Tsukino-Con 2015 AMV Contest FRAUD?

[AMVTsukino]

Hello everyone!

It appears there’s been a monumental misunderstanding here. Let me start by explaining our convention to you all.

We are a not-for-profit organization run in conjunction with the university anime club on the university campus where the event is held. Because of this, our prices are dirt cheap, and we take a dollar off admission for every non-perishable food item an attendee brings and donates to the campus food bank. Students at the university who wish to attend don’t have to pay at all because of our jurisdiction as a club event. Most of our proceeds cover our costs and then pay for the next year. Every position on staff is a volunteer position, and not a single one of us is profiting from the convention beyond enjoying fandom to its fullest. Our largest demographic is high school girls and college dudes, and even if we counted the previous convention (Kei-Kon), in the 13 years we’ve been operating we’ve only ever reached just over 2300 attendees. We are small, we are local, and we are a community.

Now for the AMV contest, which is a legacy event left over from the previous convention, Kei-Kon. Contest, as I’m coming to understand is the wrong terminology to be using, so from here on out we will be shifting the title to “AMV Showcase”. What we do (myself and my co-director) is find as many awesome videos on the internet as possible, and make a showcase of them which divides them into categories and often fits a theme or feel. Sometimes we look for a particular song or anime which we know our audience will like, or anything particularly fan pandering. Any direct editor submission that fits the PG13 rating for our audience and the time limit is accepted. Period. There are no finalists – all videos are accepted and shown.

There is an audience participation aspect which takes the form of a vote. Each member of the audience is given a ballot with basic information of the videos to identify them, but not enough to spoil the surprise when the video is shown. The audience then gets to pick their favourite videos from each category, and one video overall which they think was the best of the entire showcase. There are no finalists – all videos are eligible for the audience vote, which is an optional vote on their part. The voting part comes in to play for the express purpose of a secondary event which is also a legacy event from Kei-Kon.

The secondary event is the AMV Smackdown, and how it functions is the favourite videos from the previous year’s Smackdown is pitted against the audience favourites from the current year. An audience vote is done in the form of having the audience raise hands for their preferred video, and whichever of the two videos per category is the favourite is maintained as reigning champion until the next year. In terms of prizes, in the past if we had creators in attendance we would give them a participation prize, usually a DVD or some merchandise, however we have stopped doing this.

There is no plagiarism. Plagiarizing would require someone taking your work and claiming it as their own. No modifications are made to credits, no credit is being given to anyone but the original creator. There appears to be one video which someone named Gorz is attempting to claim was stolen, however I can promise you with 100% certainty that it is not the same video. “Gatsby” has never been shown at our convention. The video using the song “Fantastic Baby” by Bigbang(5) which was the audience favourite for our Dance category was edited by KiraPet, a local submitter and a personal friend, and had its debut at our convention (it is not yet available on YouTube).

In terms of our sources for videos, all videos are readily publicly available for download or viewing. I’m incredibly disheartened to see that my attempt at transparency has caused distress for anyone, least of all the creators of the amazing work we’re trying to share. I’m sorry you feel the way you do, but with all due respect, we’ve done nothing wrong.

Also, we are in Canada.

[Ileia]

Whether or not there are finalists, if there is voting and winners, then, yes, that is a contest and you are using that term correctly. Many conventions run exhibitions to showcase AMVs, but they are not competitive and that is the difference. Most editors have no qualms with having their videos shown at conventions and whatnot, it is the competitive aspect that is the issue here.

Personally, I simply find it disrespectful to the genuine entrants. Imagine that you made an AMV and entered it into your local contest and lo and behold the winner is a random relatively-old video that the coordinators found on the internet instead of any of the knowing entrants. Especially that action category where 8/9 were actually entered by their creators and the winner went to the one AMV that wasn't. How disheartening for those creators.

[VivifxAMV]

I think that all this could be solved by asking editors if they would like their work showcased. You clearly have an Org account. It's very easy to reach out to any editor on the org with a private message. Some would be happy to show their work. The way you have this structured right now is really confusing and frustrating for all people involved. Most contests and conventions this year have instated win limits and contest participation counts. This could cause a large amount of confusion and unhappiness for editors who have their work DQ'd because a coordinator mistakes your event for a contest.

Asking someone if you can show their work just seems like common courtesy to me. I know AMVs are a legal grey area but the we, the community who makes them, work really hard on each and every one. We like to be notified about this sort of stuff. If you were worried about getting enough entries for a convention reaching out would have been a fantastic way to make that happen.

For your event to truly be a showcase there should not be ballots. I bet that would be a lot less work. I imagine it is really disheartening to be a local, make a video, enter it and then lose to some super tricked out pro video that has been killing it on youtube for half a year. What most AMV events do now a days is have a contest and an exhibition, where the exhibition is non competitive. Simply put all the local videos into the contest and show the other videos you want in the exhibition.

[BakaOppai]

Regarding Gorz's video, to us editors it's blatantly obvious that
KiraPet's - Fantastic Baby AMV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SatY8c7DiQ), stole parts from Gorz' - Gatsby (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP2zTvHeGzo).

There's a difference between using the same scenes as someone, and downloading their amv to use in your own. A lot of the stuff that Gorz did was unique (not originally in the anime), transitions, custom graphics, masking different parts together.

Some examples:
KiraPet: http://gyazo.com/651bf3604e4c62afa152b85d4308603f
Gorz: http://gyazo.com/8d89aa740ef2b221f6d65b354a9537fe

KiraPet: http://gyazo.com/8a725cde633ed5addcff7584cd84e8d9
Gorz: http://gyazo.com/873bd9aad90807b5cb55434bbcc2f064

KiraPet: http://gyazo.com/5949e048543a69b93ffef1187b684aff
Gorz: http://gyazo.com/c81b1dfa734668d34d1268377bd53436

I can tell you with 100% certainty that you won't find these exact scenes in any anime. All KiraPet did was add in a few random scenes from Fairy Tail, Kuroko no Basket, Inu x Boku SS and a few others (poorly I might add).

Your rules clearly state that

YOU MAY ONLY SUBMIT VIDEOS CREATED BY YOU. Pulling videos from other creators off the internet isn’t cool and trust us, we’ll know if you ripped off someone. If you do this your “submission” will be disqualified. Ever heard of plagiarism folks? Submitting someone else’s work as your own is plagiarism.

Although the FULL VIDEO wasn't taken frame by frame, most of it was. Honestly, the reason the video probably won was only because of the scenes from Gatsby. Takeaway those scenes and all you're left with is some generic badly edited clips which show the true skills of KiraPet.

I've been in a similar situation to Gorz, and the result was that the editor was not allowed to participate in future contests at that convention (and a few others as-well). I know you don't get many submissions, but that would be the right thing to do here as-well.

*Edit: UNLESS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SatY8c7DiQ WASN'T THE VIDEO SUBMITTED (still stealing is bad )

[Ileia]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that video is Kirapet's. This seems to be the correct profile: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... id=1081338 and Youtube account: https://www.youtube.com/user/CursedMoonStudios/about

[Pikapwn]

I think the issue here is that you were not transparent enough.

In your defense, you did post directly on the AMV contest page that for this contest you guys would be pulling videos from the Internet. That was good transperecy there, and it was a point that no one here brought up. Since you explicity stated you would pull videos, that's fair game. (Now if that's the best way to have a contest is a comepletely different issue.)

However, I think the real issue came not from the act of pulling videos itself, but from your interaction with the editors you pulled videos from. According to Rider you suggested attendees should not contact editors so as not to freak them out. This means that you used an editor's video without notifying him or her, and are preventing that editor from getting any form of notification at all. I feel like the entire issue could have been avoided if you sent a PM to each editor asking to use his or her video or AT LEAST some sort of notification along the lines of "We've selected your video to play at our anime convention...." Agreeing with Rider, I was flattered to have my video chosen to play at the convention, and I would have certainly agreed to let it play if you had asked, as I'm sure many others would have. So in the future, I'd just suggest contacting the editors to ask/let them know about their videos.

I'd like to see all of this solved without any negative consequeces and hope that this AMV community can continue to support you.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Hi AMVTsukino,

First of all, thank you for at least taking the time to explaining your side of the story here. As a fellow Canadian who is involved in convention running and coordinators multiple AMV contest in Canada and the US, and finally as a AMV Creator, I think you need to understand a few reasons why this has gone the way it has.

Firstly, I don't think anyone here is saying cons cannot show AMVs, most creators are totally fine with that otherwise the many cons that have AMV rooms would not exists. The problem here is how the event you run is setup and perceived.

Firstly it does not help when it's easily seen ax an AMV contest. It even calls it an AMV Contest in your programming menu on your web page. it's very much like an AMV contest with categorized finalists and ballots for people to vote their favorites (or "winners") so how else would it bee seen. Even those that entered it that are present here see it as a contest. Even the public sees it as an AMV contest and a lot of references to the "audience favorite" videos has been referenced as "Winners" of the contest.

So now put yourself in our shoes, you hear from other people saying things like "Hey, your video won the Tsukino AMV Contest" and as the creator does not even know of your event or what it's about, How would you feel then? I think the reaction you see here is a direct result of this.

Lastly, it seems that those who send you videos think of it as a real contest too (at least several here have) as the process is identical (seen your info and your video to us to be part of the event)... So now when they find out the "Event" or what they thought of as a "Contest" is supplemented with other videos taken from the internet, this is seen as unfair competition.

Now I understand that you want to make a great show for your attendees, and we here in this community understand the popularity of AMVs at cons, but going about it this way will just way will just continue to send the wrong message, regardless if the intention it totally genuine. I have tried on your forums to discuss this a few years ago (like about 3), but it seems I was just brushed aside. Judging by your post, I assume you are much more open now (or the people I talked to in the past are gone).

In the end, we just like anyone else out there are passionate about our hobby and most of the people here are more then happy to try to help out and send soemthing, but I think in all fairness and to be "transparent" you approach and structure needs to change and I'm sure there are many here who can make some suggestions

BTW, completely understand your convention... I have been with Animethon here in Edmonton, Alberta for well over a decade and it was a free event for the first decade, It has an AMV contest and events that started off small and have become very successful and popular and is in good standing with the is community. So anything is possible

Vlad

[Rider4Z]

Bottom line - what you described to have taken place at your con is in our eyes a contest, not a showcase. And we don't appreciate it.

If you wanna play our videos for an audience, go right ahead. If you want your audience to vote, then put up a thread right here promoting your contest so people know about it (with clear directions and regular communication). But like Vivifx said - fill a competition with actual competitors. Show some respect to the editors both online and at the convention. and fill the exhibition with whatever the heck you guys want. easy breezy.

[Sephirothskr]

So can we all be happy again?

[Castor Troy]

So can we all be happy again?

Spoiler :

drama