Natto gone?

[RabidJohn 1,757]

NattoSumo's Discord server has vanished from my list.

Anyone know if he's jacked it in?

I'd be most grateful for a link if it's still up and I've accidentally deleted it.

[Akinomaki 40,278]

1 hour ago, RabidJohn said:

NattoSumo's Discord server has vanished from my list.

Anyone know if he's jacked it in?

I'd be most grateful for a link if it's still up and I've accidentally deleted it.

He posted on telegram that it was deleted and now his telegram account was removed as well and I can't read any more what he wrote about alternatives. Sumocuts posts his digests now, but his account may go down with that as well.

Natto still writes "Join our discord" in the digests though

Edited January 12 by Akinomaki

[RabidJohn 1,757]

16 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

He posted on telegram that it was deleted and now his telegram account was removed as well and I can't read any more what he wrote about alternatives. Sumocuts posts his digests now, but his account may go down with that as well.

Natto still writes "Join our discord" in the digests though

Sumocuts? Where can I find that?

[Akinomaki 40,278]

Also telegram, he posts links here from time to time

[Kotomiyama 170]

At the moment @Kintamayama is our only hope.

[Churaumi 743]

NHK, if you're lurking here. Let's have a moment of real talk. Quite frankly, if you just do what the pirates do, problem solved. Your coverage for people outside Japan is...poor. The NHK World digest is appreciated, but it isn't complete and comes out too late to be relevant in a world where results get spoiled by Twitter or Instagram. It may be easy for me to say, but do what Natto or Kintamayama do and make it accessible to foreigners and the audience will come. After all, the reason you are having to constantly squash pirates is because there is demand. I know the return on your investment is going to be small but we don't need much in terms of production. I know there's probably contracts and all, we can wait patiently for that to get worked out.

Love, Churaumi 

[Godango 975]

2 hours ago, Churaumi said:

NHK, if you're lurking here. Let's have a moment of real talk. Quite frankly, if you just do what the pirates do, problem solved. Your coverage for people outside Japan is...poor. The NHK World digest is appreciated, but it isn't complete and comes out too late to be relevant in a world where results get spoiled by Twitter or Instagram. It may be easy for me to say, but do what Natto or Kintamayama do and make it accessible to foreigners and the audience will come. After all, the reason you are having to constantly squash pirates is because there is demand. I know the return on your investment is going to be small but we don't need much in terms of production. I know there's probably contracts and all, we can wait patiently for that to get worked out.

Love, Churaumi 

Assuming your profile is right and you're in North America, you can subscribe to https://www.jme.tv/. It's not cheap, but you'll get the two top divisions live. And presumably as long as they have the US Broadcast rights, not dedicated online content will come to NA.

[Bunbukuchagama 708]

3 hours ago, Churaumi said:

NHK, if you're lurking here.

Seriously, guys, stop asking for Natto-related links etc. It only attracts unwanted attention and gets people (and platforms) in trouble.

Edited January 13 by Bunbukuchagama

[Unkonoyama 105]

1 hour ago, Godango said:

Assuming your profile is right and you're in North America, you can subscribe to https://www.jme.tv/. It's not cheap, but you'll get the two top divisions live. And presumably as long as they have the US Broadcast rights, not dedicated online content will come to NA.

How do you get Juryo through JME?  Pretty sure it is only the top division...

[Godango 975]

5 minutes ago, Unkonoyama said:

How do you get Juryo through JME?  Pretty sure it is only the top division...

Yeah I could be wrong about that, it's both been a while and I may be confusing streamers.

[Churaumi 743]

10 hours ago, Godango said:

Assuming your profile is right and you're in North America, you can subscribe to https://www.jme.tv/. It's not cheap, but you'll get the two top divisions live. And presumably as long as they have the US Broadcast rights, not dedicated online content will come to NA.

I don't really have 2 hours ago day to dedicate to sumo watching. I have tried having it on while doing other things but it didn't really work for me. I end up missing matches and rewinding a lot. Just gets annoying. So, that made sumo a weekends-only activity which isn't enough sumo for me. I do enjoy the prebout rituals but just don't have time. I'll check out that link...I have used a vpn with Abema but that's really not any better.

[Muhomatsu 227]

Here is what I see as the real problem:  The NSK and various official media have good recaps of the top division (the wrestlers people PAY to see).  We can find these clips for free on NHK or on official digests.  Access to the top division is not the problem.

The problem is access to the lower divisions - you know, the non-salaried wrestlers that fight in front of a mostly empty stadium.  There are a lot of fans that want to support these wrestlers and watch them develop into talent - or to just admire how they keep up with this difficult life style for years without much hope of ever making sekitori.  This is what is lost whenever sites like Natto are struck down.  These matches are not available elsewhere - and when the NSK did set up a paywalled stream - the price for this additional coverage was too crazy - we could still see the top guys for free on NHK - so the only added content for the price was lower rankers.  It made no sense.

I do not have hours to watch sumo either - job, family, puppy, etc.  The digests of Makushita and Juryo supplemented the existing top division digest and made it watchable on days I had the time.  Added to that are stats (Natto) and excellent commentary (Kinta), and you end up with something that provides value to viewers. I imagine that Natto and Kinta (and others) make good bank - and if you take their hourly earnings times the volunteer hours(days/weeks) they put into their production - you can see how much it really costs to make these labors of love.  While expensive to Natto or Kinta individually, its pretty cheap compared to overall budget of the NSK - and I guarantee that a subscription cost less than that of Twitch would put any official effort in the black quickly and eliminate the need for non-official streams.  I know that Natto and Kinta love what they are doing - but if there were a sufficiently good official product that rivaled theirs, I bet they would consider intai and to devote those hours to job, family, puppy, etc.

I understand official media wanting to keep ownership of their production (but they should also acknowledge ownership of the value add provided by Natto, Kinta, and others... That just seems a waste to throw away each strikedown). There is intellectual property these streamers produce that is not properly safeguarded.  

The NSK is cleraly leaving money on the table by not working to monetize their full slate of matches. This has been going on for years, and I have written them letters (no response).  To me, it is quite clear the organization is not motivated by profit - meaning they have other reasons behind their efforts to keep sumo out of the eyes of foreigners.  Maybe a new Rijicho will think differently.  It will be many years before someone with a more open attitude takes control.  In the meantime, we will see the numbers of rikishi continue to fall and the future of the organization will look difficult.

 

[Churaumi 743]

But the problem is NHK. The NSK is surprisingly liberal about filming wrestlers. I've been to the Kokugikan several times and each time people had set up camcorders on tripods (I love Japan; still using camcorders in 2019). You can even put that footage on YouTube. Several sumo accounts do.

The problem is people that use the NHK footage, which is most, if not all, of our favorite posters. The content strikes are from NHK, and as far as I know they and Abema are the only sources for legal footage outside those who post their own that they personally took at the Kokugikan.

Edited January 13 by Churaumi
Typo

[Ryoshishokunin 280]

17 hours ago, Churaumi said:

NHK, if you're lurking here. Let's have a moment of real talk. Quite frankly, if you just do what the pirates do, problem solved. Your coverage for people outside Japan is...poor. The NHK World digest is appreciated, but it isn't complete and comes out too late to be relevant in a world where results get spoiled by Twitter or Instagram. It may be easy for me to say, but do what Natto or Kintamayama do and make it accessible to foreigners and the audience will come. After all, the reason you are having to constantly squash pirates is because there is demand. I know the return on your investment is going to be small but we don't need much in terms of production. I know there's probably contracts and all, we can wait patiently for that to get worked out.

Love, Churaumi 

Just licence Natto or Kintamayama is an option--this has been done in other sports.

[Akinomaki 40,278]

Natto stopped to use NHK - obviously they brought him down, now it's Abema with the NSK mark

[Churaumi 743]

This basho? Last basho was NHK. Had the transition bumpers from NHK BS to main NHK and everything.

[Kintamayama 45,011]

I would stop doing this in a heartbeat if a real alternative pops up. The NHK recap the guys do in English is perfect but come on- an eight hour delay till it starts makes no sense. If I can do this in half an hour, they can do it in a minute. I have always said I would stop , but i never did (contrary to what I keep hearing..) because an alternative is lacking. And yes, it is a time-consuming thing- it's not like I take NHK's program as is and rebroadcast it. I turn 2 hours into 15 minutes. I like to think I'm  (and Natto, to a much greater degree) adding some value. I don't want to be paid -I just want to be left alone to put this out there.

BUT, as an aside, the NSK official youtube channel  https://www.youtube.com/@sumo-video is slowly but Shirley putting up all major bouts about an hour later with no commentating whatsoever in glorious HD, hopefully as a sign to what may come. They even put up the last four Makushita bouts from today. 14 bouts in all, a few from Juryo as well. It started out with two bouts a day about a year ago, and is slowly evolving into something that I am hoping will make us all happy. Looks like a pilot to me.

BUTT, we've had our share of disappointments re these hopes for many years, so..

Edited January 13 by Kintamayama

[Fashiritētā 179]

If it weren’t for your efforts Moti , i would probably have not gotten back into Sumo as i have.

Thank you

[Akinomaki 40,278]

8 hours ago, Churaumi said:

This basho? Last basho was NHK. Had the transition bumpers from NHK BS to main NHK and everything.

Of course this basho - the last access to NHK makushita coverage gone now

[Kintamayama 45,011]

I'm pretty much toast as well. I did my best, but I don't see how I can come back from this. Still breathing, but probably last breaths..

Edited January 14 by Kintamayama

[Churaumi 743]

10 hours ago, Akinomaki said:

Of course this basho - the last access to NHK makushita coverage gone now

Haven't found his stuff this basho, please no one ruin it by saying where to find it, I'll get there on my own

[Akinomaki 40,278]

16 minutes ago, Churaumi said:

Haven't found his stuff this basho, please no one ruin it by saying where to find it, I'll get there on my own

I already told in this thread where

[LLCoolKay 24]

I mean at the end of the day, sumo is a Japanese sport for Japanese people in Japan. They want more eyes on the sport, but I don't think they particularly care for those eyes if they aren't Japanese.

[Hidenotora 82]

Hi guys, I'm the admin in Natto's Discord and was responsible for his Telegram channel. I'll quickly go over what happened and what is happening.

At the beginning of December, myself and some others in his Discord server were actually getting copyright strikes WITHIN Discord for posts that contained links to Natto's videos. My account got muted for 24 hours and then eventually the Discord just wasn't there anymore. They didn't give us a chance to remove to links or anything, just gone. They also took down Natto's personal website by contacting his webhost directly. This was all done by a company who specialised in protecting Japanese companies IP overseas, who NHK have obviously hired to chase him down.

So over December we decided that the only option going forward was to switch to Abema footage, and to (at least initially) drastically reduce the number of people who had access to his videos in the hopes of shaking off this company. Hopefully both of these things combined will allow us to regroup a little and see how things go. There's just so much noise around his videos usually it's impossible to run any sort of experiments like this.

So:
- Natto's Discord is back, but it's semi-private for now. The only way you can get Discord to remove individual posts for copyright is a manual process via email and involves quoting to them the unique ID of a post. This means someone had to come in the server, find the posts and email them to DIscord's copyright reporting process. So for now, we're keeping membership limited to keep people like that out to the best of our abilities.

- Natto is making videos, but they're being distributed on a limited scale while we try out what we can get away with. I'm not even going to fully say how we're distributing the videos, to keep some air of secrecy.
Someone else is then taking the videos and putting them on their own Telegram channel (the SumoCuts Telegram channel Akinomaki mentioned above), which we're aware of, and then someone has taken the videos from there and is doing their own Russian commentary over them. Neither of them are Natto himself though. Anyone pretending to be Natto on Youtube and especially Facebook are scammers trying to solicit donations in his name. There's a guy seemingly from Vietnam who has been doing this for years now, but Natto is NOT on Youtube and NOT on Facebook. If you get to watch the videos that's great but don't give anyone any money unless you're getting it from the legit source. If you don't know the legit source, then simply do not donate.

Natto isn't really that concerned with people reuploading his videos (especially since it means it's other Telegram channels and Youtube channels in the firing line and not him) but the people trying to make money off others under false pretences are certainly nothing to do with him. Reddit is absolutely swamped with people asking for the videos but I'm sorry, unless we know who you are you'll have to miss this one out. The Reddit discourse is just a clusterfuck and anything I said in there would be buried but hopefully here I can get something across. I highly suggest joining the SumoCuts Telegram channel if you're that desperate for Natto, if not you're stuck with the official sources.

 

Sorry to post this diatribe but hopefully it clarifies things. If things don't calm down then maybe Natto will never go "public" again, but NHK's actions are forcing our hand.

[themistyseas 240]

7 minutes ago, Hidenotora said:

So over December we decided that the only option going forward was to switch to Abema footage, and to (at least initially) drastically reduce the number of people who had access to his videos in the hopes of shaking off this company.

"It was Rebekah Vardy's phone"

I love the Wagatha Christie approach to this!

Also imagine if NHK put as much effort into publishing the full top division results in a timely manner as they did to IP enforcement... they wouldn't have nearly the IP enforcement to do.