akira_takamedo

YouTube and copyrights - they don't mix well

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:14:01 GMT

So I know I haven't posted in while. Really, nothing too interesting has been going on here. I have a new idea on something to write and I'll get to work on that after doing some tidying up possibly later.

This post has nothing to do with me personally. Rather, it's a rant. That's right, a LiveJournal rant. It won't have any effect in the grand scheme of things, but that's typically what rants are.

Today, we're going to take a look back at the year 2005. There's this cool new site on the internet that hosts loads of videos. There's something there for virtually anyone. If you're interested in anything, there's probably a video on YouTube for you.

Now let's cut ahead to 2009. YouTube has long since been bought out by Google, and is the home to millions of videos hosted around the world. Yesterday I was posting around in the Daizenshuu EX forums when I see that TeamFourStar's account - home to Dragon Ball Z Abridged - has been suspended from YouTube. Now, they ran into problems with FUNimation early on but were able to convince them their parody wasn't infringing on their releases, and in fact was encouraging new viewers to go out and buy the DVDs. FUNimation ended up agreeing, and gave them a 'free pass', essentially. So, why has TeamFourStar been removed from YouTube? Well, turns out that Toei is going on a YouTube-removal spree of anything under their label they could find. Now, this is within their right to enforce copyrighted material. So if I do a search for full episodes of Dragon Ball I should find nothing, right? Let's have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Dragon+Ball+episode&search_type=

Results #1 and #3 are parts of full episodes! Result #6 is a playlist of more full episodes!

Alright, now let's try to find Z stuff. Let's type in 'DBZ' and any random episode number - how about 95? That's when Goku first turns Super Saiya-jin.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=DBZ+95&search_type=

...what the crap? There it is, in English, Japanese, German, along with other dubs and subs in various other languages. Similar searches for episodes in any of the three series warrant the same thing.

And finally, as the icing on the cake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc7O4tsuVfE

That's ripped right from the Japanese R2 Dragon Box! Toei's DVD release of the series for the first time in Japan back in 2003!

That's right, full episodes still exist on YouTube even after Toei's stream of enforcement.

So let me get this straight, Toei brings the hammer of justice down on fan parodies and AMVs, but they glaze over full episodes? Dragon Ball isn't the only one either, all over YouTube fan-created AMVs, clips, and parodies are getting removed due to copyright infringement, yet it's still so easy to find full episodes of this material on YouTube. If the licensing and distribution companies want to enforce their ownership of their property, wouldn't removing the full episodes typically make more sense? Instead it's the stuff made by the fans that are getting targeted by this, and it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Luckily, TeamFourStar isn't gone for good. Just because they're off YouTube doesn't mean DBZ Abridged is over, so no frets there. For anyone interested in following what's going on with this whole mess, here's a link to Lani's (voice of Vegeta, Piccolo, and Kuririn) blog - http://lanipwned.blogspot.com/

The wheel of fate is turning. New mission start!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:26:29 GMT

So I'm typing this entry from the Student Center computer lab over at Southern. Now, what brings me all the way here you may ask? Well, today begins my quest to locate and secure a method of labor in exchange for payment, of course. As I type now it looks as if they're running a tour group around the Student Center, I thought those only came around before new student orientation, which was back in June...ah well, strange. Anyway, before I actually begin commencing the mission, of course I have to sit here and waste away some time because it's just in my nature. So I've opted to type out some sort of blog while listening to some serene music.

I've noted it below, it's pretty cool - odd though that I've always had this song in my Final Fantasy collection somewhere but never heard it until last night on Zor's laptop. It's definitely serene, but I guess it also has a hint of tragedy and sadness in there taking into account the context of the scene in the game where it plays, which I now can recall after reading YouTube comments. ^^;

Anyway though, I'm listening to the calm music in order to get my thoughts in order and act coherently, seeing as how I've only managed to get four hours of sleep and a bagel in my stomach for breakfast.

So yesterday afternoon, I was picked up by Zor and headed over to Kara's house for the day. We hung out in her condo's pool for a few hours, then played some Magic and BlazBlue. It's a pretty cool game, I would totally buy it if I possessed a PS3 or a 360. Eventually I'll own one of those consoles, probably PS3, so we'll see how that goes. After that I went back to Zor's house, met his neighbor BJ, and proceeded to play another game of Magic (don't accuse me of being a nerd, I already know!). After BJ left, I tried out both Gears of War 2 and Left for Dead, both were good even though I sucked at Left for Dead and was feeling tired by that point - it being 2:00. I introduced him to Dragon Ball Z Abridged (which if you haven't checked it out yet, you need to), and he thought it was okay. Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged seems to have set a really high standard for him, so I don't think it'll really top that in his mind. Ah well, I enjoy both equally. =P

I finally fell asleep at around 4:30 and was woken up by Zor at 9:15. So yeah, I didn't get much in the way of sleep in last night; I suppose I'll grab some coffee in a bit perhaps. He dropped me off here at school about an hour ago and he's since off to work, and so here I am now.

Anyway, I suppose it's time to proofread and edit this resume I've swiftly thrown together, then start on my way. Let's see how it goes!

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:35:14 GMT

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=284

You know, this is exactly how I think whenever I'm playing and catching a legendary is involved. There really should be an option in the game that allows you to surpass God, because that's what you're basically doing.

Someday.

Dragon Ball on the Wii - and it's an adventure game!?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:36:34 GMT

Just a quick post offering a YouTube video on a new game announcement that I'm really excited about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QOP1OxeNUA

What we have here is the trailer for Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo (Dragon Ball: Tenkaichi Daibouken in Japan), a new Dragon Ball game coming out in Japan on July 23rd and in the U.S. on December 30th for the Wii. What makes this game exciting to me is the fact that unlike the last...several Dragon Ball console games (I know there's a DS game out now and another forthcoming as well as all of the GBA games that break this trend) which have all been purely fighting games, this one's actually a side-scroller-esque platformer adventure game! That includes an item system as well, which seems promising. Obviously there are going to be fights, but it seems like the game has a good balance of adventure and fighting, plus a multiplayer versus mode. Seeing as how the original Dragon Ball was more of an adventure series than being mostly focused on fighting that Z took up, I think this captures the mood perfectly. The trailer also shows that there is full usage of the Wiimote, so that's quite excellent.

From the looks of it, the game starts off at the beginning of Dragon Ball and goes up to the defeat of Piccolo Daimao. It's a shame they couldn't include the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, but that's quite a large amount of story to cover. In the trailer you can see shots of Pilaf's mech, Akkuman, Blue, Taopaipai, among other notable characters, and there were also cinematics of Goku flying into Red Ribbon's headquarters and Drum beating Tenshinhan, so it's safe to say that some Pilaf and Baba tournament stuff is covered, but it's clear that the major plot points in the game are going to be Goku taking on the Red Ribbon Army and Piccolo Daimao.

Also, I need to point out that I absolutely love the game's vocal opening by Hiroki Takahashi, Power of Dreamer. Hiroki Takahashi sang the opening theme to Dragon Ball (Makafushigi Adventure) for those that didn't know, and it definitely catches the feel of the original Dragon Ball to me.

In the end, the game looks really promising to finally break the trend of Dragon Ball console games being purely fighting (except for...like...Sagas...but that game was terrible and it will never count), and I'm looking forward to its release in Japan for the initial reviews.

I like how what I initially said would be a quick post turned into longer than I expected. Speaking of Dragon Ball, I've been watching Dragon Ball Kai as it's been released and I'll probably post some thoughts on it after the Saiya-jin Arc wraps up. Also yes, I keep sitting on posting that photo post of all the stuff I acquired at AnimeNEXT, I'll try and get that done soon.

This journal is slowly turning into me blogging things about anime, video games, and whatever other interesting nerdy things might come up. Not that I have a problem with that so long as other people don't mind it (I'm still going to post stuff about my life when exciting things come up), but I feel as if I need more LJ friends to do such a thing. XD

I'll probably do a general life...events...sort of post in the near future. I have been up to a few things after all. =P

Now then, layout (or at least background wallpaper)...well, I'm working on it. Kind of sort of.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:54:15 GMT

So here's an interesting story of the day:

Just now I walked to the kitchen to see what I could grab for some dinner, and what do I see? One of our male cats is perched on top of one of our female cats, and his ass was just shaking back and forth.

Cupping my face into my hand I think to myself, 'Yup, I just walked in on cats having sex. Awesome.'

...damn it, why?

Somehow, this has to get done...

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:50:39 GMT

Yoshiyuki Tomino is going to be in the U.S. as a Guest of Honor at the New York Anime Festival in late September. Tomino. The creator of Gundam.

The last time he was here was for the Big Apple Anime Festival way back in 2002, so it's been seven years now. It's very likely he's coming back to commemorate Gundam's 30th anniversary this year. Somehow, I need to make it to this con for a day.

Luckily, there's still lots of time between now and the end of September. I've always wanted to meet Tomino! I guess we'll see what happens with this...

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-06-19/gundam-yoshiyuki-tomino-to-appear-at-ny-anime-fest

AnimeNEXT 2009 recap

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:16:41 GMT

So AnimeNEXT 2009 has come and gone, making it my third AnimeNEXT and fourth con overall under my belt. So, what made this one different from the last two I've been to?

...well, the rain for starters, but the new location of course!

This year it was held in the area around the Garden State Exhibit Center and the Doubletree Hotel in Somerset rather than the Meadlowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus. Right, more about the new location later. First off, the con itself...

Thursday:
...oh boy. So, to continue the trend of Southern attempting to screw over our trip every year, this time the guy that was in charge of approving our funding for it just happened to retire that day. Yes, that's right. Retire. What are the odds, right? We all met at the train station at 1:00 and didn't leave until around 3:30, but, hey, it's a yearly tradition now. This was probably the closest we've been to not being able to pick up our badges on Thursday night, just barely made it. On the train ride to Grand Central, I took on Jon in a Pokemon battle and...well...being unable to put it in any smaller term, kicked his ass. ^^; Sorry Jon, but my Gengar just kicked too much ass, and Gardevoir and Milotic took care of the rest. On the way through, we randomly came across Tye who happened to also get into the same car as us. Awesome! Afterward I went through the Battle Tower and made it all the way to Palmer, only to be faced with Battle Tower hax and lose. <<;

After making it to Grand Central we met Ron, and we promptly glomped one another. =P Tye and Ron split off from there, and we made our trek through Time Square to Penn Station, made extra fun by all of our heavy baggage. The train ride from there to New Jersey was uneventful, though I made it to Palmer again and beat him this time. =D The best part was actually getting into New Jersey, though. We get off the train, climb the stairs out of the station, and I whiff a rather grotesque stench. My nose tingles with displeasure. What does it smell like, exactly?

...shit.

Yes, the first few steps into New Jersey and it actually smelled like shit. No joke. So of course, after getting onto the shuttle bus to the Exhibit Center (the Holiday Inn shuttle was full between our baggage and half of our group, so some of us split off and took the AnimeNEXT shuttle bus instead), the first thing I do is send a message to Emily, she being the only person I know in New Jersey, saying:

'So when we got off the bus into New Jersey, the first stench I whiffed...was shit.
First impressions. First impressions. ^_~'

Theory proven: New Jersey is made of shit.

Anyway, the bus driver is kind enough to drop us off at the Holiday Inn rather than the Exhibit Center, we check in and drop our stuff off, and leave to grab our badge from the Exhibit Center. One thing I've always wondered, why do people cosplay for the registration line? There's no actual con going on that night, you just wait in line to get your badge and leave. Oh well. *shrug* We head back to the hotel, and it was a rather unevenful night after that. I order food, almost accidentally order nine pizzas (don't ask), and that two liter bottle of Coke prevented me from sleeping...all night, just about. Oh well, I didn't really feel it in the morning.

Friday:
So, the con finally got underway. I didn't feel like cosplaying as Marth (too involving and I was lazy), but I regretted not bringing my Rocket grunt costume which was in comparison much simpler. I started the day with Kara and Zor as they went to the tabletop gaming area, and the two played a few games of Magic until more people showed up with Yu-Gi-Oh cards in tow. After awhile they went off to the manga library, but I stuck around for a bit longer to watch a duel between someone running a somewhat cookie cutter beatdown deck and another with Frogs. Thing is, the Frog player had a duel disk, you know, the toy that came out a few years ago. Er, well that's fine I guess, but he seemed to be pretending he was in the anime. He didn't play on the table, just the disk, he overemphasized drawing a card to the point where your opponent can see what you're drawing, and dramatized every little move. It was kind of amusing, really. =P I hung around and talked with some of the Yu-Gi-Oh players, complaining about the new location (again, more on that later), before finally departing with the beatdown deck player. We made our way to the Doubletree and talked for a bit, before he met up with the someone from his group and said our goodbyes from there. I found Mike Roche in the rather unnecessarily gargantuan line for the dealer's room before it opened, talked for a bit, then I gave Joe a call and met up with him back at the Holiday Inn and proceeded into the dealer's room (about fifteen minutes after they opened, with no sign that there was ever a line XD) with him, Louis, and later Chris and Skittles. I circled the Dealer's Room, scouting out everything I might want to buy, and made a few preliminary purchases, including the best shirt ever. I'll list everything that I picked up later. After that I munched on some overpriced (but not that overpriced I guess) food from the cafeteria , then we headed over to Artist Alley where we met up with Kara and Zor, and later Tye and Ron. As for Artist Alley itself, the content was pretty much the same as last year almost exactly. There was good stuff, but nothing that really appealed to me. Joe and I tried to get a button that said 'Yu-Gi-Oh is my anti-drug', but the lady didn't have her button-maker with her for commissions. Ah well. After that they went off to the hotel's restaurant from drinks and I stuck around with Kara, Zor, Tye, Ron, and some of Tye's friends. Tye's group eventually went off for their own thing, while Kara, Zor, and I hung around outside for a bit before Zor had to leave to play in a Melee tournament. Meanwhile, Kara and I went to go watch Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged in one of the viewing rooms. During it, someone from the site handed out t-shirts for trivia questions, and one of them made us all feel like dolts for not getting it:

'Where are we right now?'

- '...AnimeNEXT?'
- 'Somerset?'
- Kara: Secaucus!
- Me: I wish!

The answer? In America. Fucking d'oh. We left that to check on Zor's progress, but apparently he didn't even get to play yet because of backlog and poorly run tournament staff and whatnot. I'm actually not sure how that all turned out. Anyway, I eventually met back up with everyone else again and a group that included Louis, Joe, Chris, Joey, Rob, Diana, Skittles (we're convinced that was his first time ever exposed to the female gender), and my mind is blanking at this point so I'm probably forgetting someone or whatnot. For the show itself, it was hilarious. I liked how for two of the performances their wigs fell off, but the performers kept on going anyway. Way to go them. =D All of them were very good, and I'm convinced the point of the guy playing Peach and whatnot was purely for comedic value. Finally, we have our hosts - Gendo and Shinji. Gendo. Hosting a burlesque show. Awesome. And we made him strip by the end because we demanded it between every skit. Sweet. It started late and didn't get out until after 2:30, so I promptly passed out in my room for the end of Day #1.

Saturday:
Cosplay emergency! I rushed between different rooms that morning, trying to get my hair done while my cape pinned and all that fun stuff. It was a pain in the ass trying to get my costume together, but I finally did and we all left the hotel at around 10:30. We made it to the convention center and got our usual reception, but it seemed a little dimmed down this year. Perhaps our Brawl group has finally met the end of its popularity? We'll see next year I guess. It was still a case of not being able to take two steps without having to stop for pictures. XD After awhile we made it into the dealer's room and we made more purchases, I kept tripping on my own cape which is a way of telling me that I need to shorten it for next year. Actually, I need to make alot of alterations for next year... I'll worry about that in the spring, though. One girl commended me for having the guts to cosplay as a girly man. Er...thanks, I guess? We went back to the hotel finally to get out of the costumes and get off our feet. Louis was trying to find out when the Gundam photoshoot was, which perked my interest too so we decided to seek it out. Unfortunately we found out that it was taking place about the same time we were looking it up, and when we set out to find it, it was already over. Ah well, next year I hope to join it. =P We were in the dealer's room again when faced with the question of going to the Brawl photoshoot or not, and decided against it because we didn't want to wreck our costumes in the rain. We instead returned to the hotel, then hit up the dealer's room one more time for some final purchases before it closed at an oddly early 6:00 that afternoon. Joe, Chris, Joey, Louis, Ryan, Vinny, Adam, and myself all headed to a restaurant at the Holiday Inn for some food that wasn't convention center stuff for once. Then Joe, Chris, Louis, and I headed to a Pokemon DS party at the Doubletree. It was...meh. I expected so much more out of it, but all they really did was talk about stuff that the majority of people there already knew about (PokeRadar chaining, poffins, EV training, etc.) If anyone didn't know about that stuff, there's the internet. Also they promised shinies, and only a few people got to win shinies. Meh. <<; It was good for the kids there I suppose, but I left pretty disappointed. Oh well. After that was the rave! It was fun, I took part in my first conga line. XD We all stuck around there for about an hour and a half or so, met up with Tye and Ron again, and left sometime around 1:00. That ended Day #2.

Sunday:
Not much here, after packing in the morning Kara and I made a final rush to the dealer's room - her to pick up a shirt, and I wanted to grab a volume from a series that I noticed was missing as I bought them the day before. I tracked it down to my surprise (I didn't expect to actually find it), and that was about it for the con. We joined up with Tye and Ron one more time as we waited for the shuttle, and declared to Ron that we had to hang out the next time he was in Connecticut. The shuttle finally came, we said our goodbyes to them and the con itself, and headed back to the station - which had a Baskin-Robbins! Excellent, I needed some ice cream.The train from Somerset to New York was a double-floored train that I wish we had on the way in. As I expected, the trek from Penn Station to Grand Central was even more fun with all of the extra baggage. XD On the way I collided with a giant Puerto Rican flag that someone was carrying, and the guy said that I 'was blessed'. *scratches head* I guess so...thanks? ^^; Upon arrival in Grand Central, we waited around a bit for the train, left at around 3:30, and had a relaxing ride back to New Haven...except for this one lady with her boyfriend/husband and their baby. At one point she started yelling at him not to make a scene on the train and that she didn't want to 'do this now'. Way to yell at the kettle, pot.

And after making it home, I passed out for a good four hour nap.

...so, overall, it was a fun trip. I'm not really fond of the new location, though. The new location was certainly bigger - on the outside. The buildings themselves though were about the same size as the ones over at the Meadowlands Center. On top of that, the only food places there within decent walking distance were the cafeteria inside the Exhibit Center itself and the restaurants at the hotels - all of which charge rather expensively for food when you're not out to spend much on it. What I liked about the Secaucus location was the plethora of fast food and cheap places around the con to get a decent meal for a low price. I hated spending $10 to get three chicken tenders, some fries, and a soda.

Now for next year, I'm going to look into maybe going independently of the group, because I'm a bit tired of having to rush out on Sunday morning and reporting for curfew. I know the guys said they want to go to Otakon next year; I'm going to look into going to both if I can. It's possible, so we'll see how it goes.

Now, since this entry's going on for much longer than I expected, I'll put up all of my pictures and the stuff I bought at the con in another post. I tried getting the cut feature to work but somehow can't, so...oh well. Wall of text. XD

Also yes, sometime this weekend I'll work on finding a layout and making icons and stuff.

EDIT: Proofreading, I found that I misspelled 'best shirt ever' as 'best shit later'. I...don't know what my mind was thinking. At all. It certainly is some of the best shit, though I have it now...not later. Oh well.

LiveJournal, Ikimasu~!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:41:48 GMT

So after about a year or so of sitting on this damn LJ account, I've finally decided to start getting down to using it. You know, for the whole...journal...purpose. I've started adding people I haven't added yet, and a bit later I'll start searching around for layouts and the like.

I have a whole AnimeNEXT entry planned out that I'd like to type out for tomorrow, I have pictures and everything. =D! Afterward, since I'm so bored right now, I'll do little mini-photoshoots for the models I've been working on. It's really not much, especially since all I have to work with is the camera on my phone. Today I started on (and finished) the HGUC Zaku II that I picked up at the con, and either tomorrow or the next day I'll get the work on the production model HG 1/144 Union Flag.

So yeah. If I'm trying to add you, and we're friends, add me! Or don't. Be a huge jerk and don't. You know, be that guy. That's fine. You can be that guy if you want. I hope these shorter sentences are getting my point across. I really do.