FUNimation's Dragon Boxes have indeed been discontinued

[sumpter360]

I think that it would be basically the same as downloading the product after selling it. You would no longer have the moral ground for it to not be morally questionable or condemnable.

The point of having a copy is preventing the original from getting ruined from use, or being able to still enjoy the product that you bought and own despite the fact that the original became ruined for some reason. Being able to gain money from it (by selling the original) while still having a copy of it to use and enjoy is definitely not the point of it.

I think that having the original, even if its ruined, would be essential for keeping the moral ground.

I'm not american nor do know much about it but I think that in the USA its legally allowed to have a copy of the product for the purposes that I stated.

Just to play devil's advocate, though, wouldn't the only important aspect be that they bought the item in the first place? When one first purchases the item (from a store, online or offline), proceeds go back to FUNimation. After that, even if the buyer makes personal copies, then sells the original physical copy, that person's money still originally went to FUNimation.

To me, it's when the person downloads it before/without actually purchasing it, that it becomes "stealing" and therefore, immoral.

[LiamKav]

Just to play devil's advocate, though, wouldn't the only important aspect be that they bought the item in the first place? When one first purchases the item (from a store, online or offline), proceeds go back to FUNimation. After that, even if the buyer makes personal copies, then sells the original physical copy, that person's money still originally went to FUNimation.

The problem there is that the second person's money didn't go to FUNimation. It went to the guy who bought the first copy. Therefore FUNimation have lost a sale.

Now, you could argue that the second person can't buy the Dragon Boxes at normal retail anymore, but at least some of that will be due to people who bought the original for the purposes of selling it on later. That person hasn't added anything to, well, capitalism. They've just made money on buying something before someone else.

[rereboy]

Just to play devil's advocate, though, wouldn't the only important aspect be that they bought the item in the first place? When one first purchases the item (from a store, online or offline), proceeds go back to FUNimation. After that, even if the buyer makes personal copies, then sells the original physical copy, that person's money still originally went to FUNimation.

The problem there is that the second person's money didn't go to FUNimation. It went to the guy who bought the first copy. Therefore FUNimation have lost a sale.

Now, you could argue that the second person can't buy the Dragon Boxes at normal retail anymore, but at least some of that will be due to people who bought the original for the purposes of selling it on later. That person hasn't added anything to, well, capitalism. They've just made money on buying something before someone else.

Exactly.

[VegettoEX]

I think it's very important to make the distinction of who's actually obtained a physical product, and if you're in a country that has a right of first sale doctrine (USA does!).

If you legally purchase something, for the most part (until we got into sticky areas like purchasing "licenses" for digital versions of games and such), you have full authority and a legal right to re-sell that item to someone else, and you are fully protected under the law. You do not have to obtain permission to sell it. You do not owe anyone outside the two of you any money. You bought it, and you can sell it. See: GameStop's primary business model. See: used book stores. See: used record stores.

Where it crosses the lawful line is when you make a copy of the product (say, an anime DVD) and then sell your original version. In that case, you still have the right to sell that original, legal product and you are still fully protected under the law. You've broken a separate rule/law, though -- copyright infringement. The TechDirt reader in me wants to make that distinction between "theft" and "infringement", because you haven't actually "stolen" anything from anyone. That original, legal product you purchases is still there, it's still intact, and has just physically transferred from one person to another. It's still a real DVD -- you can touch it, put it in a DVD player, throw it across the room, etc. You've made a separate copy of it, though, and you did not have the legal right to do so (ignoring things like fair use backups you could try to claim... and even then, once you no longer own that original version, you can't claim it's a backup of an item you own, anymore).

[LiamKav]

Second-hand/pre-owned values also vary massively according to the product. The automobile is reliant on them. Sure, Ford don't make any money when a guy sells his 3 year old car to someone else, but that guy is probably going to buy a new car. The costs of the new product are funded by the selling of the old one. The people who only buy second hand cars are essentially funding the people above them who buy brand new cars. The system would collapse if people would only buy second hand cars, but at the moment, it works.

It also works differently with cars because there's a lot attached to having a "new" product. It's shinier, in better condition than one that's a few years old. With physical media, such as video games, DVDs etc, there's no real detriment to owning a used product. It will work exactly the same. Hence the video game industry's current constenation about used games. I'm not sure about Gamestop in the US, but lots of shops in the UK will, when you try and buy a new product, point out that you can get the used copy for a couple of quid less. It's the same product, but the people who made the game don't make any profit on you buying it. That's a whole different situation.

Also, while there is technically nothing illegal about buying a product purely for holding on to it and selling it later at an inflated price once demand has gone up, it's at the very least ethically a bit dubious. The guy who buys all the shortpacked/rare toys when they get put out in Toys R Us and then sells them on Ebay later isn't helping the kid to get his toy, he's just lining his own profits and adding nothing to the system.

[dbboxkaifan]

If anyone wants HQ scans of Dragon Boxes Z 1-7 let me know, I can scan them, not sure when, tho.

[zman164]

Anyone here selling a dragon box 2 for a reasonable price? I have all of them except this one, and not having gokus head is driving me insane lol.

[Dr. Machismo]

That's good to hear, because we seriously have too many Dragonball Z DVDs on the show. We already had the Remastered Boxsets. Most people (not just Dragonball fans) wouldn't go for something else.

[Metalwario64]

That's good to hear, because we seriously have too many Dragonball Z DVDs on the show. We already had the Remastered Boxsets. Most people (not just Dragonball fans) wouldn't go for something else.

Hopefully, those "Level (Decimal)" releases are out the window, too.

It's good that they were discontinued... because there were other releases? The only complete release prior to this was cropped, and had terrible picture quality (for the most part), so because of that, and an incomplete single release, you think it's good that the best release was discontinued early on?

I really don't understand that mindset. At all.

[samuraix123]

That's good to hear, because we seriously have too many Dragonball Z DVDs on the show. We already had the Remastered Boxsets. Most people (not just Dragonball fans) wouldn't go for something else.

Hopefully, those "Level (Decimal)" releases are out the window, too.

Why would you want the level sets to be gone? those were great releases.

[Dr. Machismo]

It's good that they were discontinued... because there were other releases? The only complete release prior to this was cropped, and had terrible picture quality (for the most part), so because of that, and an incomplete single release, you think it's good that the best release was discontinued early on?

I really don't understand that mindset. At all.

There's just too many Dragonball Z sets right now. We should just stick with one. The Remastered boxsets were well marketed, so most people are sticking with that. Those sets could be replaced for the problems you mentioned, but by only one set.

[samuraix123]

It's good that they were discontinued... because there were other releases? The only complete release prior to this was cropped, and had terrible picture quality (for the most part), so because of that, and an incomplete single release, you think it's good that the best release was discontinued early on?

I really don't understand that mindset. At all.

There's just too many Dragonball Z sets right now. We should just stick with one. The Remastered boxsets were well marketed, so most people are sticking with that. Those sets could be replaced for the problems you mentioned, but by only one set.

Says who? The Orange bricks were garbage! The Dragon-boxes were awesome, and The Level sets were unfortunately canceled. I like the fact that Dragonball Z is still being pumped out on DVD & Blu-ray. Also out of curiosity why should we just stick with 1 set?

[Dr. Machismo]

It's good that they were discontinued... because there were other releases? The only complete release prior to this was cropped, and had terrible picture quality (for the most part), so because of that, and an incomplete single release, you think it's good that the best release was discontinued early on?

I really don't understand that mindset. At all.

There's just too many Dragonball Z sets right now. We should just stick with one. The Remastered boxsets were well marketed, so most people are sticking with that. Those sets could be replaced for the problems you mentioned, but by only one set.

Says who? The Orange bricks were garbage! The Dragon-boxes were awesome, and The Level sets were unfortunately canceled. I like the fact that Dragonball Z is still being pumped out on DVD & Blu-ray. Also out of curiosity why should we just stick with 1 set?

I just don't see the sense in expecting people to buy multiple sets. Maybe the Orange bricks did suck, but most people are probably accustomed to those. I'm not talking about the hardcore fans that make up this forum, but more casual fans and buyers, seeing as there are more of those.

[dbboxkaifan]

Orange Bricks had mediocre quality but they're the best selling English DBZ DVD series set.

A re-release of the Dragon Boxes Z in Parts, with Japanese audio / FUNimation English dub with Original Music / FUNimation English dub with Replacement Music, a cool cover for each part and everyone would be happy.

[Dr. Machismo]

Orange Bricks had mediocre quality but they're the best selling English DBZ DVD series set.

Ah, adding to my point. Most people wouldn't really give a shit about anything else. I suggest replacing them in a few more years.

[VegettoEX]

I think you're semi-missing the point of the entire situation.

The fact was that fans WERE accustomed to and WILLING to buy multiple versions of the series. They went from single discs to the season sets happily, many fans continued to double-(triple?)-dip into the Dragon Boxes (which sold exactly as planned to expectations as far as we can tell), and even Kai seemed to be doing well enough early on.

It wasn't until the "Level" sets that things became, at least comparatively speaking, catastrophic -- suddenly FUNimation couldn't count on and fully guarantee that the next version of the release would sell like hotcakes.

In terms of Dragon Boxes, again, as far as we can tell and have been told, they sold exactly according to plan. The license was acquired, internal projections were made, and the entire product (seven sets, episodes 1-291) was sold through to the end and stock was essentially depleted.

So yes, FUNimation was caught off-guard with the "Level" sets not being the ones that the casual fans would re-re-buy, but they planned it out perfectly enough with the Dragon Boxes. The disappointment in that regard is among the rest of the hardcore fans that didn't get a chance to pick them up during the initial release cycle.

But those fans aren't the casual ones who think their orange bricks are actually HD and totally remastered frame-by-frame.

[samuraix123]

Orange Bricks had mediocre quality but they're the best selling English DBZ DVD series set.

A re-release of the Dragon Boxes Z in Parts, with Japanese audio / FUNimation English dub with Original Music / FUNimation English dub with Replacement Music, a cool cover for each part and everyone would be happy.

I was going to add that but didn't feel the need too and while Yeah, I agree that orange bricks sold the best their still garbage lol
but I agree and kinda disagree about the Dragon-boxes including the Funimation score, I guess I kinda look at as The Dragon-boxes were meant for the Japanese fan base like how characters names are spelled differently and such.(That's not saying English fans can't enjoy them) but if Funimation wouldn't have canceled those Blu-rays, those would have been the ultimate release ever! (in my opinion) I even go as far as to say the picture quality looked better than the Dragon-boxes.

[dbboxkaifan]

FUNimation can bring back the DBZ Level Blu-rays back but the only thing I can think of that is "DBZ" and "1080p HD" are the Orange Bricks they remastered in 1080p HD, I dunno if they kept the 4x3 AR version, but by what it was shown on Franko's Transfer 2011 on DBZ Level's extra, they have.

It actually looked really good, imo. =)

[Dr. Machismo]

I think you're semi-missing the point of the entire situation.

The fact was that fans WERE accustomed to and WILLING to buy multiple versions of the series. They went from single discs to the season sets happily, many fans continued to double-(triple?)-dip into the Dragon Boxes (which sold exactly as planned to expectations as far as we can tell), and even Kai seemed to be doing well enough early on.

It wasn't until the "Level" sets that things became, at least comparatively speaking, catastrophic -- suddenly FUNimation couldn't count on and fully guarantee that the next version of the release would sell like hotcakes.

In terms of Dragon Boxes, again, as far as we can tell and have been told, they sold exactly according to plan. The license was acquired, internal projections were made, and the entire product (seven sets, episodes 1-291) was sold through to the end and stock was essentially depleted.

So yes, FUNimation was caught off-guard with the "Level" sets not being the ones that the casual fans would re-re-buy, but they planned it out perfectly enough with the Dragon Boxes. The disappointment in that regard is among the rest of the hardcore fans that didn't get a chance to pick them up during the initial release cycle.

But those fans aren't the casual ones who think their orange bricks are actually HD and totally remastered frame-by-frame.

Casual fans aren't people who'd go out and buy multiple sets of the same thing. That's more of a hardcore thing to do. They'd instead just stick with one version.

As do consumers in general and in this case, it's the orange bricks. There's not much sense in having both the Dragon Boxes and those, so going with the ones that sold the most made sense. And weren't the Dragon Boxes meant to be limited edition?

[Gaffer Tape]

I agree with you in the sense that release after release after release is something I find in bad taste, especially when the one that ended up being the "de facto" release was complete garbage, while the one that was actually of good quality was like a candle in the wind. And that's where I can no longer agree. No, it's not good that the DBoxes are getting harder and harder to find. If there was only one release on DVD for this series, this should have been it. As things stand, it would have been a perfect apology for releasing the orange bricks on the unsuspecting masses. Sometimes re-releases are needed, and this is certainly a case. So I'm just confused as to why you would be glad that the quality releases are dying, and that garbage is winning out.