anyway
Ranting over woohoo I feel releaved.
I can almost say I've never downloaded a holywood movie, almost, sadly I did aquire a copy of 300 just to see what all the fuss was about - man it was rubbish. Anyway that slight indescretion I don't download anything that I'd expect to be of interest to any license holders from the UK. Of course I do violate copyrights downloading fansubs - but as far as I'm concerned - if the Japanese license holders don't want to sell their series at a reasonable price they can go swing.
Seriously only the most sort after and loved series are translated, then only years after the origonal air date.Then they're mostly commercial rubbish (Naruto, one peice, bleach - please kill me.) This year 4 series have been announced for release in the uk WOW one of which is 7 years old LOL. Now compare that to the number of series I was watching last anime autumn season - 17 series. Of which at best 1 will ever get a UK release (in 3 or 4 years) and maybe 5 will get a US release (in maybe 1 or 2 years.)
So I download fansubs. It's the only choice I have, bar learning Japanese and importing the DVDS (and my friends that is unbelievably expensive as anime DVD's in Japan are only for collectors really.) I do actually have about £3000 worth of legit anime dvds. Along with about £1000 worth of figures and £1000 worth of Concert DVDs.
I don't actually agree with copyright infringment if you have a viable alternative (local cd and dvd sales) If it's too expensive don't buy the stuff - go without it's not that hard, western music, films and series are tosh anyway (except firefly that was good.)
Anyway onto my point. I don't think it's at all fair to accuse people of being paranoid, wearing tin foil hats etc.
As citizens of this nation we mostly invest quite a bit (say about 50 -> 70% of your pay) in taxes and additional costs (vat, direct tax, tax built into the price of products etc.) We helped put the government where it is. We're the citizens darn it! So when a whole business sector is acting unfairly and abusing its customer base, crushing emerging businesses, refusing to modernise. When a whole secter is doing that. We'd hope that _our_ government would go "hey hold on a second, I think the public has a point here - I think you may be acting unfairly."
We'd hope that _our_ government might say "You have to provide for this need, I mean you are a business and the customers want this service, so why pretell arn't you providing it?" That's the crux of why we're so tired of it, why we're all so angry and dissilusioned.
Becouse _our_ politicians don't stand up for us, they don't think of us as citizens. They think of us as a problem to be solved. It's sad, and frustrating and there is nothing that we can do.
I believe in copyright, I write a bit and I'd be annoyed if someone else used my material for their own ends (never gonna happen as everything I write sucks) but copyright is there to protect artists. So that artists can benefit the public. But there's something wrong. Very wrong with the way things are now. Very wrong indeed.
Is this the kind of government we deserve, the kind of government we wanted? Tories, Labour or Lib Dem. Becouse let's not forget that the Tories want to give the music industy money to make happy songs.
O well... back to apathy
Anonymous Superhero