Quote:
Originally Posted by Reavyn
Honestly, dropping the price of it wouldn't change the fact that it is illegally downloaded. When they dropped the price of CD's here in the states it didn't change the fact that illegal downloads are killing the music industry. Most people pirate because they don't want to pay for what they want. I'd love to own a lot of different CD's from Japan, but I can't afford them, yet I won't download them either. And I'd say that 85% of the anime I've watched I own. about 10% of them would be from tv, and only 5% I've watched via places like youtube and such. But I usually end up buying the ones I watch online also.
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I would say that in
Japan, it would make a difference. Anime is aired at very high quality on television - most people aren`t so much downloading as they are recording things, in my opinion. There isn`t quite the same strong pirate culture as there seems to be elsewhere. The average Japanese kid isn`t surfing for torrents... It seems like 99% of the sites out there offering Japanese stuff for download are not even Japanese.
People tend to like to own things, and will gladly buy the things they like out of pure fandom. However, there is a point where the average buyer is locked out and only the most hardcore fan can afford this stuff - that is where the price point is currently set. For one, CD→MP3 doesn`t hurt all that much in terms of quality if you`re listening on a small portable device... And with anime, things are the other way around. The copies being sold are of much lower quality than those being shown on television. (Except for the relatively rare BD releases.)
People are watching anime on large high definition televisions. The idea of paying a huge amount for an inferior copy simply isn`t appealing to a consumer. Especially when you can record the show in full quality if you have an HDD recorder.
I think it would be somewhat similar to having digital radio stations playing songs in full CD quality, with a legal CD recorder being built right into your stereo and easy access to (illegal) full quality stuff for free - But in the store there are only low quality tapes which they are charging $50 a song...
Unless you are a die-hard fan and absolutely MUST have the minute of artist talk they threw in as an extra to make up for the low quality and high price, chances are you`re not going to feel a strong urge to pay that much.
I am not for illegal downloading, and would LIKE to buy a lot of things, but it simply isn`t feasible at the current prices... Or rather, is very hard to justify dropping that much money on a poor copy when I can legally record and keep a copy at full quality on my HDD recorder.
I think that the original article was more concerned with the rapid spread of fan-subs, and their effect on sales of anime
outside of Japan though... Fan-subs have nothing to do with things inside Japan.