FUNimation’s Leet Suit Stung?
On January 24, FUNimation filed a copyright infringement suit in Northern District of Texas court against 1,337 anynomous individuals that FUNimation charged illegally downloaded One Piece episode 481 via BitTorrent. On February 10 Senior US District Judge Royal Furgeson declared that FUNimation cannot collectively sue all 1,337 individuals because the accused downloaders did not act “as a group in their allegedly infringing actions”; rather the individuals were each acting individually. Thus, if FUNimation wishes to sue, FUNimation must file a separate suit against each downloader individually. 1,336 of the original defendants were immediately dropped from the initial lawsuit, leaving just one defendant targeted by the suit. FUNimation evidently has not yet made any further decision regarding the continuance of its lawsuit. If FUNimation wishes to individually sue any of the remaining 1,336 individuals initially targeted by the suit, FUNimation will have to file separate lawsuits, each entailing a $350 filing fee.
Unfortunately, doesn’t this come across like a publicity stunt that backfired?
Source: Anime News Network
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Good for FUNimation. Now they can tell the Japanese copyright holders, “Well, we tried… see?”
Or, we can pool $450,000+ and sue them ourselves…
So they would have sued 1,336 people that wouldn’t have bought the product anyway. Now they don’t want to go through with it at the cost of money, instead of the moral obligation to? Pathetic. Backfired publicity stunt indeed.
Another name on the boycott list.
Bad publicity stunt? Not likely. Poorly thought-out plan? Oh yeah. They really should have researched this and confirmed they could do it before annoucing it. Either way, it backfired.
Moral obligation aside, there is no way they could have afforded to sue all of these people. Event if they won, what’s to say they would ever see the money. Add the legal costs in addition to the filing fee, and Funimation would basically sue themselves out of existence. From a business stand point, this doesn’t make sense.
Arguing a moral obligation here doesn’t work. What about the moral obligation of the 1,336 people who stole the product? How is it they aren’t held morally accountable? Wasn’t that episode going to be streamed for free anyway? What about the losses Funimation may receive when anime companies decide not to let them stream their product because of security issues? You don’t rob someone’s house and play it off because their security measures weren’t up to snuff. What about the concessions they may have had to make to keep One Piece?
What is happening here is the vicitim is trying to fight back, and the legal system is making it impossible to do it without serious finiancial distress. The biggest backfire here is now the pirates see they can steal what they want so long as the vicitim can’t legally fight back. Exquisite.
This wasn’t a PR stunt, because even if Funimation could have successfully and cheaply sued the thieves (as they should be able to), the “fan” community would come down hard on them for taking aware their immediate source of free anime. It’s a really sad situation.
Hopefully this is enough for the Japanese companies that they at least tried to sue, but probably not. So not only did they not stop the thieves, Funimation looks like both a bully and an idiot. And there will be folks like sonsaku who will boycott Funimation, blissfully stealing anime with a grand feeling of vindication for stomping on “the Man.” This keeps up, and there won’t be much more anime to steal.
I’m frankly surprised starcade isn’t commenting on this.