8 ms·

Funimation End of Services

168 points by ajdude 3y ago

Macha 3y ago
The only reason it existed for the last year was they didn't want to negotiate to move licenses to Crunchyroll, so I suspect the remaining Funimation-but-not-Crunchyroll content is going to just have its licenses left expire rather than move over if they haven't moved it already. _However_, they're also not bothering to migrate purchased digital copies over, so people are losing access to things they've paid to "own". > What is going to happen to my digital copies? > We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. These Digital copies available on Funimation were a digital access to the content available on the DVDs or Blu-rays purchased. > Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported. However, we are continuously working to enhance our content offerings and provide you with an exceptional anime streaming experience. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to explore the extensive anime library available on Crunchyroll. Remember that when e.g. Ubisoft wants you to be comfortable not owning things...
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Wow. Ditching digital copies is just a garbage move. Generally Ultraviolet and now Movies Anywhere at least offer some robust persistence between services, but even movies not covered by those have been transferred to another service when someone shuts their streaming service down. I believe Vudu sells a lot of this content too, so if they really even cared about consumers they likely could've transferred the digital copies there.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
  I thought the intent was, "We should make the service trustworthy enough that customers are comfortable not owning things" e.g. Lots of gamers trust Steam. I don't hear of high-profile games going missing from Steam. And unlike a console or streamed game, at least you can back it up and try to crack the DRM in the future. Can't say that about basically any video platform.
  - incrudible 3y ago
    In this case you actually did get a physical copy, the digital one was just a bonus. Nothing stopped you from selling the physical copy and keeping the digital one either.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Generally when a game goes missing from Steam you can still play it, they just stop selling new copies due to licensing agreements on things like music expiring. But The Crew is making news recently for planning to pull the plug on their servers. This will also kill its single-player components because Ubisoft are dicks who made the single-player still require servers. https://www.ign.com/articles/the-crew-delisted-from-all-digital-storefronts-servers-shut-down-early-2024 https://www.ign.com/articles/the-crew-delisted-from-all-digi...
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
      My household has simple rules: no Ubisoft, no Sony, no Blizz/Activision. It helps that all three have been getting progressively worse over the years.
      - bryondowd 3y ago
        Just out of curiosity, why Sony? Only negative thing I can recall hearing about them is blocking cross play to protect their console lead, which didn't seem too unreasonable to me.
        wlesieutre 3y ago
        The Funimation shutdown is Sony Going back further, installing a rootkit on to customer computers to prevent ripping audio CDs
        pixelatedindex 3y ago
        I think there was a Discovery snafu as well? Like if you bought titles from the Discovery Channel on PSN, you don’t have access to those anymore. But I do think Sony should get a pass here. Or you have to blanket ban all digital goods but that seems detrimental. I understand the feeling though, as I too don’t buy anything digital outside of Steam.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >so people are losing access to things they've paid to "own". They would still own the physical copy of it. Having the bonus goods that come with the thing you buy not be available forever is nothing new.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    > Having the bonus goods that come with the thing you buy not be available forever is nothing new. That doesn't make it OK, that just makes it a long-standing bad thing.
  - jmward01 3y ago
    Nothing is a 'bonus' when you buy something. You paid for it, you should get it. I have never pirated a single thing in my life, but I am seriously thinking about doing it now. I have been forced to pay for the same thing many times over because the copy I 'own' doesn't transfer and it stops working. Why is it a crime if I rip a DVD I paid for but not theft if they stop providing a service that was paid for?
    - Larrikin 3y ago
      Where is it a crime to rip a DVD you own?
      - arcanemachiner 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping#Legality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping#Legality Looks like the UK, probably Canada, and maybe the US.
- dimmke 3y ago
  This is one of those issues that I really see both sides of. I think it's unreasonable to expect a company to be able to provide the ability to download content you bought once in perpetuity. Because it costs money, and companies shut down etc... Where it gets dicey is if the removal of availability of an item means you can no longer consume it even if you already have it downloaded. That's where regulation should come in. I just don't think it's tenable to have a regulation that says "If you're a company that sells digital goods with copy protection, you must always keep those goods available for download in perpetuity"
  - caconym_ 3y ago
    Is it a straightforward download? I've never used any of these "digital copy" codes but I always assumed they let you stream it on a closed platform rather than just giving you a DRM-free file you can do whatever with. Seems like this would be way less problematic if they offered a full download for a limited time. The real digital copy is on the disk itself, for those with an optical drive and a few minutes to search the web for appropriate software...
    - jonathankoren 3y ago
      All things are possible in software. It’s just that rich guys say what we’re not allowed to do.
    - dimmke 3y ago
      I think that's the problem is that it's different on a case by case basis. For example, a book I bought for Kindle on Amazon was recently taken off the store. But I am still able to download and access the book. It sounds like in this case, it was a locked down streaming situation that's going away because the company is simply merging into Crunchyroll and this is kind of a dangling thing they don't feel like bringing over with them. I'm not sure what the solution is - you could argue that the people who bought the physical media did so with the expectation of being able to also stream it digitally. But it's not like Funimation has the ability to just be like "Here's the video file, go ahead and download it" - even if they had the will to do so they likely don't have the legal ability. But they do retain access to a physical copy and of course, could just rip it. I think there is copy protection for DVDs and Blurays but that's long since been cracked. Not ideal from a legal/consumer rights perspective, but from a pragrmatic perspective it's the easiest solution (actually easiest would just be pirating an existing rip online likely.)
- joshspankit 3y ago
  > Remember that when e.g. Ubisoft wants you to be comfortable not owning things... Ubisoft took that profitable tactic from media companies (who have been wildly successful at using it. Who even questions the fact that music is licensed?) who ironically got it from software. I can’t remember who got the idea first, but Microsoft used the licensing model almost exclusively and that model hit the market hard to take away individual rights and give those rights to the companies. I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone on HN that those long “Click to Agree” documents are almost all licenses but there are people out there that don’t know that there was a time those didn’t exist and tangibly owning things was a core value of western culture.
  - eslaught 3y ago
    Music is the perfect counterexample to what you're saying. It's the only remaining digital platform where it's still possible to buy legal, DRM-free copies of digital files, which you can download to your own machine and thus ensure you retain access. Ebooks, audiobooks, movies, games all work like you say. (Less so with games, at least there are alternatives like GOG. But mainstream games are by and large not available without DRM.) Even podcasts are going that direction. But music, somehow, inexplicably, remains DRM-free even with all the mainstream labels.
    - mod50ack 3y ago
      The explanation is that CDs came along before DRM was a thing. The industry could not break compatibility with over a 15 years' worth of CD players, especially since people had them in their cars, etc. The home playing software always had the ability to rip CDs; you could do that long before iTunes was a thing. It was only a matter of time before record labels gave up on DRM. Now, since CSS was cracked, DVDs are, in practice, no harder to rip. But a company like Apple can't ship a DVD ripper in iTunes.
      - sspiff 3y ago
        > The industry could not break compatibility with over a 15 years' worth of CD players, especially since people had them in their cars, etc. Sure, not at first. But how long has it been since most people interacted with a CD player now? Most teenagers haven't, ever. Yet here we are, music is still being sold on CDs. Not that I want to put the music industry on some kind of pedestal as a paragon of virtue in the digital age, but it's certainly odd and noteworthy. > Now, since CSS was cracked, DVDs are, in practice, no harder to rip. But a company like Apple can't ship a DVD ripper in iTunes. DVD quality is not really of sufficient quality for most consumers today, though. Meanwhile, CD quality continues to match or exceed modern streaming services.
- koolba 3y ago
  They should refund all “purchases” that will no longer exist. I bet it’s going to be cheaper than the eventual class action lawsuit.
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    There would only be a lawsuit if the at-purchase license agreement for some reason didn’t cover revoking.
    - lmm 3y ago
      In any country with a decent government there would be a lawsuit. When you write "Buy" in big letters on the button, you have an obligation to treat that as a sale, whatever crap you wrote in the hundred-page small print.
      - fxtentacle 3y ago
        Yeah, which means in the US you can probably get away with it. And fleecing the US market will bring in more profits than you lose to EU lawsuits.
- p1mrx 3y ago
  https://help.funimation.com/hc/en-us/articles/23103586580244-Funimation-End-of-services https://help.funimation.com/hc/en-us/articles/23103586580244... > We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Announcer_voice_lines#Chamber_07 https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Announcer_voice_lines#Chamber... > The Enrichment Center respects your right to have questions or concerns about this policy.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  I think Cory Doctorow nailed the formulation here: If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing. Otherwise, if there are no negative consequences for a company deleting everyone's purchases, what will stop them from doing it every year just to boost profits?
  - cobbal 3y ago
    It's pithy, and I certainly wish more things were sold instead of licensed, but by this logic anything in a museum is also free for the taking.
    - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
      No. Copyright infringement is not legally theft.
      - cherryteastain 3y ago
        Correct, penalties for copyright infringement are far more draconian than theft.
    - stepbeek 3y ago
      But a museum doesn’t ask you to “buy” an exhibit… The misleading aspect of digital “ownership “ is in the use of the word buy.
    - breakfastduck 3y ago
      A museum isn't offering a purchase. Also, this is the same old false equivalence - taking a copy of something is NOT the same as taking the original, where only one instance of an item can exist and taking it deprives the original owner of their possessional.
    - suoduandao3 3y ago
      If the Museum originally got it from someone who stole it from somewhere else, there's a reasonable argument to be made. James Acaster's comedy bit on the british museum comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&pp=ygUcamFtZXMgYWNhc3RlciBicml0aXNoIG11c2V1bQ%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&pp=ygUcamFtZXMgY...
- austin-cheney 3y ago
  When it comes digital media if you don’t have it sitting on a hard disk in your physical possession free from DRM you don’t actually own it.
- citizenpaul 3y ago
  Wait until the MBA'S realize that constant spinning off streaming services and shutting them down can be a business strategy for infinite money reselling the same product access has been lost to Maybe they already have? Probably would be most effective on 5+ year cycle to give people time to forget.
efilife 3y ago
Why did they all start to replace "shut down" by "sunset"? It sounds stupid
- dgunay 3y ago
  As with most PR speak, it (on paper) makes it sound better. "Sunsetting" a service brings to mind these things: beauty, a gentle and gradual fade out, and the inevitability of natural phenomenon. Contrast with "shutting down" a service: a cold, calculated, and abrupt decision by a corporation. I don't think most people actually feel that companies owe it to anyone to keep services up long past their economic feasibility, but maybe somehow someone important felt some definition of bad about the language behind a shutdown announcement and came up with the term.
  - labster 3y ago
    Just remember that after a corporation does sunsetting the long, cold, dark night follows.
- omoikane 3y ago
  Some people are very sensitive to certain words. I remember there was one time during a certain company all hands, where one guy said something along the lines of "employees violating these policies will be terminated." And then the person next to him immediately jumped in and said "fired." There was some puzzled look from the first person. This happened a few minutes later when the first person said "terminated" again, and the second person again followed up with "fired". The original speaker now understood what's happening: "I meant to say their employment will be terminated, I don't mean we were going to kill them or anything." I don't think I heard the word terminated used after that.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    This is because you terminate employment, hopefully not people. Services do get shut down. It's the correct term. As a non-native speaker writing for non-native speakers, I use idioms, expressions and euphemisms very sparsely. They obscure the message and increase the mental burden on users. This is fine when you want to entertain your readers, but not when you want to communicate important information clearly.
Aeolun 3y ago
Got to love your page opens a blog post and immediately redirects to ‘this content is not available in your country’.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  Yep, incredibly lame.
hifikuno 3y ago
The thing I find interesting is the fact that Funimation (Sony) bought Crunchyroll [0], but decided to keep Crunchyroll as the main product instead. I guess Crunchyroll had better name recognition? --- [0] - https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/9/21547657/sonys-funimation-acquires-crunchyroll-deal-price-watching-anime https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/9/21547657/sonys-funimation-...
- coolhand2120 3y ago
  That and several million more subscribers.
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    and not initially being a piracy product, like Funimation was
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      No, Crunchyroll was definitely a piracy product at its roots.
    - krustyburger 3y ago
      You have the two mixed up. Funimation was not a “piracy product” the way Crunchy Roll was.
    - Hamuko 3y ago
      https://venturebeat.com/business/crunchyroll-for-pirated-anime-content/ https://venturebeat.com/business/crunchyroll-for-pirated-ani...
refulgentis 3y ago
Can someone ELI15? The possibility of corp speak euphemisms makes it hard to understand the recent developments. (I know Funimation is an anime studio, I know Crunchyroll is Netflix for anime, and I know there's some recent controversy over Funimation stuff being pulled from Crunchyroll, including past purchases, and I presume it's due to negotiations between the two parties.)
- booi 3y ago
  funimation is more of a licensing and distribution company than an "anime studio"
  - dylan604 3y ago
    This is selling it short though. They hire actors/writers/directors to dub the content in order to do the distribution. They didn't hire 3rd party companies to do it. They did it in house in their studios. They were as much of a studio as a company can get without animating the content themselves.
    - wdutch 3y ago
      They ask themselves the difficult question for every anime: which character will be voiced by Vic Mignogna.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        Yeah, their credit list does look repetitive, and I made that opinion known all the time myself. To be fair, look at a Scorsese credit list, and you'll see a list of repeated names too. Not saying anything FUNi ever did is near that level. If you know that backstory of FUNi, it makes a lot more sense though
      - krapp 3y ago
        Last I heard, Vic Mignogna had been more or less blacklisted from the industry due to sexual harassment allegations, so I don't think that question would be very difficult.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39308679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39308679
Eric_WVGG 3y ago
… so I'm just a dumb country software developer, but my understanding of corporate acquisitions is that the buying party was picking up both their assets and their liabilities. Why is Sony not obligated to honor the contracts that now-their company signed to? Customers weren't making a deal with Yoshi Funimation, after all, they made a deal with FunimationCorp™, now a subsidiary of Sony™.
- noobermin 3y ago
  The terms are usually written such that one party can unilaterally end the agreement, in this case, the provider.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    Also, companies are allowed to get away with attaching that fine print to large text labeled "Buy" because our legal system has completely given up on words actually meaning things.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    Also in cases where the company's being dissolved in bankruptcy, affected consumers will be near the end of the line and likely not get anything.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    So, divide your company in to two pieces, pull all digital assets in company A and license them to company B. Have company B sell (license) to the consumer. After product reaches market saturation have company A kill company B. Have company A license to company C and start the cycle all over?
- lmm 3y ago
  Because our consumer protection agencies have neither the funding nor the mettle to do anything, and voters have let ourselves sleepwalk into this state of affairs.
- virtue3 3y ago
  Actually it's worse than that... Funimation AQUIRED crunchyroll. Then changed their name. So technically it's still funimation under sony.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
"Why should I have Crunchyroll?" Is it just me? An ad for the "new" service when I might miss the old one, rubs me the wrong way.
_imnothere 3y ago
Now I hope all previously purchased users all become pirates just to teach Sony all these big corps a lesson
Suzuran 3y ago
Less anime in the world is a net win for humanity.
alexfromapex 3y ago
Surprised no one mentioned this yet but I bet they had to set the date on April 2nd because if it was on the 1st people would think it was an April Fools joke.

168 points by ajdude 3y ago

The only reason it existed for the last year was they didn't want to negotiate to move licenses to Crunchyroll, so I suspect the remaining Funimation-but-not-Crunchyroll content is going to just have its licenses left expire rather than move over if they haven't moved it already. _However_, they're also not bothering to migrate purchased digital copies over, so people are losing access to things they've paid to "own". > What is going to happen to my digital copies? > We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. These Digital copies available on Funimation were a digital access to the content available on the DVDs or Blu-rays purchased. > Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported. However, we are continuously working to enhance our content offerings and provide you with an exceptional anime streaming experience. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to explore the extensive anime library available on Crunchyroll. Remember that when e.g. Ubisoft wants you to be comfortable not owning things...

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
Wow. Ditching digital copies is just a garbage move. Generally Ultraviolet and now Movies Anywhere at least offer some robust persistence between services, but even movies not covered by those have been transferred to another service when someone shuts their streaming service down. I believe Vudu sells a lot of this content too, so if they really even cared about consumers they likely could've transferred the digital copies there.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
I thought the intent was, "We should make the service trustworthy enough that customers are comfortable not owning things" e.g. Lots of gamers trust Steam. I don't hear of high-profile games going missing from Steam. And unlike a console or streamed game, at least you can back it up and try to crack the DRM in the future. Can't say that about basically any video platform.
- incrudible 3y ago
  In this case you actually did get a physical copy, the digital one was just a bonus. Nothing stopped you from selling the physical copy and keeping the digital one either.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Generally when a game goes missing from Steam you can still play it, they just stop selling new copies due to licensing agreements on things like music expiring. But The Crew is making news recently for planning to pull the plug on their servers. This will also kill its single-player components because Ubisoft are dicks who made the single-player still require servers. https://www.ign.com/articles/the-crew-delisted-from-all-digital-storefronts-servers-shut-down-early-2024 https://www.ign.com/articles/the-crew-delisted-from-all-digi...
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
    My household has simple rules: no Ubisoft, no Sony, no Blizz/Activision. It helps that all three have been getting progressively worse over the years.
    - bryondowd 3y ago
      Just out of curiosity, why Sony? Only negative thing I can recall hearing about them is blocking cross play to protect their console lead, which didn't seem too unreasonable to me.
      - wlesieutre 3y ago
        The Funimation shutdown is Sony Going back further, installing a rootkit on to customer computers to prevent ripping audio CDs
      - pixelatedindex 3y ago
        I think there was a Discovery snafu as well? Like if you bought titles from the Discovery Channel on PSN, you don’t have access to those anymore. But I do think Sony should get a pass here. Or you have to blanket ban all digital goods but that seems detrimental. I understand the feeling though, as I too don’t buy anything digital outside of Steam.
charcircuit 3y ago
>so people are losing access to things they've paid to "own". They would still own the physical copy of it. Having the bonus goods that come with the thing you buy not be available forever is nothing new.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  > Having the bonus goods that come with the thing you buy not be available forever is nothing new. That doesn't make it OK, that just makes it a long-standing bad thing.
- jmward01 3y ago
  Nothing is a 'bonus' when you buy something. You paid for it, you should get it. I have never pirated a single thing in my life, but I am seriously thinking about doing it now. I have been forced to pay for the same thing many times over because the copy I 'own' doesn't transfer and it stops working. Why is it a crime if I rip a DVD I paid for but not theft if they stop providing a service that was paid for?
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    Where is it a crime to rip a DVD you own?
    - arcanemachiner 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping#Legality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping#Legality Looks like the UK, probably Canada, and maybe the US.
dimmke 3y ago
This is one of those issues that I really see both sides of. I think it's unreasonable to expect a company to be able to provide the ability to download content you bought once in perpetuity. Because it costs money, and companies shut down etc... Where it gets dicey is if the removal of availability of an item means you can no longer consume it even if you already have it downloaded. That's where regulation should come in. I just don't think it's tenable to have a regulation that says "If you're a company that sells digital goods with copy protection, you must always keep those goods available for download in perpetuity"
- caconym_ 3y ago
  Is it a straightforward download? I've never used any of these "digital copy" codes but I always assumed they let you stream it on a closed platform rather than just giving you a DRM-free file you can do whatever with. Seems like this would be way less problematic if they offered a full download for a limited time. The real digital copy is on the disk itself, for those with an optical drive and a few minutes to search the web for appropriate software...
  - jonathankoren 3y ago
    All things are possible in software. It’s just that rich guys say what we’re not allowed to do.
  - dimmke 3y ago
    I think that's the problem is that it's different on a case by case basis. For example, a book I bought for Kindle on Amazon was recently taken off the store. But I am still able to download and access the book. It sounds like in this case, it was a locked down streaming situation that's going away because the company is simply merging into Crunchyroll and this is kind of a dangling thing they don't feel like bringing over with them. I'm not sure what the solution is - you could argue that the people who bought the physical media did so with the expectation of being able to also stream it digitally. But it's not like Funimation has the ability to just be like "Here's the video file, go ahead and download it" - even if they had the will to do so they likely don't have the legal ability. But they do retain access to a physical copy and of course, could just rip it. I think there is copy protection for DVDs and Blurays but that's long since been cracked. Not ideal from a legal/consumer rights perspective, but from a pragrmatic perspective it's the easiest solution (actually easiest would just be pirating an existing rip online likely.)
joshspankit 3y ago
> Remember that when e.g. Ubisoft wants you to be comfortable not owning things... Ubisoft took that profitable tactic from media companies (who have been wildly successful at using it. Who even questions the fact that music is licensed?) who ironically got it from software. I can’t remember who got the idea first, but Microsoft used the licensing model almost exclusively and that model hit the market hard to take away individual rights and give those rights to the companies. I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone on HN that those long “Click to Agree” documents are almost all licenses but there are people out there that don’t know that there was a time those didn’t exist and tangibly owning things was a core value of western culture.
- eslaught 3y ago
  Music is the perfect counterexample to what you're saying. It's the only remaining digital platform where it's still possible to buy legal, DRM-free copies of digital files, which you can download to your own machine and thus ensure you retain access. Ebooks, audiobooks, movies, games all work like you say. (Less so with games, at least there are alternatives like GOG. But mainstream games are by and large not available without DRM.) Even podcasts are going that direction. But music, somehow, inexplicably, remains DRM-free even with all the mainstream labels.
  - mod50ack 3y ago
    The explanation is that CDs came along before DRM was a thing. The industry could not break compatibility with over a 15 years' worth of CD players, especially since people had them in their cars, etc. The home playing software always had the ability to rip CDs; you could do that long before iTunes was a thing. It was only a matter of time before record labels gave up on DRM. Now, since CSS was cracked, DVDs are, in practice, no harder to rip. But a company like Apple can't ship a DVD ripper in iTunes.
    - sspiff 3y ago
      > The industry could not break compatibility with over a 15 years' worth of CD players, especially since people had them in their cars, etc. Sure, not at first. But how long has it been since most people interacted with a CD player now? Most teenagers haven't, ever. Yet here we are, music is still being sold on CDs. Not that I want to put the music industry on some kind of pedestal as a paragon of virtue in the digital age, but it's certainly odd and noteworthy. > Now, since CSS was cracked, DVDs are, in practice, no harder to rip. But a company like Apple can't ship a DVD ripper in iTunes. DVD quality is not really of sufficient quality for most consumers today, though. Meanwhile, CD quality continues to match or exceed modern streaming services.
koolba 3y ago
They should refund all “purchases” that will no longer exist. I bet it’s going to be cheaper than the eventual class action lawsuit.
- joshspankit 3y ago
  There would only be a lawsuit if the at-purchase license agreement for some reason didn’t cover revoking.
  - lmm 3y ago
    In any country with a decent government there would be a lawsuit. When you write "Buy" in big letters on the button, you have an obligation to treat that as a sale, whatever crap you wrote in the hundred-page small print.
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      Yeah, which means in the US you can probably get away with it. And fleecing the US market will bring in more profits than you lose to EU lawsuits.
p1mrx 3y ago
https://help.funimation.com/hc/en-us/articles/23103586580244-Funimation-End-of-services https://help.funimation.com/hc/en-us/articles/23103586580244... > We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Announcer_voice_lines#Chamber_07 https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Announcer_voice_lines#Chamber... > The Enrichment Center respects your right to have questions or concerns about this policy.
fxtentacle 3y ago
I think Cory Doctorow nailed the formulation here: If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing. Otherwise, if there are no negative consequences for a company deleting everyone's purchases, what will stop them from doing it every year just to boost profits?
- cobbal 3y ago
  It's pithy, and I certainly wish more things were sold instead of licensed, but by this logic anything in a museum is also free for the taking.
  - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    No. Copyright infringement is not legally theft.
    - cherryteastain 3y ago
      Correct, penalties for copyright infringement are far more draconian than theft.
  - stepbeek 3y ago
    But a museum doesn’t ask you to “buy” an exhibit… The misleading aspect of digital “ownership “ is in the use of the word buy.
  - breakfastduck 3y ago
    A museum isn't offering a purchase. Also, this is the same old false equivalence - taking a copy of something is NOT the same as taking the original, where only one instance of an item can exist and taking it deprives the original owner of their possessional.
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    If the Museum originally got it from someone who stole it from somewhere else, there's a reasonable argument to be made. James Acaster's comedy bit on the british museum comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&pp=ygUcamFtZXMgYWNhc3RlciBicml0aXNoIG11c2V1bQ%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&pp=ygUcamFtZXMgY...
austin-cheney 3y ago
When it comes digital media if you don’t have it sitting on a hard disk in your physical possession free from DRM you don’t actually own it.
citizenpaul 3y ago
Wait until the MBA'S realize that constant spinning off streaming services and shutting them down can be a business strategy for infinite money reselling the same product access has been lost to Maybe they already have? Probably would be most effective on 5+ year cycle to give people time to forget.

efilife 3y ago

Why did they all start to replace "shut down" by "sunset"? It sounds stupid

dgunay 3y ago
As with most PR speak, it (on paper) makes it sound better. "Sunsetting" a service brings to mind these things: beauty, a gentle and gradual fade out, and the inevitability of natural phenomenon. Contrast with "shutting down" a service: a cold, calculated, and abrupt decision by a corporation. I don't think most people actually feel that companies owe it to anyone to keep services up long past their economic feasibility, but maybe somehow someone important felt some definition of bad about the language behind a shutdown announcement and came up with the term.
- labster 3y ago
  Just remember that after a corporation does sunsetting the long, cold, dark night follows.
omoikane 3y ago
Some people are very sensitive to certain words. I remember there was one time during a certain company all hands, where one guy said something along the lines of "employees violating these policies will be terminated." And then the person next to him immediately jumped in and said "fired." There was some puzzled look from the first person. This happened a few minutes later when the first person said "terminated" again, and the second person again followed up with "fired". The original speaker now understood what's happening: "I meant to say their employment will be terminated, I don't mean we were going to kill them or anything." I don't think I heard the word terminated used after that.
- nicbou 3y ago
  This is because you terminate employment, hopefully not people. Services do get shut down. It's the correct term. As a non-native speaker writing for non-native speakers, I use idioms, expressions and euphemisms very sparsely. They obscure the message and increase the mental burden on users. This is fine when you want to entertain your readers, but not when you want to communicate important information clearly.

Aeolun 3y ago

Got to love your page opens a blog post and immediately redirects to ‘this content is not available in your country’.

anonzzzies 3y ago
Yep, incredibly lame.

hifikuno 3y ago

The thing I find interesting is the fact that Funimation (Sony) bought Crunchyroll [0], but decided to keep Crunchyroll as the main product instead. I guess Crunchyroll had better name recognition? --- [0] - https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/9/21547657/sonys-funimation-acquires-crunchyroll-deal-price-watching-anime https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/9/21547657/sonys-funimation-...

coolhand2120 3y ago
That and several million more subscribers.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  and not initially being a piracy product, like Funimation was
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    No, Crunchyroll was definitely a piracy product at its roots.
  - krustyburger 3y ago
    You have the two mixed up. Funimation was not a “piracy product” the way Crunchy Roll was.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    https://venturebeat.com/business/crunchyroll-for-pirated-anime-content/ https://venturebeat.com/business/crunchyroll-for-pirated-ani...

refulgentis 3y ago

Can someone ELI15? The possibility of corp speak euphemisms makes it hard to understand the recent developments. (I know Funimation is an anime studio, I know Crunchyroll is Netflix for anime, and I know there's some recent controversy over Funimation stuff being pulled from Crunchyroll, including past purchases, and I presume it's due to negotiations between the two parties.)

booi 3y ago
funimation is more of a licensing and distribution company than an "anime studio"
- dylan604 3y ago
  This is selling it short though. They hire actors/writers/directors to dub the content in order to do the distribution. They didn't hire 3rd party companies to do it. They did it in house in their studios. They were as much of a studio as a company can get without animating the content themselves.
  - wdutch 3y ago
    They ask themselves the difficult question for every anime: which character will be voiced by Vic Mignogna.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      Yeah, their credit list does look repetitive, and I made that opinion known all the time myself. To be fair, look at a Scorsese credit list, and you'll see a list of repeated names too. Not saying anything FUNi ever did is near that level. If you know that backstory of FUNi, it makes a lot more sense though
    - krapp 3y ago
      Last I heard, Vic Mignogna had been more or less blacklisted from the industry due to sexual harassment allegations, so I don't think that question would be very difficult.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39308679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39308679

Eric_WVGG 3y ago

… so I'm just a dumb country software developer, but my understanding of corporate acquisitions is that the buying party was picking up both their assets and their liabilities. Why is Sony not obligated to honor the contracts that now-their company signed to? Customers weren't making a deal with Yoshi Funimation, after all, they made a deal with FunimationCorp™, now a subsidiary of Sony™.

noobermin 3y ago
The terms are usually written such that one party can unilaterally end the agreement, in this case, the provider.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  Also, companies are allowed to get away with attaching that fine print to large text labeled "Buy" because our legal system has completely given up on words actually meaning things.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Also in cases where the company's being dissolved in bankruptcy, affected consumers will be near the end of the line and likely not get anything.
- pixl97 3y ago
  So, divide your company in to two pieces, pull all digital assets in company A and license them to company B. Have company B sell (license) to the consumer. After product reaches market saturation have company A kill company B. Have company A license to company C and start the cycle all over?
lmm 3y ago
Because our consumer protection agencies have neither the funding nor the mettle to do anything, and voters have let ourselves sleepwalk into this state of affairs.
virtue3 3y ago
Actually it's worse than that... Funimation AQUIRED crunchyroll. Then changed their name. So technically it's still funimation under sony.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

"Why should I have Crunchyroll?" Is it just me? An ad for the "new" service when I might miss the old one, rubs me the wrong way.

_imnothere 3y ago

Now I hope all previously purchased users all become pirates just to teach Sony all these big corps a lesson

Suzuran 3y ago

Less anime in the world is a net win for humanity.

alexfromapex 3y ago

Surprised no one mentioned this yet but I bet they had to set the date on April 2nd because if it was on the 1st people would think it was an April Fools joke.