Funimation is Shutting Down, And Taking Your Digital Library With It - Slashdot
source link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/02/08/185252/funimation-is-shutting-down-and-taking-your-digital-library-with-it
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Funimation is Shutting Down, And Taking Your Digital Library With It
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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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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.
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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.-
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.
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Their description is not accurate. Funimation, like many others, would offer digital copies of the physical media you purchased. You didn't need a subscription to view the content, but you did need an account to attach it to and stream with. They might have also offered digital only purchases, but I haven't seen anything specific. The take away, however, is that the digital library and the subscription were two different features but with a single account. They're both going away, and only the subscription
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'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.
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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 getti-
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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You could always do the same with books as you do with anime. Get your DRM free ebooks from "other channels", and effectively donate to the authors through another mechanism.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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