However, I didn’t explicitly advise people halt reading/watching a series because it has been licensed. I know I have been burned a few times when watching a series like Madlax and its license gets announced just before the final episode. If you are very invested in a big storyline like Naruto or One Piece, I would support you in continuing to read it to its conclusion but would also ask you to the creators some of your admiration in your own personal way. My main contention was people not being resourceful enough to find the material on their own and relying on comments on my blog and forums to the sleuthing for them or actively promoting sources. I would rather such activity not happen at all but if it has to occur, I’d like it more under the radar.

jp_zero: While I may not be as steadfast a IP protector as industry people meaning I still download fansubs, I want to preserve the rights of creators to be properly compensated for their work by readers who enjoyed their productions. (Protecting your ideas is a tenet of capitalism after all.) If someone reads a book or manga in a store and doesn’t buy, then they don’t buy it for whatever reason – not liking the artist’s work, being cheap, both, or another reason. Just simply support the creators financially if you can do so within your means and if not, then tell other people about it and hint that they should support it if they like it.

blissmo: That’s probably because they know not to mess with the Yukan blog crew. :P

I’ll never understand you intellectual property crusaders.

It’s because it doesn’t necessarily become more accessible. Sure, some manga are only a few volumes, and if people simply can’t wait a few months between manga/anime releases it’s their own damn problem and they should learn some patience. However, imagine that you’re reading say, One Piece via scanlations, then suddenly it becomes licensed. If you’re a good fan and stop reading the scanlations, you’ll have to wait for YEARS to see the story continued where you left off (whereas if you read scanlations you could’ve seen it continued the next week), and that’s only IF it’s popular enough not to be cancelled or something. Same with anime. Say you’re watching a show fansubbed and it gets licensed. You stop watching the fansubs and wait, wait, wait, and wait some more and maybe in a year or two you’ll see the story continued when it finally comes out on DVD/on local TV (TV is the better option because then you can see an episode every week instead of waiting who knows how long for the DVDs).

One local example: the Bleach anime was licensed in my country but due to the usual licensing limitations/practices, only the first 52 episodes were bought. These episodes aired, people watched them on TV, it was popular, they liked it. (Except for the usual “it’s dubbed, now it sucks” crowd.) Then the 52 episodes ended and people were left wondering now what. There’s still no info on when it will continue if it continues at all. The story was cut off at a very bad place, people were dying to know what was going to happen. So even those people who hadn’t watched the fansubs before decided to watch the rest via fansubs because god knows when we will see the rest on TV (well, I know but that’s because I… know).

Of course, few people are “good fans”… and many are just complaining out of habit. (”They’ll screw it up!” “It’ll be a disaster!” etc., never mind that they still have their fansubs and scanlations.)