Last year, the government tried to submit a similar anti-online piracy bill to a parliamentary session. However, it shelved it after receiving a lot of backlash from manga artists and experts. It is because they said the planned controls were far too broad and could hinder legitimate activities, such as research. As of last November, there were more than 500 piracy websites featuring manga and photo books targeting Japanese viewers. Top 10 sites were getting around 65 million hits a month. Seven of them provided links, according to Publishers PR Center.
“There’s a limit to what Japan can do on its own. International coordination and cooperation in investigations are indispensable,” a government source said.
The recently started opinion on that. Long story short, I think it is unrealistic a free way with every anime will come to existence. Even a paid one will be hard to accomplish due to all the licencing deals. Just my opinion.
Some guess that this is to help animators because of the current situation. However, they have been trying to do this for years. The Japanese anime industry’s market size has gone over ￥2,000,000,000,000 (≒$18.8billion). This means it is more likely that there are other reasons why animators are not paid properly. Reasons which have nothing to do with piracy. (Such as not enough budget being assigned to studios by the production committees.) Additionally, with a lot of shows being “exclusive” to different companies, it is getting harder for people to follow all their favorite shows. It’s unclear how the banning anime & manga piracy will affect the medium overall. A way to animators is the Animator Dormitory project. They are raising money to make their own studio. You can read more information on their funding page.
Regardless, we always the official releases. Although this will be hard on many, we hope they come to an agreeable solution for everyone soon.
[Source: The Japan Times]