GEE THANKS AUSTRALIAN USERS FOR YOUR MONEY!!

[Lady Kayura]

Can people not buy the items on the market?

[AKB0048]

Nymshi

I never thought this was fair. Little can be done about sponsorship issues, but Gaia at the very least could release an alternate item for all other locations not covered by said sponsorship. And not some cheap thing either. Same value, same quality.

Are you extremely dense? Please read over your suggestion again. Or do you not know the meaning of "intellectual property rights"?

[Elen_Gilthoniel]

What kills me about this whole discussion is that people don't get that with the way copyrights work, to offer official merchandise internationally, Gaia would have to locate the rights holders for every single country and negotiate the exact same contract with every single one of them so they could release the same items everywhere. It's not like they can go to the original author and create some kind of general contract that supersedes the copyrights of companies like Funimation. Usually when an author sells rights to their work, they don't retain the same rights they sell. So if an author sold rights to distribute their work in the US to Funimation, they wouldn't ALSO have the right to distribute their work in the US--Funimation would almost definitely be the sole rights holder for the US.

Which means, to sell the same items to every single country, Gaia would have to locate each, separate, rights holder--then negotiate the same contract for the release of the same items. And if one country says "Yeah...no. 8D" That means the users from that country have to be excluded from the release of the items.

I mean, seriously. It's complicated. Various rights belong to various people and whoever has the rights in Australia may not even have the same exact distribution rights as companies in America, or England, or anywhere else. That's why we have lawyers who do nothing but sit around and figure out this stuff. You don't just go "Tra la la, is it okay to do this? Yeah? YAY!"
Sometimes something is so convoluted and complicated, it's just not possible.

I know the intricacies of copyright law aren't exactly common knowledge. But you'd think that once Gaia says "it's due to licensing complexities" people would understand instead of going "Nuh uh! Ur stingy and mean!" emotion_donotwant

[Kain-Senpai]

Ghenja

It's a website. It should cater for international users by default. Otherwise its just a bad business plan. I can understand not releasing the videos in the anime movie section because that means that people would get access to the show early and they would lose sales and viewer here when its released but items online have no excuss because it hinders their sales rather then improves it for both Gaia AND the sponser.

It really is super annoying.

gaia always screws international members over. The anime movie section, the shops, conventions (I have an achievement that will sit there forever.) Even the Gaia Cash system where you work for gaia cash is geared negatively. I went to the movie section and there was only 2 options. so I did them both and now I'm 6GC richer. There are alot more in the survay or signup section but I find only about 1 out of 6 will actually give me the GC at the end of it and they take ages so I gave up on that. might be better now. I'll have to test.

This just shows you don't understand the red tape behind all of this. They are LEGALLY TIED to show certain content in certain areas. If they void that, Gaia suffers fees, potential loss of sponsors and possibly sued by those sponsors. I wouldn't want that. You wouldn't want that.

At least there is an option available for International Users to buy the sponsor items. At least these items aren't soul-bound to the accounts.

[AKB0048]

Ghenja

It's a website. It should cater for international users by default. Otherwise its just a bad business plan.

Once again, someone ignorant to how the world works. There are plenty of sites that IP block foreign addresses or prevent foreigners from signing up. Ever tried playing a Korean or Japanese game?

And, if they don't IP block, they require verification that you live in that country. Korean sites typically request a housing number which is pretty much the equivalent of a Social Security number. On top of that, a lot of sites will require you to put a cell phone number for that country as extra verification.

[Ghenja]

Anne Packrat

Ghenja

It's a website. It should cater for international users by default. Otherwise its just a bad business plan. I can understand not releasing the videos in the anime movie section because that means that people would get access to the show early and they would lose sales and viewer here when its released but items online have no excuss because it hinders their sales rather then improves it for both Gaia AND the sponser.

It really is super annoying.

gaia always screws international members over. The anime movie section, the shops, conventions (I have an achievement that will sit there forever.) Even the Gaia Cash system where you work for gaia cash is geared negatively. I went to the movie section and there was only 2 options. so I did them both and now I'm 6GC richer. There are alot more in the survay or signup section but I find only about 1 out of 6 will actually give me the GC at the end of it and they take ages so I gave up on that. might be better now. I'll have to test.

Mecha neko, and the Anime Player are both subject to international licensing regulations. If the overall rights holder refuses to deal with Gaia directly than they have to work with the individual rights holder for each country. For Mecha Neko this means that Gaia will have to make twenty or more contracts, which means spending a lot of time and money on it (for travel, phone calls, translation, lawyer and government fees).

The Anime Player is through one company who only has the rights to show the anime in the US. Gaia would have to go through and get individual contracts with the creators of every single anime (which is notoriously difficult with the Japanese anime industry) in order to make it available internationally.

Conventions are a different matter, and they have done some internationally in Canada and England. Australia however is very far away, and flying there takes a long time and a large amount of money. Considering Australians make up about 1% of the total population of Gaia, it unfortunately just doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time and money to get there.

Thanks for the info.

It does seem that 1% issue for Australians seems to come up alot (not only for gaia but other games especially with issues of online servers which makes the playfield never fair.. but who cares because we are only 1% anyway. *sigh*)

The anime player I can understand because its like that everywhere for watching anime thats not free or out here yet. The items is a tad annoying but really only annoys me because I never know whats actually in the shop. I feel like I'm missing out and I'll miss a new item that I'll only be able to see off the MP (or sometimes an announcement).

[Ghenja]

AKB0048

Ghenja

It's a website. It should cater for international users by default. Otherwise its just a bad business plan.

Once again, someone ignorant to how the world works. There are plenty of sites that IP block foreign addresses or prevent foreigners from signing up. Ever tried playing a Korean or Japanese game?

And, if they don't IP block, they require verification that you live in that country. Korean sites typically request a housing number which is pretty much the equivalent of a Social Security number. On top of that, a lot of sites will require you to put a cell phone number for that country as extra verification.

Yes thats true. I retract that statement. I kinda wasn't thinking logically. It makes sense because they arn't selling their own product. Pretty stupid of me. aw well.

Yeah I've even noted in my other comments that other sites block japanese animated shows so I really was being dumb.


Also I don't think that ignorant statement needed to be said, even though its 100% true it still doesn't help. *sigh*

[Ghenja]

Kain-Senpai

Ghenja

It's a website. It should cater for international users by default. Otherwise its just a bad business plan. I can understand not releasing the videos in the anime movie section because that means that people would get access to the show early and they would lose sales and viewer here when its released but items online have no excuss because it hinders their sales rather then improves it for both Gaia AND the sponser.

It really is super annoying.

gaia always screws international members over. The anime movie section, the shops, conventions (I have an achievement that will sit there forever.) Even the Gaia Cash system where you work for gaia cash is geared negatively. I went to the movie section and there was only 2 options. so I did them both and now I'm 6GC richer. There are alot more in the survay or signup section but I find only about 1 out of 6 will actually give me the GC at the end of it and they take ages so I gave up on that. might be better now. I'll have to test.

This just shows you don't understand the red tape behind all of this. They are LEGALLY TIED to show certain content in certain areas. If they void that, Gaia suffers fees, potential loss of sponsors and possibly sued by those sponsors. I wouldn't want that. You wouldn't want that.

At least there is an option available for International Users to buy the sponsor items. At least these items aren't soul-bound to the accounts.

Stupid red tape. I think there would be less of an issue if they wern't paid for with real money and were acredited for where they are from. Like free advertisement that way. You are correct though and I just need to accept that the red tape makes it too hard.

[Anne Packrat]

Ghenja

Thanks for the info.

It does seem that 1% issue for Australians seems to come up alot (not only for gaia but other games especially with issues of online servers which makes the playfield never fair.. but who cares because we are only 1% anyway. *sigh*)

The anime player I can understand because its like that everywhere for watching anime thats not free or out here yet. The items is a tad annoying but really only annoys me because I never know whats actually in the shop. I feel like I'm missing out and I'll miss a new item that I'll only be able to see off the MP (or sometimes an announcement).

They're in the MP and they're not that expensive for the most part (give the Tiger and Bunny stuff time to settle though). Gaia staff has stated that one of their conditions for taking the sponsorships is that everyone be able to buy them in the MP, so in a way they are kind of thinking of their international users.

[Vampurrrrr]

Lady Kayura

Can people not buy the items on the market?

❝They can.
People just like complaining.❞

[Lady Kayura]

Himemiya Neko

❝They can.
People just like complaining.❞

So they can buy the items off the market. Then I fail to see a problem.

[Vampurrrrr]

Lady Kayura

So they can buy the items off the market. Then I fail to see a problem.

❝Same here.
I'm also from Australia, so I can not go into Mecha Neko.
However, at the same time, I know it is still readily available in the MP,
so I don't know why there is so much complaining.❞

[Lady Kayura]

Himemiya Neko

❝Same here.
I'm also from Australia, so I can not go into Mecha Neko.
However, at the same time, I know it is still readily available in the MP,
so I don't know why there is so much complaining.❞

Thank you for being so reasonable. <3

[Vampurrrrr]

Lady Kayura

Thank you for being so reasonable. <3

❝ whee
I think everyone needs to also realise Gaia is a business.
They need the money. So things like Mecha Neko is great for them!
It keeps the site running.
They should be more happy about it :3❞

[Lady Kayura]

Himemiya Neko

❝ whee
I think everyone needs to also realise Gaia is a business.
They need the money. So things like Mecha Neko is great for them!
It keeps the site running.
They should be more happy about it :3❞

Too many people have the mentality that Gaia owes them or that Gaia's sold out. They don't realize that without money, there would be no Gaia.