You know, I am NOT worried at all, but if worse came to worse, if Toku Blu-ray had subtitles on them, I would import.

Hell, if they did that anyway, I would buy them. If they did this, the only reason to download fansubs (for me) would be to watch the episodes as they air, and avoid spoilers.

I just checked, Toku DVDs and Blu-Rays have KILLER prices. I have no idea why 5 episodes of Shinkenger on DVD would cost $75! It's scarily expensive, when for that same price I could get 5 seasons worth of Justice League, plus extras!

There is the option of other countries having localized, subbed versions of Toku. For instance, my home country, Malaysia, sells legally licensed Toku seasons for about $16-$25 (exporters charge more) and apparently they have English subtitles. I wouldn't count on the subtitles or the video quality being amazing though, my sister's Studio Ghibli collection was a hack-job. Still, considering their cheap prices, I might consider picking up a few seasons whenever I get back home (which might not be anytime soon).

Toku has been around before that. Anyone remember that movie.. what was it called.. oh yeah Godzilla :P

:)

ACK... Sorry. I missed that line FORGIVE ME PLEASE ^^; In other news. It seems like DDL's, at least for those of us in the US, are now a thing of the past.

I really hope that isn't the case, or at least hopefully a new technology takes its place.

I don't mind waiting for things to stabilize, but I hope the Toku fandom isn't killed off in the meantime. I guess this makes me hope even more that Power Rangers will improve in quality. Anyhow, let's hope for the best like Alata would!

Well the toku fandom has been around for a while. Back in the day we were using 100x100 RM's of gingaman and gogov. It was smaller back then, and it might end up being that way again.

Not as long as torrents are around.

That's good to hear. I always thought the Toku fandom was a recent phenomenon of the past decade (with the advent of TV Nihon and similar fansubbers). I need to be re-educated, I guess.

I'm sorry to tell you guys that are "Torrents will save us", torrents can die just as fast and as easy as DDL's. Not to beat a dead horse, but all the downloads torrents or otherwise that we all do, are in fact illegal. ALL toku has a copyright holder. There could come a day when that holder decides that the fansubs and raws being spread illegally are not something they want done anymore.

Nope. The toku fandom has been around for a long time. Jill's sentai spoilers site was around LONG before there was a tv-nihon. We were sharing tapes, dvds, RM files and other things to each other via Usenet and IRC.

Even in the case of torrents, they're becoming more and more efficient. Eg, PirateBay's switched entirely to magnet links now, which are even more decentralized than torrent files.

And the next iteration of P2P, in my estimation, will likely be something that further anonymizes so as to make it impossible to ID the users.

Which is why I think it's silly for Toei or any other company to release their licenses to places like iTunes or Hulu, etc. The show's already shot, why not make more profits by making it available world wide?

Hiya guys, this is Solidarity from KRDL.info.

It's great that you guys are discussing the site! However, a few things need to be cleared up.

I live in the UK. Not the US. I host nothing licensed. If Toei ask me to stop distroing kamen rider or whatever, I will do as told. However, they never had, and because of fansubbers I purchase figures, giving them revenue. And I'm sure it's similar for everyone else.

Everyone can benefit!

Also, it's not a hub for TVN, at least, not anymore.

I've been in talk with Over-Time & Grownups in Spandex about hosting all of their content. And also a spanish subber too.

Other than that, the server will not be hammered, I work on the site a lot, I can run multiple servers at once. I have the money to do this, and the donors to help if I get stuck. If you have any questions, PM me, or get on twitter @krdlinfo. Or better still, sign up over at krdl.info and shoot me an email.

Do not speculate, just enjoy the free downloads!!

Dude, thanks for supporting the fan community, hope you won't get into trouble for all your hard work!

I'm sure I won't, and thanks for the support!

The thing is, though, that Toei doesn't really give a shit that there are people outside of Japan who want to watch their shows. Bandai is cool with us buying Figuarts or SICs, but the guys that actually make the show couldn't care less about foreign fans.

Because they make a fortune on Power Rangers.

Might not be worth the investment in their eyes.

I'd never understand that, if they've already shot the show, and it's just sitting there, throwing it up for iTunes won't cost them anything, maybe hiring a good Sub team or something.

I'm all for that and hope it happens.

This is basically all that needs to be said.

The person that said toei just doesn't care is correct. They could care less about having toku out here. All they care about is making money off Power Rangers.

Or here's an even crazier idea: get the fansubbers to sub the official releases. They've already showed how dedicated they are to providing quality subtitles, and I'm sure would be happy to continue providing their services for free and send them to Toei to put on iTunes instead of the usual DDLs/Torrents. It would eliminate the need for any potential illegal activity, and likely keep the cost of releasing and subbing the shows down considerably.

I'm not aware of any major fansub groups being shut down, so it seems like Toei's turning a blind eye for the time being, so why not just go the extra mile and make it all official? I really don't get it.

Right, I understand that, but Sentai and Power Ranger can co-exist, it's two separate entities, I'm sure there are people out there who still have not heard of iTunes or watches show off of there. If iTunes can carry Sentai themes, why not shows? Besides, instead of just earning licensing fees for Power Ranger, they would earn everything from the sales of their own shows.

Wouldn't having Sentai and PR over here give them even MORE profit? Especially from the crowd that ONLY watches Sentai? No matter how small, that is an audience they could be marketing to that they're not.

Depends. On iTunes I think they can turn a profit, but with physical media, not sure. Maybe.

I would for sure buy official releases of Kakuranger, et al, if localized. A good thing to do is to show that there is demand at the cons.

I don't know about anyone else, but if Toei made their Tokusatsu programming available in the US and it was ONLY available on iTunes... I'd be happy.

Here's the thing, as far as Toku goes, its a very niche crowd. Stuff on Hulu or Netflix needs to appeal to a wider audience before it gets proper support for a release on such services.

Without a clear and large demand for the product, and when I mean large, I'm talking about a million or so solid viewership, only then will Toei or any other Japanese entertainment company bother with exporting their shows.

Think of Bandai Entertainment and why they ceased releasing DVDs in the States (oh the timing...), its because Bandai HQ probably felt that they weren't turning a profit with their products (I think Gundam was probably their flagship at the time) because while Gundam or Dragonball has its fans, it doesn't match up to the popularity of say...Ben 10 in terms of marketing. Did not help that Bandai HQ treated Bandai Entertainment US as a separate corporate entity which made licensing all the more complicated.

Yes they can, but Toei doesn't see it that way. As long as Power Rangers is making them the millions it does, they are not going to put something else on the market that would take money away from Power Rangers. They wouldn't earn much at all. As much as we here love toku, regular sentai/toku is a niche market. It would barely break even on production costs. It comes back to them making as much as they do on Power Rangers. They don't care about the rest.

That's never going to happen. What you are suggesting is called a job. People that translate for companies do it for a living. Fansubbing is a hobby. What you have described is a job. Toei also will never go for it. You also have to understand that toei doesn't care about the English speaking world as far as sub go on their toku.

You have to also understand that there are people, and they are in the majority in the toku fandom, that would NEVER pay for anything. Official or not. They want it free. If they can't get it free, they would wait for the official releases to get pirated and download those.

Saban Brands isn't going to care about Toei Sentai/Kamen Rider subs as long as:

1) It doesn't appear to cost them Power Rangers viewers/ratings/money
2) It isn't posted on YouTube
3) Toei is okay with it

If at any time one of those three become disputable, Saban Brands will come down hard and shut down all the sites. This whole thing is about money, or "estimated loss of money" ...

Back in the day, it was illegal to download and turn around and sell the stuff for a profit. Now they want it to be illegal to download it period, because they think if you're downloading it, you're not paying to see it. The MPIA and RIAA view every download as a "loss of sale" ... so if you estimate 50,000 people downloaded "GI Joe: Rise of Cobra" instead of paying $15 to see it in the movies...

50,000 x 15 = $750,000 loss.

Now figure 100,000 people downloaded the Blu-ray DVD:

100,000 x $20 = $2,000,000

So combine that and MPIA is thinking that they lost nearly $3 million dollars from downloads. But their math is faulty - you can't assume that every download is a loss of sale. If I go see something in the theater and I choose to download it, it's because I want to see it again (I already paid to see it once). I'll probably buy the DVD too because I enjoyed it that much.

But they're driven by money, and they're threatening to stop donating to various politician campaign funds if they do not support the SOPA and PIPA bills.

Sad, sad times.

That stuff about Dodd saying they would not donate to politicians that don't vote in favor of the MPAA.... That is a crime isn't it?

I'm pretty sure someone could sue him for it.

And they should.

It would be so awesome if literally every other MPAA employee just decided to turn against him and do just that.

Look what all this has started T_T

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVSQ3...23FOAAAAAAAAAA

Apparently, that's fake.

i bloody hell hope so!

there also seems to be a new megaupload "mEEgaupload" - http://www.meegaupload.net/

Everyone should view this vid on the subject:


http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/vid...rect-downloads

I feel like I should bump this thread just to let all the European users know to look up ACTA. There isn't much we in the US can do about it right now, but you guys can do quite a bit from what I can tell.