Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Talk about the culture and entertainment from Nihon.
Post Reply

Would you join a legal J-drama streaming website?

Yes, I definitely would!
48
63%
Maybe. Depends on what dramas it offers.
22
29%
No. Not at all.
6
8%
 
Total votes: 76

areea-chan
Posts: 66
Joined: Jan 17th, '08, 01:25
Location: Drama World, where all of your dramas come true!
Contact:

Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by areea-chan » Mar 19th, '15, 02:55

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this. If not, my apologies to the mods. :sweat:

I'm Laura. I've been watching J-dramas since 2007 and been a fansubber since 2008 (inactive for a good chunk of time), and I've watched tons of dramas and films during that time. At one point, I even watched on a streaming site (it was a dark time). Over the years, I've wondered why there's not a website for legally streaming J-dramas. When DramaFever appeared on the scene, I was super happy! But their J-drama offerings are slim compared to the dramas they have from other countries.

There are any number of reasons why there aren't more licensed J-dramas, but no one REALLY seems to know why or talks about the process of licensing a J-drama. We know it's possible because DramaFever, Crunchyroll, and Viki all have J-dramas on their sites.

I've thought about it for a long time, and my ultimate goal is to create a streaming website with legal, licensed J-dramas with in-house, high-quality subtitles. I'd want it to be the same format that DramaFever has with free access to dramas as long as you watch some ads every so often or you can pay for a premium subscription (probably about $10 US per month) and get them ad-free.

This is all what I would ideally like to happen. But to start the process, I need to know how many people are interested. To create a business, you have to know the market and the demand for a product. So take the poll and tell me what you think about this idea as well anything you'd like to see on a website like this. For example, discussion forums, multiple-language options, or whatever.

Also, would you back this if it was a Kickstarter, and what kind perks would like to receive for backing the Kickstarter?

Thank you all! We have an awesome community here, and I hope we can continue watching dramas no matter what!

Tony09
Posts: 85
Joined: Dec 29th, '11, 21:07
Location: Napoli, Italy
Has thanked: 1 time
Italy

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by Tony09 » Mar 19th, '15, 09:57

Also I have always thought it would be nice to have a streaming site dedicated entirely to J- Drama, is a good idea, it's a little bit of time that there are increasingly few people who try to be subtitled Japanese Drama, open a streaming site authorized would be a great breakthrough for all of us fans of Japanese dramas. I would like to work together with the opening of the site, but this involves various difficulties.

1) You have to have a staff of countless people who work for the site, as fansubber, administrators, moderators, and people who create the website.

2) We need a cash contribution to open a stable server.

3) It takes hard work and time to devote to the site every day, especially initially.

4) Get in touch with the Japanese TV stations to find an agreement for the rights of copyright.

These are the 4 basis points to create a streaming site as efficient Dramafever or Crunchyroll. Finally, we must exchange our addresses skype to contact between us that we want to work for this project, so that we can share our ideas more easily.

areea-chan
Posts: 66
Joined: Jan 17th, '08, 01:25
Location: Drama World, where all of your dramas come true!
Contact:

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by areea-chan » Mar 22nd, '15, 04:35

Tony09 wrote:Also I have always thought it would be nice to have a streaming site dedicated entirely to J- Drama, is a good idea, it's a little bit of time that there are increasingly few people who try to be subtitled Japanese Drama, open a streaming site authorized would be a great breakthrough for all of us fans of Japanese dramas. I would like to work together with the opening of the site, but this involves various difficulties.

1) You have to have a staff of countless people who work for the site, as fansubber, administrators, moderators, and people who create the website.

2) We need a cash contribution to open a stable server.

3) It takes hard work and time to devote to the site every day, especially initially.

4) Get in touch with the Japanese TV stations to find an agreement for the rights of copyright.

These are the 4 basis points to create a streaming site as efficient Dramafever or Crunchyroll. Finally, we must exchange our addresses skype to contact between us that we want to work for this project, so that we can share our ideas more easily.

I'm way ahead of you, friend! I've already carefully thought about this. Right now, I'm trying to get an idea of the potential market for this kind of business. Would it really be worth it to make a streaming website focused mainly on Japanese dramas? Considering how many people use DramaFever as well as illegal streaming sites, I think it could be a worthwhile venture. That being said, a lot of people like downloading dramas to have their own videos. Also, depending on the format of the website, this may put some fansubbers "out of business."

I don't know how you'd want to worth together on this since I don't even know you or what kind of qualifications you have. Like I said, right now, I'm just doing research on the market and surveying fans.

User avatar
kitty10
Posts: 571
Joined: Apr 22nd, '09, 20:33
Has thanked: 1 time
Contact:
Japan

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by kitty10 » Mar 22nd, '15, 17:39

areea-chan wrote: Also, depending on the format of the website, this may put some fansubbers "out of business."
Not necessarily. I think it'd be good to liaise with the various fansubbers of J-dramas and ask them if they would consider contributing subs exclusively to this new site, at least for the hard-sub versions. By exclusively, I mean not offering subs for other streaming sites, since we already know those sites do not have permission to use these fansubs.

The "exclusive" release doesn't have to apply for all subs, maybe just select dramas for a certain period of time. Fansubbers may later want to release soft subs for the general community - but all this will be up for negotiation and of course at fansubbers' discretion. A lot of people do prefer downloading dramas instead, myself included, but if I want to give a first episode of any drama a try, I wouldn't mind watching it online and then decide from there whether to download. Would the new site have a downloading option?

Also, I'm just wondering where this new site might be based. Not all international viewers have access to DramaFever and Crunchyroll since those are in the US.

lullabye
Posts: 347
Joined: May 2nd, '09, 22:01

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by lullabye » Apr 1st, '15, 02:24

This would be a really wonderful thing, to have a j-drama dedicated legal streaming service. I'm not necessarily invested in using up my hard drive space to host video files I will only watch a couple of times, and I'm sure I can't be alone in that. If there really was a wide selection of j-drama I'd gladly pay a monthly subscription.

Are you looking to crowdfund?

ecco27
Posts: 155
Joined: Apr 12th, '08, 17:21

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by ecco27 » Apr 1st, '15, 03:56

I really love the idea of a legal JDrama streaming site, even more than that it'd be great to have a site that shows Japanese music and variety shows too like Dramafever does for Korean shows. I'm a member of both CR and DF and I love being able to stream them and watch them right on my tv. It's great to be able to see timely subs in nice quality. But I would never donate to a kickstarter for one. There are just too many questions when it comes to the Japanese broadcasters. I know from being in the anime fandom and reading stories about licensors how finicky Japanese rights holders can be. The question of why hulu, CR, and DF stream numerous KDramas and hardly any JDramas is something that seriously needs to be answered before I would ever consider backing a kickstarter. Because my guess is A. Most Japanese broadcasters have no interest in having their shows stream with English subs and wouldn't even consider it. and/or B. Maybe they would consider it for some amount of money but an amount that makes absolutely no financial sense for anybody. Maybe part of the reason there are so many more streaming KDramas than JDramas is because there isn't as much of a demand but I am sure that is only part of the reason and the other part must lay with the Japanese broadcasters. Which would mean that even if you could get the money to get the site up and going getting content for it would be a constant struggle if possible at all.

Anyway somewhat related, I started paying for Dramafever at the beginning of the year because it appeared to me that with every season they were getting more JDramas but then much to my dismay this past season they got 0 :cry: The only networks that seem to work with streaming sites are TV Tokyo (with Crunchy Roll), Fuji, NHK and NTV (but oddly enough it seems to be only for ST? Have there been others from them?) I was really upset but trying to be optimistic I thought Fuji (the main supplier of streaming dramas) might be checking out their options and considering starting their own streaming service (for anime also, it was anime related news that made me consider this). I've noticed in the last couple of weeks CR has started streaming Fuji catalog dramas though. I'm very interested in the business behind jdrama streaming :sweat:

namihodai
Posts: 452
Joined: Sep 23rd, '10, 20:00
Location: Germany
Has thanked: 2 times

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by namihodai » Apr 16th, '15, 21:54

With the stuff that is happening an CR recently, it might be a good idea to ask the people at CR how they manage to do it and what they might need in order to get more shows from more stations. I like the Idea of having an exclusive place for jdorama streaming, but I think improving CR to meet our needs might be the better option option (if their contracts with the stations that already licence shows to them allow them to get shows from other networks). And I assume that many of us here at d-addicts were into anime first and evolved to be dorama lovers, or are still watching anime and doramas. So CR also might be the place for new people to discover that dorama is the superior medium of storytelling (IMHO). So CR seems to be a good marketplace.The question is if the doramas that they have at CR "are paying their rent properly", I hope they are....

idig
Posts: 310
Joined: May 24th, '10, 01:08
Location: Oregon, USA
United States of America

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by idig » May 4th, '15, 06:18

Just fyi - a lady I met works at NetFlix. NetFlix will launch their streaming service in Japan before the end of this year. When I spoke with her, she said they will carry Japanese dramas(??). As to whether they will have subtitles, she said it will depend on the producers/distributors. If NetFlix does carry the recent Jdramas with English subs, I may check them out.

areea-chan
Posts: 66
Joined: Jan 17th, '08, 01:25
Location: Drama World, where all of your dramas come true!
Contact:

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by areea-chan » Sep 7th, '15, 00:33

If any of you in Japan have checked out Netflix, you'll see the drama offerings are kind of slim. Plus, they don't have subtitles yet. If they'll have them at all. Also, Netflix isn't offering these dramas in other countries. It's just in Japan right now.

Ideally, I wan't to create a website that can be accessed from many different countries.

hotsushi-kun
Posts: 7
Joined: Mar 14th, '19, 19:26

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by hotsushi-kun » Mar 27th, '19, 14:42

Yeah, it would be great if Japanese company start launching its own streaming website for J-Dramas for overseas fans. I am always compiled for that, but since licensors sometimes refuses to license it because of Johnny refusued to be in digital public, i always go for kissasian to watch their JDramas or doing torrents.

JackBauer2424
Posts: 194
Joined: May 11th, '15, 04:48

Re: Legal J-Drama Streaming Website

Post by JackBauer2424 » May 23rd, '19, 21:14

I sometimes search Japanese actors and actresses in Apple TV and sometimes it turns up some obscure Japanese dramas available from iTunes or something called Tubi which might be some free ad based Netflix alternative. Anything good on there?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests