A conversation during a dinner at AnimeNEXT alerted me to a possibility that I hadn’t considered before: ignorance of piracy. One of our fellows observed a girl buying Twin Spica vols. 7–8 but telling her mother and vendor that she didn’t need the others because she could read them online. When relaying this story, the teller felt the girl genuinely didn’t know that Twin Spica isn’t distributed online. Similarly, a co-worker recommend an anime to me, when I said I’d check it out she directed me to a site that was streaming it illegally. She literally had no idea the show was actually available for free on Funimation’s own site.
As a blogger and an intimate member of the anime community who has good access to people in the industry as well, I take for granted the notion of knowing when something is a fan-sub/scanlation or a pirated version of an already licensed English release. Actually, just knowing something is licensed or is streaming in the U.S. is even something I take for granted, even though I still miss announcements. I also like to think I know what sites are providing content for free, in English, and are legally doing so.
But many do not.
And as far as I can tell this stems directly from the advent of streaming content be it anime or manga. When you download something off bittorrent or seek something out via IRC, you know exactly what you are getting. But if one looks up “free anime” on Google you will find many a site that looks similar to Hulu or Crunchyroll or whathaveyou but isn’t legal; the same for looking up manga. However, how does one go about knowing that? Why just this morning, a site called Animulu started following me on Twitter saying they provide legal streaming anime, but I’d never heard of them. There isn’t some sign on these front pages saying “WE ARE SUPER ILLEGALLY GIVING YOU THESE ANIMES AND MAKING A PROFIT.”
How do you personally know the difference? How do we educate fans about it?
Reverse Thieves 
it really pisses me off when I see illegal steaming sites following me on Twitter.
How can I tell the difference between illegal steaming sites and legal ones? The legal ones are litter with advertisements everywhere. I try to avoid illegal steaming sites as much as I can because they look as ugly as heck with the advertising that is on there. A chat box on the right. Ads right next to it. Ads all around the video player. It is just crazy. I don’t like Crunchyroll but at least I know I won’t unknowing get a virus by going to that site and at least some of the money I pay them goes to the industry.
Another way I can tell the difference between an illegal and legal site is if I have heard of them or if there is a name I recognize. Being part of the ani-manga blogging community I pick up names and know which sites are legit and which aren’t.
What I try to do to educate the fans about the legal ways of getting or watching anime and manga is that I link them to the the legal places. Each review of the new episodes are linked to Funi’s One Piece site so that way they can watch them there. Each manga chapter review is linked to Viz’s One Piece site where they can buy the volumes. The links are found right at the top of the post so it be one of the first things they see. I can’ tell if they are actually going to these sites or supporting the series by buying it but it just my small way to at least give back.
Another way that I am playing with in my mind is to showcase maybe a certain product. Kind of like a mix between a review and just a normal editorial.
It sucks to hear that many young anime fans are streaming anime and manga illegally without knowing. Then you have the ones that are long time fans and willing knowing what they are doing but still do it anyways. I personally hate the latter the most since they willing doing what they are doing and have no plans to support the series in any form or way. The streaming sites claim they don’t make a profit but that is hard to believe with the volume of people that visit their site on a daily basis.
One way to know the difference is to know what publishers are behind the streaming site: example, we all know Crunchyroll is legal because of number of Japanese companies are allowing them to stream their anime to many (not all) countries and it’s shown on their site. Another way is to actually look up the companies behind the service. Chances are you do enough digging into a gogoanime, you’ll find it’s not legit. Also, I have profiled a organization that was created with the intention of pointing out such flawed thinking (http://organizationasg.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/interview-with-the-creators-of-keepanimealive/) and they made some of their thoughts about it.
It’s not really a matter of educating anime fans about it because, while you pointed out a situation that a co-worker didn’t know a certain anime was free on Funimation, some people do know and just don’t care–they don’t want to pay a dime when they would rather save their money on what they decided is better subs and good translation. They really care what’s said–they’ll just download it or watch it where the original creators aren’t getting anything back for their efforts.
Oh I totally agree some people just ignore it. But most streaming sites are free, with an optional pay/subscribe feature, so them not wanting to pay money isn’t really an issue. So I think it is a factor of educating. Because I do see a lot of fans out there, particularly casual ones who just aren’t up to speed on what is out there, for free, and easy to access legally. And those are the many people I’m really referring to with this post.
-Narutaki
I don’t touch most mainstream anime, and let’s be honest here.
No one in their right frame of mind would want to license anything to Singapore. There’s very little in terms of actual buyers and the anime community here flat out don’t care.
Tell me when CR finally stops being douches and Funi considers international streaming. Then maybe I’ll start promoting legal streaming and online distribution.
Part of the problem lies in the archaic copyright laws we have. It’s quite unsuited for the Internet age. The other part lies with the poeple.
I certainly don’t envy those outside of the U.S. trying to get streaming anime. Your points are totally valid.
This post is about the abundance that is available to the U.S. and people just don’t realize it.
-Narutaki
It certainly is difficult for some to judge what is official and what isn’t considering some sites like Mangafox.com look more legitimate than the legal alternatives. Additionally, if you search for “Streaming Anime”, Crunchyroll won’t be the first result, showing that these other sites are more SEO knowledgeable than their legitimate counterparts. If anything, it’s the outrageous dedication that some of these streaming sites show that creating all the confusion you talked about in your article.
Exactly! I’m not surprised people get fooled. And there is no easy way to discern these things.
-Narutaki