An Open Letter to the Anime Industry

[Ryoutarou]

Click (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2007-11-25).

It's been causing quite a stir on some of the major anime boards lately, most of the article is well written, but there are quite a few parts where I just went "What?", especially when major anime distributors were condemned for wanting sub groups to stop. One opinion I've read is that this seems like a view into the future for other media outlets due to the popularity of anime but the relatively small size of the industry, at least in English speaking parts of the world.

[SBaby]

This sounds like a chapter from a how-to book on stopping piracy rather than an actual letter. It makes some good points, but I don't know how much it'll help.

[♥~*Abby*~♥]

I don't know how much it'll help... it was so looooooooooooooooooooooong...

[Hayate]

Well the person who wrote that certainly tries to get his point across. I can understand what he says and aims for, but I don't fully agree on everything he says. If you ask money for popular games I can imagine, but as for anime...on several channels on my tv quite alot of anime series are being shown everyday. In the future, would I have to insert a coin in a special device attached to my tv in order to watch one of those anime series?

Sure, the idea of that guy is good but isn't it already abit too late to change? There are more torrents avialble online than the actual DVDs in the stores. Besides that there are also popular sites like youtube, veoh and others that have entire seasons of anime uploaded there, and usually get around 30000+ views on each episode. I think that shows how used we are to the current system of being able to watch an anime series we find interesting in 2 days on youtube, or just download the entire season subbed from any torrent site. I have seen alot illegal video hosting sites rise and got in trouble after that, just to close the site down and make a new one elsewhere. If the current situation is like that, how are you going to change to a better, more effective system?

Thanks for reading.

[RiderLeangle]

It was so long I didn't bother reading the whole thing, didn't really look like much of a letter more then it was telling you you shoud buy stuff, and theres no way to stopped fansubs of licenced shows, I mean the Japanese Audio with Subtitles is a feature on the Eureka Seven DVDs, But look http://www.maj.com/gallery/manaleader/Avatar2/eurekasevenfolder.jpg
(Although I'm still going to buy all the E7 DVDs for the dub eps (With full TV size OPs and not the [Adult Swim] excuse for OPs) and special features, And I'm going to get the Special Editions to get the T-Shirts). And I've even found Death Note fansubs for download (I bookmarked the link). So theres no way to stop them.

[Cowrie]

The most that would probably happen for series on TV is that you'd have to pay extra for whatever channel is showing them...and that's assuming that it's a special channel that doesn't get much funding from elsewhere (e.g., commercials or other similar things).

The prevalence of "free" anime online is actually my main worry about that article - the alternatives sound good in theory (and heck, I'd gladly support them), but I worry that they'd fall flat when put into actual use. As long as there are too many fans out there who'll kick and scream and raise a fuss at the thought of paying even a cent for their series at any point in time, then it doesn't matter how cheap you make the alternatives, they'll just scoff and go off to youtube or wherever to get their "free" anime.

However, even by now I do think there's still a chance to change things, even if it's small one...no doubt it'll be hard, though. I just hope that nothing as drastic as even a partial collapse of the anime industry needs to happen before the hint is finally gotten for some people about how badly the companies have been affected.