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AKB48 Official Youtube channel blocked in US

10 Comments

It’s slightly harder to be an AKB48 fan in the United States these days. Allow me to rant, just a little.

This is not a secret or anything new by now, and will not effect everyone.  Unfortunately, all of akbzine.com staff is in the United States.

I first noticed when I wanted to watch Ogoe Daimond (because I’m old school like that!):

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Then I started poking around the AKB youtube channel. I saw this:

why, oh, why?
why, oh, why?

Oh. Emptiness and despair (T-T)

I started flipping around and took a look at the About page too:

If only I could believe your words, AKS!

What’s the description say? Glad you asked! Here’s a translation:

“This is AKB48’s Official Youtube Channel.  To fans within Japan and, of course, to fans all over the world: in order for you to become more familiar with AKB48 and to fall in love with them even more, we’re officially streaming worldwide!” (AKB48 の YouTube 公式チャンネル。日本国内はもちろん世界のファンの方々にも、もっと AKB48 を身近な存在になって頂き、もっともっと好きになって欲しいという想いを込めて、世界中に公式配信！”).

Emphasis added.

Oh the irony (T-T)

Luckily we have “alternative” methods for enjoying AKB48 content.  Still a fan of AKB, just not of AKS, like usual.

/rant

Author: jerry

Sometimes editor. Sometimes translator. Mostly a proofreader. I like Japan and things.

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  • fransfebri

    It’s because of the Youtube RED thing which trigger reaction from Japanese record companies, which resulted in the video from some of the bigger record companies being blocked because they haven’t join the RED program. So it probably isn’t AKS problem but more the record companies that published their songs. It isn’t just AKS stuff that being blocked but a bunch of other Japanese artists.
    I think the problem is more because Japanese relatively complex and slow bureaucracy than RED itself because in the end joining RED might end up with them making more money. Unlike ESPN thing where they pulled out from Youtube because they have an agreement with the content owner (which is probably NBA, FIFA, NHL, and other sport organization) to not put their content (probably a bunch of sport clips) behind paywall (basically ESPN isn’t allowed to make direct profit from the clips). I just don’t believe record companies don’t want to make more money.

    • Thanks for the information — it’s very helpful. Maybe I overreacted a little when I post this.

      Trying to find more time to update site and less time hating things beyond my control 🙂

      Hopefully this blows over soon and we can watch things without issues again!

      • fransfebri

        I think at times like this, those that the video have been blocked should make a statement on why and not leave the fans of the channel hanging. Like ESPN that give a statement about why they can’t join RED. Of course we are talking about Japanese companies here, thus the chances that they give any explanation, especially since this is not affecting their biggest market (which is Japan), are slim to none.

      • Hi, just to let you know it’s still blocked in the US. Also somebody on Akb48 daily blog wrote this:

        “Signed up for red, still blocked. :-(“

  • fransfebri

    Another thing I just thought… It might be that a lot of these Japanese music companies are exclusively contracted to a single paid streaming service (like Hulu and the like), thus can’t join another paid service (like RED). If that’s the case, then I can’t see this thing being resolved unless those companies can talk with their streaming service and probably promised them to not do any exclusive content for RED. Or alternatively (although I believe they won’t do it since they love money) is for them to make the video totally free as in no ads. Basically if you opt out for ads then you’re not obliged to join RED. But the downside is that the copyright owner would also not receive money from their copyrighted content that is uploaded by them or 3rd party (afaik, if you upload copyrighted content, even if you opt out for ad, it will still show ads because the copyright holder enable it and want to make money from it, provided that the content is detected by YouTube robot).

  • Jack

    NOOO youtube is like the only place I can listen to AKB songs at work T_T NMB channel still works though. For now…

  • h36113

    I feel you.
    It sucks.

    Have you thought about VPN-providers like CyberGhost or HideMyAss?
    I tried them to use japanese amazon prime video in europe.
    It sucks. But works.

    • Thanks for the suggestions.

      I had one from a long time ago, so I could watch the Nogizaka46 youtube channel videos.

      Guess we’ll need to make more use of it… :-/

  • Tim

    If you use Firefox there is an extension/plugin called YouTube Unblocker. It works some of the time.

    • Thanks for the suggestion! I was looking for something like this.