Feed the Starving Manga Artists

 Anime News Network recently posted an article about Yana Toboso, the creator of the successfull manga and anime Black Butler. Toboso recently posted on her blog, condemning illegal downloads of her creations.

Toboso reports that she has been getting more email messages and letters from fans like the following:

"I read them from ROMs I borrowed from a friend. LOL"

"I found and watched all of them on an overseas video site!"

"I became a fan with the second season, and then I watched the entire first season on an overseas video site. lol It was very amusing!"

Toboso said these actions are "unmistakably" illegal and added, "It is the same as shoplifting or leaving a restaurant without paying the bill." According to Toboso, if people watch anime illegally or download them without authorization, "we creators and voice actors will not eat; this is no joke, we will starve and die. This is not 'lol.'" She then said, "These actions, to paraphrase a certain Fullmetal character, goes against the Law of Equivalent Exchange! If you continue doing them, I really cannot make either anime or manga again. […] Unauthorized videos + downloads are wrong, absolutely!"

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Original article at Anime News Network 

An argument that many people who download anime and manga use (flawed though it is), is that while the North American industry might suffer from their lack of purchases, the Japanese industry remains completely unaffected. This is not true. The Japanese anime industry has nearly failed several times, and it's only still here today because it was bailed out by the United States and Canada. There are even several anime series, such as The Big O, which were only given a second season because the US Networks that had licensed it were providing the funding. Shinjichi Watanabe, director of popular anime like Excel Saga and The Wallflower, stated in an interview that he has been forced to give up smoking, because it came down to a choice between buying his cigarettes, or buying food for his newborn son.  As Toboso says, "we creators and voice actors will not eat; this is no joke, we will starve and die."

The Black Butler manga and anime were only recently licensed in North America, by Yen Press and Funimation Entertainment respectively. Many people who download anime believe that it's legal so long as the anime or manga in question has not been licensed yet. I myself was under that assumption, back when I also downloaded the latest fan subtitled anime from Japan. However, this is not the case.

On March 1, 1989, the United States became party to the Berne Convention, an international treaty where all parties agree to uphold and respect the copyrights of all member countries, including Japan. As a result, if it's illegal to download material copyrighted in the US, it is also illegal to download material copyrighted in Japan.

North American fans need to realize that if the North American anime industry collapses, odds are that Japan will soon follow. The industry is doing everything it can to combat piracy, but it's not enough. Fans need to step up and do their part, giving the industry what it needs in order to grow, instead of feeding off of it whilst giving nothing in return.

Don't be a parasite.

Sustain the Industry

Welcome to Anime Defense.

Anime Defense is about Piracy and the Anime industry. Piracy is one of the biggest problems facing the anime industry today. In the last few years, we've seen the demise of Geneon USA, Central Park Media, and ADV Films, the company which once held the dominant position in the US anime market. It's very hard for these companies to sell DVDs, which provides the majority of their income, when the entire show is already available online, for free. Funimation has had to change the entire way they approach distribution, in order to combat the adverse affects of piracy. Even manga distributors, like Viz, have enormous problems dealing with the illegal "scanlations" of their licensed material.

Fortunately, however, there has been some positive change put into motion by fans of the industry. One devoted fan has recently begun a video series on YouTube which she calls Sustain the Industry.

In recent months a movement has appeared via YouTube titled "Sustain the Industry," in which fans detail their monthly anime-related purchases in an attempt to encourage fans to purchase anime DVDs, manga volumes, and/or merchandise.

The movement appears to be traced back to user theRAofEdwardElric, who announced her own "Sustain the Industry" series on June 12 and launched its first episode on June 24....

Original article at Anime News Network

Many fans have begun posting videos of their monthly purchases of anime in response to theRAofEdwardElric's videos. Her original video can be viewed here (warning, contains language).

Recently, theRAofEdwardElric announced that YouTube had contacted her, offering her their IVP (Independent Video Partnership) program, which would allow her to make money from the ad's YouTube places on her page. She has declined the offer, stating that it was not the kind of partnership she wanted.

Her video has been mentioned all throughout the industry, and several important figures in the industry have begun to follower her Twitter feed.

I was very impressed by what she had accomplished, and so I contacted her regarding a website myself and a few others have begun work on. KeepAnimeAlive.com is a site where that will provide people with information about piracy and industry news. In addition, it will feature interviews with industry professionals, links to sites that legally stream anime for free, links to online retailers, and various other related information. Sustain the Industry seemed like a perfect match for the site, so I contacted theRAofEdwardElric, asking if we could make Sustain the Industry a part of Keep Anime Alive.

She was grateful to hear from me. She had been planning to create a similar website once Sustain the Industry had gotten big enough, but she lacked the skill to do so. She eagerly agreed to my request that her series become a part of the Keep Anime Alive website.

Sustain the Industry will be a featured part of Keep Anime Alive when the site launches next month. Members will be able to use the site to keep track of their monthly purchases, as well as link to their Sustain the Industry YouTube videos.

The anime industry itself is doing all it can to combat the threat of piracy, and now it's times for fans themselves to enter the stage and play their part in helping the industry. theRAofEdwardElric has more than proved that she is a true fan of anime and manga.

A few years back, I was at a convention, and one of the industry guests said something regarding what a fan is that I shall never forget.

"If you watch anime or read manga without supporting the original creators, you are not a fan. You are a parasite."