The ''buy or steal'' debate resurfaces...

Over at Chizumatic Steven has brought up the fansub debate once again.
In a nutshell, he hates 'em. In the past it was 'because of the long lead time between Japanese and US releases we fansubbers are providing a service by bringing a title to US fans long before they could get it legitimately' (occasionally it's the only way a title becomes available at all).
Supposedly when a title does 'go legit' it disappears from 'the fansub community'.
But the truth is once a title appears on Bittorent, forget it, it's pretty much there forever. If you want to verify that for yourself just punch the name of a popular series into the search box of a torrent tracker. Chances are you'll find an active share (or several).
The only thing that stops it is torrent death (no one seeding a whole copy for an extended period of time). In other words it reaches the saturation point among the pirates.
Now I can't call myself 'mr. pure' here, because while review sites are helpful, the reviewer's tastes may not be mine (and vice-versa). Usually I DL a series (or an ep or two), watch about 10 minutes of the first episode and base my decision to buy (or not) from there. If I luck out and find a sample on Ifilm or YouTube I'll preview it there and not even bother to DL it.
As a rule of thumb if I were to place an order for DVDs and launch a torrent for the same thing most likely the delivery of the DVDs will happen before the torrent finishes.
It's also likely the reason that things have become rather stagnant in Anime lately, the studios are puzzled as what to do next.
IMHO they've grossly overpriced their (Japanese) home market. That's why if they attempt simultaneous Japan/US release at similar prices the US market will likely reject it.
As Robert notes; ''The business practices at work here taken as a whole are sound, yet terribly flawed.'' and I agree. The Japanese studios have painted themselves into a corner here, if they were to adopt the US movie industry model (domestic release first, worldwide distribution in relatively short order at approximately the same price) they would have to cut the domestic price to the US market price. Becuase typically they make a single episode to pitch the project based on the potential revenues first on Japanese TV then Japanese DVD sales (premium price) then international (discounted price) DVD sales the whole budget structure changes dramatically. Stuff that would get 'green-lighted' under the current structure might not under an international DVD release/pricing structure.
Another issue is culture clash. Usually a minor issue, there are times when it can be a significant problem. By adopting an 'international' distribution model Anime would have to be tailored to be acceptable to a worldwide audience.
A prime example is Kiddy Grade, if the studio had thought of the non-Japanese market it would have either not been made at all or it would have been made with Eclair as an adult character. Mind you, that would not have not been much of an improvement. It would have still been a stupid story poorly told.
I've already proven that Popotan had to be 'edited for international distribution' (to avoid running afoul of laws outside of Japan). How this would change Anime I cannot speculate.
From Steven's post:

So what are the choices for the studios? Let's look at them:

1. Release DVDs close to simultaneously in Japan and North America. The problem is that this will undercut the Japanese business, because Japanese fans will start importing region 1 DVDs, paying $10 per episode instead of more than $25. Or if they try to charge Americans something like what they currently charge in Japan, titles will flop. No one here is going to pay $50 for a 2-episode DVD. (Bandai is about to prove that.)

2. Release DVDs in North America after a long delay. But as the fansubbers get more efficient and the fansubbing processing and distribution bandwidth grows fatter and fatter, there's a real concern that by the time DVDs are released here a large percentage of the potential customer base will already have the show and won't buy.

3. Kiss off the North American market entirely. But they can't do that; it's already worth too much for them, even with the problems.

I hate to say it but I think #3 is the more likely scenario. The Japanese studios will cater to their domestic market and any sales internationally are merely 'icing on the cake'.
Steven says ''But they can't do that'', I say ''that's pretty much what they ARE doing, like it or not!''. It's a facet of Japanese culture, if they can market their products internationally they will. Note the fact you can now buy Pocky at Wal-Mart (I can). The truth is Japan is a very insular culture that deals with the rest of the world on it's own terms. Always has.
The concept of a professional baseball game ending with a tied score is 'foreign' to Americans. Even when nightfall (the Chicago Cubs before lights were installed) or weather intervened the game would be resumed at a later time.
In Japanese pro ball regular season games that are tied at the end of the 9th inning (or are called off due to weather) END TIED. They deal with the rest of the world on their own terms.
I RESPECT THAT...