I made two long, long posts in fandomsecrets about this once, but I'm too lazy to find my responses so I'll just say this much:
WORD.
Basically... Is fansubbing/distributing an anime once it's licensed illegal? Yes, sorta. (Copyright law is all sorts of wonky.) Is it wrong? Kinda, BUT.
There's a market imbalance. They're asking us to buy a product that we have not seen. Now, it's within their right as producers of this commodity to say that. However, in this day and age, consumers have far more power over purchasing decisions. We want to be able to preview what we're getting. Back before high-speed internet, this was kinda impossible. Now, though, technology affords us this convenience, despite its (highly) questionable legal standing. And you know what? Like consumers of any product, after we sample, there's a good chance that we won't buy. You can't expect everyone who watches Heroes to go out and buy the DVD's. You can't expect everyone who watches R2 to go out and buy the DVD's, either.
"But wait!" you say, "You're paying to be able to watch it in the first place! Plus, you get a hard copy of it, too!"
True, but no. This is a perfect example of business models not meeting the challenge of technological advances. Consumers simply will not stand for it. Therefore, fansubbing! Are we being greedy bastards? Yeah. Are Sunrise/Bandai being greedy bastards, too? Yeah. The law says that we are in the wrong here, but with the anonymity of the internet, who the hell cares, right? Right?
It's just how it works.
A better business model:
American TV producers have caught on. Offering TV shows online for free but with commercials has been a great idea. This way, they can increase their viewership, introduce the series to new people, and get advertising revenue in one fell swoop. If Japanese anime producers can find some way of doing the same (and incorporate fansubbers in for timely subs), I'm sure that they'll find fansubbing and illegal downloading drop by a shit-ton. And this way, they'll have more viewers, and as we know, more viewers = more DVD sales.
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WORD.
Basically... Is fansubbing/distributing an anime once it's licensed illegal? Yes, sorta. (Copyright law is all sorts of wonky.) Is it wrong? Kinda, BUT.
There's a market imbalance. They're asking us to buy a product that we have not seen. Now, it's within their right as producers of this commodity to say that. However, in this day and age, consumers have far more power over purchasing decisions. We want to be able to preview what we're getting. Back before high-speed internet, this was kinda impossible. Now, though, technology affords us this convenience, despite its (highly) questionable legal standing. And you know what? Like consumers of any product, after we sample, there's a good chance that we won't buy. You can't expect everyone who watches Heroes to go out and buy the DVD's. You can't expect everyone who watches R2 to go out and buy the DVD's, either.
"But wait!" you say, "You're paying to be able to watch it in the first place! Plus, you get a hard copy of it, too!"
True, but no. This is a perfect example of business models not meeting the challenge of technological advances. Consumers simply will not stand for it. Therefore, fansubbing! Are we being greedy bastards? Yeah. Are Sunrise/Bandai being greedy bastards, too? Yeah. The law says that we are in the wrong here, but with the anonymity of the internet, who the hell cares, right? Right?
It's just how it works.
A better business model:
American TV producers have caught on. Offering TV shows online for free but with commercials has been a great idea. This way, they can increase their viewership, introduce the series to new people, and get advertising revenue in one fell swoop. If Japanese anime producers can find some way of doing the same (and incorporate fansubbers in for timely subs), I'm sure that they'll find fansubbing and illegal downloading drop by a shit-ton. And this way, they'll have more viewers, and as we know, more viewers = more DVD sales.