No.8381
Back in the day, it was really difficult to acquire otaku media. This gave rise to countless fan groups of dedicated individuals ready to get into legal trouble, so that others can enjoy anime and games from Japan. Most of these subber and warez groups disappeared over time, as anime blew up outside Japan and became more available. Some of them even transformed into law-abiding publishers, continuing their efforts with less risk and less freedom. Streaming services really brought anime to the masses. Nowadays some series even get released the same or the next day they air in Japan, making the service comparable to bleeding edge fansub groups, that competed among themselves to be the first to drop the next episode of Naruto.
That said, I still prefer piracy over other options. You get the benefits of
- enjoying free stuff
- not feeling bad about getting something, you didn't enjoy
- more often than not superior quality, translation, encoding
- freedom from time and location limits of service providers
- security of owning the data on your hard drive
- feeling good, when finally paying for a series you previously pirated, but enjoyed so much, you wanted to give back
- finding stuff, that is still unavailable through legal purchases
- better compatibility through patches, hacks, jailbreaks (with games)
What is your stance on the matter?
No.8382
>>8381>more often than not superior quality, translation, encodingquality: Maybe. Even waiting months for the BD rips isn't that much better than high tier web broadcasts now.
encoding: Yes
translation: Big yikes. Outside of exceptions of super popular media that still gets fan redoes, and unpopular media that never gets an official TL to begin with.
No.8384
I miss all the fansub groups, but with less anime I'm interested in coming out, it's mostly just a general regret that fansubbing is pretty dead than anything that affects me much.
It seems like most releases now are either direct rips from official subs or minor edits and I think that's a shame since they're subject to corporate rules that may tone things down a bit to be more PC at the expense of humor. You don't get translator notes anymore and more often than not, the translation is localized, which I've never understood. I'm watching Japanese media, so why do the tls act like I want to avoid honorifics or Japanese names for food and such?
My habit of downloading things payed off when mangadex got hit a few months back. I really hate the way everyone flocks to one major platform like that for their releases instead of having a blog and DDL links. It's convenient but it's also a huge liability and you'd think more people would realize the downsides of centralizing pirated content.
Some of OP's points don't apply to music, but I wish new or smaller vocaloid releases were easier to get. I buy and upload what I can, but I've found only limited options and a lot of less popular stuff just isn't available.
