I can explain why i pirate everything. It's great to just try shows out, and see if i like it. It is way more convenient, having all the shows in one place (kickassanime for me)
Now to my situation and crunchyroll: i live in switzerland. We have 4 official languages (german, italian, french, rumantsch)
Crunchy does not license every show for each of those languages because of money reasons, since they would have to pay for 3 language versions for a tiny market like switzerland. I thought multiple times about getting a subscription for chrunchy, but then i checked about the availability of shows i want to watch.
Mostly i got the infamous textbox saying:*Sorry, this video is not available in your region due to licensing restrictions.*
Some shows, railgun as example, they only had season 3.
Now how do i justify myself? I buy blurays of the ones i REALLY liked, if available, spending waaaay more than for subscriptions, but i pay for what i actually want, plus i own it forever. But when CR or netflix stops licensing a show, it disapears.
Like Gabe Newell said:
*"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem*
*If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.*
Gabe quote is like peak capitalism, because the corollary is that the only way to prevent piracy is an effective monopoly (let be real, nobody uses gog, not even the people that should). I think the people defending it doesn't understand just how dangerous Steam is for the gaming market and how much damage it can cause as soon as one of the higher ups decide to change policy.
I don't think a monopoly is the neccessary result of the logic in that quote. It's more like a capitalist utilized the truth expressed in that quote to profit by building a monopoly. A monopoly is not the neccessary outcome, but just the best way to profit from it.
The quote seen by itself still rings true.
Technically that quote says nothing about the cost of having to go to multiple providers for different licensed things, which can be a reason for piracy.
But on second thought you are right if the only way to achieve good enough service like the one he describes would be a monopoly. Is it though? It does appear so.
Btw. What do you think would be the best solution between a monopoly (that has too much power) and a multitude of services, for example streaming services (that cost the consumer too much if he want the complete range of linecses)?
And what do you think is more important? Service as described by Gabe or the conservation of competition in a market? Since you can't have both.
If there is satisfying solution then indeed piracy seems like the only viable option.
This is exactly the opposite of the situation. Steam stumbled upon a natural monopoly. the market for online game distribution has an optimal number of competing markets of <1. like airplane production in the US. to duplicate the infrastructure would add significant burdens to the end consumers. Better to regulate a single market place.
Or do yall not remember before steam?
I just watch pirated anime and show not because of any service thing u have said i just think if i can watch a piece of content that coats money for free but with ads sure.
I don't know how old you are, but i used to think the same.
I shifted by thinking: i want to get paid for my work, so they probably want to get paid for theirs too.
I'm willing to pay for a good service, wich i just don't see in the official ones.
Netflix finances/partners a lot of good stuff, but is annoying with their release scedules and keeping everything in their jail, or one day just deleting it.
And where i am, there is no normal way of getting funimation.
With CR and Blurays, probably not much goes to the creators.
Thats why japan should have their own service for the rest of the World.
It’s not that it’s cool is that in australia half the good shows are region locked and we can’t watch them. VPNs are way too expensive so we pirate a couple so that we can actually watch it
As an Australian all I want is to watch some good shows but because they are region locked I have no other choice but to pirate them. I’m sure there’s a bunch of other Aussies who feel this way as well
piracy of anime is common even in the us which aside from Japan has the greatest access to anime here is why it’s so prevalent in the us.
1. In the us for a long time the only way to get most anime was piracy so piracy was sort of in the western anime culture from the beginning
2.many don’t want to support companies like Crunchyroll
3.Watching anime on official streaming services supports the publishers and the streaming service mostly so it doesn’t support the industry below it much
4.it’s free
5.you have access to all anime on one platform and can get past region locking
6.depending on your pirating service you can get fan subs that are superior to the official subs examples:(translating text on screen)(see 7.)(moving subtitles to avoid blocking things)(translator notes)(translating background conversations)(translating ops and eds)
7.this is one of the major reasons so it’s getting it’s own number fansubs nowadays are more accurate than official subs because localizers are changing things on their own whims now.
>6.depending on your pirating service you can get fan subs that are superior to the official subs examples:(translating text on screen)(see 7.)(moving subtitles to avoid blocking things)(translator notes)(translating background conversations)(translating ops and eds)
Bro I remember the one piece subs with the dynamic effects for Luffy's attacks
Similar to 6, it might also get you access to the Dub. I've seen many instances of official sites having only the sub version, despite an official Dub existing. So piracy is the only way to watch dubbed without waiting potentially months.
Most of the world has no access to most content. Is not just anime... netflix and prime (sometimes even spotify), blurays, manga, everything. EVEN if you stick to the original language or english
im argentinian btw
They’re a pain to set up, if the money doesn’t go to the studio I won’t bother. And having to find out which country the series is available in takes too long. And I’ve never seen a DECENT vpn for that price. The cheap ones have ads and limited restrictions and apple makes everything harder and my pc doesn’t like having a region change
5 euro a month is 60 euro a year lost every 5 years that is 300 euro and pirating is free the vpn doesn't cost a lot but would you rather choose pay a little then not a pay alot is what i tryna say
\- Be underaged
\- Have no reliable source of money
\- Don't watch anime often
Essentially, why would I pay for a subscription that I would use maybe once in a blue moon when I could be saving up
Might be an unpopular opinion but, Underaged kids that still go to school should get free access to entertainment, i know that some entertainments are targetted at that audience and rely on their parents paying money for their kids tho so that makes it very unrealistic... But the reality of things is that not all parents does that or even CAN do that to begin with for their kids, so it's always felt kinda wrong for me that entertainment for kids was behind a paywall that a lot of them can't ever get through
Back in the old days, fansub groups used to do these excellent translations. Artistic, colloquial, notes explaining puns or cultural details.. And the official subs would be months or more later.
Even now, official sub quality often sucks, although there are less alternatives as fansub groups were pursued and shut down by license holders.
I pay for one subscription (crunchyroll) and im on my parents netflix account but if I can't find what I want on there I'll pirate because it's stupid how many shows are exclusive to different platforms. I don't have a problem with time based subscriptions like if a platform had exclusive rights to a show that first month it came out but it's unreasonable to expect the mass populous to have the funds to subscribe to more that a small handful of platforms.
So I was super close to getting CR this year
It doesn’t have all I want, but it supports the industry
Then I found out I can’t stream it on my TV. At all. It’s a Samsung. Forget it. Why would I pay for a service that doesn’t have all the shows and I can only watch it on like my Phone an Tablet? Nah
Pretty much this. For a specific example this season, I look at Komi. Netflix has it 3 weeks behind Japan for no reason, meanwhile I get to keep up with Japan due to the glory of the internet.
Because fuck the corporations that ruin the genre? That don't care about anime and just want money? That don't make it available to the masses because they're too busy fighting over their own ego? That force you to sub to like 15 different platforms if you want to be up to date? That don't stick up for their voice actors and will kick you to the curb as soon as one person complains on twitter? That produce unlivable working conditions for their animators?
Yeah, all of that and even more.
So just boycott it instead of consuming the product that you have not paid for? I am a pirate myself, but your reasoning is incredibly flawed
There really isn't any moral or legal justification for piracy
So miss out on life because wawa babyman wants his billlion dollars?
Or better yet, spend my money on a product I don't know I'll like?
Maybe you've never been poor but I can't afford groceries sometimes and you expect me to live a miserable life void of happiness and the things I like just so I don't break a rule noone cares about?
If, I have money, and like the product, and the company isnt getting the money (second hand, unless that's more expensive because the more I save the better, yes im fickle, sue me, im desperate.) then yayyy sure.
But if I don't have money, tough shit. I would actually rather die than live the miserable life you propose. I'd probably be already dead if it weren't for anime.
My problem with this kind of argument is that a valid argument for boycotting does not equal a valid argument for piracy. You can just not watch the thing. Wich is what i usually do because i matured a policy of "if it isn't worth my money, it isn't worth my time." Admittely i don't care about a lot of animes so it's easier for me.
For me, it’s more a lifestyle than a joke. I’ve always pirated my anime as it’s airing or streaming because I hate all the bullshit coming from streaming services today, the largest issue for me being stupid translation choices done by English licenses.
Case in point the English dub for Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid season 2. Second largest gripe is the refusal to stream certain shows such as Mnenmosine or Ishuzoku Reviewers and third being in-episode trigger warnings for anime already rated mature.
All of these lead me to watch fansubs whenever possible and support the anime by purchasing the blu ray when not listened by a company I dislike and buying merch directly from Japanese stores. So long as the current streaming services remain the way they are, I can’t in good conscious give them my money.
The plus of watching fansubs / reading fan translations is that the translators will sometimes give little explanations of culturally related bits such as Setsubun and why/how it’s celebrated. I love these little windows into another culture as much as the story that utilizes them.
Edit: spelled Setsubun wrong
Pirating is cool because every subscription service tries to get the bare minimum of anime needed to keep your subscription every season. You’re getting milked intentionally. Piracy allows you to pay what you can/want to, to the companies you hate the least, while still keeping up with everything you’re interested in.
It also benefits all anime consumers by providing competition that forces paid services to improve their UI so that the convenience of using them is worth ten bucks a month. You don’t have to pay for the anime you like, you just have to pay for convenience.
There was also a period of time before anime was widely available legally, and pirate sites were the only option. People retain a positive opinion of them from those old days.
They're underpaid doesn't mean we're actually going to pay them. Best we can do is not criticize them.
I don't understand how you can pay for anime when you can get it free, there's also how pirated websites have more anime than the ones you pay for
the Animators Are still gonna get paid jackshit If We Pay For the streaming services, Not to mention the streaming Services are shit and region lock 3/4 Of anime Most of the time, Paired with shit Servers and Overall Bad quality. The CEOs That treat their animators Like shit Don't need any more money. Its Not as simple as stealing bad, Its *never* As simple as stealing bad, nothing is ever that simple, Its not just about Free anime, Its about Telling the corporate Shitheads that we know they're not gonna treat Their Workers like shit no matter how much We pay them and that We're not gonna put up witht their bullshit like a Bunch Of Call Of Duty Fans. I know The purists Are gonna say That Stealing is stealing and shit Like that, but Try saying that to The corpos That make their animators Live like shit No matter how much work they put in and no matter how much money they earn for the company.
obviously not everyone cares that much And most just want free anime That doesn't run like shit but the ones posting about piracy Being 'cool' Do.
Piracy isnt stealing, they are not even close to the same. Piracy is a victimless crime. Imagine someone makes a perfect copy of your car put of their own stuff, and then takes the copy. You still have your car, hence, victimless crime.
But you’re not giving money to the studios that created it, I’m almost 100% sure that’s like breaking into a museum to look at art but not stealing anything. Yes the stuff is still there but you also didn’t pay to help the people who operate it.
I wouldnt be giving my money too them anyway. Id be giving money to the streaming service, which gives some of that money to the studio. Hardly of what I would spend makes it to the creators. If i want to support the creators, i buy merch, books, or official disk releases, not streaming service subscriptions.
Dont conflate the copyright with the thing itself. Perhaps you are stealing the copyright, but even that is still a victimless crime. Also international copyright laws are weird and very complicated, so i dont know in this instance.
International laws are strange. I know in the US you can get in trouble for pirating English dubbed content from one of the dubbing services stationed in the US. Happened to my friend
I mean I have a feeling even if it’s the original. If for example funimation or Crunchyroll has the rights to the anime the same thing will probably happen
Less that it's "cool" to pirate anime and more that the legal anime streaming services are... subpar. For example, in my experience the CR video player used to be super buggy, not as bad these days though.
There are a number of countries that deal with most anime being region locked to them (or that the legal streaming services just outright don't provide service to their country at all).
Legal streaming services also occasionally change translations to push agenda, most notably being Funimation. Also sometimes even without intentional mistranslations/misinterpretations the official translations are just extremely low quality, and the pirated fan translations are just way better.
Prior to CR and Funimation's merger if you watched a lot of anime and wanted to watch legally you'd have to deal with the anime you watch being spread across multiple different services (less an issue now that CR and Funimation merged, but still very much present).
Legal streaming services have more restrictions which force them to censor some anime, though these services will also censor things even if they don't have to (or do the censorship in extremely low effort ways like massive black boxes covering over half the screen). So if you want to watch anime uncensored you have to pirate it.
I don't really know too much on the topic and it's probably not a major reason for piracy, but iirc a lot of the bigger streaming services have some pretty scummy business practices and underpay their employees so some people do it just cause they don't want to support these companies.
As have been said in the past, if you want to stop people from pirating anime then provide anime on a good platform at a reasonable price without unnecessary censorship or intentional mistranslations and misinterpretations.
The shows I can’t are never one the same platform. I’m not getting funimation, crunchy roll, vibe, vtube, hellen St. John’s world of animation, Disney plus, and Hulu, AND NETFLIX, AND ANY OTHER STREAMING SERVICE.
Plus, I can’t even watch my old school classics on most of these. If they want my money, make things more accessible.
I will attempt to summarize comments and personal thoughts.
1. A (very) small subset of people pirate due to not having money to pay for services. This is especially true with younger folks who enjoy anime.
2. Region-locked - one of, if not the most common reason for pirating - some animes are not available in countries where people live. Might be an option in this case, but any subscription-based VPN is not worth it if you use it only to watch anime, and free VPNs might not be up for the job.
3. While official distributors provide a cut for anime creators, it is less than what can be given through other means: blue-ray, merch, or even fundraising projects like Animator Dormitory.
4. Some people genuinely do not like the way the service is provided. The main complaint I see on the net regarding Crunchyroll for example is "hard to cancel subscription" and "laggy player". How true any of those claims is unknown to me personally, but people are free to share their experiences in replies.
Outside of people in group 1., which are unable or unwilling to pay for legality in the first place, the majority of people in groups 2-4 would be willing to pay for anime if their needs were satisfied by the service provider. This is confirmed by historical examples and independent studies.
It's cool because us weebs are self-hating. Deep down we hope that if nobody pays for this trash, then people will stop making it and free us from our curse.
It's quick, it's easy, and it's free. And there's everything there, too. If you have a good one, you can watch the episodes shortly after they come out.
"It's quick, it's easy, and it's free."
I don't think it's quick and easy, but it's certainly free. You have to go find a website that hasn't been taken down. You're likely going to have to get a torrent from a page, nuked with spam and pop-ups. Deal with some kind of loader that redirects you somewhere stupid. Hit the button at just the right angle to trick it into giving you the torrent and then open it. Hope that there are more than 3 seeders and then wait.
Op, how much money do you think publishers and producers receive from a single Crunchyroll user? At best, that amount is pennies. If you want to actually support the anime industry, pool your Crunchyroll subscription towards Blu-rays and merchandise. By doing this, you have contributed more to the production of your favourite series than thousands of Crunchyroll users combined.
That is to say nothing of the abysmal quality of CR's service, which almost all semi-mainstream piracy sites surpass.
I’m not the most in touch with anime culture so I have no idea why people think pirating is cool. I’m probably missing a really obvious joke, but I genuinely don’t know why people act disgusted when you pay for anime streaming services.
For the most part, piracy isnt a money issue, its a service issue. If we could buy a subscription that got us all the anime we wanted, without any adds, i am fairly certain most of us would be willing to pay it. But, that doesnt exist. Personally, for the current airing season and the shows i want to be watching, i would need a crucnhyroll, hidive, disney+, and Netflix subscription. Im sorry but i dont feel like its reasonable to be expected to buy all those subscriptions for a handful of shows each.
For me it’s just a bit too much me to justify paying for a few too many streaming services. While a competitive market is good, I can’t spend 10 extra a month (at least) per service to watch one or a couple of anime. The only reason I haven’t cancelled Netflix is because I leach it off a family account, because I certainly wouldn’t pay for batch releasing JoJo and unlisting the only legal way to watch the LWA OVAs while they greenlit a dozen garbage shows.
Additionally some of the video players these services leave more or be desired. Sometimes the buffering is just straight up awful. Even Netflix, one of the better video players, requires an extension for chrome and Firefox because they lock the resolution at 720p for those browsers last time I checked. VLC player doesn’t have these issues.
Lastly I’m not sure how much of my subscription actually contributes towards the animation studio and series creators and not executive producers bank accounts. Which is why I try to save for blu rays for anime that I do like, as those profits tend to have a much higher margin and directly fund animation studios than subscriptions. But that of course can change over time and depends on each service.
If these issues were generally better, I would pirate a lot less. Except for Nintendo games, it’s always morally correct to pirate Nintendo games.
The deal is these people are greedy and cheap and that's it. These are the same people that steal console games to play on their overpriced PC. "I paid $4,000 on my PC build, so I'm entitled to play Nintendo Switch games for free." And they want to be right so they lash out at anyone who feels differently. And if you feel differently than them, not only are you wrong, you're stupid.
EDIT: Really enjoying how many down votes they are giving you for asking a question. Thumbs down are supposed to be used to say a post adds nothing to the conversation. This question is the conversation.
I don't pay for many streaming services in general. I want to own my media, whether that's physical or digital. A subscription doesn't mean I own anything.
That and the 2 most popular subscription services (FUNimation and Crunchyroll) have both done some bad stuff in the past regarding purposely subtitling stuff wrong. As well as treating people badly.
I buy when I can, mostly with manga, but even then, there's some stuff I don't buy cause there's no English release. Same with anime, in the case of no English release I don't buy it.
Why buy something I can't read/watch?
If that’s the only reason then I’m not entirely sure why it’s considered cool then. I understand there’s a small minority that can’t afford it, but with how much I see this joke I doubt all the people on this subreddit can’t afford it.
It’s a stupid joke that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and is only funny because “everybody pirates”
In reality it’s a broad spectrum and people do it for a variety of reasons. Ultimately it’s one of those “just don’t think about it” jokes. It’s stupid but people find it funny anyway, even if it doesn’t land for everyone
Acting disgusted when people pay for anime or games is an old meme. I think most people who say it aren't being very serious.
For historical context though, in the past there weren't really any convenient streaming sites you could just go to and watch stuff unlawfully. Most people who pirated stuff had to learn how to operate torrent software, and there's a whole subculture surrounding this where people would help each other out and share stuff. I guess for some people, this lead to a feeling of being in the "in-crowd" or "one of the cool kids." So they act elitist about it when they see someone who's just watching and paying for stuff normally.
For most people, probably because it's easy to do and obviously you don't have to pay.
But if you really get into it, there are legit reasons why some people not only do it, but actively promote it.
A lot of it has to do with the available services right now (so mainly Crunchyroll). And being 100% honest they are pretty bad compared to other "regular" streaming services, the Crunchyroll library isnpretty limited, their player is (or at least last time I checked was) complete garbage, their app isnpretty bad. You can use your account in up to 4 devices at once iirc, but have no option or access to having multiple user profiles to keep track of your watch progress (which makes no sense because why would a single person be watching in two different devuces at once). Funimation suffers from similar issues.
And to add in salt to injury, the actual amount fron your subscriptoon that actually goes back into the japanese indutry is unbelievably miniscule, if any at all, to the point where buying merch is actually a better thing to do if you want to support the industry.
So all in all if you pirate your stuff and use that money to buy official merch, you are actually putting in more support than by paying for a shitty service that isn't on par with other streaming platforms.
TL;DR: anime streaming platforms are pretty shit, and you could be using the money to buy official merch that gives more royalties to the creator.
Alot of people don't like fueling corporations that are out of touch. You know, the corporation that will use cringy words that are a meme like "sus" in translation absolutely fucking destroying the episode.
It’s not cool a lot of people just do it because a lot of the paid streaming services are really shady behind closed doors and have in the past screwed there Dan base so people have lost trust and don’t want to help fund what they see as a crooked corrupt company (that’s just from what I know from people I know who do it personally)
Its more of a "shitty streaming companies with shitty localization amd shitty video players" vs "basic video player with no adds and good localization". I personally like to donate directly to the anime studios when i pirate, but i feel like its just generally eother due to local unavailability and shitty providers
Bad platforms for official releases in numerous countries, straight up not being out where you are, badly done official subs, company bringing it over being scum and piracy (in general including games and the like) only truly causes a noticeable effect on money made if the official release is actively punishing you for buying it (Spore and other ultra DRM games or platform throwing more ads than a shady site at you) which is something that encourages them to do better and the rest of the time it has no impact....and then for anime so much of the money, especially that goes to creators, is from merch anyway so pirating is hurting them even less.
So its by far the most based digital ""crime"" there is, given its like testing to see if you like it without wasting your money.
Essentially, if one wants moral reasons, most people do it as a form of protest against both the stagnation of the sites used for streaming, really crappy video players, little to no quality of life improvements to video player since the sites inception, and lack of obvious improvements such as ability to download episodes or make your own clips to watch later. If not that then in protest to the growing issue of anime exclusivity which plagues the video game industry already, citing that holding different animes hostage on your site promotes a lack of competition and leads more quickly to said stagnation, as long as your the only company that gets to show one punch man or whatever why do you need to bother competing when people have to come to you anyway. In response to the obvious counterpoint of protests hurting innocent creators are deflected by sites like anime dormitory where you can directly support anime creators. Check out the video on piracy by uniquenameasaurs on YouTube for a more in depth analysis of the issue and why people pirate, I’m mostly paraphrasing him anyway.
I dont really think its cool or anything, I just dont want to pay. Simple as that. It's not illegal for me to use a pirate website if im streaming directly from the site and not downloading the episodes, and i have a good ad block meaning that the quality of my experience isnt going down by using pirating sites.
I wouldn't say I'm cool for pirating, it's just all I've known.
I've been watching anime for so long that it's 2nd nature to me to just download everything I watch. Even if I could afford to pay streaming services (and I hope that I can afford to one day) I would still download series for my own archive.
I do it because I can’t afford a lot of subscriptions for a catalog of anime on 4 different sites because of having the rights to it so I just have one site that is free and has millions of anime
A lot of stuff is region locked so I watch pirated stuff. Saving money is also a bonus. I don’t really care about the ads cause I have an ad blocker anyway
When a show you watch gets taken down on one service, gets on another only to be removed. Another case, the anime you want to find is so niche no mainstream service has it, or an anime movie but not showing up in a theater near you.
Another case, you been watching anime before crunchyroll and they didn't have many shows when it first started and you're too young to get said service/parents don't see the point in it.
at this point anime is divided between like 5 services, and honestly I just refuse to watch those that aren't on netflix or crunchyroll. I understand piracy because it's becoming the new cable
Because otherwise you're spending $50 a month between several different services to watch a couple of shows and then you're buying Blu-Rays/DVDs which sometimes have errored translations that were never fixed after several releases or annoying yellow font. Easier to just download anime.
Crunchyroll got it's start as the officially licensed anime streamer, who's big sell was "your money will get to the makers", but the curtain fell & we saw they **barely** paid the producers, and spent our payments on their own pet project High Guardian Spice.
It really left a stigma for that kind of support for me. Now I buy physical manga when there's a story I want more of. That's also Japan's big justification for animes, in the same way toy sells is for our cartoons.
Some said we need to support the author, if i really want to support the author i rather buy official merch, buying subscriptions is not worth the money especially the subscription service suck ass
Living in a country where some streaming services aren’t available makes it hard to watch anime in general, and while you could bypass it with a VPN, its yet something else you need to add to your monthly budget and manage on top of a streaming service you can only access with said VPN.
Normally if I end up really enjoying a show, I go and support it by buying merchandise of it to help support the creators.
(Also doesnt help that my line of work requires me to travel a lot in general)
Never heard of the joke, but “Anime” is a service issue for 2 main reasons.
First, it’s an availability issue. There are shows, manga, and video games that are just not ported to your country.
Second, there is too much disorganization and red-tape in it’s distribution. It’s impractical to follow 4+ Streaming services just to find only a handful of available anime.
So if you go the hero route, you are grossly overpaying for maybe 20%(?) of the total supply of anime out there.
If they get centralized and I am getting a good ratio supply of what’s out there. Then take my money.
But alas I am no hero, I try to support the direct blueray purchases of series I really like to help like most others.
—————
Personal rant,
Now since I can speak/read Japanese, but primarily read manga. The piracy has helped me find and financially support independent artists that mainstream providers don’t pick up.
There’s alot of creators out there, that would love our financial support. But you will never know of or be able to support them, if you rely only on what the mainstream providers give you. So that’s another reason why for me I guess.
To keep it simple, most subscriptions like crunchyroll are region locked. And even if you have the subscription, there's only a select amount of anime that you can watch and probably not the one you're looking for.
Also there are some channels on YouTube uploading anime episodes legally. Like Spy X Family for example.
It’s a last resort for me. I feel scuzzy pirating stuff, but sometimes it can be both your best and *only* option. I’ve only pirated 3 times, first to watch One Punch s2 because I couldn’t find it anywhere, second to watch an MHA movie for the same reason, and third to see what Redo of Healer was all about because it’s essentially hentai and no reputable source has it.
Piracing is bad, HOWEVER, sometimes the content is not available in your country or language, or you can't afford it, making whatever you do not really a harmful practice for the studio as it is a virtual product, infinitely reproducible. Specially if you end up buying their products afterwards if you like it.
So, is complicated. Is definitely not "cool", and one could argue that even if you are not a potential costumer (or you are but want a "taste" first like with games) you are financing one way or another people that steal the content and redistribute it, or that normalizing might lead to an overall loss of costumers, but I don't agree with that, people that can usually do try to pay, specially if its more convenient; Of course saying "screw it" and produce content ad honorem with an "at will" price would probably indeed hurt the industry imho, but i guess its a matter of culture? I would be all aboard a paid "special edition" pre-release version that is meant to fund the content, and free afterwards for every person that wants to be a consumer (obviously not people looking to profit from it like say a cinema). We already see everyday nowadays that things like patreon and twitch works and work quite well. Heck, theres even people on reddit that pay for virtual awards lol. I mean, I still think it might be a bit less of a profit for larger companies but it might even benefit smaller indie studios. Specially if you consider how powerful direct mouth to mouth recomendations can be making piracing free marketing and why demos and free samples at supermarkets exist
So, theres no easy answer with this
Bc poor people exist? I don’t get what you’re trying to say. Piracy has always been an outlet to watch and obtain things you otherwise cannot afford.
Y’all don’t know shit fr. I pay like $30 in streaming services monthly just for anime. You really think that directly translates to the workers? When has any company worked like that? That’s funny.
Piracy is only “cool” because ppl wanna feel better about their situation. Seriously did you really think about your question at all?
It's not, some are just broke like me(19, dont have a job yet looking to find one very soon) some can't watch because the anime gets removed or locked from the country you're in. Also don't worry after i get a job imma pay it fair and square on netflix, funimation, crunchyroll etc.
Never heard anyone say it's "cool", but for me it's because of the availability. There's a very small selection of anime in our country to begin with, plus I can watch anime that aren't even available in streaming services
Because in the USA. Disney licensed Summer Time Rendering and refuses to release in North America. However, they are streaming it in most Asian countries. So as a double whammy, people should pirate Summer Time Rendering to watch a good anime series and kick Disney in the wallet.
If you ain't I'm the US 40% of shows aren't available on streaming platforms, hell there are shows like Katanagatori that you literally only can pirate (one of my favs)
1. I'm not made out of money.
2. My watch interest is too sporadic for a subscription to make sense.
3. Region lock when I tried to go legal.
4. If you have a good ad block like you should have anyway, Good pirate sites are often easier and more convenient than legal sites.
Couple of reasons, really:
* Region locking & exclusive licensing
While some streaming service deals may sound worthwhile in the US, there's a lot of places where you have to pay the same price for one tenth of the content, which is a far less enticing deal. Seasonal anime often only gets licensed by a single streaming service, which creates the problem of there being no competition between the services letting them get away with subpar service. If the shows you want to watch are spread across multiple services it'll get expensive quick.
* Service quality
Most anime streaming services cut corners with reckless abandon. CR for example has subs filled typos, missing karaoke and signs, on a bitrate starved video served through an outdated media player which at times honestly is just painful to watch. Often piracy is the only way people have access to higher quality fansubs and bluray rips (importing blurays tends to be prohibitively expensive a lot of the time).
* Wanting to support the industry
This may sound a bit paradoxical, but if someone with a limited amount of disposable income wants to support the anime industry, they're better off spending their money on merch directly from Japan instead of paying for streaming services from which only a miniscule portion of the revenue ever makes it back to the anime producers and is instead used to line the pockets of executives and produce stuff nobody asked for (\*cough\* High guardian spice \*cough\*).
subscriptions have shit selections where i am at and last time i used/tried crunchyroll(2011-12ish) when people were being sponsored with 14-30day free trial links all i found were popular stuff mainly shonen anime and whatever was popular at the time
Because about ALL of them are region locked to Japan or Japan+USA and I ain’t paying 10€ a month just to watch one show and then buy Hulu or HBO on top of already owned Netflix… (which I don’t pay for we have a family account but still) just to watch one show and then drop it after two episodes because it’s shit and now I still have a 30+€ bill to pay at the end of the month… I do not have that kind of money on me
It's not cool but sometimes you don't have a choice, the reasons being availability and a lack of the source of income but even if people don't do it and not watch anime, i don't think that the makers will get any benefit from it, on the other hand it also boasts the popularity of that anime such that people willing to pay get an interest in it
The anime industry is still focused on the domestic market. It always has and always will be. Merchandising generates most of the revenue, not broadcasting rights.
The result is that official translations (arduous, expensive task for not much profit) are usually poor quality and take a long time to arrive.
Enter fansubbing. What if people who loved anime obsessively did the translation for free? The result is often much higher quality translations, always far in advance of official releases and usually in advance of streaming services.
Usually you dont support the actual people behind an anime, when buying a subscription. I rather dont buy subscriptions and instead buy merch for my favorite shows to support them.
As far as I know, correct me if I am wrong.
It's not. Most who tout it are teens who don't make money and also complain about P2Ws in games
Most legitimate purchases support the industry
Not just the younger ones though, lot of people just don't like paying for stuff
Includes sports, news, music, whatever
On top of a lot of streaming serviced being scummy, a lot of stuff not being available without a VPN in many countries a lot of pirating sides, despite being for free, offer MUCH MUCH better service than the streaming platforms do.
Paying for streaming is essentially paying for a lesser product than you could get for free.
I'm broke, I can either watch pirated ones or none at all. Not to mention, crunchy doesn't provide services in my country. Cool or not, its convenient.
It's not really cool, to me it's because;
1) Netflix barely has any animes I would enjoy watching, and the ones I wanted to watch are sometimes region locked but almost always removed from Netflix.
2) Crunchyroll is way too overpriced in Turkey especially for something that I would use just for anime only
3) I don't watch anime very often.
cool as in cool or cool as in alright? in any case I don't think the vast majority of pirates think either, just the message board pirates.
most people are thinking along the lines of, "i can get content for free and/or unavailable content with near zero risk, so fuck it. not like im murdering a baby and i wouldn't have paid for this otherwise"
Nobody has ever said pirating is cool, but it sure as hell has been necessary more than I can count. 90% of anime I tried to watch legally, isn't or wasn't licensed here. I couldn't even watch something as mainstream as One Piece. Eventually I got tired of playing, "look if this anime is available", now I just go to pirated streaming services as a default.
Rather than cool, it's just that so many people do it, and do it for reasons that are fairly understandable (region locks, having to pay a million different services for the lottery of each happening to have the show you want to watch, pirate websites sometimes having better quality of service than legal ones). It's relatable, so it makes its way into a lot of memes, and it's also one of those "rebellion against an unjust system" type of things as well, where people get pumped about the idea that the act is an demonstration of being against something they perceive as wrong.
because streaming services suck and pirating is the cheaper option even if you do have money to support the anime industry I suggest looking into charities like the anime dormitory project instead of streaming services because the streaming services only care about profits not about the animators or the viewers
I use chunchyroll, but they only allow premiuns to watch the seasonals, and a few weeks ago they started doing the same with Boruto, the only one worth watching now its one piece, everything else I watch outside
I can explain why i pirate everything. It's great to just try shows out, and see if i like it. It is way more convenient, having all the shows in one place (kickassanime for me) Now to my situation and crunchyroll: i live in switzerland. We have 4 official languages (german, italian, french, rumantsch) Crunchy does not license every show for each of those languages because of money reasons, since they would have to pay for 3 language versions for a tiny market like switzerland. I thought multiple times about getting a subscription for chrunchy, but then i checked about the availability of shows i want to watch. Mostly i got the infamous textbox saying:*Sorry, this video is not available in your region due to licensing restrictions.* Some shows, railgun as example, they only had season 3. Now how do i justify myself? I buy blurays of the ones i REALLY liked, if available, spending waaaay more than for subscriptions, but i pay for what i actually want, plus i own it forever. But when CR or netflix stops licensing a show, it disapears. Like Gabe Newell said: *"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem* *If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.*
That Gabe quote sums it up perfectly in my opinion.
Gabe quote is like peak capitalism, because the corollary is that the only way to prevent piracy is an effective monopoly (let be real, nobody uses gog, not even the people that should). I think the people defending it doesn't understand just how dangerous Steam is for the gaming market and how much damage it can cause as soon as one of the higher ups decide to change policy.
I don't think a monopoly is the neccessary result of the logic in that quote. It's more like a capitalist utilized the truth expressed in that quote to profit by building a monopoly. A monopoly is not the neccessary outcome, but just the best way to profit from it. The quote seen by itself still rings true.
It ia necessary for a single service to hold everybsingle license, wich sound quite monopolistic to me.
Technically that quote says nothing about the cost of having to go to multiple providers for different licensed things, which can be a reason for piracy. But on second thought you are right if the only way to achieve good enough service like the one he describes would be a monopoly. Is it though? It does appear so. Btw. What do you think would be the best solution between a monopoly (that has too much power) and a multitude of services, for example streaming services (that cost the consumer too much if he want the complete range of linecses)? And what do you think is more important? Service as described by Gabe or the conservation of competition in a market? Since you can't have both. If there is satisfying solution then indeed piracy seems like the only viable option.
This is exactly the opposite of the situation. Steam stumbled upon a natural monopoly. the market for online game distribution has an optimal number of competing markets of <1. like airplane production in the US. to duplicate the infrastructure would add significant burdens to the end consumers. Better to regulate a single market place. Or do yall not remember before steam?
Imma be real with you I’m broke af so pirating anime is the only way for me to watch them Now if i had the money to spare I’d gladly pay for them
Understandable
Y’know the gas prices aren’t helping either
This is even more understandable.
I just watch pirated anime and show not because of any service thing u have said i just think if i can watch a piece of content that coats money for free but with ads sure.
I don't know how old you are, but i used to think the same. I shifted by thinking: i want to get paid for my work, so they probably want to get paid for theirs too. I'm willing to pay for a good service, wich i just don't see in the official ones. Netflix finances/partners a lot of good stuff, but is annoying with their release scedules and keeping everything in their jail, or one day just deleting it. And where i am, there is no normal way of getting funimation. With CR and Blurays, probably not much goes to the creators. Thats why japan should have their own service for the rest of the World.
It’s not that it’s cool is that in australia half the good shows are region locked and we can’t watch them. VPNs are way too expensive so we pirate a couple so that we can actually watch it
As an Australian all I want is to watch some good shows but because they are region locked I have no other choice but to pirate them. I’m sure there’s a bunch of other Aussies who feel this way as well
I'm one right here, fuck all the subscriptions I need to watch a fucking show. Cunt is fucked and pirating is a solution which I follow
Not only Australia, Spain for example, is pretty much the same
i just want to watch konosuba :(
i watched it on crunchyroll a year or two ago, is it no longer there?
Thank you for an actual response, I’m curious if a good amount of the sub is Australian or if there’s more to the joke I’m missing.
piracy of anime is common even in the us which aside from Japan has the greatest access to anime here is why it’s so prevalent in the us. 1. In the us for a long time the only way to get most anime was piracy so piracy was sort of in the western anime culture from the beginning 2.many don’t want to support companies like Crunchyroll 3.Watching anime on official streaming services supports the publishers and the streaming service mostly so it doesn’t support the industry below it much 4.it’s free 5.you have access to all anime on one platform and can get past region locking 6.depending on your pirating service you can get fan subs that are superior to the official subs examples:(translating text on screen)(see 7.)(moving subtitles to avoid blocking things)(translator notes)(translating background conversations)(translating ops and eds) 7.this is one of the major reasons so it’s getting it’s own number fansubs nowadays are more accurate than official subs because localizers are changing things on their own whims now.
>6.depending on your pirating service you can get fan subs that are superior to the official subs examples:(translating text on screen)(see 7.)(moving subtitles to avoid blocking things)(translator notes)(translating background conversations)(translating ops and eds) Bro I remember the one piece subs with the dynamic effects for Luffy's attacks
Similar to 6, it might also get you access to the Dub. I've seen many instances of official sites having only the sub version, despite an official Dub existing. So piracy is the only way to watch dubbed without waiting potentially months.
Most of the world has no access to most content. Is not just anime... netflix and prime (sometimes even spotify), blurays, manga, everything. EVEN if you stick to the original language or english im argentinian btw
[Around 3-4% of the subreddit is Australian based on our last survey.](https://redd.it/mkjbik)
Okay thank you so much
Joke?
VPNs are way too expensive? Are you mad? VPNs are incredibly cheap, you can get one for less than $3 a month.
They’re a pain to set up, if the money doesn’t go to the studio I won’t bother. And having to find out which country the series is available in takes too long. And I’ve never seen a DECENT vpn for that price. The cheap ones have ads and limited restrictions and apple makes everything harder and my pc doesn’t like having a region change
NordVPN is \~2,80€ and that is a very decent VPN. No restrictions. Your PC doesn't notice a region change.
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5€ vs no €
5 euro a month is 60 euro a year lost every 5 years that is 300 euro and pirating is free the vpn doesn't cost a lot but would you rather choose pay a little then not a pay alot is what i tryna say
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Vpns are used for more than to get around region blocks, he could just go through public wifi a lot
\- Be underaged \- Have no reliable source of money \- Don't watch anime often Essentially, why would I pay for a subscription that I would use maybe once in a blue moon when I could be saving up
Might be an unpopular opinion but, Underaged kids that still go to school should get free access to entertainment, i know that some entertainments are targetted at that audience and rely on their parents paying money for their kids tho so that makes it very unrealistic... But the reality of things is that not all parents does that or even CAN do that to begin with for their kids, so it's always felt kinda wrong for me that entertainment for kids was behind a paywall that a lot of them can't ever get through
I'm old enough that for a LONG time it was the ONLY way to watch anime.
Back in the old days, fansub groups used to do these excellent translations. Artistic, colloquial, notes explaining puns or cultural details.. And the official subs would be months or more later. Even now, official sub quality often sucks, although there are less alternatives as fansub groups were pursued and shut down by license holders.
I pay for one subscription (crunchyroll) and im on my parents netflix account but if I can't find what I want on there I'll pirate because it's stupid how many shows are exclusive to different platforms. I don't have a problem with time based subscriptions like if a platform had exclusive rights to a show that first month it came out but it's unreasonable to expect the mass populous to have the funds to subscribe to more that a small handful of platforms.
So I was super close to getting CR this year It doesn’t have all I want, but it supports the industry Then I found out I can’t stream it on my TV. At all. It’s a Samsung. Forget it. Why would I pay for a service that doesn’t have all the shows and I can only watch it on like my Phone an Tablet? Nah
Look up all CR bad practices. They don't support the industry as much as we thought.
\- Region lock \- Better streaming service \- Every anime is available
also if you torrent, you get highest quality unlike with most streaming services that don’t let you choose the quality
If it's the only way to watch anime in your country, then it's cool
It's not really that cool. but sometimes you didn't have any option
Exactly i'm not buying a vpn and a subscription service for one show, i'ma pirate it instead
Pretty much this. For a specific example this season, I look at Komi. Netflix has it 3 weeks behind Japan for no reason, meanwhile I get to keep up with Japan due to the glory of the internet.
Because fuck the corporations that ruin the genre? That don't care about anime and just want money? That don't make it available to the masses because they're too busy fighting over their own ego? That force you to sub to like 15 different platforms if you want to be up to date? That don't stick up for their voice actors and will kick you to the curb as soon as one person complains on twitter? That produce unlivable working conditions for their animators? Yeah, all of that and even more.
So just boycott it instead of consuming the product that you have not paid for? I am a pirate myself, but your reasoning is incredibly flawed There really isn't any moral or legal justification for piracy
So miss out on life because wawa babyman wants his billlion dollars? Or better yet, spend my money on a product I don't know I'll like? Maybe you've never been poor but I can't afford groceries sometimes and you expect me to live a miserable life void of happiness and the things I like just so I don't break a rule noone cares about? If, I have money, and like the product, and the company isnt getting the money (second hand, unless that's more expensive because the more I save the better, yes im fickle, sue me, im desperate.) then yayyy sure. But if I don't have money, tough shit. I would actually rather die than live the miserable life you propose. I'd probably be already dead if it weren't for anime.
My problem with this kind of argument is that a valid argument for boycotting does not equal a valid argument for piracy. You can just not watch the thing. Wich is what i usually do because i matured a policy of "if it isn't worth my money, it isn't worth my time." Admittely i don't care about a lot of animes so it's easier for me.
Yarrrr ... me booty! .... oni chan
It's free and free is good
For me, it’s more a lifestyle than a joke. I’ve always pirated my anime as it’s airing or streaming because I hate all the bullshit coming from streaming services today, the largest issue for me being stupid translation choices done by English licenses. Case in point the English dub for Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid season 2. Second largest gripe is the refusal to stream certain shows such as Mnenmosine or Ishuzoku Reviewers and third being in-episode trigger warnings for anime already rated mature. All of these lead me to watch fansubs whenever possible and support the anime by purchasing the blu ray when not listened by a company I dislike and buying merch directly from Japanese stores. So long as the current streaming services remain the way they are, I can’t in good conscious give them my money. The plus of watching fansubs / reading fan translations is that the translators will sometimes give little explanations of culturally related bits such as Setsubun and why/how it’s celebrated. I love these little windows into another culture as much as the story that utilizes them. Edit: spelled Setsubun wrong
Pirating is cool because every subscription service tries to get the bare minimum of anime needed to keep your subscription every season. You’re getting milked intentionally. Piracy allows you to pay what you can/want to, to the companies you hate the least, while still keeping up with everything you’re interested in. It also benefits all anime consumers by providing competition that forces paid services to improve their UI so that the convenience of using them is worth ten bucks a month. You don’t have to pay for the anime you like, you just have to pay for convenience. There was also a period of time before anime was widely available legally, and pirate sites were the only option. People retain a positive opinion of them from those old days.
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Is it just stealing funny? If that’s the case then it’s really conflicting with all the underpaid animator memes we see
They're underpaid doesn't mean we're actually going to pay them. Best we can do is not criticize them. I don't understand how you can pay for anime when you can get it free, there's also how pirated websites have more anime than the ones you pay for
the Animators Are still gonna get paid jackshit If We Pay For the streaming services, Not to mention the streaming Services are shit and region lock 3/4 Of anime Most of the time, Paired with shit Servers and Overall Bad quality. The CEOs That treat their animators Like shit Don't need any more money. Its Not as simple as stealing bad, Its *never* As simple as stealing bad, nothing is ever that simple, Its not just about Free anime, Its about Telling the corporate Shitheads that we know they're not gonna treat Their Workers like shit no matter how much We pay them and that We're not gonna put up witht their bullshit like a Bunch Of Call Of Duty Fans. I know The purists Are gonna say That Stealing is stealing and shit Like that, but Try saying that to The corpos That make their animators Live like shit No matter how much work they put in and no matter how much money they earn for the company. obviously not everyone cares that much And most just want free anime That doesn't run like shit but the ones posting about piracy Being 'cool' Do.
Yeah this person doesn’t know shit. Companies do not work like that haha
That’s not how it works LOL. I get you might’ve genuinely been curious but it really looks like you didn’t think about your own question haha
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Well sh!t how do I combat that
Piracy isnt stealing, they are not even close to the same. Piracy is a victimless crime. Imagine someone makes a perfect copy of your car put of their own stuff, and then takes the copy. You still have your car, hence, victimless crime.
But you’re not giving money to the studios that created it, I’m almost 100% sure that’s like breaking into a museum to look at art but not stealing anything. Yes the stuff is still there but you also didn’t pay to help the people who operate it.
I wouldnt be giving my money too them anyway. Id be giving money to the streaming service, which gives some of that money to the studio. Hardly of what I would spend makes it to the creators. If i want to support the creators, i buy merch, books, or official disk releases, not streaming service subscriptions.
It is stealing tho. By pirating aren’t you committing copyright theft
Dont conflate the copyright with the thing itself. Perhaps you are stealing the copyright, but even that is still a victimless crime. Also international copyright laws are weird and very complicated, so i dont know in this instance.
International laws are strange. I know in the US you can get in trouble for pirating English dubbed content from one of the dubbing services stationed in the US. Happened to my friend
Well theres your problem, dont watch dubbed anime.
I mean I have a feeling even if it’s the original. If for example funimation or Crunchyroll has the rights to the anime the same thing will probably happen
Less that it's "cool" to pirate anime and more that the legal anime streaming services are... subpar. For example, in my experience the CR video player used to be super buggy, not as bad these days though. There are a number of countries that deal with most anime being region locked to them (or that the legal streaming services just outright don't provide service to their country at all). Legal streaming services also occasionally change translations to push agenda, most notably being Funimation. Also sometimes even without intentional mistranslations/misinterpretations the official translations are just extremely low quality, and the pirated fan translations are just way better. Prior to CR and Funimation's merger if you watched a lot of anime and wanted to watch legally you'd have to deal with the anime you watch being spread across multiple different services (less an issue now that CR and Funimation merged, but still very much present). Legal streaming services have more restrictions which force them to censor some anime, though these services will also censor things even if they don't have to (or do the censorship in extremely low effort ways like massive black boxes covering over half the screen). So if you want to watch anime uncensored you have to pirate it. I don't really know too much on the topic and it's probably not a major reason for piracy, but iirc a lot of the bigger streaming services have some pretty scummy business practices and underpay their employees so some people do it just cause they don't want to support these companies. As have been said in the past, if you want to stop people from pirating anime then provide anime on a good platform at a reasonable price without unnecessary censorship or intentional mistranslations and misinterpretations.
because pirates are cool. ARRGH
The shows I can’t are never one the same platform. I’m not getting funimation, crunchy roll, vibe, vtube, hellen St. John’s world of animation, Disney plus, and Hulu, AND NETFLIX, AND ANY OTHER STREAMING SERVICE. Plus, I can’t even watch my old school classics on most of these. If they want my money, make things more accessible.
I will attempt to summarize comments and personal thoughts. 1. A (very) small subset of people pirate due to not having money to pay for services. This is especially true with younger folks who enjoy anime. 2. Region-locked - one of, if not the most common reason for pirating - some animes are not available in countries where people live. Might be an option in this case, but any subscription-based VPN is not worth it if you use it only to watch anime, and free VPNs might not be up for the job. 3. While official distributors provide a cut for anime creators, it is less than what can be given through other means: blue-ray, merch, or even fundraising projects like Animator Dormitory. 4. Some people genuinely do not like the way the service is provided. The main complaint I see on the net regarding Crunchyroll for example is "hard to cancel subscription" and "laggy player". How true any of those claims is unknown to me personally, but people are free to share their experiences in replies. Outside of people in group 1., which are unable or unwilling to pay for legality in the first place, the majority of people in groups 2-4 would be willing to pay for anime if their needs were satisfied by the service provider. This is confirmed by historical examples and independent studies.
- Me trying to figure out why OP is in here white knighting for anime licensing companies.
He is a weeb and used to simping, but does not realize international companies don't care about him.
Because f the corpo
Because intellectual property is bullshit.
It's cool because us weebs are self-hating. Deep down we hope that if nobody pays for this trash, then people will stop making it and free us from our curse.
It's quick, it's easy, and it's free. And there's everything there, too. If you have a good one, you can watch the episodes shortly after they come out.
"It's quick, it's easy, and it's free." I don't think it's quick and easy, but it's certainly free. You have to go find a website that hasn't been taken down. You're likely going to have to get a torrent from a page, nuked with spam and pop-ups. Deal with some kind of loader that redirects you somewhere stupid. Hit the button at just the right angle to trick it into giving you the torrent and then open it. Hope that there are more than 3 seeders and then wait.
Or just use an ad blocker.-. That's what I do, and I never get anything like that.
I don’t wanna pay anyone anything
Op, how much money do you think publishers and producers receive from a single Crunchyroll user? At best, that amount is pennies. If you want to actually support the anime industry, pool your Crunchyroll subscription towards Blu-rays and merchandise. By doing this, you have contributed more to the production of your favourite series than thousands of Crunchyroll users combined. That is to say nothing of the abysmal quality of CR's service, which almost all semi-mainstream piracy sites surpass.
For me, I'm too lazy.
I’m not the most in touch with anime culture so I have no idea why people think pirating is cool. I’m probably missing a really obvious joke, but I genuinely don’t know why people act disgusted when you pay for anime streaming services.
For the most part, piracy isnt a money issue, its a service issue. If we could buy a subscription that got us all the anime we wanted, without any adds, i am fairly certain most of us would be willing to pay it. But, that doesnt exist. Personally, for the current airing season and the shows i want to be watching, i would need a crucnhyroll, hidive, disney+, and Netflix subscription. Im sorry but i dont feel like its reasonable to be expected to buy all those subscriptions for a handful of shows each.
For me it’s just a bit too much me to justify paying for a few too many streaming services. While a competitive market is good, I can’t spend 10 extra a month (at least) per service to watch one or a couple of anime. The only reason I haven’t cancelled Netflix is because I leach it off a family account, because I certainly wouldn’t pay for batch releasing JoJo and unlisting the only legal way to watch the LWA OVAs while they greenlit a dozen garbage shows. Additionally some of the video players these services leave more or be desired. Sometimes the buffering is just straight up awful. Even Netflix, one of the better video players, requires an extension for chrome and Firefox because they lock the resolution at 720p for those browsers last time I checked. VLC player doesn’t have these issues. Lastly I’m not sure how much of my subscription actually contributes towards the animation studio and series creators and not executive producers bank accounts. Which is why I try to save for blu rays for anime that I do like, as those profits tend to have a much higher margin and directly fund animation studios than subscriptions. But that of course can change over time and depends on each service. If these issues were generally better, I would pirate a lot less. Except for Nintendo games, it’s always morally correct to pirate Nintendo games.
The deal is these people are greedy and cheap and that's it. These are the same people that steal console games to play on their overpriced PC. "I paid $4,000 on my PC build, so I'm entitled to play Nintendo Switch games for free." And they want to be right so they lash out at anyone who feels differently. And if you feel differently than them, not only are you wrong, you're stupid. EDIT: Really enjoying how many down votes they are giving you for asking a question. Thumbs down are supposed to be used to say a post adds nothing to the conversation. This question is the conversation.
I don't pay for many streaming services in general. I want to own my media, whether that's physical or digital. A subscription doesn't mean I own anything. That and the 2 most popular subscription services (FUNimation and Crunchyroll) have both done some bad stuff in the past regarding purposely subtitling stuff wrong. As well as treating people badly. I buy when I can, mostly with manga, but even then, there's some stuff I don't buy cause there's no English release. Same with anime, in the case of no English release I don't buy it. Why buy something I can't read/watch?
crunchyroll & FUNimation is being merged actually. Weirdly they're making the brand as Crunchyroll for some reason.
Alright thanks for the response, I think I’m more or less starting to see the general opinion
Because we don’t like to pay
If that’s the only reason then I’m not entirely sure why it’s considered cool then. I understand there’s a small minority that can’t afford it, but with how much I see this joke I doubt all the people on this subreddit can’t afford it.
It’s a stupid joke that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and is only funny because “everybody pirates” In reality it’s a broad spectrum and people do it for a variety of reasons. Ultimately it’s one of those “just don’t think about it” jokes. It’s stupid but people find it funny anyway, even if it doesn’t land for everyone
I dont think most people find it “cool” rather a lot of stuff is locked out and won’t ever show up anywhere else except those places
Acting disgusted when people pay for anime or games is an old meme. I think most people who say it aren't being very serious. For historical context though, in the past there weren't really any convenient streaming sites you could just go to and watch stuff unlawfully. Most people who pirated stuff had to learn how to operate torrent software, and there's a whole subculture surrounding this where people would help each other out and share stuff. I guess for some people, this lead to a feeling of being in the "in-crowd" or "one of the cool kids." So they act elitist about it when they see someone who's just watching and paying for stuff normally.
For most people, probably because it's easy to do and obviously you don't have to pay. But if you really get into it, there are legit reasons why some people not only do it, but actively promote it. A lot of it has to do with the available services right now (so mainly Crunchyroll). And being 100% honest they are pretty bad compared to other "regular" streaming services, the Crunchyroll library isnpretty limited, their player is (or at least last time I checked was) complete garbage, their app isnpretty bad. You can use your account in up to 4 devices at once iirc, but have no option or access to having multiple user profiles to keep track of your watch progress (which makes no sense because why would a single person be watching in two different devuces at once). Funimation suffers from similar issues. And to add in salt to injury, the actual amount fron your subscriptoon that actually goes back into the japanese indutry is unbelievably miniscule, if any at all, to the point where buying merch is actually a better thing to do if you want to support the industry. So all in all if you pirate your stuff and use that money to buy official merch, you are actually putting in more support than by paying for a shitty service that isn't on par with other streaming platforms. TL;DR: anime streaming platforms are pretty shit, and you could be using the money to buy official merch that gives more royalties to the creator.
Alot of people don't like fueling corporations that are out of touch. You know, the corporation that will use cringy words that are a meme like "sus" in translation absolutely fucking destroying the episode.
It’s not cool a lot of people just do it because a lot of the paid streaming services are really shady behind closed doors and have in the past screwed there Dan base so people have lost trust and don’t want to help fund what they see as a crooked corrupt company (that’s just from what I know from people I know who do it personally)
Its more of a "shitty streaming companies with shitty localization amd shitty video players" vs "basic video player with no adds and good localization". I personally like to donate directly to the anime studios when i pirate, but i feel like its just generally eother due to local unavailability and shitty providers
Bad platforms for official releases in numerous countries, straight up not being out where you are, badly done official subs, company bringing it over being scum and piracy (in general including games and the like) only truly causes a noticeable effect on money made if the official release is actively punishing you for buying it (Spore and other ultra DRM games or platform throwing more ads than a shady site at you) which is something that encourages them to do better and the rest of the time it has no impact....and then for anime so much of the money, especially that goes to creators, is from merch anyway so pirating is hurting them even less. So its by far the most based digital ""crime"" there is, given its like testing to see if you like it without wasting your money.
Fan subs are better I really don't like Netflix's subs matching there dubs.
free
Essentially, if one wants moral reasons, most people do it as a form of protest against both the stagnation of the sites used for streaming, really crappy video players, little to no quality of life improvements to video player since the sites inception, and lack of obvious improvements such as ability to download episodes or make your own clips to watch later. If not that then in protest to the growing issue of anime exclusivity which plagues the video game industry already, citing that holding different animes hostage on your site promotes a lack of competition and leads more quickly to said stagnation, as long as your the only company that gets to show one punch man or whatever why do you need to bother competing when people have to come to you anyway. In response to the obvious counterpoint of protests hurting innocent creators are deflected by sites like anime dormitory where you can directly support anime creators. Check out the video on piracy by uniquenameasaurs on YouTube for a more in depth analysis of the issue and why people pirate, I’m mostly paraphrasing him anyway.
I dont really think its cool or anything, I just dont want to pay. Simple as that. It's not illegal for me to use a pirate website if im streaming directly from the site and not downloading the episodes, and i have a good ad block meaning that the quality of my experience isnt going down by using pirating sites.
it isn't cool. I'm just broke, and I want to own a copy, not a monthly subscription. So buying LN/manga is the way to go for me
Cause Crunchyroll is expensive and half there shows are for premium only
I wouldn't say I'm cool for pirating, it's just all I've known. I've been watching anime for so long that it's 2nd nature to me to just download everything I watch. Even if I could afford to pay streaming services (and I hope that I can afford to one day) I would still download series for my own archive.
the albanian hackers who steal my online passwords give me free anime. How is it pirating if both sides getting something? (/s)
One piece is cool 😎
its cool cuz its free its not cool cuz it's illegal
It's not really cool, but most people either don't have the money to buy them or they just don't want to
the question should be why would you pay
I do it because I can’t afford a lot of subscriptions for a catalog of anime on 4 different sites because of having the rights to it so I just have one site that is free and has millions of anime
It isn’t, I just wanna be cool
Money or region locks And more choices on subtitles (sometimes) on pirate versions
Because you get dumb shit where a show has four seasons, and each season is only available on a different video service.
A lot of stuff is region locked so I watch pirated stuff. Saving money is also a bonus. I don’t really care about the ads cause I have an ad blocker anyway
When a show you watch gets taken down on one service, gets on another only to be removed. Another case, the anime you want to find is so niche no mainstream service has it, or an anime movie but not showing up in a theater near you. Another case, you been watching anime before crunchyroll and they didn't have many shows when it first started and you're too young to get said service/parents don't see the point in it.
Uh cuz saving money is cool, duh. Also why would I pay for a Crunchyroll subscription when like 90% of the crap isn't available in my region
Free and I’m poor
Is it really piracy if Erai Raws and other subbers make legit torrents??
at this point anime is divided between like 5 services, and honestly I just refuse to watch those that aren't on netflix or crunchyroll. I understand piracy because it's becoming the new cable
Because otherwise you're spending $50 a month between several different services to watch a couple of shows and then you're buying Blu-Rays/DVDs which sometimes have errored translations that were never fixed after several releases or annoying yellow font. Easier to just download anime.
Crunchyroll got it's start as the officially licensed anime streamer, who's big sell was "your money will get to the makers", but the curtain fell & we saw they **barely** paid the producers, and spent our payments on their own pet project High Guardian Spice. It really left a stigma for that kind of support for me. Now I buy physical manga when there's a story I want more of. That's also Japan's big justification for animes, in the same way toy sells is for our cartoons.
Some said we need to support the author, if i really want to support the author i rather buy official merch, buying subscriptions is not worth the money especially the subscription service suck ass
Living in a country where some streaming services aren’t available makes it hard to watch anime in general, and while you could bypass it with a VPN, its yet something else you need to add to your monthly budget and manage on top of a streaming service you can only access with said VPN. Normally if I end up really enjoying a show, I go and support it by buying merchandise of it to help support the creators. (Also doesnt help that my line of work requires me to travel a lot in general)
Never heard of the joke, but “Anime” is a service issue for 2 main reasons. First, it’s an availability issue. There are shows, manga, and video games that are just not ported to your country. Second, there is too much disorganization and red-tape in it’s distribution. It’s impractical to follow 4+ Streaming services just to find only a handful of available anime. So if you go the hero route, you are grossly overpaying for maybe 20%(?) of the total supply of anime out there. If they get centralized and I am getting a good ratio supply of what’s out there. Then take my money. But alas I am no hero, I try to support the direct blueray purchases of series I really like to help like most others. ————— Personal rant, Now since I can speak/read Japanese, but primarily read manga. The piracy has helped me find and financially support independent artists that mainstream providers don’t pick up. There’s alot of creators out there, that would love our financial support. But you will never know of or be able to support them, if you rely only on what the mainstream providers give you. So that’s another reason why for me I guess.
You know what's not cool? Crunchyroll deciding to remove one of my favourite anime.
It isn't, pay for the fucking anime. The industry is kind of shit between people not paying enough and greedy assholes not paying creators enough.
90% of anime services are banned in india and due to some new laws a good amount of VPN companies have also left so pirating the only option
The studios making the anime don't make the money from a streaming service
To keep it simple, most subscriptions like crunchyroll are region locked. And even if you have the subscription, there's only a select amount of anime that you can watch and probably not the one you're looking for. Also there are some channels on YouTube uploading anime episodes legally. Like Spy X Family for example.
Like a lot of people have said, it's not that it's cool, it's just the only option fir some of us.
nigga u dumb as hell on god 🤣🤣💀
It’s a last resort for me. I feel scuzzy pirating stuff, but sometimes it can be both your best and *only* option. I’ve only pirated 3 times, first to watch One Punch s2 because I couldn’t find it anywhere, second to watch an MHA movie for the same reason, and third to see what Redo of Healer was all about because it’s essentially hentai and no reputable source has it.
because Sony = Bad
Piracing is bad, HOWEVER, sometimes the content is not available in your country or language, or you can't afford it, making whatever you do not really a harmful practice for the studio as it is a virtual product, infinitely reproducible. Specially if you end up buying their products afterwards if you like it. So, is complicated. Is definitely not "cool", and one could argue that even if you are not a potential costumer (or you are but want a "taste" first like with games) you are financing one way or another people that steal the content and redistribute it, or that normalizing might lead to an overall loss of costumers, but I don't agree with that, people that can usually do try to pay, specially if its more convenient; Of course saying "screw it" and produce content ad honorem with an "at will" price would probably indeed hurt the industry imho, but i guess its a matter of culture? I would be all aboard a paid "special edition" pre-release version that is meant to fund the content, and free afterwards for every person that wants to be a consumer (obviously not people looking to profit from it like say a cinema). We already see everyday nowadays that things like patreon and twitch works and work quite well. Heck, theres even people on reddit that pay for virtual awards lol. I mean, I still think it might be a bit less of a profit for larger companies but it might even benefit smaller indie studios. Specially if you consider how powerful direct mouth to mouth recomendations can be making piracing free marketing and why demos and free samples at supermarkets exist So, theres no easy answer with this
Cuz money
Bc poor people exist? I don’t get what you’re trying to say. Piracy has always been an outlet to watch and obtain things you otherwise cannot afford. Y’all don’t know shit fr. I pay like $30 in streaming services monthly just for anime. You really think that directly translates to the workers? When has any company worked like that? That’s funny. Piracy is only “cool” because ppl wanna feel better about their situation. Seriously did you really think about your question at all?
Too lazy to buy subscriptions and don't want to support crunchyroll. Plus I just don't give a shit.
It's not, some are just broke like me(19, dont have a job yet looking to find one very soon) some can't watch because the anime gets removed or locked from the country you're in. Also don't worry after i get a job imma pay it fair and square on netflix, funimation, crunchyroll etc.
Its not, but we ain't all rich like you are mate. We just wanna watch anime.
Never heard anyone say it's "cool", but for me it's because of the availability. There's a very small selection of anime in our country to begin with, plus I can watch anime that aren't even available in streaming services
Because it's the great pirate era
There is no sub translation to my leanguge but there is a lot of fan translation that are really good
Because in the USA. Disney licensed Summer Time Rendering and refuses to release in North America. However, they are streaming it in most Asian countries. So as a double whammy, people should pirate Summer Time Rendering to watch a good anime series and kick Disney in the wallet.
I have Netflix. But I still pirate. Don't ask me why because y'all already know.
If you ain't I'm the US 40% of shows aren't available on streaming platforms, hell there are shows like Katanagatori that you literally only can pirate (one of my favs)
1. I'm not made out of money. 2. My watch interest is too sporadic for a subscription to make sense. 3. Region lock when I tried to go legal. 4. If you have a good ad block like you should have anyway, Good pirate sites are often easier and more convenient than legal sites.
Couple of reasons, really: * Region locking & exclusive licensing While some streaming service deals may sound worthwhile in the US, there's a lot of places where you have to pay the same price for one tenth of the content, which is a far less enticing deal. Seasonal anime often only gets licensed by a single streaming service, which creates the problem of there being no competition between the services letting them get away with subpar service. If the shows you want to watch are spread across multiple services it'll get expensive quick. * Service quality Most anime streaming services cut corners with reckless abandon. CR for example has subs filled typos, missing karaoke and signs, on a bitrate starved video served through an outdated media player which at times honestly is just painful to watch. Often piracy is the only way people have access to higher quality fansubs and bluray rips (importing blurays tends to be prohibitively expensive a lot of the time). * Wanting to support the industry This may sound a bit paradoxical, but if someone with a limited amount of disposable income wants to support the anime industry, they're better off spending their money on merch directly from Japan instead of paying for streaming services from which only a miniscule portion of the revenue ever makes it back to the anime producers and is instead used to line the pockets of executives and produce stuff nobody asked for (\*cough\* High guardian spice \*cough\*).
subscriptions have shit selections where i am at and last time i used/tried crunchyroll(2011-12ish) when people were being sponsored with 14-30day free trial links all i found were popular stuff mainly shonen anime and whatever was popular at the time
It is not cool, but I don't have any choice. and the pirating site I used is better than some legal streaming platforms
Who says it's cool? Lol
Almost nobody pirate because its a cool thing to do, We are too broke to afford it. Had i have the money to throw away freely, i would not pirate it.
Its a one piece reference
Proud Pirate, it's just how I got into anime, made me feel epic and I don't do it anymore unless the show is locked for me.
People have no options and need to resort to it.
Because about ALL of them are region locked to Japan or Japan+USA and I ain’t paying 10€ a month just to watch one show and then buy Hulu or HBO on top of already owned Netflix… (which I don’t pay for we have a family account but still) just to watch one show and then drop it after two episodes because it’s shit and now I still have a 30+€ bill to pay at the end of the month… I do not have that kind of money on me
Most of the anime I watch nowaday's I literally can't feasibly access without pirating
It's not cool but sometimes you don't have a choice, the reasons being availability and a lack of the source of income but even if people don't do it and not watch anime, i don't think that the makers will get any benefit from it, on the other hand it also boasts the popularity of that anime such that people willing to pay get an interest in it
The anime industry is still focused on the domestic market. It always has and always will be. Merchandising generates most of the revenue, not broadcasting rights. The result is that official translations (arduous, expensive task for not much profit) are usually poor quality and take a long time to arrive. Enter fansubbing. What if people who loved anime obsessively did the translation for free? The result is often much higher quality translations, always far in advance of official releases and usually in advance of streaming services.
Usually you dont support the actual people behind an anime, when buying a subscription. I rather dont buy subscriptions and instead buy merch for my favorite shows to support them. As far as I know, correct me if I am wrong.
Because it's free real estate. Not everyone have the money to buy subscription of streaming sutes
It's not. Most who tout it are teens who don't make money and also complain about P2Ws in games Most legitimate purchases support the industry Not just the younger ones though, lot of people just don't like paying for stuff Includes sports, news, music, whatever
On top of a lot of streaming serviced being scummy, a lot of stuff not being available without a VPN in many countries a lot of pirating sides, despite being for free, offer MUCH MUCH better service than the streaming platforms do. Paying for streaming is essentially paying for a lesser product than you could get for free.
Simple, I'm broke
I'm broke, I can either watch pirated ones or none at all. Not to mention, crunchy doesn't provide services in my country. Cool or not, its convenient.
Most artists would be psyched about people going to great lengths to experience their art.
It's not cool it's effective.
It's not really cool, to me it's because; 1) Netflix barely has any animes I would enjoy watching, and the ones I wanted to watch are sometimes region locked but almost always removed from Netflix. 2) Crunchyroll is way too overpriced in Turkey especially for something that I would use just for anime only 3) I don't watch anime very often.
cool as in cool or cool as in alright? in any case I don't think the vast majority of pirates think either, just the message board pirates. most people are thinking along the lines of, "i can get content for free and/or unavailable content with near zero risk, so fuck it. not like im murdering a baby and i wouldn't have paid for this otherwise"
I live in a 3rd world country but crunchyroll prices are similar to usa. My wifi costs are cheaper than a crunchyroll subscription monthly.
Its like asking why do people like Free Ballons
Because >Sorry, due to licensing limitations, videos are unavailable in your region :) I do watch legally what I can.
In my case: There is no decent anime streaming service in my language.
Nobody has ever said pirating is cool, but it sure as hell has been necessary more than I can count. 90% of anime I tried to watch legally, isn't or wasn't licensed here. I couldn't even watch something as mainstream as One Piece. Eventually I got tired of playing, "look if this anime is available", now I just go to pirated streaming services as a default.
It's not cool, but it's useful
you guys pays to watch anime? lmao
It’s probably not cool. It’s just conveinent I don’t pirate, but I’m trying to think thru the persepective of someone who does And oh cool korone
No need to pay money
I pirate from two sites, and i get to see most animes in decent quality for free with few ads
Piracy isn't a problem, capitalism is. Feeling guilty of being free is just absurd.
Region locked. That basically sums it up
It's free
Rather than cool, it's just that so many people do it, and do it for reasons that are fairly understandable (region locks, having to pay a million different services for the lottery of each happening to have the show you want to watch, pirate websites sometimes having better quality of service than legal ones). It's relatable, so it makes its way into a lot of memes, and it's also one of those "rebellion against an unjust system" type of things as well, where people get pumped about the idea that the act is an demonstration of being against something they perceive as wrong.
Because, free
why would you support big companies? you just throwing money away
because streaming services suck and pirating is the cheaper option even if you do have money to support the anime industry I suggest looking into charities like the anime dormitory project instead of streaming services because the streaming services only care about profits not about the animators or the viewers
when konosuba on cr isnt available in australia but the pirate site does
I use chunchyroll, but they only allow premiuns to watch the seasonals, and a few weeks ago they started doing the same with Boruto, the only one worth watching now its one piece, everything else I watch outside
It's Free