Cano you forgot
@Imari.
Also, lol at the comments in the article. The NHK, it's real!
Thanks
@kennylmao. As someone who actively produces scanlations of manga and doujinshi, I find this relevant to me.
The fact remains that if you don't live in Japan, the vast majority of manga and anime are not available to you except through very expensive and convoluted channels. It's possible to buy stuff from Japan if you know what you're doing or hook up with a deputy service, but yeah, expensive and convoluted. Even if you speak Japanese.
I figure there's three sorts of people when it comes to pirating.
1. The collector. The people who would buy the media if they could, but they can't. For anime, these are the people that collect the box sets and all the rest of it. These are the people who buy DVDs even after they've seen the show on TV, and as the Japanese market shows they're a significant group. I don't think English fans are any different really, there's plenty of people with the disposable income and interest who would just buy stuff if it were available.
This guy isn't a problem, because he's gagging to give away his money in the first place.
2. The cheap guy. The people who would buy the media if they have to, but probably can't afford it, and certainly couldn't afford to buy copies of everything they watch. These people download to try and save a buck.
These are really the people who will be converted from non-purchasers to purchasers if fan versions are restricted. Although they'll probably be watching a lot less since they can't afford it, so it's up to the companies whether they think that their IP holds enough sway to get a purchase over other things.
3. The pirate. The guy who was never going to pay for it. Will download, or rip other people's DVDs, and generally go to the ends of the earth not to have to pay. Faced with no other option, will probably just not watch anything.
Restricting fan versions does nothing to this guy, as he was never going to part with money for anime/manga anyway.
It's not hard and fast, and people tend to drift between groups a bit depending on their situation and so on. But you get the idea, there's only one group of people who are actually influenced by the availability of fan translations. The other two are either falling over themselves to give the producer their money, or would never do so even if it came with free race girls in bikinis.
How big that middle group is is a subject for debate, but I don't think it's massive. Most people tend towards the first group for series that they love, and the third group for stuff they don't know about.
And this is the other problem. With anime on free to air channels in Japan, there's essentially a way to "try before you buy". I've picked up a few series just because I happened to see them on TV late one night, thought they were cool and started watching seriously. There's starting to be more of that in English speaking countries, but mostly it seems that unless you go looking for a series specifically you're really unlikely to just stumble across it. Crunchyroll is a decent halfway house, but it's limited unless you're forking out, which is exactly not the point.
As far as shutting people down, it will never happen. They can make it very uncomfortable for translation groups, and it may end up having to go back to more of an underground scene. But stuff like Perfect Dark and Bittorrent means that raws will never really go away, and distribution is even easier. Maybe groups can't have their own websites any more, and just dump stuff onto TPB or Nyaa. Or just set up throwaway Wordpress/Blogger sites. Or move onto Tor.
The translation community goes through periods of this, we've got one now with Wani trying to take down all their stuff. Maybe it'll be lean pickings for a while as the people involved back off while the heat is on, but it'll build up again. The demand and the capacity exist, it's never going to go away.
If they put in nude 11 year old girls/boys it makes money (in Japan).
Or that nudity isn't "OMG TABOO" like it is in most western countries. Some stuff is gratuitous, but sometimes it's just part of the show.
They're only making the situation worse IMO.
A "anti-piracy" "campaign". "Hey, let's ask in a nice fashion. That'll work. Words.". Forget trying to impose any legal ramifications on these fools. Chinese copy-right law won't help that much, I assume. Websites can always change their server locations to evade any legal issues. A unwinnable battle (IMO). Like music
.
It depends. I've taken stuff down when the actual artists asked me, and I've taken stuff down when companies were legitimately producing an English version for sale that would be competing with my free versions.
But if a company asks me to take down the English version and they have no intention of replacing it, I'm just going to ignore them. It hasn't happened yet, but it will one day. I'm aware that what I'm doing is strictly illegal, but I'm very much of the "no harm, no foul" camp. I don't publish any raw scans any more for that reason, because although I used to I didn't like how I knew that I was doing at least some damage to the artist's sales, however slight. English versions...if there's no commercial English version that I'm outcompeting by being free, then I don't see why I should take mine down. It's a bit like the kid who has more toys than he can play with, but won't share because "mine!"
That's fine, that's their right. And I'm fine with being the one who violates that right.
I remain eternally pissed off at myself for *not* buying the goth Asuka model when I had the chance. At the time $50 for a model was a lot, but I should have done it anyway. One day I'll get one...
