Submission + - Internet Pirates Useful, Funimation CEO finds.
TigerPlish writes: In this March 28 Variety
aritcle, Funimation CEO Gen Fukunaga explains he finds pirates to provide useful data to assist him in selling to legit buyers.
"There are sites that'll rank the counts of downloads, and then we look at fan polls. So there's lots of data," said Mr. Fukunaga. Funimation has grown to take 27% of the US anime, making it number 1. By doing what others fear to do, Funimation's vaulted to the top, while older, bigger names fell flat on their faces. Folk in "traditional" media companies reading this must be going "Arr?"
Maybe they should be saying "Maybe there's something we can do with these pirates, other than try to hang them.. like maybe.. make money from them? Good heavens, we'd be treating them like our own customers! Brilliant! What punishment most fitting!"
But no. You know they'll try to hang 'em. It's okkay, companies fail, new ones are born. No biggie.
"There are sites that'll rank the counts of downloads, and then we look at fan polls. So there's lots of data," said Mr. Fukunaga. Funimation has grown to take 27% of the US anime, making it number 1. By doing what others fear to do, Funimation's vaulted to the top, while older, bigger names fell flat on their faces. Folk in "traditional" media companies reading this must be going "Arr?"
Maybe they should be saying "Maybe there's something we can do with these pirates, other than try to hang them.. like maybe.. make money from them? Good heavens, we'd be treating them like our own customers! Brilliant! What punishment most fitting!"
But no. You know they'll try to hang 'em. It's okkay, companies fail, new ones are born. No biggie.
