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http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/petitions/for-equality-on-gaia-stop-exclusion-of-users-500-sigs/t.26894361/

Some users are upset that Gaia -- no wait, Funimation -- is excluding Gaians who do not live in North America from participating in their Tsubasa quests. They think that they can sign a petition and change Gaia's mind on this matter. No, wait, maybe they can bully Funi/Navarre into breaking international law. Oh, wait, maybe they can just ignore international law and get their items anyway.

* eyeroll *

Welcome to cruel reality. Life's a b***h, learn to take the hits and keep rolling.


My response, on page 62:

i do not sign. protesting this matter is a shortsighted waste of your intellects and your time.

long post, i know, but i suspect it's worth the read if you're 14 and don't know crap about the world. and hey, there's no shame in that; i didn't know this crap when i was 14 either.



there's a nasty little thing called "international law," and it crops up all the time in the entertainment industry, now that the internet has become the beast it is. it's the reason that we have region encodings on games and dvds and consoles and all kinds of electronics. the laws that enacted such things are meant to protect against bootleggers abusing what would otherwise be seen as a privilege.

"but it's getting in the way of our fun!" yes, it is. and it will continue to do that. See, the world is not a peaceful place; a lot of countries hate a lot of other countries, and it usually has to do with money. Imagine if someone released a movie that they had worldwide copyrights and selling rights to... whatever law-thing they needed, they had it for this movie, and they could sell this movie on dvd in every single country ever. And they sold this dvd with no region encoding whatsoever -- none, zero, nada. a perfectly "open" dvd.

not every country's economy is the same, so what might sell for $20 in America might go for the equivalent of $40 in Britain and of $2 in a very destitute country. So what's a bootlegger going to do? go to this poor country, lay down a ton of money and buy ten tons of this dvd, smuggle it into America and Britain, and sell it for $15 in America and ~$30 in Britain. And this man would make a TON of money that he does not deserve to make.

the laws protect a company from being taken advantage of. because if a company goes out of business, they no longer employ the people they once did, and things get worse from there on a scope that is beyond the point of this post.

what does this have to do with the Funimation/Navarre situation? Quite a bit. See, the materials and properties that Funi works with are not theirs to begin with. funi does not "own" anything that they work with in the same way that Gaia "owns", say, Gaia Gold. Gaia the company created a system that has this stuff called Gold, and Gaia can dictate what can and can not be done with that Gold -- IE, if Gaia says you can't pay RL$ for Gold, you get to listen.

What funi does is "sub-license" a property, let's take Tsubasa Chronicles as an example, that was originally produced by a Japanese company. That Japanese company holds all kinds of rights under this international law, and Funi/Navarre have entered into a contract with this company where Funi says "we agree to promote this property in a select area of the world where we have legal authority to do so," and the Japanese company says "we acknowledge that you are the company we are allowing to do this with our property," etc etc. Think of it like a "master - vassel" concept; the Master (the Japanese company) may contract with many Vassels (companies like Funi) who have not just jurisdiction but influence in places where the Master doesn't have that influence.

But Funi's jurisdiction/influence only extends so far. They can't go into Europe or Asia or Africa and promote their properties. That would conflict with that international law thing. it's like, Funi's backyard stops at the fence here, and on the other side is someone else's backyard.

Yes, Gaia chooses their sponsors. But thanks to Navarre, Funi has the cash to spend on this. What, you think donations alone keep Gaia afloat? Hah. I cringe to know what Gaia's monthly bandwidth bill is. I could probably live for a year on that sum of money.

Gaia needs the money. So they choose a sponsor that they know meshes with the interest of their population. They're not at fault here.

Funi has a limited range of jurisdiction. Navarre makes sure they play by the rules. They're doing what they can... and this is all they can do.

International law is the one you get to be angry at here. Not Gaia. Not Funi. Not even Navarre. Get used to it, because this is going to crop up more and more as you guys get older.


Or, keep signing this petition. Who am I to stop you? You can say what you want, you can think what you want. But just realize that you're fighting the Himalayas here, and you only have one toothpick amongst yourselves.


What Gaia should do is find sponsors in other countries that would cater to those being left out by Funi/Navarre's restrictions, and would give content only to users in certain non-North-American countries. 500 Gaia accounts is not going to change the world, but Gaia does have the option to play the game from the other side and balance the field.

That's about the only real recourse you have at this time. And to me, and yes I'm an American, that doesn't seem like unfair play at all.