My relationship with crunchyroll has been rather rocky for the past year or 2. The shows that have been coming out have been region locked alot and it has driven me towards not watching because im too lazy to download fansubs for ongoing stuff.
As I was browsing the site, to my amazement I find a show that I heard alot of talk about, Kill la Kill.
I was suprised because I think I tryed to find it and couldnt before. But I was exited seeing as it is from studio Trigger, wich consist of ex gainax employees that were responsible for gurren lagan and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, latter being one that I enjoyed quite a bit.
So I marathon trough the episodes and im loving it, then at 12 episodes it ends and I want to wait for some more. But then mere minutes later, I get an email from crunchyroll saying that episode 19 is available. I wonder what is going on, after a visit to the crunchyroll forums, I realize that the episodes are being released 2 months late in europe.
And this is what brings us to this topic of copyrights and keeping up with the times.
Since we live in the age of information, knowing about things happening in other countries is not that uncommon, especially when it comes to entertaiment. We know all about it. In gaming we know what games are coming out in japan, and we know about games that have never been released outside of japan. And with a very specific niche market like Anime, you better believe we know how many episodes of your show have been released.
And if you're not gonna provide a way for people to watch it legally, then they will watch it illegally. No consumer ever will care about your bottom line if you treat them like garbage, while from illegal circles you can get better treatment. Sure you risk getting caught for that, but the chances of that happening are very, very, low.
To top it all off, you made this the case only in europe and middle east, may I ask why? If you think that europeans download more of their stuff, then you are probably right, but you never seem to think why they do it. Well I can tell you, are you ready for this? BECAUSE OF SHIT LIKE THIS!!!!! Again, you are treating me like garbage here Trigger, you are giving people better service based on their geological location, and then probably complain about how no-one in europe watches your show legally.
And same goes for gaming companies too. I remember pre-ordering Persona 4 Arena for ps3 and waiting for a full year to get that game to my hands because the release was delayed, wich might have been fine exect you REGION LOCKED THE GAME!!!!!! Wich meant it was either the european release or nothing.
TL;DR: If you want piracy to much less of a "problem", then make damn sure you are able to give it to everyone on planet earth legally at the same time.
