pirates and boots...

There's a ton of information on this industry, and I've just now gotten to a point where I can analyze the data and regurgitate my findings in my own fluency. Although my Engrish Teacher would like to disagree, I've found that Wikipedia is a very useful and valid source of info regarding the Anime industry. Here's why: there's not any "scientific" or "researched" findings concerning Anime, Manga, or Japanese entertainment. The only bits information available are given by people who are already involved with the industry in some way, shape or form (translators, publishers, fans, etc.). So Wikipedia is a pretty valid source, considering the only people editing the content are people who think they know what they're talking about.

Using the websites and links from the websites that my mentor suggested, I've read and processes quite a good bit of information regarding Piracy and Bootlegging in the Anime industry. There's a few big points I'm going to scribble down for later use in the project.

- Piracy in the Anime world is rampant, mainly because most people don't recognize that it's taking place. The big killers: Fansubs, YouTube, and Torrents. Details on each are as follows:

- FANSUBS - Being a true fan of Anime and the likes is not a cheap hobby. Legal DVDs, music, posters, dolls and merchandise are rather pricey. America is a stingy tribe, and when there's a less expensive alternative to something, we jump on it like outsourcing. This is where fansubs come in. People get hold of a copy of an original Japanese Anime, and translate it on their own free time. The new free subtitled Anime is then distributed like the plague through the internet (or at least in the fAnime parts of the internet). While fansubs seem great as they advertise Anime for free., they aren't very legal nor are they nice. First of all, they're unlicensed translations that have no permissions from the original Japanese company. Secondly, when there's free version, nobody buys the original product, thus hurting the industry (according to keepanimealive, "an estimated $12 billion" is lost annually in the Anime industry due to fansubbing).
- YOUTUBE - Besides spreading around fansubbed versions of Animes, YouTube is notorious for having legal version of the Anime illegally uploaded to the site. For example. If FUNIMATION did a translation of Black Butler, some self proclaimed American "Otaku" will obtain the Anime and upload it into chunks of 3 parts per episode. However, YouTube has really been cracking down on this kind of stuff, and main-stream Animes rarely have sneaky uploads anymore. I must admit, I used to be a sucker for YouTube-ized Anime, although I was always suspicious as to how the uploader hadn't been sued yet. That being said, I haven't watched a YouTube Anime for quite a long time; Netflix is the way to go nowadays.
- TORRENTS - When I say "torrents" I am not singling out the specific .tor file. When I say "torrents" I'm refering to any process of illegely downloading a didgital version of an Anime or its Music via the internet. Torrenting is extremely common, along with downloads of .avi, .mov and .mp4 videos. It's prety self explainatory as to why downloading free stuff hurts the industry. 

 - Bootlegging is the process of selling fakes. Apparently, the Chinese and Taiwanese are notorious for being Anime bootleggers. They'll make their illegal copies and rip-offs of Anime look like the real deal by mimicking the publisher's logo, using similar colors, adding fake bar-codes, and so on and so on. The biggest issue with bootlegs isn't so much that they rip people of as much as it is people don't know when they're being ca-hooted. Bootlegging can be very well summed up in the beginning of the book I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!) by Stephen Colbert.

 This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to termites in the Anime world. I still personally wonder how producers and distributors of Anime feel about Hulu and Netflix. Do they get any profits from it? Or rather, do they make as much as they've earned?