| Why is "changing stuff" a requirement of being good?" Some features that illegal streaming sites have, like list-updating integration with sites like this one, are features that legal sites are simply unable to implement. Unless anime viewers value the content and the industry that creates it enough to pay for it, it wouldn't matter if a legal site had "all the anime" and cool service features; the illegal sites would still have the same selection for free. Funny how "better service" always seems to mean "service I don't have to pay for." Bootleg streaming sites are just parasites. If people want to pirate because they can't afford to pay, simply want free stuff, or don't have legal options in their area, there's always the traditional downloading scene via torrents and such, which at least doesn't allow pirates to profit from the industry's work. For older shows and the few new titles that don't get same-day legal translations, bootleg sites also exploit fansubbers, which I have to think depresses the quality and quantity of fan translations we get. Who wants to do a bunch of unpaid labor translating some lost gem from 1996 just so 99999999999999animu.me can get some extra ad revenue? deg said: Wrong. Cable TV isn't free. Satellite TV isn't free. Premium channels like AT-X (which airs many uncensored/less-censored versions of ecchi shows) aren't free. Even broadcast TV isn't free in Japan. anime is free to watch on TV there in japan (its free advertisement/promotion) but you have to watch the TV commercials that are not cut unlike with fansubs or webrips from legal streaming sites while illegal streaming sites is also free but it does not have those TV commercials but either way it gives more promotion/advertisement than TV anime is doing and even legal streaming services does More popularity doesn't mean a thing if it doesn't translate to more sales and revenue. Presenting anime as free stuff that magically appears on the Internet every week, as bootleg streaming sites do, is not an avenue to greater sales, because it doesn't present anime as a commercial product. The phony "Fair Use" disclaimers that bootleg sites use do the exact opposite, because it creates the entirely false impression that that this stuff "should" be free, which breeds an entitlement mentality and a resentment towards any legal business that dares to ask people to pay subscriptions, watch in-video ads, or buy physical media.and with more popularity means more potential buyers or profit so to me a balance between the piracy and legal method is something good |
ZalisMay 19, 2019 10:02 PM
| I tried Crunchyroll once, the difference in quality between it and pirate sites I've used was very noticeable (Crunchyroll was far worse). I also don't agree with the way anime is currently licensed in the west so I'm perfectly happy pirating anime. When I'm actually earning disposable income I'll happily support the industry in other ways. |
| Why would I pay for a subscription on Funi or CR when their catalog's only include popular shows, the video players are slow and laggy, and the money you pay, the majority of it goes straight to Funi or CR, not the animation studios, staff, or artists. Versus the free sites, imo, everything is better on them. |
| "Well, she's flatter than a pancake" -Mimi Alpacas |
| Uhhhhh....let’s rephrase the thread... “Thoughts about FREE vs Paying” I prefer FREE! |
Mythologically said: If I can pirate it, I will pirate it. There's no obvious incentive for me to pay for something that I can just as easily get for free. If you do not see any value in the products you watch, I agree, you should not pay for them. However, if you like a product (not just anime) it is okay to buy it post-watch. However, in commercial software, games, movies and anime, your contribution rarely reach the actual creators/programmers (who often work on fixed payment and almost never get any bonuses). As long as there are enough people to keep the industry above the bankruptcy line,pirating is fine, I guess. I hope one day anime adopts open source donation method, where you can donate to a specific person/team responsible for anime and not to the company as a whole, so even people who watched illegally can contribute. Otherwise, I agree, the quality of illegal services sometimes makes it for better experience than the legal services, due to measures used for the "protection" of the content. |
| I personally use Crunchyroll, Hidive, and Hulu, and if they're not on one of those three platforms that I use, I have zero problems pirating anime. I use those three because they are secondary features with existing memberships that I already have, with Crunchyroll and Hidive coming from VRV, and Hulu coming from Spotify Premium. I use these legal platforms because most of the time, have better quality, whether it be video or audio culminating in a better experience all around for me. The only problem for me, in terms of experience using legal sites, is that they will sometimes have poor video players (Crunchyroll default player, VRV mobile, etc.), and it can get frustrating having your video not play, whereas a large portion of pirating sites have fantastic video players and you don't have to worry about buffering in the middle of a video. |
| "Literary experts revealed that reviews on sites like MyAnimeList kill more than 200 brain cells per second." - Joey, "The Anime Man" |
| Look for legal options first, only search for other means if those don't exist in your country. I don't feel like being sued or put in prison for watching anime if I could have easily avoided it by paying a tiny subscription fee. |
KruszerMay 19, 2019 3:41 PM
| "The name's Gambit. Remember it." -Gambit "X-Men '97"  |
Zalis said: For the record, I'd like to point out that list-updating integration is available for videos provided by Crunchyroll or Hulu (or whoeverelse) that are accessible on Anime-Planet.Some features that illegal streaming sites have, like list-updating integration with sites like this one, are features that legal sites are simply unable to implement. To be fair, the selection is not as large as can be found on some illegal streaming sites. (Also some series with dubs don't have their dubs available there for some reason.) Not sure about MAL, but yeah. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Every anime you'd ever want to watch(unless you're pretty deep into the medium or are interested in oldies, which's definitely not the major portion of the community) is centralized on one website. Meanwhile, legal alternatives require you to pay a subscription for a small selection of anime(so several subscriptions in the end), while also taking the moral highground and shaming you (in Crunchyroll's case) for not using their legal platform to watch works they don't offer. Licensing per country sucks(as do current copyright laws), and force me to use a freaking VPN(not that it's crazy) for stuff I supposedly subscribed for. Ultimately, the money would ends up in the wrong place with both services, so I'm better off not paying. Also, I'll take fansubs anyday over official ones. Fansubs are at least made by people who like the medium a fair bit, or who are fans of the anime they sub. Can't say the same for official translations, which are also prone to major fuckups like Kobayashi's political dub. Also, I don't like when honorifics or cultural references are cut out/translated, which tends to be the case in official subs. |
rahillimitciMay 19, 2019 3:48 PM
  |
| I'm In a Legal/Moral grey area... I think. If I wanna Watch something that ended a While ago but there are no Blurays of it out, I will most likely use Crunchyroll but, here is the catch, with Adblock Turned on so I: 1.- Don't have to turn it back on for other stuff after I stop watching Anime. 2.- Don't get any ads that are worse than the stuff on Pitae sites but without any Malware. Thats why I said its a legal/moral grey area. I will pay CR Premium when I can but it is not that often. If there is a BD version of the show or some part in the subtitles is edited by CR (JOJO STAND NAMES) though, I will download those Shows via Torrent to get a better viewing experience. If I like it enough I'll buy merchandise for it anyway. For example: I watched Love Live in mid-late 2016 when I was getting back into anime in a Crunchyroll APK that does more or less the adblock thing I said earlier. After that I got hooked on the mobile game and Miraculously didn't dump my whole allowance into it. Also, Pirating sites have some features that official Ones just don't have. For example: Automatic MAL/AniList/Kitsu UPDATES. Bottom line: You can pirate the show but support it by anyother way If you think its good. |
  愛がなければ、見えない。 Without Love, the truth cannot be seen. |
| If illegal (free) is still available than I don't see myself as a bad person for taking advantage of it, let alone feel like a criminal. If it was as bad as it's made out to be, it would have been taken care of. It hasn't, so nobody should feel bad for taking advantage of what's available in front of you. |
 |
| Well there are still more of an abundance of titles only accessible through illegal sites, but I feel like Disotek is picking up the pace with classic anime and they are starting to put their catalog on Crunchyroll. I watch the ones that are on the sites I pay for while the rest of them I view on various illegal streaming sites. The only thing I hate is that you have to have multiple ad blockers on these sites or its pop up city and there are a couple that want them disabled so hell no to those sites. |
"What has two arms, two legs, and is alive? Not your favorite character lol! xD" |
| I think it's not safe to use illegal sites to watch anime and I prefer torrenting. I think legal sites are anti consumer until they continue this monopoly mentality of exclusivity of the shows that they didn't even make. deg said: The Pareto principle is exponential so 20% of those 20% are the 80% of that 80% leading to 4% of customers being 64% of the sales. However you're mistaking something here, pirating users aren't customers and those 4% sustaining the sales are in Japan or China.@Zalis i stand corrected on TV anime im sure you heard about the 80-20 rule "*80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers" so to me as long as the fandom population keeps rising then the profit will also increase for them slightly like that 20% figure can stay good, CrunchyRoll for example has 40 million users but only 2 million pay for subscription and they are still making a lot of profit, heck the yearly anime industry report says this record breaking profit of the Anime Industry so it works imo |
zalMay 19, 2019 5:26 PM
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| I'm all for supporting the industry and all but when I have to subscribe to 3(maybe more or less depending on show licensing) services to watch a few shows I like, I have to start questioning whether my money could be spent better on other stuff (manga, importing blu rays, buying merch) rather than spending money on a bunch of streaming services just to watch a show or two that are exclusive to them. |
join the hyper going home club!  |
| Neither, streaming sucks regardless. What's the point of HD when it's been compressed down to a blotchy, color-banded mess? If you were looking for a moral debate, how about this: Anime is a capitalist endeavor, and capitalism's one and only moral is that absolutely anything done for one's own financial benefit is acceptable and encouraged. The anime industry in particular seems to have no qualms working it's employees to death, sometimes literally. And Crunchyroll, as is well known, conveniently deemed piracy immoral only after they stopped profiting from it. So going by the standards of the producers of anime themselves, acquiring their product at the lowest possible price is morally appropriate. And there's no lower price than free. |
| No one cares about it, and I prefer the free one. |
| I don't care about any of the legal and moral arguments made. I support the anime industry enough, inadvertently, through my blu-ray purchases, although half the time I must admit the fansubs made by some non-professional fans have better typing, translation, background translation, and sometimes even better visual quality, somehow, because the nincompoops are Funimation can't encode for shit. When someone wants to support a business that charges him for a worse product, if he isn't a stupid fanboy, then what is he? Unfortunately, in order to prevent people from ripping the streams (like that's ever worked, lol) or save bandwidth, sites like Crunchyroll or even YouTube employ technology to prevent preloads, which means if you have a shaky internet, the video cuts out no matter how much you pause it. Thankfully, this isn't necessarily a problem with illegal streams. As a non-paying user, apparently the Kiss anime guy can live a comfortable life with a couple pop up ads and some banners you can hide on the side and bottom, but Crunchyroll/Netflix puts up to 4 3-5 minute long ads in a 24 minute long video. I might even have accepted 1 ad in the half-time, which is what you'd expect if you watched it on cable TV, but there's only so much they can tax my patience. |
| My subjective reviews: katsureview.wordpress.com THE CHAT CLUB. |
| I don't mind paying, the main reason I pay for crunchyroll is the app, it's easier for me to access when I'm on my phone instead of going to websites. Ads are also annoying and the difference between the quality is quite clear. Illegal websites obviously have a bigger library, with anime I can't find on crunchyroll I go to illegal websites, luckily found a variety of websites which don't have annoying ads. 50/50, I use both. |
| I don't support piracy at all, but it's difficult to stick up for legal sites when most of them have terrible video players and poor catalogs. Funi and CR's sites in particular really need a good overhaul. The platform is everything, which is why Steam has such a great success in attracting a loyal fanbase and curbing the piracy of PC games. |
 |
| I still primarily watch my anime offline when I'm out. Streaming-only options are god awful. Also I'm region locked out of pretty much everything on Crunchyroll. And since people like to remind me that there are plugins to questionably skirt around these region locks, no. I'm not really going to bother going out of my way to pay these middle men who technically suck money from the system, whose only marketing strategy is grandstanding and guilt tripping people. I'll just torrent and buy merch to support the industry. |
BurningSpiritMay 20, 2019 10:33 PM
| If your favourite character is Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko, you are my soul mate. Been a long time since I've been here, I'll continue expressing myself freely and believe everyone should too. My MAL Interview |
| Idk my only thought is that when I will speak and understand Japanese I will immediatly stop using fansubs/torrents and start to watch them on sites like Nico Nico or Abema.tv legally. I honestly don't have the money to pay an incomplete service like Crunchyroll. Like really I barely have money to buy mangos that I always try to read legally. |
 ❅Aoishi❅ ✿My Profile ✿MyAnimeList ✿MyMangaList |
| Illegal or legal does not matter to me when it comes to streaming because I hate almost all the streaming sites anyway, except Netflix. But I probably hate the illegal ons more for being even bigger scumbags. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| I refuse to use legal streaming services for all the reasons everybody else has stated. They provide a sub-par service infested with ads and very little of your $ will go to the shows I actually like. I have already thrown thousands of bucks at the industry with all the figures and manga I buy, but the money goes more directly towards artists I actually like, while with a subscription only a few cents probably go to the creators I want to support. |
 |
| I prefer to use legal sites when I can. I've never had a good experience with illegal streaming sites, as almost all of them have extremely slow load times, intrusive ads even with Adblock/ublock, and low quality video. The only benefit illegal sites have over legal ones (apart from being free) is that you can watch almost any anime on illegal sites, but on things like Netflix or Amazon, you only have a small selection available to you. But still, illegal sites have so much hassle to them that I would prefer to pay just to avoid all that bullshit. |
 What's the difference? |
| People will use whatever is the most convenient for them. |
| Illegal sites are just better and have a bigger selection... I was willing to ignore this and pay for a service in an attempt to "help the industry". I did this for YEARS.. Even though they missed out on a ton of shows to amazon prime or netflix/hulu. Unfortunately Crunchyroll is a shit company with a very shitty service. Their whole licensing issues with regions..shitty players... shitty original content forced on the main page.. censoring drama.. etc. Incredible that Americans could not watch Tokyo Ghoul Re: on there. The high guardian spice embarrassment was all I could take and I canceled. Get me one service with a solid catalogue of old shows/movies as well as MOST of the seasonal shows and I will be on board. Not interested in having to pay for 3-4 services just to watch it legal.. Give me ONE good service. |
 |
| CR is bad because not all of the money goes to the production committees so I'll use this free site instead where 100% of the money goes to organized criminals Gotta love it. |
| It's legal where I live to pirate anyway so I don't care. The Dutch government is typically fond of realpolitik; they realized a long time ago that piracy cannot be stopped so how it works in the Netherlands is that piracy is legal but internet and other piracy-sensitive things have a small extra tax and that tax goes to copyright holders again to re-imburse them. I am paying for this with the price of my internet; if I were to pay them again I would be paying double. Apart from that even if it didn't work like that I wouldn't care. |
 It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate". — Bertrand Russell |
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