They should be once the Postal Inspectors find out about this. Trouble is, it is extremely possible for an adult in the United States to not be aware of how seriously this is treated and so every generation creates a new wave of idiots ready to do this.
Federal felonies, looked it up individuals face up to 20 years and from $250,000 to $1,000,000 in fines, corporate is 30 years and many millions in fines
not only that they can get MORE fines for discrimination against the LGBT community and others IF the stories that the voice actors are saying is true? Crunchyroll can just said its false we need more proof of it
@@dragoonmk4203 Good you figured out what I meant without have to be 100% literal and spell out exactly what I mean in a massive wall of text with all reason, who, what and exceptions.
Remember friends: Mail tampering in the United States was once punishable by death, and the US Postal Inspectors never got the memo that it no longer is. They also know _exactly_ where you live.
Yep. People think the police or FBI are brutal, but they are the nicest of our enforcement agencies. Any of the others ones are likely to cut your power and kick your door in the middle of the night, taking you out when you get up and find masked armed men in your home, without you ever even knowing they were looking into you for anything.
Mailman here! I can confirm that while we’re quite friendly, Postal Inspectors are *not* friendly. Opening mail not addressed to you, and especially keeping the items found, is considered a serious federal crime. I’m surprised that Crunchyroll would do something so stupid.
Most people have no idea that laws like that exist until it hits them in the face, that's because most are just naive idiots who were never told about it cause they always did the right thing and never touched others mail. I personally have delivered peoples mail that arrived in my box to the building next door cause they have the same apartment number but the building was off, otherwise I take it right to the postal service up the street so it can be sent right. That naivity also has the downside of people thinking its okay cause that person will never know so the ppolice can't do anything about it. That's where they are wrong as can be.
I'm not even from the US and I dont know much about the law, but the second I read of this, I knew they were absolutely and utterly cooked and that the mail is not to be messed with. That's also not exclusive to the US. You'd wish your digital messages had 10% of those protections, all of silicon valley would be looking at several hundred thousand life sentences.
Implications of tampering with Mail: >It's a federal offense >This means it's not a local police investigating, but the FBI. >Crunchyroll will be charged with felonies and not a misconduct. >Tampering with mail has 2 Victims, both the receiving and the sending Party. Doing this is veeeery bad in the US. The Mail has some IRS levels of enforcement budgets.
@@calanon534 as a former USPS employee i can confirm they do not joke around at any point and something like this will end with someone going to prison.
Postal enforcement is just as scary as the DEA, ATF, FBI, and IRS enforcement. There are historical reasons as to why the USPS has a militarized enforcement section, but it is pretty scary that you can have door kickers raid your business for not sending non-urgent documents through the USPS.
@@raulseda1230 You miss something: Unlike VTubers, which persona rights are owned by the companies (as the companies invented them and paid for the drawings etc.), at least with Nijisanji or Cover Corp, Voice actors are not owned by the companies. They are contractors per se and what is send to Funimation, because the fan doesn't know the address of the voice actor, has to be send immediately forward to the voice actor or his agent, who legally represents him. When you send a fan letter to a movie company, that fan letter will get forwarded to that actors agents office and then to the actor, because neither the movie company nor crunchyroll hold any rights on the actor! It's the same as if you would send gifts not directed to the character like Pomu Rainpuff or Selen Tatsuki, but to the person behind that character. In that case Niji would had no legal rights to hold back anything, because the letter wasn't adressed to a fictional person they own, but a real person.
@@leonerd1763 Mostly pearl habor, but several times the us have gone to war because something bad happened to civilian or military ships, such as 1812, spanish american and both world wars.
The kickvic responsibilty lies at the feet of Funimation and certain english va's under their employ but since they merged into crunchy i suppose its same thimg
@@gigaslavenot everyone has spare $$$ to spend on tons of external harddrives. Also good luck because when your computer is fu.cked so is your ability to watch it.
I'm not surprised this happened. I have a friend who worked for Funimation as a typesetter (if I'm remembering correctly) for 15+ years ago. She described upper management as hateful and uncaring. They didn't care about anime and only saw it as a means to make money. If you loved anime and worked for Funimation as anything other than a voice actor, you'd get snubbed by upper management. She quit because she couldn't stand the passive aggressive abuse any more.
thats how business works. and since they make more money than the service that doesnt, they will take over. you can ofc cry about it on the internet....
@@robinbinder8658 Used to be owners of businesses cared about their product and took pride in their work. That was "the dream" we were sold for decades. Now, the people who care about the product are abused by owners who only care about the money.
Weve been saying they don't care about anime for years. Jamie marchie and monica rial will personally admit it and how much they hate it and enjoy altering it.
@@robinbinder8658 I'm surprised they make any money to be fair, at least where I'm from (Spain), Crunchyroll doesn't have all the old animes, nor all the ones of the season, they're not up to date, and the translation is worse than the fanmade one from pirate websites, so, by pirating anime, you get a better library, a better translation, and you get to see it sooner, so what does exactly their service give to me? And no, pirating anime outside of Japan has no impact what so ever on them deciding if they will continue animating it, they only care about how many people watched it on TV in Japan, there are plenty of animes that were popular outside of Japan, but flopped there, and they were cancelled.
Towards the end he admitted that there was a tonne of discrimination going on, but he didn't say anything; meaning that he's fine with all of that stuff until it starts to affect him. Even when they're victims, they point out their hypocrisy.
30 years when it's done organized. And as CR is a big company, it can be assumed that it's organized, especially if other voice actors come out that similar stuff happened to them.
@acmenipponair the bad news however regardless *you do not* open postal mail including the fan letters unless addressed to the recipient. Most people tend to forget the mail postal service is unexpectedly scary when you violate something as someone's mail. (Not Email obviously)
@@shanathered5910One that carried the death sentence for the majority of US history. They used to have armed guards who did, in fact, shoot people. The USPS currently has their own armed enforcement branch, the USPIS.
Keep in mind, opening someone’s else mail is federal offense *if* you did it deliberately I believe? If you immediately alert the post service over the mistake I believe there likely won't be prosecution put against you no? Could just be remembering wrong though. But I'm pretty sure there are clauses for mail being sent to a wrong location.
@@ElmithianHey, mailman here. If you accidentally open a misdelivered letter it’s generally not an issue, just put it back in the box with the flag up and a misdelivery note, or bring it to your local post office. Accidents happen!
Not in this case. It is fully expected that crunchyroll would open fan mail. Its standard practice to make sure nothing harmful is passed on. Throwing away the mail and keeping the gifts is the illegal part.
USPS states any business may open mail addressed to it. Imagin if someone was sick, died, was fired, or was on vacation and the company had to wait for them to return or be replaced before opening mail addressed to a specific person. It would be chaos and of course, stupid.
It's different in the prison system; management has to keep contraband out of the prison after all and prisoners have lost some of their rights due to infringing on the rights of others based on the opinion of a jury of their peers or they confessed to the offense. Crunchyroll has no such excuse, and they did infringe on the rights of this VA.
The difference is, that in the case of you being in prison a JUDGE has ruled that your right to receive mail is limited because you have to serve your sentence. It's the justice system doing it's think. But in this case we talk about a private company. They have no legal right to hold back mail. They can check first if the mail is work related, but work related only means, when for example mail between a synchron studio and Crunchyroll that is not adressed directly to CR, but to the actor, for example a bill for the recording session. But even if that would be addressed to the actor instead of the company, normally the actor would just forward the bill to the company.
@@matthewrawlings1284 I understand the purpose for allowing prisons to open the mail sent to inmates, but that doesn't get rid of the fact that it's very frequently abused to just straight up steal shit.
The US Postal Service Inspector General SWAT team has entered the chat. For non-Americans, you can thumb your nose at a lot of authority, maybe escape the IRS, dance around the FBI (unless they're setting you up), but for the love of all that is holy, don't fuck with the mail. They will find you. I've know people (fed agents) who have trained with the Postal IG door kickers and they're crazy MFs. When the little mail truck pulls up to the range and is filled with guns, shit is getting real.
My god, its really starting to feel like the endtimes lately. This is just anime, but every single industry is jam packed with corruption. This shit is festering EVERYWHERE!
It has always been like this. It starts small, then it gets big, then it starts to be all about money and growth and no longer about the passion and quality. Then it goes bad. And when it's no longer profitable it dies. Then the new wave of small guys come in and the cycle repeats. I guarantee you that in the next decade or two you'll see some of the small gaming companies grow into big boys like Ubisoft, and then the same thing will happen to them, and then they will eventually be replaced by somebody else, and so on. This is literally how it has always worked, and it doesn't apply to just gaming. There will always be the big, corrupt corpos that output slop for money. And there will always be the smaller guys who create the genuinely good stuff. And then some of those small guys will become the new, corrupt corpos eventually. The key is to learn to spot this transition and when you see it, start looking for the new crop of "indies". That way you will always enjoy the good stuff.
@@RiskOfBaer no, its because new people who wanted x, kick out the old people who did it as a passion project, its not just money, lately its been ideas and politics
eh that one iiuc is about postal workers killing their supervisors and others bc of negative mental health assistance and hostile workplace problems, not from uspis ensuring people find out.
Well, if Funimation wasn't already dead to me due to their atrocious actions towards one of their own, they would be now. But seriously now...Funimation and Crunchyroll commiting mail fraud!? Really? I did not have that on ANY of my 2024 Bingo Cards.
@jonathanstone4878 No, they can't. This isn't email. It is a federal crime to take any mail that is not specifically addressed to you. Since consent was not documented, this will end up with federal prison sentences. The US does not fuck around with postal crime.
@@CodyRPierce As long as it has the business header, yes, I'm afraid they can. Federal law states that all correspondence mailed to a business (with header) is the property of said business. Imagin if a CEO, CFO or manager was fired and you had millions of dollars in legal documents, orders or contracts sit in limbo for days, weeks or months to be redrawn.
@@Aethrin As long as the business header is on the mail, yes, they can. If it was personal mail, you may have a case for expectation of privacy, but that would be a civil matter. Imagin if a business' had one manager that received all the order receipts, and he was out for a week. Do you really think a business would just halt until he got back? Nope.
Nope. Every business has the right to open mail sent to it, regardless of the addressee. Same with your home. If it has your address, you are authorized to open it. Imagin if your title company misspelled your name and they sent to a lean document, and you never open it. You think they won't start legal action against you?
As someone from the US the worst things you could mess with here are the mail, taxes and the Feds. If this is true this could be career ending or even company ending. Very dumb thing for them to do and we might see some felonies for the employees.
@@logikx1325 I think the employee needs express permission to use the business address as their shipping address. Anything shipped to the business is the business' mail. I could be wrong, but I believe that's how it works.
Yep so cooked they are still in business to this day. Plus its not like its the first time a company has done sketchy things. Yes it shouldnt be allowed yet its clear they mostly get away with it. Also if CR does go under, so does one of the best legal ways to stream anime. So with the whole takedown of piracy recently, im sure most ppl want CR to stay in business.
I myself work in postal service in the United States in the backend department in over a year already. I remember from the orientation during my hiring process, they say "Don't steal the mail". It is THAT serious. Crunchyroll should've known better to not do this kind of illegal activity. It's dirty and embarrassing for their name and platform.
Maybe it's different there, but i believe if it was addressed to their address, it is their mail, regardless of name on it. Address is all that matters.
@@MrMpa31 Over here, if it has someone else's name you gotta send that shit back to the post office (or back to sender). If you dont its heavily fine-able, and can get you sent to jail.
If you've watched any time in last 10 years you're pretty much supporting this evil company. Most of us who were there at the start of the site veered away when they started forgetting any kind of morals and started shoving activism in things. This was roughly 10 years ago, they had a good run but it hasn't been crunchy that it was in the beginning since the 2012-2013.
I already never trusted them anyway. Especially after they nominated Nezuko's English VA for best voice in their award show this year. Nothing personal to her, but that just tells you everything you need to know about CR. And no other languages Nezukos nominated. idk probably some plot to destroy the English language or something (Maybe Crunchyroll just hates English speakers and they were using her for their obvious trolling). But already foiled due to someone else winning.
Well, since I'm going back to older shows, CR hasn't had as much of what I want to watch anyway. And their shutting down of the discussion forums, and eliminating their manga service (which was often broken anyway) made them less and less worth the subscription. That's even before you get to their dickish attitude and far-leftist agenda.
Have the individual report this to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. They will investigate this once several request is sent. It's like 1 for querying and 50 for investigations. FCC has a 100 report min to launch an investigation. It is considered Obstruction of Correspondence, and if anything is removed it is theft. 18 USC Section 1702. Please contact a legal team if anyone has experience this.
Damn, people still use crunchyroll to this day? I personally have been sailing the seas since day 1. The only thing I like are their clips on different anime
Sadly there is no legal alternative (that I know of, enlighten me if I missed) in Germany Edit: I mention LEGAL alternative not because I am afraid of persecution or punishment, but because I have interest in creators being paid/rewarded for their work.
10:00 it only says they may be able to OPEN the mail, but does not give permission to steal the contents or dispose of the letters, which was already clearly forbidden. This guy needs to rake them over the coals in court.
Don't forget, you are legally required to use the USPS for sending documents. There was a company that sent all of their inter-branch documents with a private courier service, and they got raided by the USPS enforcement division and fined over $10k for not using USPS to ship non-urgent documents.
Its not, pirating just means you'll get less anime coming from japan. You know crunchyroll pays for licenes and the like right? The creators get paid off people like netflix,hulu etc paying for the use of streaming their anime. If you just pirate it eventually there just won't be anime.
@@Raytheman581 Correction, there won't be anime dubbed into English but subs will be fine, the fans will do it if no one else does. Merch sales and tie in adaptations such as video games will also help fill their coffers to keep the anime industry chugging along happily. Crunchyroll/Funimation are not the only 'anime' business in town, they're just the biggest and most corporate, and also apparently competing to commit the most felonies possible.
@@Raytheman581If it means we won't have to worry about crunchyroll, blackrock, and all these other western companies trying to change anime at the source, then I'd rather we just not get anything new at all
The whole deal with companies looking through mail is intent. If this story is true, then the mail is being opened NOT with the Intent of making sure its safe but to take the items inside
as a new residence in this country tax is something I already knew that IRS will chase you forever mail is something new, and thank you for this information I dont really want to violate that but knowing that's thing is always good
@@jonathanstone4878extremely false. many people with that misconception have been charged. if it says "C/O Company Name", they would be allowed to open it, but it would be theft to withhold it from the named recipient and not return it to the sender.
@@dead-claudia Once the USPS has dropped off the mail to the C/O legal address, the chain of ownership changes. They can distribute it to next of kin, return to sender or open it if they can show they are not misrepresenting, using private information against and so on. At best this is a civil matter dealing with the expectation of privacy.
To back up some of what Rev said. My dad worked in the USPS for over 30 years. You pick up some things over that time. US Postal Inspectors have almost zero oversight. Every other law enforcement agency in the US answers to them if they have jurisdiction and an inspector's jurisdiction is wherever the fuck he says it is.
Can you tell me which postal code makes it illegal for a business to be unable to open mail sent to it? 508 Recipient Services says they may open all mail sent to it.
@@jonathanstone4878absent a prior authorization to receive mail on one's behalf, 18 usc 1702 bans it, with up to 5 years in jail. if it's like "David Wald" "C/O Crunchyroll", it would likely just be a matter of simple theft (still criminal, but not obstruction of correspondence). either way, that's a whole criminal lawsuit worth of screw up on crunchyroll's part.
@@dead-claudia 1702 does not apply to authorized addressees. It only applies to those unauthorized to handle mail. Businesses are authorized to distribute the mail given them legally by the USPS. Example, they could give it to a surviving wife/husband, to a business partner or other legal entity. They can even destroy it.
I mean one reason to have your mail sent to your place of work is if you don't want your private address available. You know to prevent doxing or having randos show up out of nowhere.
@@MrMpa31 Most non-publicly accessible work places have measures in place that prevent or slow non-employees from gaining access to your workplace. And besides what is someone going to do, go to HR and say you should fire this person? The guy works for Crunchyroll not Wal-Mart.
Isn't there something called the Post Master or Master or Posts or something like that which is basically like the fbi/ghost rider specifically for the mail. That stuff is no joke.
Aside from the FBI potentially getting involved, I just can't get over how diabolical it is to steal GIFTS. These messages and items carry immense sentimental value and it's just disgusting to hear they just throw them away/keep them like that.
Oh, don't you worry. The Postmaster General will make sure it goes to court. They don't fuck around and will jump on the opportunity to make an example out of a corporation.
Even if the allegations are made up? While I'm not trying to defend Crunchy here - please keep in mind its just allegations with no actual proof. Its just someone on twitter claiming things. ..and Twitter is, unfortunately, about as credible a source as youtube, Hub and Reddit comments for things.
@@shoulderpyro The Postmaster General will be very thorough and either Cruncyroll will pay or the one who made a false accusation that cost taxpayer resources will
@@logikx1325 Aye. Whoever's at fault should pay for it. But it wouldnt be the first time VA's were making up bs, especially the english dub VAs. So until its proven to be actually true, I'm sticking with what the law says: Innocent until proven guilty. ..unlike the rest of the rabid dogs in the comment section who seem to be going for Guilty until proven Innocent
The Postal Service has their own police force (PPOs), and _they do not mess around_ when it comes to mail-related crimes. I hope whoever did this cozies up to the idea of spending the next few years in federal prison
I've done some contractor work in the main distribution center in Baltimore. Nothing to do with the mail, they have a cafeteria. Not only do they check IDs, they run background checks before they let you in. My brother went to the same place one time and they ended up arresting his helper on the spot. Apparently had an open bench warrant. They are indeed actual police.
The mail enforcement devision was actually the first US law enforcement department to carry machine guns. They DO NOT fuck around. Ask anyone who worked with them or look up any articles or stories about them. These guys are like the FBI and the fucking SWAT team had a baby with anger issues.
11:10 the thing that is especially bad here is that is apparently wasn’t a one time thing, where there was some important incentive to open mail. No, just regularly doing so makes this so much worse.
Sounds like someone will have their VA career snuffed out over fan mail. Being serious as their tight knit cesspool will rather throw their own into the fire than call out issues in the industry.
There must be many others that we don’t know of yet who are getting their mail messed with as well like this guy, the book is gonna be thrown hard at CR once more comes out.
As long as it has the business header, it is not illegal. No business mail should be considered restricted unless it was certified, and even then, anyone in management can sign for it.
@@calanon534 Look at the post. The victim is saying CrunchyRoll has been *doing* it for five years. Stop spamming comments at people, repeating the same thing over and over. So cringey.
USPS has a history of doing armed raids of locations suspected to be involved in mail related crimes. They once carried out such a raid on Equifax simply for sending too many letters via FedEx. Except for a few special cases, letters are supposed to be sent only through USPS, and most of the letters they found at Equifax were not special cases. The letters and their content would have been completely legal if sent through USPS. They don't mess around.
Netflix has been taking lots of good anime lately feels like Japanese publishers and studios are more open to the idea to work with Netflix, feels like CR downfall could be inminent soon
TBF, talent management companies usually open the mail sent to talent to ensure there is nothing included that could provide tracking. It would be easy to slip an Apple airtag into a package and find out where a talent lives. Cover does this with their talent. But not forwarding the packages after they have been inspected is problematic. Giving the items to others instead of of the intended recipient is problematic. As far as mail theft being taken seriously, wake me up when porch pirates start going to prison.
Porch Pirates do go to prison if identified and caught. Punishment depends on the state, in conservative states porch Pirates usually get sent to prison, in democratic ones they usually walk free so long as the package stolen is below a certain amount of money. The reason why Crunchyroll is probably gonna get caught is because it's an actual company doing this and not just some rando on the streets
Porch pirates aren't stealing from mail boxes, so they aren't running afoul of the Postmaster General. They make the FBI look like kids playing cops. They do not fuck around.
@@joshuab4799 If they take a USPS delivered package the state doesn't get to decide that....that only applies for private delivery services like Amazon or UPS or Fed Ex. Messing with Postal Service mail is a federal crime and the state has no jurisdiction, liberal or not.
@@AndeePasta Nope. Under '508 Recipient Services', business' are authorized to open all correspondence sent to it. Period. What happens after someone leaves or goes on vacation? Do you think a business would just sit there and let all their contracts, orders, legal documents and manifests just expire?
@@AndeePasta C/O does not override postal code laws. If it has the business address, said business is considered "authorized". If the recipient inside a business die, is fired, goes on vacation, or otherwise is unable to receive the mail, the business can do with it as they please as long as they do not misrepresent, disclose private matters or otherwise use said information considered protected, they have a right to open it. Period.
I like how it took him not getting a keychain someone mailed him in order to grow enough of a spine to barely allege potentially seriously awful workplace issues. Truly stunning and brave.
In Texas, Mail Theft, Penal Code Section 31.20, an offense of this section is a Class A misdemeanor unless said mail contained identifying information where it then becomes a State Jail Felony. The offense is broken up into how many people mail has been stolen, with harsher punishment based on the number of victims. The two listed are the minimum.
This makes me think how there are areas with such high rates of mail stealing, they are definitely not thinking about the risks, like, the Mark Rober videos where he puts traps for the thieves
yes, i agree this is dirty, but i think NOTHING will come of it... think of the CONTRACT that their employees MUST sign... mcdonalds has a TON of fine print before they let u flip a burger or drop a bin of fries, so just IMAGINE what CR's contracts look like... do u all really think there isno clausein there about mail being addressed to the business belongs to the business, regardless of the name thats on the package? im almost CERTIAN that clause exits, because multiple companies have been doing this for years, and even when they get caught, i cant remember ever seeing any real repercussion.. not for "mail fraud" in general, but for this kinda deal, the "business witholding mail addressed and sent to the employees name, but still sent TO the business... im js, i feel almost certian they have this covered in the fine print...
Ooh, you don't want to tamper with mail, law enforcement is so strict about it not even the biggest corporations play fast and loose with it. This actually has the chance of putting the squeeze on Crunchyroll real good.
Honestly, I'm not surprised about the monopoly part, but I'm also not very surprised about their lack of ethics behind the scenes and on public websites like Twitter/X for one. It has been implied through former disgruntled employees (voiceover artists included, such as Vic Mignogna) and through videos which have been released to the public. It would only be a while before potential bankruptcy.
A couple of years ago there was a rash of 'fan gifts' for vtubers that had trackers hidden in them, and this caused some corpos to deny or severely restrict fans from the opportunity to give gifts to their favorite talents. At that time I had a gift of two new CDs ordered direct from CDJapan already in transit to Hololive HQ, and I hoped that the fact that nobody outside of CDJapan and Japan Post had their hands on it would be enough to get it to my oshi. Of course I never heard back anything about them, nor did I expect to, but I sometimes wonder what really happened to them. I have had no qualms before nor since then with corporations legitimately screening fan mail for their talents, but of course throwing the letters away and passing out the gifts to others is completely unacceptable theft.
Oh I know this actor! He's the english voice actor for Rei Sagara from the Love Stage!! english dub! I have Rei Sagara as my pfp! David's a good man so I'm surprised he's the spotlight for this video.
Sony should have never bought Funimation and Crunchyroll. Back then I thought it could potentially be a good thing, but now I wished it didn't happen. (Yes I know Funimation and Crunchyroll wasn't the best before getting acquired by Sony. But I fear it might get worse in the future because they got bought out.)
David Wald is no saint either as he supports lying about any anime creator's work. I still remember him having Mikan from To Love Ru say "That's misogynistic" instead of "What? It is nowadays." Localizing can also be mail theft.
They are likely in the clear legally - mail delivered to them can be opened, and I would bet money that gift property sent to the office is likely covered in one of the many contracts he signed.
Nah man, you can't open other people's mail without their knowledge or consent. Contracts don't supersede actual law. Now if there was such a clause AND they were informing him of what exactly was happening with the mail, then maybe they'd have a case to claim to be acting with approval...but him having to go out and tell his fans that his mail has been intercepted for 5 years without his knowledge kind of scuttled that argument before it could leave port.
@@OriginalUnjustifier That is not how this works. Its not illegal. The mail would be addressed to the voice actor and the crunchyroll office. It is fully expected that someone at the office will open said mail. In a normal company like this this is down to make sure things like trackers or dangerous items are not being sent to the talent. The mail would then be sent/picked up by the talent. This is done to protect the privacy of the talents. Crunchyroll though are POS because they then destroyed the mail (the actual illegal activity) and kept the gifts (another illegal activity). The opening of the mail is not illegal in this case unless he can prove the intent behind opening it was not to screen it but to steal its contents.
@@OriginalUnjustifier Does he have legal right to use someone else's address as his personal address? It's not his residence, it's not his business. The address is the business', all mail addressed there belongs to them.
