Here's one example that illustrates one of many possible reasons. I know someone who works at a European DVD/Blu-ray mastering house. Recently they released a

Here's one example that illustrates one of many possible reasons. I know someone who works at a European DVD/Blu-ray mastering house. Recently they released an anime Blu-ray. He told me that the publisher in Japan refused to let them release any discs until all of the Blu-rays were out in Japan (where they were released one at a time). Why? Because the Japanese Blu-rays were much more expensive than those in the West; Japanese fans could buy the overseas discs in their place if they came out at the same time. Since the Blu-rays contained the original audio track, said fans would have lost nothing by "bootlegging".