Japanese New Wave closing its virtual doors

[bergelson]

Hi,

I've just bumped into a web page which called "Japanese New Wave - Cinema Classics (www.japanesenewwave.com). They seems to be pretty series and they some very interesting DVDs by Oshima, Imamura and others which are unavailable anywhere else with English subtitles.

Did anyone buy from them and can comment on the quality of their DVS's as well as their credibility.

Thanks.

[Scharphedin2]

Hey Bergelson, This thread dedicated to Oshima's films has the information you are looking for.

[impossiblefunky]

JapaneseNewWave.com will be closing its virtual doors on January 20, 2007.

First: The engagement of the JNWC members is constantly declining. The initial enthusiasm is rapidly dwindling.

Second: The sales numbers are not high enough that we could ever hope to legalize our work by buying any licenses. At an amount of $35,000 for an average single restricted region license we have no chance whatsoever.

Third: P2P download numbers on sites like karagara.net and asiandvdclub.org along with unsanctioned eBay auctions exceed our sales by far.

Fourth: Infighting amongst JNWCC members over financial arrangements has reached a fever pitch.

JNWC titles will no longer be produced and will not be available via bootleg operations such as SuperHappyFun.com (under threat of lawsuit). The japanesenewwave.com website will remain available for a shirt while longer until our hosting agreement expires but all "Buy" buttons will be removed.

All questions and concerns should be forwarded directly to info@japanesenewwave.com

Thank you to everyone for their support. We regret that our operation couldn't continue indefinitely and implore that DVD companies must give more attention to this under-appreciated cinematic movement.

Ja Matta!

[Oedipax]

Wow, very sad news. Japanese New Wave.com was like a beacon of hope in the sense that it showed ordinary people coming together over the internet and pooling their resources to do some badly-needed work to deliver films to a new audience.

Of course, similar work IS being done on some of the sites cited in JNW's letter - the whole fansub thing is not a new concept and continues to flourish without anyone involved expecting financial return for their work...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Of course, similar work IS being done on some of the sites cited in JNW's letter - the whole fansub thing is not a new concept and continues to flourish without anyone involved expecting financial return for their work...

Including the people who actually own the rights to the works being subbed. Not that I'm holier than thou, having got in and bought some of their work, just in the nick of time it would seem.

[Scharphedin2]

Second: The sales numbers are not high enough that we could ever hope to legalize our work by buying any licenses. At an amount of $35,000 for an average single restricted region license we have no chance whatsoever.

Third: P2P download numbers on sites like karagara.net and asiandvdclub.org along with unsanctioned eBay auctions exceed our sales by far.

This is really sad, as the films that JNW were making available apparently have scant chances of being released in the West through ordinary means.

Point three above is interesting in the context of the discussion a couple of months ago on the topic of file sharing. I do not wish to re-open that thread, but I would think that the above would cause renewed reflection amongst any supporters of the practice.

[vogler]

Point three above is interesting in the context of the discussion a couple of months ago on the topic of file sharing. I do not wish to re-open that thread, but I would think that the above would cause renewed reflection amongst any supporters of the practice.

Although it should of course be remembered that JapaneseNewWave.com were bootleggers themselves. The films weren't theirs to sell. If the money was considered to be for the cost of subtitling etc. then, as pointed out above, people on p2p networks have been doing similar things for a long time, only without asking for any financial reward for it. P2P file trading (of this kind of material) and sites like superhappyfun and JapaneseNewWave.com are essentially the same thing - bootleggers. The difference is that traders do it for the love of the films without asking for financial reward whereas these sites sell their product.

Also I didn't understand this bit:
JNWC titles will no longer be produced and will not be available via bootleg operations such as SuperHappyFun.com (under threat of lawsuit).
They are going to threaten someone with a lawsuit for bootlegging their bootleg? Sounds a bit strange to me. They don't own the rights to the films in the first place, or are they claiming the rights to their subtitle translations alone?

A bootleg operation such as JNWC threatening another bootleg operation with a lawsuit seems utterly ludicrous.

[fred]

I'm rather ambivalent about this development. I'm sad that they didn't get to Yoshida before closing shop, but I'm not as pessimistic as some that these things will never appear on legitimate subtitled discs.

This is really sad, as the films that JNW were making available apparently have scant chances of being released in the West through ordinary means.

Except that their last five releases were all made obsolete or potentially obsolete almost immediately by impending commercial releases in the U.S. Which fact I suspect plays a larger part in this development than some of the reasons they provide.

And I've always thought that $15 is a bit steep for bootlegs--and the $5 flat rate shipping on top of that was kind of insulting, given that the material cost, including postage, of sending out a single disc is barely more than a dollar. I'm sure that they would have moved a lot more discs at a friendlier price point.

The fact that bickering over the financials played any part in this goes to show that this enterprise was always at least partly commercial, which makes me a lot less sympathetic to their methodology.

[vogler]

I'm rather ambivalent about this development. I'm sad that they didn't get to Yoshida before closing shop, but I'm not as pessimistic as some that these things will never appear on legitimate subtitled discs.

Neither am I - MOC have already released some Shinoda, Teshigahara, Imamura and even Matsumoto, Criterion have released some Imamura. I think we'll see R1 or R2 releases of these films at some point. Some people have also suggested that these JNWC bootlegs could be harming these prospects. This could be true, I don't know.

And I've always thought that $15 is a bit steep for bootlegs--and the $5 flat rate shipping on top of that was kind of insulting, given that the material cost, including postage, of sending out a single disc is barely more than a dollar. I'm sure that they would have moved a lot more discs at a friendlier price point.

And no cover is sent either. All you can really consider you are paying them for is the subtitles, the menus (although the original dvds already had perfectly good menus) and the DVD-R. The films are not theirs to sell.

Is it a possibility that they created these subtitled discs for their own benefit but then decided that they might be able to make a profit out of it, so they started selling them? An alternative might have been to create the subtitle files and then share these files free, so that people (with the ability to do so) could play these subs with the legitimate dvds (or create their own subbed dvd using the legitimate dvd as a source). This would be legal, support the people who are legitimately producing the dvds but would not be profitable.

[fred]

Neither am I - MOC have already released some Shinoda, Teshigahara, Imamura and even Matsumoto, Criterion have released some Imamura. I think we'll see R1 or R2 releases of these films at some point.

And Criterion have given strong indication that Eclipse will be releasing more Imamura, which would likely include many or all of the titles that JNWC made available.

Likewise, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Oshima gets the (dvd) respect he deserves in the Anglophone world.

I'm a little less optimistic for the prospects of the Yoshida films, but if we can have a half dozen subtitled Masumura films there's no reason why someone can't find a way to make money off of Eros + Massacre.

Sure, I'd like to see these things sooner than (law-abiding) capitalism might allow, but I've already got more things to watch than I have time for.

[toiletduck!]

fred and vogler,

How confident are we in this theory of Oshima somewhat soon to come to proper DVD? I ask because I've never seen any of his films, but am convinced (primarily through Vogel's "Film as a Subversive Art" and the Oshima thread here) that it's absolutely my type of thing. I was planning on springing for one or two of the JNW Oshimas in a couple of months, as I'm currently still feeling the hurt from Christmas shopping debts.

While I hate to sit idly by as an opportunity slips away, I, too have a large unwatched pile to keep me busy, and the thought of paying $20 for a blind buy bootleg that doesn't even come with artwork or a case is a little unnerving.

Give me some words of confidence one way or the other, here, guys! Indecisiveness sucks...

-Toilet Dcuk

[vogler]

fred and vogler,

How confident are we in this theory of Oshima somewhat soon to come to proper DVD?

I'm not confident at all, but I don't think it's as unlikely as many people suggest, unless there are major rights issues that we don't know about (or forced English subs written into the contract). Does anoyne know anything? I think Death by Hanging would make a magnificent MOC dvd.

[fred]

Well, in the U.S. many of them are controlled by New Yorker, so they'll probably get around to them eventually, for better or worse.

[Sanjuro]

The new (2006) Japanese remasters of Nagisa's movies are really nice. It'd be good if some legitimate company took advantage of these and the fairly recent (2005) Yoshida Kiju remasters. I dunno how big the audience is for these in Japan but after going to the effort and expense of remastering them all you'd think they'd try and get them released overseas too.

The past couple of years has seen loads of 'Japanese Masters' sets released in Japan. All really expensive of course (compared to overseas prices) but they all seem to come in really nice boxes. I was very impressed by the Mizoguchi box sets out last year. Heavy enough to be potentially lethal weapons even when empty.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Well, in the U.S. many of them are controlled by New Yorker, so they'll probably get around to them eventually, for better or worse.

New Yorker doesn't seem to have as many of them as they used to -- they only list five (Death by Hanging, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Diary of Yunbogi Boy, and Taboo) on their current website, whereas they used to list several more (Boy, The Ceremony, Cruel Story of Youth, Dear Summer Sister, Night and Fog in Japan, The Sun's Burial). I'm guessing they lost the rights, but I suppose it's possible they pulled them from distribution for some other reason.

A bootleg operation such as JNWC threatening another bootleg operation with a lawsuit seems utterly ludicrous.

The funny thing is, it's theoretically possible -- even illegal products enjoy copyright protection so long as they have some "original" element, so JNW could claim that SHF (or whoever) is infringing on their ownership of said elements. But I'm not sure any judge in the country would be inclined to hear them out.

[fred]

I'm guessing they lost the rights, but I suppose it's possible they pulled them from distribution for some other reason.

Knowing New Yorker, it's just as likely that they simply don't have prints to circulate. They're capable of anything, but I have a hard time imagining that they'd let the rights to Cruel Story of Youth lapse while retaining something as oddball as Yunbogi's Diary.

[vogler]

A bootleg operation such as JNWC threatening another bootleg operation with a lawsuit seems utterly ludicrous.

The funny thing is, it's theoretically possible -- even illegal products enjoy copyright protection so long as they have some "original" element, so JNW could claim that SHF (or whoever) is infringing on their ownership of said elements. But I'm not sure any judge in the country would be inclined to hear them out.

Ha Ha - Yeah, they'd probably get laughed out of court. Super Happy Fun will have to create new menus and reword the subs then (can you have copyright on a translation of someone else's text?).

[Michael Kerpan]

Ha Ha - Yeah, they'd probably get laughed out of court. Super Happy Fun will have to create new menus and reword the subs then (can you have copyright on a translation of someone else's text?).

Yes.

Can you commercially distribute your copyrighted translation legally (without permission)?

No.

[feckless boy]

115 page booklet that, presumably, accompanied their releases.

[jguitar]

115 page booklet that, presumably, accompanied their releases.

I might be missing something, but I couldn't get this to download.

[feckless boy]

It doesn't start automatically, you have to press the button to the right marked: download file. And then enter the numbers/letters shown and finally press: get.

so dos NAAA!

[jguitar]

It doesn't start automatically, you have to press the button to the right marked: download file. And then enter the numbers/letters shown and finally press: get.

so dos NAAA!

Jeebus, I don't know how I missed that before. Thanks for the pointers.