3 ms·

I don't totally disagree with much of what you say, but in the case of anime, it is important to remember that the works that are highly successful in Japan are

by sosborn 11y ago

I don't totally disagree with much of what you say, but in the case of anime, it is important to remember that the works that are highly successful in Japan are produced solely on the premise they will rake in cash for the IP owner. The income they get from non-domestic consumers is a drop in the bucket. Take away that incentive and there is a good chance that overall quantity and quality of content would decline.

Nadya 11y ago
Perhaps I should have used manga/doujinshi as my example as it doesn't require an entire production studio to create. Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 or 2 quality anime doujinshi that were subbed - making it a worse example for "for-free artists". Many doujinshi will hand out free copies of their manga though when starting out, to gain popularity. Even if it is initially a loss for them. For anime, it's produced for-profit, that's correct, but piracy arguably helps their for-profit motives more than it harms them. If they spent a bunch of money, time, and effort preventing all piracy of their IP - they'd lose out on countless international sales of merchandise... and for what exactly? Because they own the IP? That's nice. As long as it's profitable for them, why should they care? This is why Comiket is tolerated. It's costly to sub an anime for a foreign release where it isn't guaranteed to do as well as it did in Japan. Often times unpopular anime from Japan is very popular overseas, so it can be difficult even choosing what to release overseas. They're essentially getting free labor from fansub groups which results in sales they would have had to pay for (by releasing their own sub/dub). That's a win-win for the studio. This is less applicable to Hollywood movies that lack merchandise deals (e.g. anything that isn't superhero related) and music. I'm aware of that, but each form of media has its own arguments. Over 1/2 of my music library was purchased only because I originally heard of the artist because a friend pirated their music or I was listening to their music for free (I use AdBlock, so they aren't making money off ads) on YouTube. I would not have discovered the artist or purchased their music without this method of discovery, which is reliant on my friends or other people pirating their music and "broadcasting it" to the world. So it becomes an issue of "if 1 pirate results in greater than or equal to 2 sales, it is profitable to let the pirate pirate" and measuring (and quantifying) the pirates "free marketing" aspect. While I can personally quantify which items my friends have pirated and determine whether it was, in the end, profitable for the company to let them pirate or not. The company has no way of measuring what sales of their sales occurred because of pirates. They only know that piracy means they "lost a sale"; which might not have happened even if piracy wasn't an option. This is where the problem lies and opinions differ. I'm of the opinion that the free publicity piracy provides outweighs the lost sales that occur from piracy, therefore tolerating, but not promoting, piracy is an overall net gain. This argument is different than one I would use for a painter or photographer. Where stealing is a lot more harmful to the artist, especially since attribution is almost never given for stolen works. In this form of media, piracy steals recognition and publicity rather than giving it. That's actively harmful and is more easily provable that it harms the artist.

by sosborn 11y ago

Nadya 11y ago

Perhaps I should have used manga/doujinshi as my example as it doesn't require an entire production studio to create. Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 or 2 quality anime doujinshi that were subbed - making it a worse example for "for-free artists". Many doujinshi will hand out free copies of their manga though when starting out, to gain popularity. Even if it is initially a loss for them. For anime, it's produced for-profit, that's correct, but piracy arguably helps their for-profit motives more than it harms them. If they spent a bunch of money, time, and effort preventing all piracy of their IP - they'd lose out on countless international sales of merchandise... and for what exactly? Because they own the IP? That's nice. As long as it's profitable for them, why should they care? This is why Comiket is tolerated. It's costly to sub an anime for a foreign release where it isn't guaranteed to do as well as it did in Japan. Often times unpopular anime from Japan is very popular overseas, so it can be difficult even choosing what to release overseas. They're essentially getting free labor from fansub groups which results in sales they would have had to pay for (by releasing their own sub/dub). That's a win-win for the studio. This is less applicable to Hollywood movies that lack merchandise deals (e.g. anything that isn't superhero related) and music. I'm aware of that, but each form of media has its own arguments. Over 1/2 of my music library was purchased only because I originally heard of the artist because a friend pirated their music or I was listening to their music for free (I use AdBlock, so they aren't making money off ads) on YouTube. I would not have discovered the artist or purchased their music without this method of discovery, which is reliant on my friends or other people pirating their music and "broadcasting it" to the world. So it becomes an issue of "if 1 pirate results in greater than or equal to 2 sales, it is profitable to let the pirate pirate" and measuring (and quantifying) the pirates "free marketing" aspect. While I can personally quantify which items my friends have pirated and determine whether it was, in the end, profitable for the company to let them pirate or not. The company has no way of measuring what sales of their sales occurred because of pirates. They only know that piracy means they "lost a sale"; which might not have happened even if piracy wasn't an option. This is where the problem lies and opinions differ. I'm of the opinion that the free publicity piracy provides outweighs the lost sales that occur from piracy, therefore tolerating, but not promoting, piracy is an overall net gain. This argument is different than one I would use for a painter or photographer. Where stealing is a lot more harmful to the artist, especially since attribution is almost never given for stolen works. In this form of media, piracy steals recognition and publicity rather than giving it. That's actively harmful and is more easily provable that it harms the artist.