- Home
- Anime and Manga
- FUNimation and its response to recent video tampering
FUNimation and its response to recent video tampering
- By Phyl Good
- Published 06/9/2009
- Anime and Manga
-
Rating:
Phyl Good
View all articles by Phyl Good
This sounds like a rather harsh judgment, and perhaps it is. But fan forums are buzzing in recent days over FUNimation Entertainment’s response to the fact that its security was breached and some of its streamed videos recently tampered with. Some feel the company is trying to stomp out a gnat with big hobnailed boots, while others think it hasn’t come down hard enough.
The basic chronology of the streaming woes goes as follows. First, each episode of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom was to be streamed for free on the company’s video site, with English subtitles, every week following its initial airing in Japan. However, FUNimation accidentally released episode four in advance of its Japanese airing. This wasn’t an incident of hacking, however; it was just an error on the company’s part.
Then episode 403 of One Piece, another series on the video site, was leaked ahead of its Japanese broadcast. And finally, the most recent episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was also leaked before it was due to stream on FUNimation’s site. That one, at least, didn’t get out ahead of the Japanese airing. Small mercies.
But that leak was the last straw. The company finally announced that it was suspending its video airings until it could revamp its security and try to guarantee that such things could not happen again.
On Friday, June 5, 2009, the Anime News Network interviewed FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga about the recent breaches and what was being done about them. Fukunaga did admit that his company had made errors. For one thing, they had been uploading the latest episodes to their website well before the Japanese broadcast, keeping the videos inactive until the official agreed-upon moment when they could be made public in North America. It was those episodes that were accessed before they were supposed to be. So from now on, any series being semi-simulcast won’t be uploaded until just prior to when they’re allowed to be streamed on FUNimation’s site.
The company is also tightening both its internal and external security, though naturally Fukunaga wasn’t about to reveal exactly how they were doing this. There’s no need to hand potential hackers the key to the back door; at least make them work for it if they’re still determined.
What has created the controversy among fans, though, is the promise of stern legal retribution. Fukunaga claims that FUNimation will not be going after individuals so much as groups who distribute the leaked episodes: fansubs, torrent sites, and so on.
As he says, “We are currently gathering evidence against any group involved in this practice and are taking the necessary steps for enforcement of our rights.”
The problem some fans see with FUNimation’s response is that a heavy crackdown will basically be an attack on fans themselves, even if a few of them did indeed break the law and infringe the company’s rights. At best, all the company can accomplish is a charge or two against very few people, while a much wider group of fans will be angered by the actions.
Some reason that if the company was so lax as to leave videos lying around with little security to begin with, it’s their own fault and they shouldn’t be surprised that some episodes were tampered with. This may not be entirely fair, since the company has admitted that it made mistakes in that area. But attacking fans and groups who really love the anime series will create anger and, some argue, discourage people from wanting to buy the product instead. In many cases, the people who download pirated episodes are those who can’t afford to purchase them in the first place, so there will still be no extra revenue coming into FUNimation’s coffers. And the ultimate cost of a big legal pursuit against the few fans they’ll be able to uncover will be borne by other fans – in the raised prices of the products themselves.
Other fans claim that downloading an episode and being able to watch it yourself is much better than trying to watch it on FUNimation’s own site. Doing it the legal way runs into bandwidth issues, where people's own ISPs throttle the streaming. Watching an episode freeze and then play in jerking leaps is much less enjoyable, these people say, than watching it playing right through from a file they’ve got on their computer.
There are those on the other side too, of course, agreeing that this was an illegal act and that it should be punished in some way. But people on all sides of the issue agree that in this electronic age, some illegal downloading is simply going to happen. The worst thing that could be done would be to react too strongly, or FUNimation could ultimately drive away its real revenue source. Certainly removing the content altogether from the video site won’t stop the downloading – it will simply provide a much stronger incentive to hack and pirate anime series.
Obviously Gen Fukunaga and the rest of the FUNimation people have a very fine, sensitive line to try to walk as they decide how to navigate the future. They have followed in the footsteps of other companies who decided to try to work with the fans instead of against them, and until this past week, it seemed to be working quite well. We’ll see if the company can strengthen its security and keep such problems from happening again. That perhaps might help everyone to calm down, and keep this situation from escalating into something irreparable.
Source: Anime News Network
The basic chronology of the streaming woes goes as follows. First, each episode of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom was to be streamed for free on the company’s video site, with English subtitles, every week following its initial airing in Japan. However, FUNimation accidentally released episode four in advance of its Japanese airing. This wasn’t an incident of hacking, however; it was just an error on the company’s part.
Then episode 403 of One Piece, another series on the video site, was leaked ahead of its Japanese broadcast. And finally, the most recent episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was also leaked before it was due to stream on FUNimation’s site. That one, at least, didn’t get out ahead of the Japanese airing. Small mercies.
But that leak was the last straw. The company finally announced that it was suspending its video airings until it could revamp its security and try to guarantee that such things could not happen again.
On Friday, June 5, 2009, the Anime News Network interviewed FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga about the recent breaches and what was being done about them. Fukunaga did admit that his company had made errors. For one thing, they had been uploading the latest episodes to their website well before the Japanese broadcast, keeping the videos inactive until the official agreed-upon moment when they could be made public in North America. It was those episodes that were accessed before they were supposed to be. So from now on, any series being semi-simulcast won’t be uploaded until just prior to when they’re allowed to be streamed on FUNimation’s site.
The company is also tightening both its internal and external security, though naturally Fukunaga wasn’t about to reveal exactly how they were doing this. There’s no need to hand potential hackers the key to the back door; at least make them work for it if they’re still determined.
What has created the controversy among fans, though, is the promise of stern legal retribution. Fukunaga claims that FUNimation will not be going after individuals so much as groups who distribute the leaked episodes: fansubs, torrent sites, and so on.
The problem some fans see with FUNimation’s response is that a heavy crackdown will basically be an attack on fans themselves, even if a few of them did indeed break the law and infringe the company’s rights. At best, all the company can accomplish is a charge or two against very few people, while a much wider group of fans will be angered by the actions.
Some reason that if the company was so lax as to leave videos lying around with little security to begin with, it’s their own fault and they shouldn’t be surprised that some episodes were tampered with. This may not be entirely fair, since the company has admitted that it made mistakes in that area. But attacking fans and groups who really love the anime series will create anger and, some argue, discourage people from wanting to buy the product instead. In many cases, the people who download pirated episodes are those who can’t afford to purchase them in the first place, so there will still be no extra revenue coming into FUNimation’s coffers. And the ultimate cost of a big legal pursuit against the few fans they’ll be able to uncover will be borne by other fans – in the raised prices of the products themselves.
Other fans claim that downloading an episode and being able to watch it yourself is much better than trying to watch it on FUNimation’s own site. Doing it the legal way runs into bandwidth issues, where people's own ISPs throttle the streaming. Watching an episode freeze and then play in jerking leaps is much less enjoyable, these people say, than watching it playing right through from a file they’ve got on their computer.
There are those on the other side too, of course, agreeing that this was an illegal act and that it should be punished in some way. But people on all sides of the issue agree that in this electronic age, some illegal downloading is simply going to happen. The worst thing that could be done would be to react too strongly, or FUNimation could ultimately drive away its real revenue source. Certainly removing the content altogether from the video site won’t stop the downloading – it will simply provide a much stronger incentive to hack and pirate anime series.
Obviously Gen Fukunaga and the rest of the FUNimation people have a very fine, sensitive line to try to walk as they decide how to navigate the future. They have followed in the footsteps of other companies who decided to try to work with the fans instead of against them, and until this past week, it seemed to be working quite well. We’ll see if the company can strengthen its security and keep such problems from happening again. That perhaps might help everyone to calm down, and keep this situation from escalating into something irreparable.
Source: Anime News Network