Anime Piracy’s Not All Bad — But Can We Do Better?
The relationship between anime and digital piracy has been a complicated one since the beginning.
As an example — early anime fans used to pirate anime simply out necessity. When streaming services came onto the scene, they drastically lowered the barrier to entry which curbed a lot of piracy. As time went on however, new problems like region-blocking, platform exclusivity, and incomplete content libraries have pushed more fans back towards piracy. Throw in the current age of social media and content creation and it becomes painfully obvious that there really is no shortage of double-sided issues here. At the end of the day it’s a stretch to blame any one party entirely when it’s obvious that this system is in great need of improvement.
It’s not all bad though — anime has arguably benefitted on an international scale from illicit activity. In recent years, anime has become a worldwide fascination — and one of the fastest growing fandoms at that. This is important because any action to protect original works and productions must also take into account the benefits that they could be putting at risk. At SUGOI, we believe we can productively tackle at least one of these complicated facets of piracy — in hopes that it moves us all in the right direction.
While we do not condone piracy — we understand that there are more nuanced situations than workable solutions today. Attempting to tackle anime piracy without considering its benefits and how to retain them — is a dangerous path to follow.
Removing anime piracy without considering its benefits and how to retain them — is a dangerous path to follow.
Piracy Does Hurt
Imagine being a studio animator or producer. You’ve poured your heart and passion into a piece of work, and now that it’s finally released, fans across the world celebrate the beautiful story you’ve brought to life. Unfortunately, however, your quality of life won’t reflect this world-wide popularity.
Animation Studios themselves rarely see a sizable cut of the monetary success of their work. At best, they are paid in reputation and the hopes of that carrying weight in their next contract. On top of that — animators see hardly anything at all.
Animation Studios themselves rarely see a sizable cut of the monetary success of their work.
No matter how their work gets distributed — it’s easy to recognize that reducing distributor revenue negatively affects the studios. Furthermore as piracy gets more advanced, it becomes harder for new distributors to enter the scene — boxing in studios even more.
Ignoring distributors entirely, it’s unfair for anime piracy sites to profit off of the studios’ hard work without any monetary benefit ever making it back to the creators.
What Are The Benefits?
Despite this grim picture, one of the largest benefits of piracy has been the expansion of anime to the entire world. Regardless of where you live, regardless of which streaming platforms you otherwise subscribe to — all anime titles have a shot to be seen, enjoyed, and shared.
Regardless of where you live, regardless of which streaming platforms you otherwise subscribe to — all anime titles have a shot to be seen, enjoyed, and shared.
KissAnime, one of the largest anime pirating sites was shut down in the U.S. in 2020. Had sites like KissAnime not existed prior to Crunchyroll’s sudden boom, there’s no saying whether the streaming giant would have hit its most recent viewer counts and subscriber milestones. That isn’t even broaching the topic of how Crunchyroll came to be!
Anime Content Creators
So, the question becomes, how can we ensure that we don’t lose momentum in anime’s growth worldwide, while also curbing the downsides of piracy?
There’s already a subsection of the world who do exactly that — they market, promote, and expand the reach of anime globally. At SUGOI, we refer to these creators as “Anime Content Creators” (ACC’s). They are found on all major social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter.
The most interesting thing about these creators is that they’re an extremely underutilized and largely untapped resource for the anime industry. Rather than viewing these creators as drivers for vital word of mouth and influencer marketing strategies, they’re seen and treated as threats.
Further, instead of encouraging, supporting, and enabling ACC’s who are marketing manga and anime titles for free — they often instead hit these creators with copyright strikes and tell them not to create, under any circumstances.
Savvy marketers from other industries would be taken aback by this situation. We imagine that many would (and many do) invest great deals of money to find themselves in a situation where creators are literally banging at their doors, willing and eager to create marketing content for them, for free.
All that to say, it’s worth considering to what extent ACC’s, when supported and encouraged to create, could expand the reach of anime titles around the world. These creators could easily and authentically promote, market, and expand the reach of even the smallest titles far more than they do today — so why not let them?
These creators could easily and authentically promote, market, and expand the reach of even the smallest titles far more than they do today — so why not let them?
This is a glimpse of our vision at SUGOI. We want to establish guidelines and protections for rights holders on behalf of Anime Content Creators. We believe that once the industry shifts to supporting creators in their passion for sharing and spreading their joy of anime to the world — the possibilities are endless.
We want to establish guidelines and protections for rights holders on behalf of Anime Content Creators.
Interested in learning more? Or maybe you’d just like to follow along and see how things progress? Please,
- If you’re an Anime Content Creator (either aspiring or current ) Join our Discord, we’d love to meet you!
- Check out our platform for supporting Anime Content Creators!
- If you’re a licensor, an anime studio, or a streaming platform, please reach out (contact@sugoi-media.com). We’d love to discuss more and see how we can best help you meet your needs.
- Follow our journey on our Instagram
Thank you so much for your time, and before we end this article we’d like to offer a quick reminder for our readers:
Remember that it’s important to do your best to support the anime industry when you’re able to do so. One of the best ways to support is through watching anime on your favorite legal platforms when they’re available on them. A non-inclusive list of platforms that have decently sized anime collections includes Animelog, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, Hulu, VRV, and Adult Swim.
And with that, we’ll end as we normally do:
Adventure on anime enthusiasts!
