Danica Davidson
August 29, 2024 
A number of anime piracy sites have shut down recently, and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment coalition is involved with at least some of it.
Aniwave, a particularly big piracy site, had this on its screen: “Creating better products that provide an improved user experience and fostering competition to drive the market to enhance products is something we are very happy about. Now that everything has improved … it is also time for us to say goodbye.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that pirating affects the American economy by taking away 71,000 potential jobs and losing $12.5 billion per year. And that’s not even getting to what Japan has to deal with.
Anime piracy sites can be found around the world; a recently shuttered one in Finland was getting as many as 13 million visits a month.
Why Are People Pirating?
Senior vice president of marketing at the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing Ken Leonardo remarked that many people who use pirate sites are paying for other, legal subscription services. “It’s an issue of economics,” he said. For example, people already paying for multiple streaming services sometimes choose a pirate site afterward rather than pay for another service for one show.
The Times also quoted anime fans who are frustrated with what titles are and aren’t available on legal streaming services. One anonymous online user said, “I will go down with piracy before I pay $20 a month to a website that only has 10 good shows.”
The Consequences of Pirating
Chief content protection officer at the Motion Picture Association Larissa Knapp talked about the real-world consequences for piracy. “There is no justification for copyright infringement. Whenever films or TV shows are pirated, it’s not just content owners or studios that are affected — it’s also the people who work as writers, storyboard artists, illustrators, editors, sound mixers and more.”
Source: Los Angeles Times
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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