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Stupidity

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Jan 22nd 2007 10:04am





If You Want To Help Promote Dragonball With A Fan Site, Please Register For Approval First

from the can-we-explain-how-word-of-mouth-works? dept

Petréa Mitchell writes "Way back when the entertainment industry first found out about the net and the Web, some parts of it got the screaming heebie-jeebies on discovering that people had built fan web sites. Legal threats were dispatched in all sorts of directions (the biggest battle, as I recall, was over Star Wars and Star Trek sites), but cooler heads eventually prevailed, and these days the fan sites are allowed, or even actively supported as a means of promoting the shows and movies they adore. Well, that's what I thought, anyway. Check out these "guidelines" from FUNimation, the US distributor of Dragonball, where they kindly allow you to have a Dragonball fan site if you register as an affiliate, sign away your right to have disputes settled in court, make sure your site is "of a quality satisfactory to FUNimation", don't engage in parody or satire, etc." Well, at least they aren't sending bills to those they encouraged to promote their brand. However, it does show how out of touch some brands are in letting the lawyers step in and decide under what terms they want people to help spread their message by word of mouth. In this case, it seems like the company is trying to find a balance between protecting its own trademark and allowing fans to continue, but at some point people need to realize that any attempt at controlling word of mouth efforts pretty much destroys the whole point of any word of mouth promotion.

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  1.  
    identicon
    Sanguine Dream, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 11:39am

    Yeah right...

    Trying to get control of of Dragonball fansites? Good luck.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
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    Goku, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 11:46am

    Kame hame HAAAAAAA!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    Goku, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 11:46am

    Kame hame HAAAAAAA!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
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    SailorAlphaCentauri, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 11:58am

    Whatever

    FUNimation is known for it's high-quality handling of anime (Like the whole Detective Conan/Case Closed debacle), so I'm sure that they'll get a handle on these Dragonball fansites. You know, putting the lockdown on an aging franchise instead of being happy that people are still interested in the show & bringing them money via the free press.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
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    Anonymous Coward, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 12:09pm

    Re: Whatever

    FUNimation chops the hell out of it's anime when converting it to english.......

    off topic.. Dragonball Z ruled.. nothing was more awesome than those 35 episode battles where several episodes go by where not even a punch or power attack is used.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
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    PhysicsGuy, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 12:18pm

    Re: Whatever

    i think you underestimate the rabid obsession people have with the dragonball series. FUNimation has a long uphill struggle if they want to try to tame dragonball fansites.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    PhysicsGuy, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 12:20pm

    Re: Re: Whatever

    no no, you have it wrong... in a 30 minute "battle" episode there was 2 minutes of fighting, one at the beginning that was a lead in from the last episode and one at the end to lead out from the episode into the next. the other 28 minutes was... well, you've seen the show :)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    Tashi, Jan 22nd, 2007 @ 2:17pm

    I haven't watched Dragonball since the Freeza saga. It just lost my interest after that, especially with so many other anime out there. Right now I'm hoping for a 5th stage of Initial D.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
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    bkharmony, Jan 23rd, 2007 @ 12:05pm

    Suits n' Stiffs

    This doesn't surprise me at all. I interviewed at FUNimation a few years back. I was shocked at how stiff the place was, and how craptacular their office was. Surely these people are making money hand over fist, yet they had employees practically sitting in each others' laps (which actually might be the best part of working there - word is they treat their hired hands like crap).

    The place is basically just a front for licensing.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    Mike E, Feb 3rd, 2007 @ 7:35pm

    Tashi:
    Don't worry, you didn't miss much. Green guy and a fat pink guy get pwned. Bald midget gets hair. Bad guy with crazy hair turns good. Everyone dies, some people a couple of times. That's about it.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  11.  
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    soloman abder, Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 5:34am

    nothing

    i want to be a hero dragenballz gogo

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  13.  
    identicon
    johny, Jul 9th, 2008 @ 10:44am

    Dragonball Movie News

    I found this:
    http://www.dragonballcinema.com

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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