Narutofan

[Ero-Fan]

If you like it that much, that's fine, I agree with you. Then you buy it. But this guy is charging money for fansubs, not official subs or translations of manga. To pay for such stuff when you could just use one of his links to get to the bittorent sites he uses for his material....

[Psyke]

Originally posted by: Ero-Fan
If you like it that much, that's fine, I agree with you. Then you buy it. But this guy is charging money for fansubs, not official subs or translations of manga. To pay for such stuff when you could just use one of his links to get to the bittorent sites he uses for his material....

That's another matter altogether. If you're paying another body other than the original authors for the manga it's ridiculous and dumb........ Letting a 3rd party gain money and especially when the 3rd party isn't responsible for the translations (assuming the claims about narutofan is correct) is totally pointless and a waste.

[el_boss]

Actually they're not paying for the fansubs. They're paying for the service of being able to direct download them. So I can see how he gets away with it.

[Mixairian]

I'll start off by saying, hi. I've lurked on these forums for months and it took a topic this stupid to convince me to finally join.

So you're telling us not to support Naruto Fan because the guy makes a lot of money and hosts the work of subbing groups on his servers without their permission who in turn sub and host the manga without the artist or companies position?

Is this right?

This is your argument in a nut shell. Oh wait, he's taken steps to remove other Naruto sites.

Okay that's pretty malicious. Wheres your proof?

The only link you've provided is to show that this fellow is making money off of Naruto. It may not be expensive to host servers to download so many files but he does spend the time and effort to keep people updated and provide this service. The man is running a bloody business. Are you complaining cause you think this is unfair or because you never did it?

What does it matter that he's making money (personally I don't pay a cent for anything I've DLed from his cent)? He's providing a service to Naruto fans.

I went to Inane website recently... Not only did I not find any information to support your claim but I found it to be the most ridiculously complicated site to download anything from. At this point in time I still do not know how to access Inane manga without going to IRC (despite scattered commentary over the site about bit torrents).

[Ero-Fan]

I have no problem with what he is doing, I was just saying people are stupid for paying for what 2 more clicks will get them for free. And if you sign up (non-paying) you can still dl the manga and mp3s for free, you just have to wait like 30 seconds between each one and you have to do each file individually. Doesn't take too long, though. 'Specially if you read them as you dl.

[Assertn]

Originally posted by: Mixairian
I'll start off by saying, hi. I've lurked on these forums for months and it took a topic this stupid to convince me to finally join.

Wow, it's about time one of the 900k followers finally posted a response to this topic.

Okay that's pretty malicious. Wheres your proof?

Proof on the internet is what you percieve it to be. Without elite hacking knowledge to access his bank account, I'm only armed with the information provided to me.

1) Withholding of certain information is grounds for suspicion. Money from memberships is a HUGE contribution, yet nowhere is that mentioned. I was going to inquire about this, but the chat board for his 2006 budget article is conveniently missing, he doesn't respond to such questions, and the forums delete any topics that bring it up. But I guess we should all keep donating to him until he TELLS us he's extorting us, right?

2) I think I've made it clear about some of the points that I've brought up about his character are rumors., and the point of this topic wasnt to dwell on those. I've also linked to stoptazmo.com, because the people there are more up-to-date on all these little things than I am. While alot of them sound like jealous name-callers, some of them seem to actually find some legitimate dirt.

The only link you've provided is to show that this fellow is making money off of Naruto. It may not be expensive to host servers to download so many files but he does spend the time and effort to keep people updated and provide this service. The man is running a bloody business. Are you complaining cause you think this is unfair or because you never did it?

I'd spend time and effort if I could be making six figures too.
Sure its unfair, but for much more than just me. If the guy actually did the work of subbing these files, it would be one thing. If the guy actually bought the rights to Naruto so he could profit off of it LEGALLY, then that would be a whole different story.
I'm not going to complain that somethingawful.com makes $10 for each new member, $10 for each account upgrade, $5 for each title change, etc.
I'm also not going to complain that Tom banked millions off of myspace.
But this is because these are legitimate services, while Tazmo's is petty and, as someone mentioned earlier in this topic, potentially hazardous to the anime community as a whole.

What does it matter that he's making money (personally I don't pay a cent for anything I've DLed from his cent)? He's providing a service to Naruto fans.

Once again, potentially hazardous to the anime community as a whole. This is especially tragic, as the majority of narutofan members are just on the naruto bandwagon and hardly part of any REAL anime community.

I went to Inane website recently... Not only did I not find any information to support your claim but I found it to be the most ridiculously complicated site to download anything from. At this point in time I still do not know how to access Inane manga without going to IRC (despite scattered commentary over the site about bit torrents).

Meh, this topic isn't called "Convince Mixairtian not to waste his bux." I've been following the Naruto manga for about 2 years now, and anyone who's been following it with me can attest to past events between Inane and Narutofan. If you want I can bother myself to dig up an older inane scanslation that explicity references Narutofan on it.

Edit: I'll also mention, that if tazmo is willing to contact me and answer my questions that I've asked him in a way that adequately explains his budget, then I'll take this thread down.

[Carnage]

If you think about it,i think its worth it for $3,50 a month. I mean, if its direct downloading, then you can definatly download every anime on the server under one month, then close your account, and instead of intense searching you could just pay a total of $3.50 to just get your self all that there is on the server. You can prolly make more than $3.50 in the time it would take you to find all those animes.

[Mixairian]

Originally posted by: AssertnFailure
Wow, it's about time one of the 900k followers finally posted a response to this topic.

Up until now, never saw much of a reason to post.

Proof on the internet is what you percieve it to be. Without elite hacking knowledge to access his bank account, I'm only armed with the information provided to me.

I'm not asking for bank account numbers of elite numbers. I'm asking for any sort of proof you can provide. News articles, complaint listing from the subbing groups themselves. Something other than "oh well someone told me."

"Someone told me AssertnFailure is just paid by another Naruto forum to trash on Naruto Fan."

That's quite a statement. I'd need some type of proof to back up my argument if I were going to request everyone to boycott listening to or supporting you. To make a legitimate argument like that on my behalf right now would be childish and unfair unless I provided the people around some iota of solid evidence.

1) Withholding of certain information is grounds for suspicion. Money from memberships is a HUGE contribution, yet nowhere is that mentioned. I was going to inquire about this, but the chat board for his 2006 budget article is conveniently missing, he doesn't respond to such questions, and the forums delete any topics that bring it up. But I guess we should all keep donating to him until he TELLS us he's extorting us, right?

Let's cover the basics. The guy provides a service. He takes out time from his personal life to collect the source mterials as well as contact the servers to host the materials to the public for free. Those who pay gain access to other materials and can acquire them much easier (I for one did not pay and had to manually access the Naruto manga one day off). What divine right do you have to know how his business is doing? You pay for a service and you get a service. Where does this arrogant mentality that you of all people must know how well his business is doing comes from?

I think I've made it clear about some of the points that I've brought up about his character are rumors., and the point of this topic wasnt to dwell on those. I've also linked to stoptazmo.com, because the people there are more up-to-date on all these little things than I am. While alot of them sound like jealous name-callers, some of them seem to actually find some legitimate dirt.

For a fellow who claims that a lot of his points are rumors, why tell other members this:

"In short. Don't send a dime of your money to tazmo, whether it be donations, memberships, or otherwise"

Don't get me wrong. I don't know the guy personally and don't care about him but I find it highly suspect to make a call to arms against someone over rumors because he is successful. And this is flat out what it seems to be.

I'd spend time and effort if I could be making six figures too.
Sure its unfair, but for much more than just me. If the guy actually did the work of subbing these files, it would be one thing. If the guy actually bought the rights to Naruto so he could profit off of it LEGALLY, then that would be a whole different story.

First off the people who work to sub or translate are doing because they love their work and want more people to read it. Most places use bit torrent or MIRC to have their works spread out. On contrary to popular belief, those two methods are NOT user friendly. Hosting large files like a Naruto anime on a website and allowing folks to DL them is expensive.

I reread what you wrote about 32k a year and I'm suprise it's that cheap.

I got bored:

http://www.top-10-web-hosting.com/

We'll take the first one that offers the best deal 7$ a month for 10 gigs of space and a 250 gig bandwidth. 10 gigs of space is only 50 Naruto episodes, let alone other animes, raws and other deals that are offered. Triple it to catch up to the anime episodes. So 21$ monthly. But wait you have other factors like site layout and other such offers that are provided. I don't have premium. I'm going on a very stingy guess and will push the cost to around 40$ monthly. What we are not factoring is how much bandwidth can be used up before downloading. This is where the true cost comes on.

No one can deny the number of hits Naruto Fan recieves, at least not anyone who has been a fan or the series for the past few months and has kept up on most Naruto related news. Hits alone perday can leech off precious gigabytes from a popular website. Then you factor in the fact that people are constantly downloading something from his site. That is a lot of money. While 32k may seem ridiculous to those sites that barely generate enough hits to make a dent and do not offer something to DL, its is very feesable when you calculate the fan base and the supply he's offering.

Now to the specific issue. The argument that he could hide behind, just like music piraters have for years, is that he's not selling the anime but his charging for his webspace and access.

Not many people in this world are truly altruistic. He could charge the bare minimum for his premium membership just to keep the site going but he has to factor in dwindling interest, change of times and his personal life which the site must eat into. He's found a niche and making a living.

BTW stoptazumo is the first link of news you've provided. I will scope it out when I'm done responding.

I'm not going to complain that somethingawful.com makes $10 for each new member, $10 for each account upgrade, $5 for each title change, etc.
I'm also not going to complain that Tom banked millions off of myspace.
But this is because these are legitimate services, while Tazmo's is petty and, as someone mentioned earlier in this topic, potentially hazardous to the anime community as a whole.

Because he's petty? Tom could be a dick or a saint for all I care, he made a smart business move. Same for somethingawful and same for Tazumo. The only difference is, this man made a business on something that is close to home for you. For all you know Tom and the somethingaweful folks could be raging pricks who go out of their way to sabatoge their competition too (then again Tom no longer owns MySpace, last I checked Fox bought it from him)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495.stm

Once again, potentially hazardous to the anime community as a whole. This is especially tragic, as the majority of narutofan members are just on the naruto bandwagon and hardly part of any REAL anime community.

I skimmed the whole topic once more so if there is more evidence other than gaining American distributor attention let me know.

American distributors more and more are going to find out about the online subbing groups as Anime becomes more popular in America. This is unavoidable. There will come a time when a court battle, much like the whole trials with Napster are going to take place.

Yes Tazumo gaining such attention MIGHT bring this about faster but when the hamer comes down, he'll be one of the first nails pounded.... Now who do you want to stand up for you in court. Some random subbing group that does it for free and can barely afford to bail out of jail or a guy who will be able to hire a good lawyer and defend his business... His goals may not have the anime community in mind but his own business but I'd rather have him, seeing as he's hardworking enough to establish a business and will be able to have better resources to defend himself and the anime community in court.

On a side note, no starts as part of the anime community. Many people may be on the Naruto bandwagon, some will leave but many may eventually join to become part of the community. This whole concept of not wanting new blood to be in the community because they joined when a series was popularis a bit too elitist for me.

Meh, this topic isn't called "Convince Mixairtian not to waste his bux." I've been following the Naruto manga for about 2 years now, and anyone who's been following it with me can attest to past events between Inane and Narutofan. If you want I can bother myself to dig up an older inane scanslation that explicity references Narutofan on it.

I would appreciate and yes the topic is not to convince me. When a person posts "news" on a forum, it is to pass information along. But I felt you did not provide sufficient information and the masses on this board were joining your bandwagon. When you post a belief or idea in writing, it's something you should try to defend; especially if it is going to be possibly controversial.

For the time being you've taken a stance. We are just on opposite ends on the belief spectrum here. If you do show proof that server costs over long term use are completely cheaper than what he claims , I will be placated but I will not defend the boycott NarutoFan bandwagon on this forum just because he's made some very smart business decisions. If you can show that he's involved in a kiddie porn ring, as one poster in this topic so eloquently put it, then I would find a reason to not support his site.

I'll also mention, that if tazmo is willing to contact me and answer my questions that I've asked him in a way that adequately explains his budget, then I'll take this thread down.

To play devil's advocate some more. Since when is NarutoFan about comforting AssertnFailure over my business practices? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Edit: I do appreciate and respect the fact that you are responding to defend your belief. I assure you that in no one I hold your beliefs against you and I hope you feel the same.

[Kraco]

Be it a good deal or not, but Assertn is right: A business like that could attract unwelcome attention. It's one thing to make free fansubs, but something totally different to make money with them. I think foreign companies need to pay quite a lot to get licenses. This dude ain't paying anything, but is basically doing the very same thing: Providing an easy access to multiple titles in exchange for money.

If something dire happens, I hope he will lose all that money and the secondary backlash to the actual subbers will be minimum...

[Mixairian]

Something fun I found for you all to read over about the costs of webhosting

http://webhosting.resourceinde...m/articles/000017.html

Letting a Web Hosting service do the grunt work may be cheaper than doing it yourself.

Who is the Best Host for your Web site: you or somebody else: The answer boils down to control and convenience vs. cost. Web hosting isn't like contracting to outsource an entire IT operation, but there are similarities. Operating your own Web server provides maximum control and convenience, but it's expensive. As a blanket statement, hosting is usually (much) less expensive. Unless a company can amortize the costs over many years and many customers, it's hard to beat the economics of a hosted Web service.

Here's a rough guide to the costs for hosting a Web site yourself:
Equipment: A server and communications gear. Internal company networks may need special routers. One-time. One-time cost: $5,000 to $15,000.

Communications: Typically a T-1 line (or fraction thereof). Annual cost: $8,000 to $12,000.

Physical location: A room for the server and worker(s) that is secure and has communications access, This is difficult to estimate, but let's say about $5,000 a year.

Staff: A Webmaster (full- or part-time). Other technicians and specialists may be needed from time to time. yearly cost: $40,000 to $75,000.

In total, the minimal operating costs can reach $58,000 to $107,000 the first year, with $50,000 to $100,000 per year after that. This is a lot for any company if the Web presence is merely informational. The situation is different for companies doing business on the Web, since the income from e-business should at least cover the costs of operation. On the other hand, letting a hosting service host your Web site costs about $1,500 to $5,000 a year. A hosting service can manage your storage, absorb the cost of owning T-1 lines, and take care of all the day-to-day operations of maintaining a Web server. the reason the price is so much less is that other customers are sharing the resources, including the network administrators and the hardware.

Not every company is comfortable in the hands of a host. If sensitive data is part of your Web presence, then using a host entails assuming some risk. While all hosts promise to protect the security and privacy of your data, it is very difficult for them to guarantee that no employee will ever violate that trust or that nothing will go wrong. Of course, your own facility may not be 100 percent safe either, but there's some comfort in feeling it's under your control.

Web hosting also has had its share of chicanery. Especially visible have been cases of cramming--loading a customer's bill with hidden charges. This strategy is practices only by a tiny percentage of Web hosts, but the fact that it happens is your cue to research a potential hosting service before you buy.

Who should consider hosting? The glib answer is everybody, just like everybody should consider outsourcing. But it doesn't work that way. The most obvious candidates are small to midsize businesses that don't have the resources to operate their own in-house Web site--it simply costs too much to have a Web staff and also pay for the technology.

Even some very large companies with major Web Operations of their own use hosting services. The most commonly cited reason is to avoid the cost of adding people and equipment for special projects or spurts in traffic, or when a department wants a service that doesn't fit into the operational schedule.

The thing to do is define what you want in your Web site. Determine how many megabytes you expect the site to take up and how much traffic you expect ( calculated in megabytes of Web pages viewed per month). Most hosting companies set fees according to how many megabytes of information they will store, and how much traffic is expected on the Web site. Also figure the income potential of your site. Then shop around fro hosts. Local hosts may be more convenient, but don't overlook the possibilities of a national host, even if it's headquartered thousands of miles away.

There are different kinds of Web hosts, and they all cater to a specific need, so the customer has a variety of options. There are shared, dedicated, and high availability solutions available. There are now more than 5,000 Web hosts of one type or another. some are big and well known, such as IBM and Mind-Spring Enterprises; many thousands are quite small. Searching for the right host can be facilitated with specialty search engines such as Infotonic. Price, comfort, and convenience may be affected by the quality of the hosting company. Who runs the company? How big is it? do they speak your language? do they understand your requirements? If you like the answers you get to these and similar questions, then you've probably found the right Web hosting company.

These are not all exact costs BUT they are how high they can range to. NarutoFan is after all a business.

[Assertn]

Originally posted by: Mixairian
I'm not asking for bank account numbers of elite numbers. I'm asking for any sort of proof you can provide. News articles, complaint listing from the subbing groups themselves. Something other than "oh well someone told me."

Actually, nobody told me that Narutofan is exploiting people. I came to that conclusion through loop holes that are rather obvious to me, as a web designer, and realized that I'm not alone in this observation. I think my first post explained my perspective on the situation well enough to support my argument. Perhaps instead of saying it's insufficient, you should back up your side with points that are worth defending. Although 90% of your posts don't seem to deny that Tazmo is lying about not profiting from his site, as he claims. So do you agree that a donation system that is used for personal gain is considered legitimate business then?

Let's cover the basics. The guy provides a service. He takes out time from his personal life to collect the source mterials as well as contact the servers to host the materials to the public for free. Those who pay gain access to other materials and can acquire them much easier (I for one did not pay and had to manually access the Naruto manga one day off). What divine right do you have to know how his business is doing? You pay for a service and you get a service. Where does this arrogant mentality that you of all people must know how well his business is doing comes from?

Yes, yes. We're all familiar with the concept of "paying for the distribution" rather than paying for the product. Like I said, if his budget plan is accurate and all the money actually DOES go towards servers, then I'm ok with that. But why should he pocket extra cash when the services of fansubbers doesn't?

I'll tell you what divine right I have to know how his business is doing: Because in the US, we have LAWS about how companies conduct business. Profiting off of a product that has been copyrighted by another company is most DEFINITELY illegal. He's bringing to the surface an entire community that for the most part operates underground and not in conflict with the dubbing companies, which will draw in too much attention from the companies as well as their target demographics. There's going to be a severe backlash, and I fear that it may extend to much farther than just Narutofan.com. If you can't see this, then you're the very type of naruto bandwagon fanboy I referenced in my previous post.

For a fellow who claims that a lot of his points are rumors, why tell other members this:

"In short. Don't send a dime of your money to tazmo, whether it be donations, memberships, or otherwise"

Don't get me wrong. I don't know the guy personally and don't care about him but I find it highly suspect to make a call to arms against someone over rumors because he is successful. And this is flat out what it seems to be.

Once again, your confusing the reference I made about rumors. The rumors were just a sideline, the main point was the blatant loopholes in the budget plan that I mentioned. Don't mix them up plz.

::WORDS:: He's found a niche and making a living.

Eh, never deal much with web hosting, so I didn't want to argue the price. Some people who are more knowledgeable already have, but as I already mentioned in the first post, I took into account that he was telling the truth about his server expenses. So don't know why you'd go into detail about it. As for the found a niche and making a living...once again ILLEGALLY. Take a class on intellectual property sometime. I myself am a new media whore, so I take that kind of stuff seriously.

Because he's petty? Tom could be a dick or a saint for all I care, he made a smart business move. Same for somethingawful and same for Tazumo. The only difference is, this man made a business on something that is close to home for you. For all you know Tom and the somethingaweful folks could be raging pricks who go out of their way to sabatoge their competition too (then again Tom no longer owns MySpace, last I checked Fox bought it from him)

Wrong. Actually a friend and I are working on a community site, so myspace would probably hit closer to home than narutofan would. I guess if you want to start rumors about me on your own, then that wouldn't be hypocritical though [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] I already know tom sold it to fox. That's how he became a multi-millionare.
Here's the difference between tom and tazmo: One owned a business, the other owns a black market.

...American distributors...

So you're saying it would be best to give tazmo all our money so he can buy lawyers to defend the anime community? Nice try, but the flaw to this obscure logic is that lawyers know they can't win a case against someone who owns the rights to the product in question. This is literally an open and shut case. The reason distributors don't press so hard on the anime community is because in general, the community is beneficial to the system. It introduces off-shore entertainment that prepares the demographic for when the entertainment is no longer off-shore. Sites like animesuki.com specifically remove series that have been licensed in America, to maximize the good relations between the community and the companies. Technically, groups like Aone and DB are already breaching the good relations between the two by subbing a series that's been licensed, but Narutofan is pouring salt on the wound...and in a HUGE way.

I would appreciate and yes the topic is not to convince me. When a person posts "news" on a forum, it is to pass information along. But I felt you did not provide sufficient information and the masses on this board were joining your bandwagon. When you post a belief or idea in writing, it's something you should try to defend; especially if it is going to be possibly controversial.

For the time being you've taken a stance. We are just on opposite ends on the belief spectrum here. If you do show proof that server costs over long term use are completely cheaper than what he claims , I will be placated but I will not defend the boycott NarutoFan bandwagon on this forum just because he's made some very smart business decisions. If you can show that he's involved in a kiddie porn ring, as one poster in this topic so eloquently put it, then I would find a reason to not support his site.

I'm not just ranting, I've actually been aware of narutofan's status for about a year now. Any chance he has of clearing up any misconceptions tend to prove insufficient, and more often than not results in me being even more suspicious than before. I'm not arguing that his quoted expenses are too high, read my post again. I'm saying he's not factoring a huge contributor towards the compensation of it, which is misleading. If you want to donate, be my guest, but any donation-based organization that acts in a shady manner deserves to be questioned.
I'll PM you some images of inane's scanlations with the "narutofan does not have permission" pages, but they'll probably have spoilers in them, if that's a concern of yours or not.

To play devil's advocate some more. Since when is NarutoFan about comforting AssertnFailure over my business practices?

Apparently they are if you have come here to act as his representative [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Edit: I do appreciate and respect the fact that you are responding to defend your belief. I assure you that in no one I hold your beliefs against you and I hope you feel the same.

W/E....I'm not one to pass up an argument. I'd appreciate it if you stop calling NF a business though. Businesses don't rely on donations, nor rely on infringing copyrights to make an income.

[DarthEnderX]

The winking faces are damaging you're credibility Assertn.

[Kraco]

Originally posted by: DarthEnder
The winking faces are damaging you're credibility Assertn.

Word.

[KitKat]

Originally posted by: DarthEnder
The winking faces are damaging you're credibility Assertn.

On the contrary, I think they add to his sexiness.

[Terracosmo]

And I just think that Mixairian is plain dumb. Also he has defeated the sexiness of the yellow rubber duck avatar by making it dark and brooding.

( Naruto: ) And I will never forgive him

[Carnage]

No,no, Assertn shouldnt use winks, its just not in his nature. Do Shikimaru or Ichigo ever show emotion? no. No they dont.

[Assertn]

Does Bon Clay or Zaraki type shitty posts? I doubt that too.


Sorry, I had to [img]i/expressions/heart.gif[/img]

[number331@comcast.net]

I am almost positive that there is a cap on the limit that one can download through direct download on NF+.
Anyone wanna double check this? No mention of a cap is made in the information for plus so I cant say its definate.

[Kraco]

Originally posted by: number331@comcast.net
I am almost positive that there is a cap on the limit that one can download through direct download on NF+.
Anyone wanna double check this? No mention of a cap is made in the information for plus so I cant say its definate.

Well, I'm sure when you sign for the membership, there is one of these rules: A clear cap, or a statement that allows the owner to place a cap without terminating the contract. He wouldn't be a good businessman without leaving such backdoors for himself.

[Spastic_Avenger]

my two cents worth........

Wow amazingly lenghty posts...... some of the logest i've seen in gotwoot but...
i agree with asert, the fansubbing community has survied so far because we've kept our heads down. if sites like NF start thinking they can rake in thousands of $ for providing direct downloads of fansubbs then pretty soon the anime companys will be sending thier lawers out with cease and desists to all the fansubbing groups..... it doesnt even matter if he is making a single dolar profit or not. if any fansubbing site starts putting out bugets with more then two
zero's in its bottom line then it will just draw unwanted attention.
of course they could never get rid of all of us, it will just mean that our community will just have to go more underground then, but that would be a shame.
if you value free fansubbing, keep it free.
if it gets licensed...buy the DVD.