Kadokawa + YouTube
Aug. 5th, 2008 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukikageKadokawa Outlines YouTube Plans to BusinessWeek
The BusinessWeek news magazine reports that Chairman and CEO of Kadakowa Holdings Tsuguhiko Kadokawa believes his company will gain more support overseas by not filing lawsuits against the video-sharing website YouTube. Over the next few months, Kadakowa is experimenting with a new program designed to advertise its YouTube channel and sponsor some user-submitted videos of footage that originally came from its franchises. An expected US$1 million will be spent on the project. Some other Japanese companies have responded to unauthorized online sharing of their materials with legal demands, while still other companies have looked the other way. Movie producer David Alpert reports that he asked some Japanese studio executives for private screenings of their materials that he might license, but the executives said they lacked subtitled copies and suggested he look for fansubs on YouTube.
Kadakowa and YouTube revealed in May that they would launch this program which places advertisements on user-generated videos with Kadokawa's copyrighted material. Kadakowa USA ordered AnimeSuki.com to remove links to 11 anime fansubs in early June.
Japanese Anime Studio Embraces YouTube Pirates
And just an excerpt from this one:
Last May, when Kadokawa Holdings released The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on DVD in the U.S., fans of Japanese animation swarmed shops in Los Angeles and other cities. For months, Kadokawa, a Tokyo publisher and TV and movie distributor, had dropped hints about the anime's imminent overseas release on a Web site. But other than that, it did almost no advertising. It didn't have to. The company merely tapped into the huge following Haruhi Suzumiya already had on YouTube (GOOG) and other video-sharing Web sites.
Another key line (which will surprise no-one):
With the experiment, Kadokawa is betting it can score points with the anime faithful and win over new fans overseas where it might sell DVDs, downloads, and other paraphernalia. But there's no guarantee the goodwill will pay off. "I think a lot of people are watching to see whether we will succeed," Kadokawa said in an interview last week at the Creative Commons conference in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo. "If we can do something they haven't been able to do up to this point, they may follow suit."
I've heard stuff along these lines before, but it's interesting to hear it published in NewsWeek.
The BusinessWeek news magazine reports that Chairman and CEO of Kadakowa Holdings Tsuguhiko Kadokawa believes his company will gain more support overseas by not filing lawsuits against the video-sharing website YouTube. Over the next few months, Kadakowa is experimenting with a new program designed to advertise its YouTube channel and sponsor some user-submitted videos of footage that originally came from its franchises. An expected US$1 million will be spent on the project. Some other Japanese companies have responded to unauthorized online sharing of their materials with legal demands, while still other companies have looked the other way. Movie producer David Alpert reports that he asked some Japanese studio executives for private screenings of their materials that he might license, but the executives said they lacked subtitled copies and suggested he look for fansubs on YouTube.
Kadakowa and YouTube revealed in May that they would launch this program which places advertisements on user-generated videos with Kadokawa's copyrighted material. Kadakowa USA ordered AnimeSuki.com to remove links to 11 anime fansubs in early June.
Japanese Anime Studio Embraces YouTube Pirates
And just an excerpt from this one:
Last May, when Kadokawa Holdings released The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on DVD in the U.S., fans of Japanese animation swarmed shops in Los Angeles and other cities. For months, Kadokawa, a Tokyo publisher and TV and movie distributor, had dropped hints about the anime's imminent overseas release on a Web site. But other than that, it did almost no advertising. It didn't have to. The company merely tapped into the huge following Haruhi Suzumiya already had on YouTube (GOOG) and other video-sharing Web sites.
Another key line (which will surprise no-one):
With the experiment, Kadokawa is betting it can score points with the anime faithful and win over new fans overseas where it might sell DVDs, downloads, and other paraphernalia. But there's no guarantee the goodwill will pay off. "I think a lot of people are watching to see whether we will succeed," Kadokawa said in an interview last week at the Creative Commons conference in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo. "If we can do something they haven't been able to do up to this point, they may follow suit."
I've heard stuff along these lines before, but it's interesting to hear it published in NewsWeek.
