Funimation is Shutting Down, And Taking Your Digital Library With It (theverge.com) 48
Funimation is shutting down on April 2nd, 2024. The anime streaming service will start migrating existing subscribers to Crunchyroll -- a move that will not only affect subscription prices, but will also wipe digital libraries. From a report: A support page on Funimation's website says the service will automatically transfer existing subscribers to Crunchyroll, noting that the transfer "may vary depending on your specific payment platform, subscription type and region." But the page -- unhelpfully -- doesn't say how much subscribers will have to pay following the transition, only that legacy subscribers will see a price increase. You'll have to check your email to see how much you'll have to pay.
Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't access your purchased content without a monthly subscription, you did not purchase that content. You paid the equivalent of a full purchase price in order to guarantee some other entity forever has you on the hook, or you lose access. Why people don't understand this is beyond me. Buy downloadable content? Sure. Buy content on something like this or Prime where it was a monthly fee to even access the service? Why would anyone want to do this? You absolutely KNOW you don't have forever access to that content. It's only for as long as you subscribe and/or the entity exists. And there are ZERO laws protecting the consumer in this case. Everything about media is built to protect the origin of the content, not the consumers of the content.
We've really messed up this whole "fair business" thing. Most of us just blindly bumble our way into whatever the corporations want us to do and then wonder why we get bulldozed for it over and over again.
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Buy downloadable content? Sure.
Your faith in that being an enduring promise of access may be a bit much. At this point even 'non-streamed' content is DRMed to the point of hoping the vendor doesn't change their mind at some point.
Re:Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:5, Informative)
You're not downloading it right if it has DRM.
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Then you don't "buy it. You go elsewhere where you can get it in a format which you can take home and plug into an unconnected device and play. If the content providers don't provide it in any such form, they've lost a customer.
It's not rocket science.
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If you can't access your purchased content without a monthly subscription, you did not purchase that content.
You didn't need a monthly sub, only an account to redeem them to.
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The reason to go with this is to see stuff (a) that is currently coming out so you can't get it all yet, but you want to see it as it comes instead of waiting till it's all released and (b) you're unlikely to ever want to rewatch so having your own permanent copy is just wasted space.
That said, if you're only following one show, waiting for it to end and then binging it is going to be cheaper.
Re:Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:4, Informative)
What you describe is the plain old "all you can watch" streaming.
The article references the practice of having such a streaming service, then "buying" content held back as "purchasable" but not part of the base streaming.
See the attempted Stadia model, a monthly service *and* you had to buy games. Amazon Prime has a fair bit of this too, Prime video has streaming, *but* some content you have to "buy" piece-wise if you want to watch it.
It's an odd "worst of both worlds" scenario, the limitations of availability of streaming and high piece-wise pricing.
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Ah, thank you for clarifying; I didn't get that from the summary and hadn't gone to the actual article.
Re:Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:2)
'It's an odd "worst of both worlds" scenario, the limitations of availability of streaming and high piece-wise pricing.'
i.e., Those subscription streaming services are literally getting money for nothing.
Re:Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm one of the affected people. I started with an account with AnimeLab that was sold out to Funimation and now Crunchyroll. The only change for me has been the amount I pay. I have never used any of them past a casual look at how they work. I get all my anime via other channels, as it is easier and being DRM free just works as expected. I only have the subscription so that the content creators are getting some income from me. A shame the middlemen are clipping the ticket when I don't actually use them.
Similar with manga and LNs, consume in non-DRM'd formats then buy the stuff I like thru online retailers, but only as paperbacks, never as ebooks. There was a time when some legal places sold ebooks without DRM but I can't say I have seen any in recent years. It is a shame as ebooks should be more environmentally friendly than hard-copy, but as you can never own an ebook, these days you are left cutting down trees if you want authors to earn income for their efforts.
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Yea, you can not own DRM'd content. It is a shame most people don't understand this basic point. I'm one of the affected people. I started with an account with AnimeLab that was sold out to Funimation and now Crunchyroll. The only change for me has been the amount I pay. I have never used any of them past a casual look at how they work. I get all my anime via other channels, as it is easier and being DRM free just works as expected. I only have the subscription so that the content creators are getting some income from me. A shame the middlemen are clipping the ticket when I don't actually use them. Similar with manga and LNs, consume in non-DRM'd formats then buy the stuff I like thru online retailers, but only as paperbacks, never as ebooks. There was a time when some legal places sold ebooks without DRM but I can't say I have seen any in recent years. It is a shame as ebooks should be more environmentally friendly than hard-copy, but as you can never own an ebook, these days you are left cutting down trees if you want authors to earn income for their efforts.
Some indie folks offer direct download, non-DRM'ed copies of their work on non-corporate sponsored sites, but it's a hunt-and-peck and hope for the best thing. Amazing how many roadblocks the big publishers have set up for those indie folks trying to get exposure as well. Play in that end of the pool a little as a creator and it's enough to make you wanna lock all your shit on a non-networked PC and forget about distribution.
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Most video isn't available DRM free. You have to be willing to break it, e.g. by ripping a DVD or Blu-ray.
Or just pirate it. I do that, and then maybe buy the disc when it eventually comes out. That way I can participate in the discourse as it debuts on streaming, and support the creators.
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I did look at that. Apart from the argument "It shouldn't be so hard to pay content creators", with some of the Japanese authors, such as Ryo Shirakome and Funa, it would appear these are pseudonyms and the only channel to support them is through book purchases.
Fair enough, and at least you tried which is more than most people would do. Of course if they make it hard that is their choice too, so I'd still not feel too bad with the other channels in any case. Cheers.
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Similar with manga and LNs, consume in non-DRM'd formats then buy the stuff I like thru online retailers, but only as paperbacks, never as ebooks. There was a time when some legal places sold ebooks without DRM but I can't say I have seen any in recent years. It is a shame as ebooks should be more environmentally friendly than hard-copy, but as you can never own an ebook, these days you are left cutting down trees if you want authors to earn income for their efforts.
Every digital ebook in Poland can be bought as EPUB without DRM. Sometimes they have digital watermark (in form of purchase number embedded in one of the pages). Not sure how it works in other EU countries.
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I used to buy DRM free eBooks a lot in the early days but when they shifted to only offering DRM versions I reverted to only buying physical books and buy a lot less books than I used to as a result.
Re: Why buy anything on subscription streaming? (Score:2)
I "bought" a B5 episode on Amazon because I couldn't find it anywhere else at the time. It cost me a dollar. It let me watch a complete season and I consider it money well spent.
If the costs are high, e.g. comparable to physical media, then it is stupid to pay. Otherwise... Meh.
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I "bought" a B5 episode on Amazon because I couldn't find it anywhere else at the time. It cost me a dollar. It let me watch a complete season and I consider it money well spent.
If the costs are high, e.g. comparable to physical media, then it is stupid to pay. Otherwise... Meh.
A buck I can see, but most titles available, even on Prime, are comparable to the physical media, which you can watch forever with or without paying the mothership every month. That's the rub that doesn't make sense.
Where can we buy downloadable content? (Score:2)
Hey EU (Score:4, Insightful)
Wanna tackle the misuse of the words "buy" and "purchase"?
There's a shitload of misleading uses of it happening and it would be fun if someone made em stop doing that.
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Somebody needs to sue. The way this is set up is that it will probably be some consumer protection organization. They can have massive impact, see, for example, the "Schrems II" ruling. But it needs some critical mass. I have no idea how big "Funimation" was in the EU.
Worse Experience (Score:2)
This is Lou Rossman's line, but "buying content is a worse experience than pirating."
Thank goodness mp3 is an exception - I just buy and download a song when I want to.
Movies? Bluray from ThriftBooks is worth it. Cheaper than Amazon digital sometimes.
And because I usually want to buy 1/12th of a music album but prefer the whole movie.
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Thank goodness mp3 is an exception - I just buy and download a song when I want to.
I have to wonder... despite all the very deserved crap that gets thrown Steve Jobs' way, would DRM-free commercial MP3s be the norm without his 2007 open letter to the music industry [archive.org]?
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This is Lou Rossman's line, but "buying content is a worse experience than pirating."
It gets pretty much repeated by anybody looking into the issue. Crappy and more and more enshittified commercial offerings are the major driver of piracy. The studies universally find that people that could pay for content would do so if the offering was reasonable. (The others cannot pay and are not lost sales.)
For example, I tired to get "The Orville" here, original English, no forced subtitles. Completely impossible. Yes, it is on Disney and Amazon and some others, but it is either dubbed or with subtitl
This is also why I hate Steam! (Score:2)
They just removed windows 7 games from windows 7 computers. Note the client still works, it just wont let you launch your window 7 (or xp) games anymore.
I got a bunch of physical disks I bought in error as it requires online steam account to even install, let alone play.
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I've kind of drifted away from Steam. Even though the forums are useful and the cloud saves are convenient. I throw all my "DRM-free" purchases on my file server and whenever my wife or I are in the mood we can install the game we want to play.
Steam is especially shit when travelling. You can go through extra steps to play the game off line, but it's temporary and you still have to reconnect occasionally. More often than not I run into this requirement at the worst possible time. It's about as fun as old ga
That's funny... (Score:3)
RIP my purchases (Score:2)
I have a few things I "own" on Funimation because a "digital code" was bundled with the Bluray. I could argue that this promotion is partially why I bought the Bluray.
Oh well, at least I can rip the discs and still have until, unlike people who purchased (rented?) purely online.
The Cloud sucks, you can't eat a cloud, you can't put it in your pocket, you can't give it to a friend.
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Anything hosted on the cloud is vapourware.
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The cloud exists. But it's a service, and there is no regular sale contract so the duration is at the pleasure of the cloud company. Really a bad deal for consumers and we should stop giving these guys our money.
Re: RIP my purchases (Score:2)
Well, not quite. Clouds are made of liquid droplets, not vapour.
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If you live in the EU you are probably due a partial refund.
Good. (Score:1)
I never liked Funimation the company (Score:3)
So my first reaction to this news is "good riddance". However, hidden in this announcement there also appears to be notice that Crunchyroll's annual subscription price is about to double... which is annoying. At $55 / year, I've just kept it year-round. At $100 / year, I'll probably start treating it like I do all the other a-la-carte streaming services - subscribing for a couple months, binging, and then unsubscribing.
Sony is responsible. They own both Crunchyroll and (Score:1)
But of course (Score:1)
If you have a "digital library," what you actually own is nothing.
As in N O T H I N G.
All streaming services will eventually fold, merge, or morph into something unrecognizable. The Epic Game Store will close. Steam will eventually cease to exist. The "online stores" for each and every games console will shut down. And when they do, all "your" movies and games will be gone. This is not really news, as everybody must have known from day one that this is the inevitable outcome.
If you decided the convenience w
Time to see some DVD-RW's on the shelf again (Score:2)
Time to get you back to work, baby!
Backups! (Score:2)
HDCP has been cracked since 2010. There's no reason you can't make a backup copy of your streaming content for personal use, for up to 1080p quality at least.
PlaysForSure (Score:2)
The corporate war on culture. (Score:2)
2. Lobby governments to extend copyrights or even resurrect dead ones (which is patently lawless), creating inter-generational feudal domination of content.
3. Hold material hostage that has been a part of people's lives ever since they were kids, demanding ever-increasing subscription fees and tiered payments while arbitrarily taking them away to stir demand.
4. Create multiple versions for no re
MP4/AV1 Store (Score:1)
Sorry run on kinda, but I'm ranting.
This is for anything online ONLY ! (Score:2)
Meh (Score:2)