where online sharing has helped "the industry" in so many ways that clearly, it can't even fathom (at least with the nonsense we see on YouTube these days with taking vids down/region blocking, and not even providing a good resource in return. In a way, it's like simply saying, "No, you don't live here...you can't have it!) and don't even get me started on DVD region coding.

*sigh*

Anyhow, I don't mind being part of the generation that has to pave the way for future international fans.
Sure, I'll take this guy's blame for causing a demand that forces great fansubbers to "give a bad name to AKB48 and ruin them".

If I, along with my fellow international fans, need to be the ones to march in the front lines, taking all the heat from the nay-sayser and industry professionals claiming that we're doing them more harm then good by helping to get more people interested and trying our best to support (to the best of our ability w/ such limitations) the very thing that they are marketing...

*cue patriotic music*

...then I shall continue to hold my head high in hope that one day...........it'll be a hell of a lot easier.

[Krusha]

What I find hilariously funny is that the foreign market is not really what a Japanese company takes into equation, so all in all anything sold to an overseas market is a 100% bonus for them.

Then of course one could argue, well what about those in Japan that pirates? But like said before, this isn't a black and white straight forward issue. We can never know who out of those who downloads "illegally" purchases products or not. Unless every single one of them specified in some large scale research, which I think would be unrealistic.

Some who downloads would never buy in the first place. So remove them from the download-equation, pretend they never downloaded in the first place, and what exactly have the companies lost in profit then? Nothing. They weren't going to buy anyways. And since downloading is digital and not physical, nobody ever loses a physical representation of anything. It's all digital. It's copies.

So, then we have those who downloads and buys. Naturally there's profit to be had here.

The only issue in the end is that of it being illegal in certain places, or the issue pertaining to morality -- which here could be discussed in great lengths, as we'd first have to establish what philosophical and moral standpoint is the one we'll be accepting. Obviously some - like this Japanese person - will argue that those who download files are criminals, are stupid, and evil and so on, just "because" - and that's that, to him. Others would argue that it's not as simple as that, and that it depends on context, and that one will have to consider many factors before one can dish out absolutes like aforementioned.

In the end I just have to say I am pretty tired of people who throw out such absolutes like this person, regardless of topic, mainly because the world isn't that simple, it isn't that straightforward. There are near infinite nuances to almost everything, and we need to be a little bit more open to these possibilities.

When a record company states that they lose money because people download songs they own the copyright to, people should question why instead of just accepting it at face value.

AKB48 turned the Japanese music industry on its head, by achieving ridiculous sales figures unheard of. They have broken records set in the late 90's/early 00's, a time period where digital downloads didn't even exist, at least not the way it does now.

And one may argue that CD's sold back then didn't include music videos or handshake tickets - but so what? A smart businessman will have knowledge about how to utilize circumstances to ones own benefit. And today customers demands a little more than just one song on a single. AKB48's product isn't just songs, it's the entire group itself, with everything they do. They are making sure there is a Reason To Buy, and people have no problems buying their products, if they enjoy them that is. And as such they have showed that they can answer the question of how to sell products in today's age with digital downloading.

Others seemingly are content with sitting on their collective asses whining about how technology is ruining their business, when they could use said technology for their own benefit.

AKB48 have been very quick with integrating subculture and technology to their benefit. And tomorrow we'll see another good example of this, with bi-lingual live streaming of a senbatsu election, live graph update +1's for members, and much more.

So, if more people emulated their creativity, and used technology to their benefit, we'd all be better off as a whole.

Anyways, a long rant. This guy should just close down his blog and go be bitter somewhere else.

[wtfhax]

"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24x7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company.
For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe."

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell

[Krusha]

Exactly.

Some people see opportunities and challenges, instead of problems.

Those who see opportunities and challenges, finds ways to work with circumstances. Those who see only problems, folds their arms and refuses to see the bigger picture, and paints everything into an "us vs. them" scenario.

[dev-null]

BTW, the really funny part is that the guy (or guys?) break copyright themselves. I have my doubts that they asked each of the original posters to get permission to convert their posts into another language and publish them elsewhere. Just because people post things for free on the net it doesn't put their posts automatically into the public domain.

So better it is, that they close their site down — one unlawful site less on the web!


/edit
Oh.. and of course there's no need to mention all the laws they break by utilizing all the pictures they have there.

[anhh]

Maybe is related to this...

http://asiajin.com/b...sing-its-posts/

[PCC]

-4 wota points for calling us communists.
srzzzly, i'm singaporean. don't get more capitalist than that round these parts. i personally know someone who works with AKB promoters.

oh, and i let capitalists use my toilet... well sometimes, if they're polite and don't steal anything. heh.

[TxBullnettle]

I have a favor to ask of everyone here, please keep supporting AKB48 Wrap Up if you can. I've been working as an editor on the Wrap Up for several weeks now, and went I went in I told the author that I found him because of H!O. I've also worked as a fansubber with Project Sub 48, and will do so again in the future. So this whole debacle has had me facepalming to the max. Through all of this Tom has been alienating the very people he's writing the blog for in the first place. In the time since he started this blog, before even the issue of trackers came up, it seems he has gathered a fair amount of antis. "Illegal" downloads was the one area he seemed to feel he could strike back at. The tracker is currently an invaluable and irreplaceable service for us, the overseas fans. I think the author is slowly coming to realize this, but in the meantime if you all could just leave a few supportive comments on his articles I would greatly appreciate it.

m( _ _ )m onegaishimasu