funimation – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Sony Is Trying To Clean Up Its Crunchyroll Mess, But It’s Still Messy Indeed

from the clean-up-on-aisle-Sony dept

The mess is getting a little messier. We had talked days ago about Sony’s decision to shutter its Funimation platform in favor of a more recent acquisition in Crunchyroll. Anyone with a Funimation account would be transitioned into a Crunchyroll account, which sounds all good until you realize that Funimation users had plenty of digital streaming copies of content they had bought and which were promised to be available “forever” which are instead simply going away. As in deleted. Another example of people thinking they were buying and owning something, only to find out that their purchases live solely at the pleasure of the seller that could disappear them.

After some public outcry, Sony said it would offer Funimation users “an appropriate value” for these lost digital libraries. What does that mean? Who the hell knows! Here is Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini on the matter, speaking on the Decoder podcast.

The executive claimed that Funimation is “working really hard directly” with each affected customer to “ensure that they have an appropriate value for what they got in the digital copy initially.” When asked what “appropriate value” means, Purini responded:

“It could be that they get access to a digital copy on any of the existing other services where they might be able to access it. It could be a discount access to our subscription service so they can get access to the same shows through our subscription service. So we are trying to make it right based on each user’s preference.”

The thing is that all of the “could bes” and “trying” isn’t really a plan. It doesn’t offer the people that paid for something thinking they owned it clarity on whether they are still definitely going to get access to the content they paid for or not. And discounts to a subscription service to get access to content already paid for is unlikely to placate the majority of customers anyway.

And it appears that Purini’s comments are at least slightly premature, since tests for getting “appropriate value” for this content through Funimation’s support, which is where customers are required to inquire about all of this, haven’t exactly gone off without a hitch.

But even if you did happen to demand some sort of refund from Funimation, you might not have been offered any relief. The Verge’s Ash Parrish, who has a free-tier Funimation account, reported today on her experience trying to receive the “appropriate value” for her digital copies of Steins;Gate and The Vision of Escaflowne. Parrish noted that Steins;Gate isn’t available to stream off Crunchyroll with a free subscription, meaning she’d have no way to watch it digitally come April 2. Parrish said Funimation support responded with two “boilerplate” emails that apologized but offered no solution or compensation. She followed up about getting compensated for a premium subscription so that she’d be able to stream what she used to digitally own through Crunchyroll but hadn’t received a response by publication time.

Following up with Funimation’s PR department didn’t provide any clarity. Brian Eley, Funimation’s VP of communications, reportedly told Parrish via email: “Funimation users who have questions about digital copies can contact Funimation here. A Funimation account associated with a digital copy redemption is required for verification.” Ars Technica reached out to Crunchyroll for comment but didn’t hear back in time for publication.

So, is there plan to make this right? According to Purini, yes! A vague one, though, where it all feels like it’s half-baked and up in the air. And requires the user to initiate the request for it to be made right. And with solutions that may or may not be available, but certainly are not being offered through the support channel that the company says should be used to get this compensation.

So in the end we’re in the same place as before. Sony has ripped away paid-for content from its customers and will decide for itself exactly what those customers will get in return.

Filed Under: content, ownership, rahul purini
Companies: crunchyroll, funimation, sony

Here We Go Again: Sony Disappears Digital Content That Was Pitched To Customers As ‘Forever’

from the poof-it's-gone dept

And here we go again. We’ve had many, many posts over recent years discussing how, in the digital age, you often don’t actually own what you’ve bought. And before the comments section gets filled with perplexed but rather educated folks talking about how the all these cases involve products in which the terms of service clearly outline that this is a license and not an actual product being bought, just stop. We all know that barely anyone reads a ToS these days and the confusion and anger that occurs in the public is proof of it. So clearly companies are not doing nearly enough to inform their customers of what they are actually purchasing. And if you think that problem is easily solved by staunchly insisting that Nancy down the street steep herself in legalese, then you’re completely divorced from reality.

Which brings us to Sony. Late last year we discussed how when Sony’s deal with the Discovery network ended, it caused a bunch of content to simply disappear from PlayStation owners who bought the content in the PS Store. Due to something completely outside of the public’s control, people who bought content, or thought that’s what they were doing, suddenly lost that content. Without refunds. Or an apology.

And now it’s happening all over again, due to Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll all the way back in 2021. Sony-owned Funimation is shutting down its app and website in April, with the company converting Funimation accounts to Crunchyroll accounts instead. All good right? Well…

Funimation, a Sony-owned streaming service for anime, recently announced that subscribers’ digital libraries on the platform will be unavailable after April 2. For years, Funimation had been telling subscribers that they could keep streaming these digital copies of purchased movies and shows, but qualifying it: “forever, but there are some restrictions.”

But soon, people who may have discarded or lost their physical media or lack a way to play DVDs and Blu-rays won’t have a way to access the digital copies that they were entitled to through their physical copy purchase.

Funimation’s announcement is roughly as tone-deaf as it gets. They explain all of these libraries won’t carry over to Crunchyroll because that platform doesn’t support Funimation’s digital content and then makes some vague comments about how Crunchyroll is continuously looking to make itself better. Which, whatever, because that doesn’t change the fact that a bunch of people bought a bunch of digital content that was pitched mostly as being theirs “forever” only to have it all nuked into oblivion as a result of a Sony acquisition. Good times.

Here again, we see that people don’t actually own what they’ve bought, much to their confusion.

Funimation’s support page for digital copies (which, as of this writing, says it hasn’t been updated in four years) notes that Funimation’s idea of forever includes restrictions and links to Funimation’s Terms of Use. Those terms state that Funimation can “without advance notice… immediately suspend or terminate the availability of the Service and/or content (and any elements and features of them), in whole or in part, for any reason.” It also says that the Funimation website, apps, service, and all of its content are owned by Funimation and its partners.

So even if you, understandably, thought you were buying a “forever” digital copy, the wordy truth is that you never really owned it. Yet, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that someone relying on digital copies to preserve their purchased media didn’t properly understand (or read) those terms before discarding their physical copies.

Thanks for the money, suckers! Hope you enjoyed the years-long forever!

Filed Under: digital content, digital library, license, ownership
Companies: crunchyroll, funimation, sony

Texas Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal Of Voice Actor’s Bogus Defamation Lawsuit

from the file-stupid-lawsuits,-win-stupid-prizes dept

Vic Mignogna is an American voice actor specializing in English dubs of Japanese anime. His career dates back to the early 2000s. Unfortunately for Mignogna, he’s now mostly known as a serial sexual harasser. Those accusations began surfacing in 2019, with some accusations dating back nearly a decade before he became a successful voice actor.

Following these allegations, Funimation and Rooster Teeth both cut ties with Mignogna. Mignogna — who has a considerable following across multiple social media platforms — had plenty of opportunity to refute these allegations. And he did. But he decided that wasn’t enough. Hiring perhaps not the best of legal representation (Texas lawyer Ty Beard), Mignogna sued Funimation (and others) for defamation.

He lost. Badly. Utilizing Texas’ anti-SLAPP law, the defendants got the lawsuit tossed. They also succeeded in getting the fees shifted, making Mignogna personally responsible for $223,000 in legal fees.

Mignogna appealed. He probably shouldn’t have bothered. The final amount ended up being higher than that, with the Texas Appeals Court awarding nearly $283,000 in legal fees to all defendants.

That handled the anti-SLAPP fee shifting. But Mignogna also appealed the dismissal of his lawsuit. He shouldn’t have bothered doing that either. The absolutely brutal opinion [PDF] highlights just how abysmally both Mignogna and his lawyer performed during this legal action and how far off base they were in their legal claims. (This Twitter thread by Akiva Cohen hits all the highlights and is definitely worth reading.)

All seventeen claims against the defendants were dismissed by the lower court. The Appeals Court pitches the same perfect game: 0-17.

How do you lose this badly? Well, the first thing you do, as Mignogna and his representation did here, is sabotage your own case. In a pro se case, this could charitably be considered an unforced error. In a case where the plaintiff has both the money to sue and the funds to hire a lawyer, this is incomprehensible.

On the record before us, Appellees met their initial TCPA [anti-SLAPP] burden, in part because Mignogna failed to preserve his complaints about their evidence, which the trial court considered along with Mignogna’s allegations in his first amended petition. And because Mignogna withdrew the principal evidence supporting his prima-facie burden before the hearing on Appellees’ TCPA motions, he was unable to meet his TCPA burden on any of Appellees’ claims. Accordingly, the trial court did not err by granting Appellees’ TCPA motions, by imposing sanctions on Mignogna, or by awarding attorney’s fees to Appellees, and we affirm this portion of the trial court’s judgment.

That’s perhaps the best thing said about Mignogna’s legal effort in this ruling. It gets so much worse.

Mignogna argued the lower court erred in not considering his second amended complaint. But that complaint was filed after the deadline and, holy shittingly, contained apparent false representations about signatures on the supporting affidavit.

According to the subsequently filed “Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to File Late Response to Defendants’ TCPA Motions to Dismiss Due to Technical Issues,” Mignogna’s counsel unsuccessfully attempted to file Mignogna’s TCPA response just after midnight on Saturday, August 31. He successfully served Marchi’s counsel, however, who asked him to provide a certified copy of all notary-book pages for the notarizations performed by him on August 30, the date that the affidavits of Mignogna, Chuck Huber, and Christopher Slatosch—which were attached to Mignogna’s TCPA response—were signed according to Mignogna’s counsel’s notary stamp. At 9:04 a.m. on September 2, Rial and Toye’s counsel asked Mignogna’s counsel for an explanation of how Mignogna, Huber, and Slatosch could have signed their affidavits in his presence when none of them were in Tyler [Texas] with him on August 30.

Yeah, that’s misconduct. And all pretty much standard M.O. for Ty Beard, Mignogna’s counsel.

On top of arriving late (and apparently containing falsified signatures/sworn statements), the belated response arrived with a bunch of useless garbage attached, further annoying both the lower court and the next level of review.

Nine of the seventeen exhibits contained evidence that was not attached to the TCPA response. The remaining eight exhibits consisted of three unsworn declarations (from Mignogna, Huber, and Slatosch, with the same contents as their affidavits), the three depositions, E.M.’s unsworn declaration, and Dahlin’s affidavit.

The lower court ultimately granted permission for the late filing, but refused to consider three withdrawn affidavits or any of the “evidence” attached to the new filing.

Here’s why things went down the way they did, according to both judicial levels. This was a transparent attempt to game the system, albeit one performed by individuals too incompetent to pull it off.

The record reflects that Mignogna essentially tried to use an amended pleading as a late TCPA response to remedy his lack of evidence and thereby avoid the parties’ Rule 11 agreement deadline.

The dismissal of Mignogna’s defamation claims — all of them — are similarly upheld. You just can’t sustain defamation claims when you admit a person’s published accusation is substantially true.

The accusation:

Mignogna argues that Marchi defamed him through her statement that he had assaulted her by grabbing her hair, yanking her head back, and whispering something “sexual” in her ear.

Mignogna’s… um… rebuttal:

In his deposition, Mignogna admitted to the incident involving Marchi’s hair but stated that it “was not painful, it was not hurtful, it was not sexual, and it happened at least four or five years ago, maybe longer,” and he denied ever having whispered anything sexual in her ear or having had any sexual interest in her.

Mignogna cannot decide how this interaction presented itself to the person having their hair pulled. And it definitely didn’t help his case that he admitted to doing the same thing (hair pulling) to several other females over the years.

_He also agreed that Marchi was not the only woman whose hair he had pulled_…

And he stated (in his defense[?!]) that if he said anything to Marchi, it was only about how much he “loved” her hair.

Here’s how Mignogna (and his lawyer, Ty Beard) mishandled another accusation the voice actor claimed was defamatory:

Mignogna argues that he specifically denied Rial’s accusations against him, but to support his assertion, he primarily references his affidavit and Slatosch’s affidavit, both of which he withdrew before the TCPA hearing, and his unsworn declaration and Slatosch’s unsworn declaration, neither of which the trial court considered because they were attached to his second amended petition. Further, despite having attached Rial’s entire deposition to his TCPA response, Mignogna provided no evidence of her state of mind with regard to the actual-malice element.

Related: LOL at this entry of “evidence” on behalf of Mignogna related to Rial’s allegations — one both courts chose to ignore:

_[A]n affidavit by Stan Dahlin regarding his recollection (none) of an incident involving Mignogna that Rial had described as having occurred at the November 2007 Izumicon_…

Every claim non-actionable, thanks to Mignogna and his lawyer’s mishandling of this lawsuit.

Mignogna’s pleadings and evidence had to establish “the facts of when, where, and what was said[;] the defamatory nature of the statements[;] and how they damaged [him].” Lipsky, 460 S.W.3d at 591. However, Mignogna merely attached 342 purported tweets by Toye without their surrounding context—the tweets to which Toye was responding—which is required to determine if a statement is defamatory per se. Bilbrey, 2015 WL 1120921, at *12. Further, the tweets referring to Mignogna as a “sexual predator” or variations thereof were nonactionable opinion…

His other claims fared no better upon the second review. Tortious interference? Show your work, says the court. Claiming invitations to public events dropped off after the allegations surfaced means nothing when Mignogna openly admitted during depositions that conventions routinely avoid inviting people to appear at multiple events and tend to shy away from repeat invitations due to the sheer number of people in the businesses Mignogna operated in (anime, voiceover). He also was unable to provide any rescinded offers or altered contracts reflecting his accusations that these allegations had diminished his public appearance opportunities.

Mignogna admitted in his deposition that with the exception of one convention—Kameha Con—he had no written evidence, emails, text messages, or anything to show that Appellees had contacted or encouraged conventions not to invite him.

Notably, Kameha Con was not one of the defendants.

I supposed this judicial shutout could be appealed. I can’t see why Mignogna or his lawyer would want to. Perhaps they still believe the court can restore innocence (even though that’s not how civil litigation works) and make Mignogna seem like less of a problematic person than he currently does. But all it will really do — considering the sheer number of inexplicable blunders and failures contained within — is increase the amount owned to the people Mignogna sued in hopes of shutting them up.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, tcpa, ty beard, vic mignogna
Companies: funimation