Much has been made of the Manga-Anime Guardians initiative to curb piracy overseas, a move I'd liken to spitting on a stovetop fire to put it out. It shows you have the right idea, but that's about all. But the discussion around why it is a relatively toothless program (at least until we see some of the major offenders in, say, China shut down) has helped bring back to mind what it is about anime piracy that makes it so difficult to stamp out.
The problem, as I see it, is that you have a product with a highly niche market that exists outside of its native territory, with the language barrier being far from the only thing that makes it difficult to bring to a wider audience. It's also the cultural barriers thrown up by the very companies that produce the stuff, as for the longest time the assumption has long been that anime is a Japanese product for a Japanese audience. For decades on end those companies saw foreign markets as the last item on the list, with only the occasional Heidi, Tetsuwan Atom/Astro-Boy, Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, or other extraordinary exception to the rule.
Now all of that has changed, not just because of the constant stream of licensed material showing up domestically, but because of co-funded productions and other tightening of ties. But too many of the same hidebound attitudes remain, and they manifest most directly as not knowing how to deal with piracy except as an all-or-nothing situation. This isn't to say Western media companies are any more clued-in on how to do that, so this may be more a reflection of a corporate mindset than a Japanese one. But let's face it: Japanese companies are not known for having a "move fast and break things" mindset.
The piracy mindset
Fans, on the other hand, most definitely do have a "move fast and break things" mindset. Fans, especially overseas fans, pirate anime and manga because the business models for each move too slowly to accommodate them. Granted, there's been progress; we now have simulcast streams licensed for territories outside of Japan, and digital downloads for many manga titles. But such innovation didn't come from within the industry; it came only after huge pressure from the outside. It certainly didn't come about because the content owners thought it was all such a terrific idea that they couldn't wait to sell it to the rest of the world.
The point I am making is not that piracy is excusable, but that it's not hard to see where it comes from. Fans do not care if a particular title is tied up in litigation, or stuck behind a wall of hopelessly expensive licensing requirements. They make no excuses for these things, either to themselves or others.
If anything, those issues only motivate fans all the more to resort to piracy, since it's clear the system isn't on their side. Why wait an indeterminate length of time for something to be issued legitimately when they can have it now and save themselves the trouble? Who cares if the licensors are losing money? They're losing money anyway, by not offering it on the market in the first place.
Again, I'm not putting these arguments on display because I think they're morally correct. I'm trying to show how they are the inevitable result of a system that makes things too complicated for its own good. People will come up with whatever excuse sounds workable to legitimize piracy, and will in turn indoctrinate — if not always consciously — future generations of fans with the same mindset.
How slow and steady can win this race
This is why peer-pressure campaigns — as one of many initiatives taken to curb piracy — are more important than they might seem. This is also why Guardians has part of the right idea, but only a small part. Lance Heiskell of FUNimation took to Twitter to outline a whole series of steps that might put some more teeth into the program, and noted that changing peoples' minds about piracy was one of them. "In 2008 several reps and lawyers from the US anime companies tried to make the case for this type of [anti-piracy peer-pressure] group to Japan," he tweeted. "There was no traction." Now, it seems, they have little choice but to adopt that as part of their plan.
A lot of folks I know sneer at the idea of peer-pressure campaigns. Look at the fans, they tell me. They're shameless. They don't care that they're not only taking money from the pockets of the very creators that provide them with this material, they don't even care that they're robbing their future selves. True, says I, but peer pressure isn't supposed to be about converting everyone. It's about reaching the people who can be reached.
This is the part that I think gets under-discussed when talking about peer pressure: the expectations. The point is to reach the people who are on the fence, and to send a message to the people just walking in the door for the first time, of which there is a constant supply. It's about providing a ready-made set of arguments to use to respond to habitual pirates, to not let them get away with blithely saying that it doesn't hurt anyone, that everyone does it, that those companies have more money than they know what to do with anyway.
I've seen this phenomenon in action in many other venues, and it does work. Give people enough legit alternatives, make it clear to them why the illict ones are a problem, and eventually the tide will turn — if not for the existing crowd, then for the ones just joining the party.
The big drawback is that it's slow. It requires tireless and constant (and often thankless) effort. It's also easy to make a case that the effects show up too far down the road to be of consequence — a defense that comes readily to the lips of any for-profit outfit that can't think past next quarter. They have to be willing to let the plan work on its own time instead of theirs, and too often they're not. Quoting unrealistic figures about losses to piracy doesn't help give the problem the gravity it deserves; if anything, it just makes the ones toting up such figures look like blowhards.
The real endgame
To that end, the peer pressure needs to be taken to the next level: to the very companies that complicate the distribution of their own product. They need to understand that it's better to get something for their work than nothing, that locking up their own products serves no one, least of all themselves. They need to understand that $10 less per unit for a given set might well translate into that many more sales and make up the difference all by itself, that overpriced collector's editions only work for collectors (and that not every fan who wants to own something considers themselves a "collector"), and that, once and for all, Japanese audiences and Western audiences want very different things.
Still, if there's anything both sides can agree on, it's that piracy hurts everyone involved, and that the real goal is not to wipe it out wholesale, because that's impossible to do without also wiping out the very audience that exists for the material. Rather, the goal is to minimize the damage, to make that market as small as is reasonably feasible, and to make choosing the legit routes the first and easiest choice for a consumer with money in his pocket.
Piracy will never be completely eliminated, because there will always be a small number of people who want something for nothing. A market will always exist to cater to them. The smaller that market is, and the less it has to offer that isn't readily available, the better.
Some of this has already started to happen, and it's heartening to see it come together. But the first and last word on how to deal with piracy falls to Japan. Nobody else can make them sort out their Byzantine content-licensing issues, or help get properties trapped behind walls of litigation or indifference back out into the open. Nobody but them can speak for their own work. All the more reason why it's so agonizing to see them arrive at the table years too late, and with only half a plan in hand to boot.
