Japanese lawfirms are finally getting around to issuing threatening letters to anime fansub torrent portals. This is a sign that Japanese content companies are not looking to expand their markets so much as they want to "limit losses." If the content providers re-imagined their markets as global instead of just national, and provided the desired content at the same time in multiple formats and multiple languages, they'd see how large of a market they really have. In addition to the stupidity of suing one's own customers, there is the fact that fansub groups will go underground, to encrypted darknets, which won't ever see the light of a portal website, let alone a torrent aggregator like Suprnova.
The demand is real. It is global. Too bad these companies don't seem to care about the non-Japanese fans.
AnimeSuki is a website that aims to be a portal for finding all unlicensed English anime torrents. By limiting the content to only unlicensed anime, we had tried to avoid associating AnimeSuki with piracy, even though as stated on the Licensed Anime page, fansubs are technically a violation of copyright. By not listing licensed anime, AnimeSuki avoided getting into any legal trouble with US anime companies, simply because we don't list anything they hold the copyright of. ... Unfortunately, it seems times have changed. On December 7, 2004 AnimeSuki received an email from a Tokyo law firm who represents the interests of Media Factory Inc. (a Japanese anime studio) requesting us to stop uploading "works" (anime series) of MFI to our website and/or stop "inducing" our visitors to websites where their "works" can be downloaded.Removal of Media Factory Inc. Works [animesuki.com]
hmmm, if the market is so great, why not step up and make simultantious release happen?
While I believe there probably is a market, vast piracy doesn't prove that. It only shows that people will download stuff if it's free. It does not show that people will buy it if it's not.
I think if you actually check the sales of titles released in the U.S, except for the ones that got picked up by Cartoon Network and therefore get tons of exposure, most of them are not making money.
Hmm thats funny, The Japanese Production company attacked Animesuki on the same day the Japanese Army attacked PEARL HARBOR.
ha.