earthcurrent wrote:This is going to be one of those issues that will naturally 'cause a lot of debate amongst various creators. Personally, the attempt to create "professional" level DVDs seems a bit ridiculous to me. Even selling them "at costs" raises a lot of issues, especially if it is being done at cons.
Say you are Otaku Joe, super poor, everyday anime fan,and you've allowed yourself only $30 for your mega anime convention shopping-spree exerience--meaning maybe a single DVD. You head into the dealers room and browse around. Wow, lots of neat stuff, but the prices seem high. Yet, you know that the dealers have to recoup cost for travel, dealer room fees, etc, so you knew that things were going to be a bit expensive. Well, you only have $30 of free spending money, so you decide to give yourself some time to think over what it is you really want to buy.
Now, it so happens that you find out that a AMV creator is handing out DVDs of their works and you come upon them. "Look!" S/he says. "I want people to enjoy my AMVs with the best quality possible so we made special DVDs. I'd love to just hand them out free. But that's not feasible for our wallets, but I'm selling them at cost. I don't make profit on these." Well, you think this is marvelous, you love the AMVs on the DVD and the price is low, so you get a DVD from the creator. While marveling over the professionalism put into the packaging of the DVD, you suddenly realize you don't have enough money to buy any of the items you were looking at in the dealers room. But you rationalize to yourself, the dealers were all over priced anyway, and this AMV DVD was a better bargain.
Now, there is the problem: essentially, by purchasing the AMV DVD, a potential sale was taken away from a legitimate dealer selling merchandise in the dealer's room. The same is true in any situations where a fan product is put into competition for your money--whether at a con, or online.
I'm certainly not out to knock on Vic, he put together his DVD for an honest enough reason, I just don't think that people have thought out the economics very well.
One complaint from a dealer can ban a person or event from a con. I've had expirence with this.
Tim Flanagan is a pencillist who never has a table at Dragon*Con but rather pics a nice spot on the floor near a wall and draws everyone pictures(at a cost of course). Last year at Dragon*Con a dealer complained and this got Tim banned from Dragon*Con. I'm not quite sure for how long, but he's started a petition against it.. But that's a whole different subject..
Anyhow, if a dealer did the same to VicBond(or any other person selling AMVs) then VicBond would not only be banned from whatever Con he was at, but the risk of AMVs as a whole being banned from whichever Con the dealer complained at goes VERY high.
Now, if you were giving away free things, that's a different story. But exchange of money, profit or not, could bring a potential sale from a dealer in the dealer's room.. So really it all boils down to "Just don't do it".
That's from the legal and "I want to go to Cons" point of view... My point of view on this whole matter is as long as you're not gaining profit it's fine by me...
I realize this thread has enough replies, but out of the pages I read(Which I believe was four.. I don't know, I read this a few days a go and haven't replied to it for some reason 0.o) this wasn't said so I felt it should come to attention.