Japan’s prestigious Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), a government-affiliated economics think-tank, has published detailed research suggesting anime piracy can boost disc sales.
The official English language abstract of the (lengthy and highly technical) research – the paper itself is only published in Japanese:
Do Illegal Copies of Movies Reduce the Revenue of Legal Products? The case of TV animation in Japan
Whether or not illegal copies circulating on the internet reduce the sales of legal products has been a hot issue in the entertainment industries.
Though much empirical research has been conducted on the music industry, research on the movie industry has been very limited.
This paper examines the effects of the movie sharing site Youtube and file sharing program Winny on DVD sales and rentals of Japanese TV animation programs.
Estimated equations of 105 anime episodes show that (1) Youtube viewing does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it appears to help raise DVD sales; and (2) although Winny file sharing negatively affects DVD rentals, it does not affect DVD sales.
Youtube’s effect of boosting DVD sales can be seen after the TV’s broadcasting of the series has concluded, which suggests that not just a few people learned about the program via a Youtube viewing. In other words YouTube can be interpreted as a promotion tool for DVD sales.
The research itself provides detailed statistical analysis of each title featured (mostly popular late-night anime), even going so far as to incorporate such factors as the popularity of the seiyuu involved in the titles, what medium the anime was adapted from and which demographic it targets.
Each factor’s estimated impact on the likely effect of online distribution on sales is then extrapolated using regression modelling.
Sankaku Complex provides a translation of the study’s key conclusions:
We compared the DVD sales, DVD rental sales, YouTube viewing numbers and Winny download numbers of various anime titles.
Our results suggested the following:
1. YouTube viewing did not decrease DVD sales, but actually increased them. For each 1% increase in YouTube viewership a 0.25% increase in DVD sales was observed.
2. The effect of YouTube on sales was particularly pronounced in the case of shows which had finished airing on TV. We can think of this as people who never saw the broadcasts becoming fans by way of YouTube and then going on to buy the DVDs.
3. There is no clear effect on DVD rentals from YouTube. At the very least we can say it seems YouTube has no adverse effect on DVD rentals.
4. Winny file-sharing has no effect on DVD sales, but does appear to decrease DVD rentals. People who download anime via Winny appear to be using it not to replace their purchases, but to replace their rentals.
As YouTube is having no adverse affect on anime sales, but is in fact increasing them, further distribution on YouTube is likely desirable.
Copyright holders who dislike YouTube and persistently request their works to be deleted from YouTube are likely to be harming their own business.
As a result of these findings, we can probably conclude that banning downloads of such material is a mistaken policy.
The usual proviso that correlation does not equate to causation naturally bears mentioning when presented with any study based chiefly on statistical observations. It should also be remembered these results solely concern the Japanese market and have nothing to say about fansubbing or otherwise.
Of course, these results should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of piracy – most anime production is funded primarily through DVD sales, so it is still essential fans at some point buy DVDs themselves, and the fact that TV, YouTube and P2P viewing is usually at much lower quality (whether in terms of image quality or dehumidification) than a disc always provides a strong natural incentive to buy.
Rather, it would seem online distribution has a crucial role to play in promoting anime to as wide an audience as possible and allowing this audience a preview of the full product available to paying customers – a fairly basic realisation to all but the most stubborn and unreasonable of copyright holders.
The research also tends to contradict government policy, which has recently seen unauthorised downloads criminalised, and soon threatens to ban ripping of DVDs and CDs altogether, a move which might have rather serious effects on the DVD rental business as well as on consumer freedom, and which, if this research is to be believed, would only further harm the anime industry.
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if the anime is satisfactory enough, people overseas might want to buy the dvd. If they could not see it beforehand they would not risk buying it
this
anime is simply too expensive to buy if we're not sure that it's worth it
Most things are simply too expensive to buy if you're not sure it's worth it. More so if you know it's not worth it.
I wouldn't buy COD - Black Ops or any of the Evangelion Rebuild Blu-rays even for one dollar.
Why? Because they aren't worth it IMO.
One more evidence telling us PIRACY isn't actually killing the business - one more evidence copyright-fags and publishers won't give a shit about.
The problem with that suggestion is that many people will just wait until someone rips the following episodes and upload them.
Simplest solution is to give people a taste then take it away
Example
Out of a 13? episode anime
Show the first 4-5 episodes on YouTube, then dont show the rest. Especially try to stop before something incredible happens. Like if one of the main characters dies at the end of the episode, or if a massive fight scene will start next episode, etc etc
Exactly. I want to know my money will be well-spent. If I can't know that in advance, then it's not worth the risk and I'd rather save my money.
i wonder what they will do now.....post there eps online cos it will boost sales....lol
Net sales wouldn't be all that bad of an idea.
Sounds cool, but to be honest if I were to watch anime online I wouldn't pay for it. Its all about having the box-set and physical copies! Usually if I like a show enough I'll pay for it though, same goes for albums.
I always thought that it all comes down to this:
Don't ask. Don't tell.
You'd browse for animes you like and give it 2 or 3 episodes. If you like it so much that you need to move on from blurry, highly compressed FLVs, you get the DVDs. If you watched everything and still can't be bothered, consider it ditched. Don't go around and tell everyone about your illegal way of testing the product.
Obviously, corporations don't like the fact that we can actually see the contents of their products thoroughly before we buy them. That shit they say about lost sales due to piracy? It'd be bullshit to think that's the main reason. I think it had more to do with them no longer being capable of selling media by pure advertisement anymore, because everyone who knows his way around enough can already judge if a product fits his taste or quality level.
Of course, leechers exist. However, it's difficult to believe that those fuckers would pay for anything if they can get away with not paying. Meanwhile, Platinum Games, a very new game studio can still take off and make cash until now, even though Bayonetta's perfect version is on a console most heavily hounded by pirates this generation. Why? Because they did their jobs and made a high quality game anyone would gladly pay for it, that's why.
Back in the day, I'd feel like killing myself for buying an album from some band, thinking I'd like all their songs when it turned out that all but one track is a stinky pile of excrement.
That's always been my policy, support the good shows (fullmetal alchemist, cowboy bebop, etc) when they come out on dvd, forget about the bad show (too many to name, plus I've forgotten them). Quality begets purchases.
What will they do now?
They will continue criminalizing.
They can put up study after study, but it will be to no avail.
This is not about free advertising or lower DVD-sales.
This is about censorship & control over the internet.
P2P lower quality? Tell that to those 1080p floating around...
Long truthful statement is long
same here
"post there eps online cos it will boost sales....lol"
You are mostly correct, but... I will correct it: "post there eps online with censoreship" WILL DEFINATELY increase the sale rate...
You know how mad i am when watching censored anime?
I HATE censorship in any anime! This is an excellent point! LOL!
piracy=$ales
my kind of economics ^_^
or ishihara will walk in and says its bullshit cos it has no this has no substance
In all honesty, this study shows that yes, if they post their episodes online it will boost sales, and that YouTube is an effective tool for increasing exposure of a product. Although the question is whether an official stream is more effective at increasing awareness and DVD sales than an unofficial one. Also, what's the sweet spot for picture quality? if they put it out in BD quality then that might have an effect for example.
@Wingsoffusion - Crunchyroll already does something like that. However, I think it's still somewhat ineffective since there are still pirated versions of the subs not long after Crunchyroll releases their videos to exclusive members. They show the episodes for free after a week of the release but at that point most people would have already watched the pirated versions of it on youtube the week before.
I'm curious about the response 2ch will give now that they know the "filthy foreign pirates" are actually helping their industry...
finally they got it.
I can't wait to see 2chan's reaction.
They'll probably find something else to whine about.
At least post sub-DVD quality rips so that you at least have a moral standing to stand on with this issue. lol
I think it starts getting problematic if online streams has just the same quality or better than DVDs..
Let never forget that, because of fansubs, japan anime has been introduced faster to others country than it would without. Without fansubs, today, I would know not much anime like bleach, naruto, one piece and somes others. Considering the time it takes for corporate to bring back anime, without fansubs, the japan anime wouldn't be that popular world wide.
Fansubs are heroes.
All of the above: So true
Especially the ones that
use this---> "ksjehipqnefipqwpirngpwiregng" as their translation (a certain Xenosaga fansub comes to mind...), or how about the one that said "I don't understand those complicated Japanese words." lol Good times, good times.
Bingo! And this is really the takehome point. I have no doubt Youtube increases dvd sales. I will also bet every last dime I have that it increases piracy at a greater rate than it increases dvd sales. Youtube might spark your interest in a series but no one wants to watch it in shitty quality all shrunk down with badly formatted subs. At that point, you will either move on to pirate the anime from a good subbing group or buy the DVDs. Seeing as the former provides as much quality as the later with the bonus of not costing anything...I think it's pretty obvious what happens the majority of the time.
The real funny thing is that Anime doesn't seem to follow the US DVD/BluRay selling paradigm. Add in bonus features. Director commentary, actor/seiyu commentary, other special features. Sure, some pirates will take the time to also rip those out but many won't and that creates an incentive to actually buy the dvd's.
I only buy stuff that I have watched entirely (read: Pirated) first. Also, all the merchandise filling my shelves (mostly figure imports) are from series I technically 'pirated'.
Altogether, I spent a mid-four-digits amount of money (Euros, mind) on my stuff. Not a large collection, but most definately not a small one, either.
Now, much of these are imports, so I'm admittedly hurting my local anime industry to some degree (boo on your dubs, Germany). Though I did get a friend into anime/manga this way, and he now has a 400+ volume collection of german and english manga (another four-digit number right there).
As result, I don't buy that fansubs are entirely hurtful. Sure, some people watch em for the free ride, but a significant fraction of the people I meet at anime conventions, -primarily the big spenders- that carry home 500 bucks of doujinshi from hendane, or whatever, got into the hobby through fansubs, not the German dubs.
Sure, not all of that may be good for the local anime industry (boo on your dubs once more, Germany), but in general, there is a fair amount of money going into Japan due to this, due to imports or whatever else, and that's where the money, in my opinion, matters most.
When you look at the Japanese market where most the sales are from DVDs and BDs, the people that pirate can be likened to the people that'd watch it through TV anyway, where you gain significantly less revenue. Subsequently, the more viewers you get overall (including pirates) the more likely you'll get a increase in sales with DVD/BD because the more fans you'll have that'll buy them.
In European countries, it seems the main point of revenue are box office sales, which is why piracy seems so harmful - you pirate, and they literally miss out on a chance to earn money on the film. Well, provided you don't like it so much you go see it again. Unfortunately, this is too often used as an excuse for Hollywood to make a crap movie, and being a catch-22 situation noone's gonna give a fuck about it.
tl;dr support the pirates, and you'll support the industry. Funny how that works.
through youtube and youtube like services like blip, you can take at most 10$ per 1000 views of ads. you can put a pre, post and mis add into a video on blip witch equals 1 view pre, 1-2 views mid, and 2 views post, and also the mid show lower add that pops up and barely distracts, all in all its the equivilant of 5 views minimum per watch, 200 views nets 10$ and lets go with a 100,000 people watch minimum.
that would be an extra 5 grand per 100k.
cartoon network can push some at up to 3 million views, i believe ant bleach and narutos peak, so an extra 150000$ off people who werent even going to buy it... not bad.
now for REAL profit, allow sub groups to post their subs to the stream, and let those subs display any why the group wants, and let them edit the opening and ending video to add whatever they want to it, and there you go, for one piece, let them edit the episodes, due to how those shows and handled.
also dont go after people who like to download, because some of us despise online viewers, some due to how shittly browsers handle the majority of imbeded video
Stuff being released on the internet for free for people to watch is a good thing. Especially for ones that don't air on TV. Why the hell would anyone buy an anime they MIGHT like but have never seen?
00:27 anon here, an addendum:
Lots of people also speak about DVD sales.
A problem I see mostly pertains to series that get a TV Broadcast in HD. While BDs, due to some reworking, usually look better, DVDs tend to be horrid fail by comparison, image quality wise.
However, I have, if at all, only seen -movies- on BD over here.
Seeing series I know full well got a HD-release in Japan (Ergo Proxy is one that springs to mind), only on DVD over here is a major "DO NOT WANT" for me.
It's less of a problem when fansubs look 'as good' as what you can buy (given they sometimes are DVD/BD/whatever rips, anyway), but when the fansubs look -several times- better than anything you can easily get on the market over here, then the situation quickly turns absurd. I bought a few out of good conscience, then went "What the fuck am I doing with my money", when I just shelved the packaged DVDs to never look at them again. Because if I wanted to watch the series again, I'd want to see the HD-rip, not the darn things on my shelf. Which'd make me either keep or re-pirate something I already bought.
I mean, what the fuck. In the end I did import some BDs from Japan, but the pricing, with shipping included, is so ridiculous that it's not really an alternative, either. Japanese disk releases are exorbitantly pricy to begin with, adding 30-40% shipping on top is not good.
I think it'd be better if there were simple venues to give the studios our money, then not have to worry about whatever we're doing with the material.
Crunchyroll is a good start, but I hate internet-stream-quality video, so I'm hesitant to give them my money.
I know I'd pay SHAFT silly money for a "Here, go download our newest episodes in HD, then feel free to slap sub-files onto it" monthly subscription or something.
I'd at least know the money'd go straight where I want it to be.
I suppose the big next step in all this is to make sure people buy the anime they love. I love how some fansubbers openly plead in fansubbed anime themselves at times, to buy them if you like them.
I think they should ALWAYS put that message in the inbetween freeze-frame-artwork most anime have in the midway point of a show.
It's one thing to love anime and fansub, but it's another to know that buying legit anime = supporting the industry. It's been even implored by actual seiyuu and industry insiders that even foreign sales do ultimately matter and it's important we support them.
It's simple:
We like it, we buy it.
We're not that selfish as to think everything is free (well, kinda), but when we see a good piece of work, we , as fans, would like to procure, own and support that show/series/project/masterpiece for our self satisfaction. I don't speak for all of us, but thats how I contribute to the industry.
In piracy there are those that who would never buy DVDs and stuffs (I know some people like that) and those who buy the anime to help the titles they like (like most users of SamCon I think ).
Place everyone in the same boat and say that we destroy the sales and just want everything for free is extremely unpleasant.
Do the people trying to get everything for free and never buy anything really hurt the business though?
Do you thing that this people who download everything just because it's free would have started buying all the staff they download if they couldn't find it for free?
Isn't it obvious that this people wouldn't buy shit anyway? So the sales aren't really hurt. The people who think of buying are the people who make the market and this kind of people would by a series that they liked.
The only difference is that now this people won't become victims of corporate marketing delusions and get fooled by a nice cover or trailer.
They have the chance to see the product and then decide if it's worth of their support and that is what companies don't like. They hate the idea they can't fool people anymore. Piracy is freedom i say.
Obviously there aren't many people like you.
There are leechers, and then there are some idiots who'd think "Ahh, there will always be someone else out there who'd pay". What if everyone think the same as those idiots?
Nice deduction there, Sherlock.
I hate to tell you "i told you so..."
but... I TOLD YOU SO!!
Damn i got TOLD.
Chances of my buying anime BEFORE having watched a free fansub, zero.
I also won't buy a movie till I have watched it once somehow.
Chances of my buying a dvd as opposed to downloading it. Well if it isn't on sale locally, the chances are also almost zero.
Chances of my buying an anime straight from Japan via Amazon.jp is fucking less than zero when you consider the rip off price, even worse shipping costs and the outrageous surprise duty costs.
Sorry but in Canada a dvd box set is considered a 50 dollar item commonly.
When I went to get the Hatsune Miku concert on blueray and discovered my end price was about 125 bucks including price shipping and duty, I sent it back and settled for the most acceptable blueray rip.
In Canada a blueray item is routinely 25 bucks.
End result comment, if you want me to buy it, don't expect a fucking idiotic price tag.
Hate to say it, but those are common prices in Japan. Maybe not common over here, but their economy is better, and people have been paying those prices for years, so if anything our prices are dirt cheap.
it isn't that much cheaper in Japan, a typical anime bluray costs around 7000 yen. In fact, the Haruhi BD box set is considered cheap as f***, and its around 38000 yen.
Yet I still bought several copies of Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu for the different promo items from each retailer. Also, including the BD box set and Nyoron Churuya-san + Haruhi-chan bd, total damage was around 1000 usd.
But its ok, because I love it.
How did I come to love it? I watched it first from afk, all the way back in 2006.
I think this article makes sense, if it wasn't for me being able to download anime, I would NOT have bought a solid state copy of it. Amongst other things, soundtracks have been a keen interest for me.
Because I got to watch K-ON!(!) I now want to buy all the CD's, brilliant music, same goes for Angel Beats, I'm getting the 2 Disc OST for my birthday this month. on top of the Thousand Enemies and Crow Song album I currently own.
Yes, Piracy does have flaws for the producers, but how much of a fanbase do you think there would be if there was no piracy? I think it's safe to assume that it certainly wouldn't be as big as it is today.
Mayhaps now they might lay off us pirates that actually buy their goods after we had our way with them..
..doubtful though.
thats the freaking thing man, watching stuff online gets me buying stuff it makes sense man, when you think that youtube can reach 100 million people youtube needs to be embraced as a more efficent means to showing movies etc then a theatre.
Here is an extremely simple example of life. If my friend wouldn't ever have shown me a pirated anime episode of Naruto, I would have never gotten into watching. If I never had access to anime via torrents, I wouldn't have gotten a few friends interested too. And they got some people dragged in too. Everyone has purchased a smaller or a larger amount of merchandise and DVDs. Even the most debt ridden bastard has anime figurines on his shelf.
In short, awareness boosts sales. The advertisement of anime outside Japan relies solely on word to mouth, internet anime communities and piracy. It might not be legal, but it is the truth.
I can think of several animes I only found out about because of torrents or illegal streams etc and then ended up buying legit merchandise later on.
im pretty sure this is what everyone was arguing about before. AND NOW THEY BRING IT UP...
you like. you buy. simple as that.
same with manga.
if it wasnt for fansubbers and p2p the most of the world would not even know what is anime or care about japanese culture
Truth.
Sometimes there are nice anime that are overshadowed by mainstream anime titles, so having 'previews' on the Net is an excellent way to promote them. Viewers decide if they're worth it.
I found Byousoku 5cm that way... and Shinkai Makoto. ^_^ Just an example.
The best argument:
2. The effect of YouTube on sales was particularly pronounced in the case of shows which had finished airing on TV. We can think of this as people who never saw the broadcasts becoming fans by way of YouTube and then going on to buy the DVDs.
Thats why i bought the Gurren Lagann dvds^^
Similar for me with Black Lagoon. I saw an AMV on youtube. Thought it was awesome. Pirated the episodes, and become a crazy fan and then bought American DVd's, Japanese Blu-Ray, the manga, some posters and now am actually looking for a good Black Lagoon figure of Revy or Roberta.
It's been known for a long time that digital piracy can be beneficial to overseas trade.
I'm going to HAVE to disagree with the last statement ; "As a result of these findings, we can probably conclude that banning downloads of such material is a mistaken policy" when their own study showed that it DID indeed effect rentals . I thought it was a too closed off statement. There should be a peer review of this study . Anmouku no ryokai is a tenuous balance and even if the study proves that piracy increases sales you can't really hold it against copyright holders for being strict . They're protecting their product as well as their creation .
I think the best policy would be to make sure that there are official versions on YouTube that are decent quality and discourage people from downloading by basically saying there's no need to if you can stream it.
It does seem an overly broad statement.
Their findings do not suggest allowing, for example, DVD ISOs to be trafficked freely would promote sales, and it seems counter-intuitive for this to be the case. It seems only specifically discouraging "inferior" unauthorised promotional distribution is likely to have a really negative effect, especially if carried to extremes.
On the other hand, TV anime is only disc advertising, and with the limited distribution to the regions it seems tolerating or promoting free and legal alternative viewing methods could drastically increase their promotional area beyond the existing Kanto/Kinki regions.
Overseas distribution seems a more complex issue however, as the discs are often simply not available.
Where is your God now, 2ch?
You realize this study only concerns domestic piracy and DVD sales?
It has no bearing on how fansubbing affects the overseas market.
Considering most anime don't even exist in other countries and their local sales get boosted by people ordering from other countries who learn through the Internet about anime, i think the phenomenon of piracy helping sales would be even bigger outside of japan.
My wild guess is that it affects the same way... the only sad thing is that 2ch will no longer call us hairy foreign pirates...:)
yea we're just hairy foreigners ;)
Except for the pubes...
Haruhi Suzumiya is our god!!!
So... promotion is good for selling (quite high priced) discs.
They finally got it. Are we going to witness the start of a new business model for anime?
On a side note:
"P2P viewing is usually at much lower quality than a disc"
I wish it was always true... many (>90%) anime discs here are real crap, publishers don't know even the basics of frame rate conversion (Italy uses PAL @25fps). I find it ridiculous that a fansubbed TV rip is much better than its official dubbed counterpart...
"P2P viewing is usually at much lower quality than a disc"
Thats just a lie. I've never seen native 720 or 1080p on a DVD.
Contrary to popular belief, i've only ever seen 720p (upscaled to 1080p or otherwise) on my BD movies, and i work in a video store.
how much do you guys wish to bet that the government and publishers will ignore this report and pass an anti-streaming/anti-p2p bill?
by the way, how did the measure Winny network? unlike torrents, there is no tracker to get the numbers from.
and what about torrents!!!!!
I can assure you that if the report said "Piracy Decreases Anime Sales", you (and others) would ignore the report as well.
Yeah, but the people who pirate don't care. They want it for free and they get it for free regardless of whether the anime industry is hurt or not. It just happens to be convenient that there is a mutual benefit to anime piracy.
winny, share and perfect dark, even if torrent goes dark, its ratter difficult(impossible) shutdown those network as they don't rely on centralized servers :D
Basically I think it suggests that posting on YouTube is as beneficial as having your anime rebroadcasted. Only it's like broadcasting with an on demand network where fans can be made from the randomly browsing public.
I thing the effect would be more pronounced with English fans (because they never get to see the original broadcast), but it's difficult to see when translations are done poorly and late by third party companies.
To take the example of iTunes: make it convenient, affordable, and expedient, you'll make lots of money.
Why is no one commenting about yummy pirate Perrine? :Ð
lol I remember that pic as a transition for one of the SW2 eps ^^
@Topic:
More good news yay :3
Because I just got here. Pirate Perrine is charming. ♥
now wait for the righteous fansubber:
"You heard that japan,we boost your sales so stop calling us thief !"
...wait, they're already doing it. o_o
u mad, 2ch ?
yay! some fuel for fansubs!!
I wont buy anything not worth my money for my hobby. I'd rather save them for something else.
SUDDENLY
for example in Russia all anime content was illegal
but now everything legal anime goods - soldout very fast. if we haven't enourmous corruption and orthodox censorship -we would be very good client
Considering ever since i have gotten into anime, ive bought alot of murch, and some dvds,
I have 5 figures atm. And looking at getting some more once my bank balance allows me to, but yeah theres some sort of feeling when owning the actual copy.
Bout to save for Clannad Bluray.
Will be aweshome~.
So it does make sales, but then again theres alot of stuff ive seen that i wont buy :3
It is not like that your "NOT buying" does hurt the publisher, it is more like "because you saw those pirated shows you did buy something you would not have otherwise".
It is a WIN WIN situation.
Clannad is a master piece, totally worth the purchase
An advantage of not buying something you don't like is that you don't go around bitchin and whining about it afterward.
This actually saves the company a bit of reputations since consumer didn't lose any money. If they did, they would start telling everyone how shit it is and stuff and how they wasted money on it.
First "quite a bit of reputations." Within this fail there is win.
Despite that, I wonder if the companies are going to start realizing how much free advertising they're getting with the advent of fansubbing and so on.
Likewise, I wonder if the American anime market will realise that piracy is not a major issue, it is that their subbing and dubbing is 90% of the time, utter crap. I would buy more anime dvds if the subbing wasn't done by a moron that just took a class in college, or if the subbing wasn't done by people who took a 10 hour acting class.
Most of the time, I hear the dubbing, and honestly want to start choking someone.
Unfortunately, no it doesn't work like that. People will bitch about a show they pirated as if they had to buy an $800 box set to see it. Why? Because people like to complain.
This old discussion about the piracy is a big bullshit!!
It's a controversial issue, the Illegal copies have pros and cons.
This research article should be posted on every single media-sharing/streaming site on the net. It's what people said for ages but the music/movie industry didn't listen and just went to blackmail money out of them.
well a lot of people still want a physical copy of the product then a tv recorded version. also if the dvd versions have bonus content, uncensored materials added scenes, in creased quality over all. definitely will buy dvd.
Generic anime producer's expected reaction: Okay, we'll put it on YouTube, but only for viewing in Japan. No anime for gaijin pirates.
Youtube...thank you for making the world a better place.
'Cept we all use torrents rather than youtube...
At last, we get to see a news regarding fansubs vs dvd sales that make sense. Now all Japan needs to do is to put (proper) english subtitles into those BD/DVDs instead of making fans need to wait for the US releases.
You really can't trust any of these studies from official people or otherwise, but I really can't imagine it's all as harmful as usually suggested.
geniuses.. everyone knows that!
lol at least my country gives the others countries the middle finger when talking about copyrights "it's against freedom to track and watch our citizens on the net unless it is truly serious crime" must be their thought on this matter ashuaushauhsu but that's the only good point I see in my country anyway
I have a huge anime collection and I do basically what this article says. I watch a few episodes online, if I enjoy them, I purchase the series. I've always assumed there are others like that.