Looks like Getchu is now blocking ips. Being a major online retailer, this is a much bigger concern than one or two companies.
Alicesoft, Crowd, Getchu, Akabesoft its just snowballing into one hell of a big mess. I wonder if Japanese shops will prohibit foreigners from buying eroge?
Clearly Japan is making it clear they don’t like foreigners touching anything they make. Not sure how much you can take 2ch seriously but they REALLY hate us. Even though we have the same interests and should stand in solidarity for times like these they just say good riddance, make your own games don’t play ours. I hope they don’t block foolmaker next.
as it have been pointed out else where, getchu is a shop, since they don’t ship their items outside Japan (just like Amazon won’t ship their games outside the US), serving foreign “window shoppers” does consume their bandwidth without giving them anything in return.
I used to get my demos, watch my trailers and views CGs from their site without, ever, paying them. No wander they want me out of their site.
Add a www.getchu.com entry to your HOSTS file to point to cl3.getchu.com and it should work the same as before for you.
:roll:
So, there’s this American site called ‘crunchyroll’. Whenever I try to access most of their site, I get a “this show is not available in your region” and am IP-blocked. Clearly, the USA “(are) making it clear they don’t like foreigners touching anything they (translate).” Etc. I don’t see many if any US fan crying fool about that matter but they do when Japanese sites do the same to them? Oh! The hypocrisy!
Same place for Win7 as XP?
I don’t visit cruncyroll really, but if you want I’ll cry foul there too.
Japan… REALLY?
Excuse me while I enter a long bout of depression. I’ll let you know if I make it back.
I like how whenever a Japanese site blocks other IPs it’s blatant xenophobia but whenever foreign users are blocked from e.g. US videos it’s for perfectly understandable legal reasons. And it’s not just a couple of sites, either. Anyone who’s ever seen the ‘This video is blocked because it’s not available in your country’ message on YouTube, raise your hand.
There’s a bit of a difference between a website that hosts full episodes and a webshop that contains product listings. Streaming sites have to deal with issues of content licensing, who owns what video in what region. Product descriptions aren’t content.
It’s silly for Getchu to block foreign IPs. The only people outside of Japan who have even heard of it are eroge fans. Anti-eroge crusaders aren’t going to use it as a example in their reports, since no one in America has heard of it; they’ll talk about Amazon Japan or something else with more name recognition. All this IP blocking is doing is pissing off people who would normally be on their side, supporting eroge.
You mean to tell me that 4chan are saints? :roll:
You don’t judge 2chan, via only the idiot boards, anymore than you don’t judge 4chan only on /b/ posters.
Trivial and inconsequential actually, because of extraterritorial laws. Where the server is hosted matters in that regard, not where the person accessing it from. The person accessing it from the country where it is illegal is breaking the law in his country, not the server in another country hosting it. The only time “viewer destination” matters in content licensing, is when you have a contractual agreement forbidding it.
I have to agree with Lancer and OLF - justifying streams blocking foreigners, is for nationalistic self serving purpose, just as eroge are blocking foreigners.
EDIT
I think people are failing to see the Japanese prospective on this. As far as many Japanese ero gamers and companies are concerned, their products are only for Japanese sale. End of discussion. What foreigners want is irrelevant: [u]they don’t want your business[/u]. If that’s too hard to grasp, then please stop reading: what I’m about to say next will simply alienate you completely. Guess what? The Japanese, by their very culture and history, [u]DO[/u] have a xenophobic slant. If you haven’t realized this by now, you’ve either ignored or been ignorant of the realities behind Japanese politics, history, and society. Not being aware of that, is like not being aware that America has massive Christian ethical bias and racism issues tied into economic disparity… or that East Germany and West Germany are still divided without the Iron Curtain. So really: why the sudden surprise?
The so-called “2chan Movement” (not my name for it; nor an official name for it) on this makes a whole lot of sense from their prospective. The eroge industry [u]DOES NOT[/u] want government regulation. That’s why they have EOCS and the CSA to begin with. Rather than have the government even think about proposing laws about eroge sale regulation, they’re going to do it themselves. Pure and simple: if the eroge industry willingly denies the sale of eroge to foreign markets, they do not need government regulation forcing them to do it. They are in effect, policing themselves. The issue of wether or not the Japanese government could successfully pass such a law in the first place, is irrelevant. This is how the Japanese handle their business: this is not something new. If you’re acting surprised, you need to lurk moar. Case in point: Japanese whale meat companies, forbid the sale of Japanese whale meat outside of Japan. Is Japanese whale meat sold outside of Japan? Damn right it is. But since the Japanese whale meat companies forbid the sale of it, they’re not politically liable (as they frequently harp in court), and the Japanese socially brushes off accusations. From their prospective, it’s the illegal importers who should be punished, not the whale meat companies. Whale meat is legal in Japan. If it’s illegal in Canada, then it’s Canada’s fault for being so lax to allow illegal shipments of it. It happens on more than just whale meat (medication is another that comes immediately to mind; several things legal in Japan are not legal in Korea and Taiwan), now they wanna do the same for eroge. Welcome to Japan: don’t act surprised.
These companies [u]DO NOT CARE[/u] that Americans or Europeans are having a harder time to get eroge (actual games or just information). [u]THAT’S THE POINT[/u]. They want to fall back on a lame excuse of saying: “We - the Japanese people - have made it harder for them to get, but you - the complaining organization - has done nothing for your native government to stop the flow of it into your country.” That ploy works in Japanese politics: they’ve solved their problem. They want foreign countries with issues against eroge, to police themselves in stopping it - not for the Japanese government to restrict it. This is normal behavior for Japanese “politics” when it comes to sales of items that are legal in Japan, but not-so-legal (or widely socially acceptable) outside of it. It’s certainly not how Westerners want the problems solved - but as pointed out - they don’t care.
So how does blocking information about eroge on the Internet not constitute unreasonable censorship. I find it hard to believe that you all who enjoy and spend a great deal of time and money importing these games to your respective countries can support this.
So what you guys are trying to say is their motivations are to avoid political responsibility for content that might potentially be offensive or illegal in other countries and that this recent surge in IP blocking is not even the slightest bit influenced by hate or racism? If you can say that and actually believe what you’re saying instead of being an apologist for it I can accept that argument. I want to believe it’s just politics and that they arent making this personal. But sometimes given all ive seen it can be hard to believe.
Fortunately it seems at least in Japan proper if you are foreign you can still buy eroge from the shop no problem. But I can see that the genre is approaching stillbirth in the west, just as it was starting to get popular.
EDIT: I’ve had some time to think about this and I think that what they are doing with this IP blocking might actually be saving the genre… for all of us. Chances are one way or another we’ll find a way to know about the latest and greatest games even without the help of sites like this. There is still EGS and of course many japanese blogs and forums do not block foreign users so the info can be obtained through that method. Importers still seem to be in business so there’s that as well. In the end they might be doing us a favor through self regulation they ensure that eroge is protected at its SOURCE. So maybe no matter how xenophobic these things appear on the outset, if you read between the lines they still have our best interests at heart. After all, its hard to believe that they wouldnt want us playing these games after some of the overjoyed reactions of people like ryukishi07 who know that their games are receiving fan translations.
If anything the real outrage should be directed at the governments of western countries who seem content to assign rights to fictional drawn characters. Of course you will never be able to defend it in western political circles. Any attempt to include things like loli manga or eroge where the age or sexual activities are of questionable moral standing under the definition of free speech is asking yourself to be lambasted by your constituency in a western political circle. Honestly its a witch hunt and we have no one but ourselves to blame for it. Ive spent every day cursing rapelays sudden freak appearance on Amazon. Its caused nothing but trouble. Amazing how even a few hours was enough to draw so much outrage. I can’t blame the Japanese for telling us to come to Japan if we want to enjoy eroge. If some popular news organization did a full expose on the eroge industry in the most impartial and truthful manner there’d be a moral crusade the likes of which we’ve never seen before and whatever remains of eroge on the internet would likely be as dangerous to have on your system as child porn.
It’s times like this where I almost envy the pirates
If that’s the case, then they have no right to complain about piracy plaguing their so-called industry. The west operates on a give-and-take basis: If they don’t want to open up to the foreigners, then they have zero credibility in enforcing a right designed for commercial purposes since they don’t even want to engage in any commerce.
But you know what pisses me off even more, though? The so-called gaijin “fans” that defend their decisions, both those who accept censorship, as well as the translators who comply with C&Ds. I mean, it’s pretty bad enough that the Japanese companies are lashing out and succumbing to borderline schizophrenia, but when you’ve got so-called fans actually letting themselves get run over out of “respect” for them, it really makes me question my faith in humanity even further. Since when were they ever worthy of our “respect”? Let me ask the one million dollar question–When the eroge companies were getting pressured by the foreign feminists and their own politicians ast year, what did they do to defend their own industry? The answer: Absolutely nothing. They were organized enough to form organizations like the EoCS or the CSA in response to political pressures, yet they couldn’t pool their resourses to make attempts to lobby their own government and form some form of opposition in response to changes in their own political environment? Instead of directly confronting the feminists and politicians, they’re trying to go the easy way out by blocking IPs and issuing C&D’s? Pathetic, I tell yas! I mean, a rag-tag group of individual mangaka could successfully oppose the Tokyo loli ban, yet a group of organized companies couldn’t put up any sort of political pressure of their own to defend their own industry? They didn’t want government regulation, yet they didn’t want to do shit about it. Pathetic, I tell yas!
Yet despite all that, you guys still consider them worthy enough of your “respect” to comply with crap like their recent C&Ds? Even more pathetic than the companies themselves, I tell yas!
If they don’t care about you, why should you care about them? Why do you guys insist on “protecting” them or justifying their actions if they aren’t even willing to protect themselves? What good is the existence of these games or these companies to you if you aren’t given a chance to experience them yourselves? Yeah, they make some nice games and all, but do you guys have any self-respect at all? Or self-confidence, for that matter? Or is your BS detector broken and you guys just look at them with rose-colored glasses and believe that the quality of their art/stories reflect the rationality of their intentions?
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m in it for the games, not for the companies that produce them. If they’re acting like jackasses to their fans, foreign or domestic, I don’t use the quality of their games or the effort they put in to making them as an excuse, and I don’t sympathize with them if they get victimized by anything or anyone. I have to be honest here–I love playing Modern Warfare 2, I really do. But you know what? Activision can get bankrupted by pirates for all I care for allowing Robert Kotick to repeatedly spew crap out of his mouth. Same goes for the eroge companies who insist on locking the “gaijin” out. I like ef, but I can’t let that excuse Minori for their lockout, nor can my love of Air excuse Key/VisualArts for their recent C&D. I respect 0verflow for their willingness to open up and support fan translations, and I respect MG for undoing its initial decision to censor Soul Link after realizing their fears had gone too far. Respect is earned, not given.
The real change needs to start within the western eroge fans themselves, not the Japanese companies, or the localization companies, or the “law”, or the differences between “cultures”. VN fans have been using throwing these excuses around way too often and have repeatedly failed to acknowledge flaws of their own, as well as their own potential to make a difference. What good are the companies without the fans? What good is accepting fears of increased exposure going to do for us? The eroge fandom here has become significant enough for a tiny, yet sustainable commercial localization market to exist, but it has way too many paranoid masochists to allow for anything to go further. How do we expect JAST or MG to find any titles worthy of a release and survive if western fans just let the eroge companies cut off all outside exposure of their games? How do we expect to get what we want if we all insist on hanging onto a defeatist attitude?
But I gotta be honest here, if things keep up, I wouldn’t be surprised if the translators eventually get fed up and started to ignore requests to stop their works–I mean, there’s only so much the companies can do before things just fall through. The eroge companies might have a legitimate reason behind their actions, and pirate gaijin might not be able to justify their own actions, but the pirates have no reason to care, and the eroge companies have not done anything to convince them otherwise or better their relationship with those who might actually care about them. Either way, it’s all going to affect how the localization companies operate.
They can go ahead and continue their IP blocks and C&Ds, but if they do go down anyways, the only thing I’ll say to them is ???
Too bad for the blockers we gaijin invented proxy servers :lol:
EDIT: okay, apparently not
Uh, what? Such product descriptions contain pictures, which are copyrighted, the same way video are. It’s fundamentally the same.
Also, I guess that, since you’re American, you only visit American sites, hence your complaint. As a French who goes on various American, European and Japanese sites, I an tell you that IP-banning happens in all countries. For the longest time, for instance, if you tried to buy downloadable softwares from the Adobe US site from Europe, you were kindly prompted to buy from the European site and IP-blocked from the US site. It happens. It’s not by all means widespread but it happens so, blah.
I care about the laws, you see? Not everyone supports criminal activities the way you do; some were educated to respect laws, not to break them when it’s convenient for them. You may justify breaking the law as much as you want and the way you want, in the end, it’s still a criminal act.
For the most part it doesn’t matter. The exceptions are where company’s have license exclusivity rights, such as FUNimation in North America not broadcasting One Piece to Britain IPs because Toei Animation may have another local distributor there. Beyond that, except in special cases that involve monitary transfer of items that may be deemed illegal to purchase in said country (ie Getchu blocking Singapore), government sites pertaining only to residents within said country that transfer sensitive information, etc. t, IPs shouldn’t be banning IPs by country. This includes most of the sites you mentioned.
The reason no one pipes up about it is because they are not affected and therefore probably not aware. If they are made aware, more people would agree with you and probably you’d here more complaints.
On the issue related to the topic title, I did hear from a couple sources Getchu had some DNOS attacks originating from outside Japan, which if true, is considered a legitimate reason for a temporary block. I haven’t been able to verify these claims though.
Not gonna happen. First, because the large majority of people only goes on pages written in their mother tongue, thus are most probably aimed at them, thus can be accessed by them, so they won’t meet regional IP blocking pages. Second, because, well… how many people do you think would make a ruckus because they can’t access a web page? Really, not everyone are spoilt brats going on tantrums because they can’t access one.
No one is stampeding on any of your imaginary rights by IP-blocking you, or something.
I visit plenty of foreign sites, in multiple languages, so I’ve run into IP blocks before. I’d give my right arm to be able to use BBC’s iPlayer. That said, the only blocks I’ve ever encountered outside of eroge sites have been blocks on watching/downloading media or purchasing products, not simply viewing the website. I can browse the iPlayer website just fine; I just can’t play any episodes.
Oh yes, us eroge fans are a bunch of spoiled brats, beautiful. Way to insult pretty much everyone on this site.