Originally posted on my Facebook wall as a note. I'm putting it here so I can share it easier. You can view the original here.
When I went to film school, my professor Jason Blanchard, told me to make a list of companies that I wanted to work at. One of the ones near the top was Bandai Entertainment. Why not? After all, they brought a large number of my favorite shows and shows that are considered classics. Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, anything Gundam, Akira, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Freedom, and one of the best shows in recent memory, Gurren Laagan.
Yesterday morning they announced they would cease operations and focus only on liscening out their material from their Japanese owners to other companies.
While I think Bandai could have done a lot of things to prevent this from happening like lowering their prices, selling less singles and selling more seasons, putting up their material on digital and streaming services, there was one thing that killed them.
Piracy.
To that I say, fuck you all. Fuck all of you. You know who you are. I've turned a blind eye long enough and it's time to call you out on it. All of you who pirate contributed to this. All of you ruined my chances of working for this company. Everyone has reasons:
I'm just one person, I'm not hurting anybody.
It's not available where I am.
This is the only way I can watch it.
It's too expensive or I'm too poor.
I wouldn't have bought it anyways.
All of them are invalid. Keep in mind, I'm speaking specifically to my friends in the US. I can't even pretend to know what the situation is elsewhere. Ok, moving on.
There is an embrassment of riches when it comes to free or cheap entertainment in the US. ABC just gave away the entire first season of Pan Am on iTunes for free. Hulu lets you watch shows from the night before for free. Spotify lets you listen to 15 million songs for free. It costs $1.99 for an episode of a show on iTunes. For $8 a month, Netflix gives you access to a library of shows and movies. DVDs and Blu-rays have never been cheaper. CruchyRoll, FUNimation, Anime Network, Youtube (the legal videos, that is) and Hulu all do simulcasts of shows as they air in Japan (Also for free). There is litterally no excuse anymore. Content is everywhere and avaiable. What more could you possibly want?
The reason that bothers me the most though is: "I wouldn't have bought it anyways."
If you wouldn't have bought it anyways, then you are not entitiled to download it for free.
Yes, it's a crime, yadda, yadda, yadda. I couldn't care less about the legal ramfications (and apparently, neither do you). The thing I care about is getting more content and being able to create more content. We can't do this for free. Anime is a niche genre, I get it, but Bandai wasn't a poor company. They had resources. They still have revnue coming in, but the fact that they gave up distribution and production entirely does not bode well. Imagine if this was a bigger company, like Warner Bros. Imagine, no more Harry Potter, no more Batman, no more work from Zack Synder, no more work from Christopher Nolan.
I'm on record as hating the Transformers sequels. You know what, I paid my ticket and I saw the movies and hated them. I will never purchase them ever. But a couple of months passed after the 3rd one and I thought to myself "Maybe I was too harsh," and so I rented them off iTunes. Turns out I still hate them. I hate pretty much everything about them. But does that cast, crew, and studio deserve every dollar those movies made. You bet your ass.
"I wouldn't have bought it anyways," is not an excuse. So before you download that torrent file (especially those of you who work in the same industry as me), think about the people's livelyhoods and potential dreams your ruining by doing this.
P.S.: No, I don't support SOPA. The bill is ill-written, far too vague and could potentailly kill Fair-Use which I fully support to the Nth degree.
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