Piracy in Draon Ball... And other things

[Mireya]

I mean, I fully understand ppl discouraging it in the site because it can bring a bad reputation to a website sharing pirated episodes... Would it be, though, something you would practice and even nod irl people when seeing them doing it? Imagine you were happy a friend was watching DB and then got disappointed they were watching in an online site... This may be a moral correct reaction, but it's so overly done, to the point most anime fans, as something so natural, that such reaction would just be odd. I at least would be kinda dizzed if I called a friend home and he didn't want watching the movie since I was downloading it from pirate torrent movies...

[eledoremassis02]

I guess it depends, is it somthing that you cant get easily (like a Dragon box or something that wasnt released). Honestly, I kind of miss the days when it was just the singles. It wasnt ideal but people were happy with them. Now it's just a mess with how many ways there are to watch the series.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I mean, I fully understand ppl discouraging it in the site because it can bring a bad reputation to a website sharing pirated episodes... Would it be, though, something you would practice and even nod irl people when seeing them doing it? Imagine you were happy a friend was watching DB and then got disappointed they were watching in an online site... This may be a moral correct reaction, but it's so overly done, to the point most anime fans, as something so natural, that such reaction would just be odd. I at least would be kinda dizzed if I called a friend home and he didn't want watching the movie since I was downloading it from pirate torrent movies...

I was hoping the topic was Piracy in Dragon Ball as in legit real world sea piracy. This is an unexplored topic on Kanzenshuu and we know there were Pirates on the Dragon Ball Universe.

[tinlunlau]

Does watching it from a foreign legal source through VPN count as watching it illegally?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Ideally there would be no piracy because it doesn't support anyone involved in the production of the series and its dubs.

However we don't live in an ideal world, and there are cases where we can't support certain products, such as the Westwood and Blue Water dubs, which have not been legally available since 2006, and they have only been accessible through other means. The unfortunate fact is dubs, which have only aired on TV and never had a home release would be at risk of becoming lost media unless they are recorded and shared among fans online.

So in a sense piracy should not be condoned in most circumstances, but as a last resort, for dubs that may become lost to time unless the fans preserve them an argument can be made for piracy being an option where no legal alternative exists for that particular product.

I have gone down routes I'm not proud of to get fan remasters of the Westwood and Blue Water dubs, but I'd buy both in a heartbeat if they were ever released physically, despite purchasing, particularly Dragon Ball Z all the way through almost 5 times.

[MasenkoHA]

No, I don't personally give a shit if someone I know is pirating a movie or show instead of giving billion dollar corporations their money.

[goku the krump dancer]

Is pirating anime even a big thing still? With all the active streaming services out today I figure sites like animeDuhb.TV (not a real site btw) would no longer have a purpose.

[HarveyPlissken]

Honestly, I think it all depends on the Dragon Ball content itself. If it's something that would never get an official release (i.e. the Westwood Dub of Z, Blue Water Dubs of DB & GT, Japanese Broadcast Audio, etc.), I can see piracy being extremely useful. The same goes for stuff that was once released, but are now out of print (such as the unaltered Dragon Boxes, the Ocean Dub, and Funimation's 1999-2003 Dub).

And would making BD-R sets of the color corrected Seed of Might Dragon Boxes constitute as piracy? My goal is to have them in a physical form to go in my media collection.

[MasenkoHA]

Is pirating anime even a big thing still? With all the active streaming services out today I figure sites like animeDuhb.TV (not a real site btw) would no longer have a purpose.

I'm sure it's still done but probably less frequent given how prolific anime is on legal streaming services.

Like your average DBZ fan in the U.S doesn't give a shit about the Japanese Broadcast Audio or the original U.S dub or 4:3 vs 16:9 or Kikuchi vsJohnson and Faulconer and is perfectly content with just watching the show on Crunchyroll or DBZ Kai on Hulu for the younger generation of fans.


But yeah most anime that people care about seem to be on Netflix or Hulu or even free legal sites like Tubi and PlutoTV

[Hellspawn28]

I'm only against piracy for indie stuff because they made it on their own without billions on their side. Also, Piracy can save art. Nosfertau (1922) would have been gone forever if it wasn't for piracy. That movie still exist today because bootleg film copies exist in other countries after Bram Stoker's wife wanted copies of it destroyed.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'm only against piracy for indie stuff because they made it on their own without billions on their side. Also, Piracy can save art. Nosfertau (1922) would have been gone forever if it wasn't for piracy. That movie still exist today because bootleg film copies exist in other countries after Bram Stoker's wife wanted copies of it destroyed.

That's a good point, the late Jon Schnepp was apparently hurt financially because of how much his documentary film The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? was pirated. Sadly because of a sudden stroke and complications it caused his life was cut short and his fiance was walloped with medical debt. It sure would have helped if more people supported his passion project.

[M16U3L2015]

It depends on what part of the world you are in.

Here in LATAM it's not a big problem, piracy is very common and it doesn't help that before Crunchyroll put it on streaming, the only way to watch DB legally in Spanish was on TV.

As for other series, there weren't many legal ways to watch. Any anime that was licensed by Funimation or Sentai you had to pirate it because they didn't operate here and it was very rare for them to sublicense to any regional distributors. So I have no problem with piracy, I mainly watch anime on Crunchyroll or Netflix but if there's a series that interests me and it's not licensed by them, I have no problem pirating.

Changing the subject a bit, I've been wondering, has manga piracy gone down or is it still as big as it was in the past?

[HarveyPlissken]

Is physical media piracy still a thing? I'm currently in the process of making my own Blu-Ray copies of Dragon Ball content that either hadn't gotten reprinted or will never get a legitimate release.

I know MOD (Made On Demand) companies like Stinky Tuna, Nightmare Fuel Video, Monsterland Media, etc. are still around. But, I wonder if there's an anime equivalent to those MOD companies I mentioned?

[tinlunlau]

Is physical media piracy still a thing? I'm currently in the process of making my own Blu-Ray copies of Dragon Ball content that either hadn't gotten reprinted or will never get a legitimate release.

I know MOD (Made On Demand) companies like Stinky Tuna, Nightmare Fuel Video, Monsterland Media, etc. are still around. But, I wonder if there's an anime equivalent to those MOD companies I mentioned?

I was in Hong Kong this past September and yes, there are shops selling bootleg BluRay discs at Golden Computer Arcade. Wonderful little place especially if you're there to buy video games. Bought the Switch version of Mortal Kombat 1 for $370 Hong Kong dollars which equates to about $47 USD at launch day.

[Shaddy]

Kanzenshuu, to my knowledge, discourages piracy and related discussion for legal reasons, not reputational ones. We wouldn't be host to discussions of fanedits that depend on unofficial distribution for viewing if we didn't understand that piracy is not an inherently corrupt action.

I'm a firm consequentialist on the subject, the same as any other transactional decision. You shouldn't spend money on something you know is harmful just because you want it. And if denying money to something you would otherwise support would be harmful, you shouldn't do that either.

The reality, of course, is that the vast majority of instances of piracy happen with regards to products the downloader in question was never going to have spent money on anyway. Ergo, most piracy is values-neutral. The authoritarian policy that companies and corporations take toward piracy is less an act of genuine protection that keeps their money legitimate and more an exercise in controlling public discourse and perception of piracy, even (or especially) when it's a victimless crime (for reference, rich corporate benefactors will never be victims).

So if you want to grab Seed of Might's Dragon Ball release, I say go nuts. What is Toei going to do, release a good version of the fucking show?

[JulieYBM]

i remember back when i was but a wee little girl of eight or nine, i watched muh dragon's ballz on poorly replicated vhs tapes—it's how i first saw the broli films and the Janemba film. i'm so nostalgic now lol

No, I don't personally give a shit if someone I know is pirating a movie or show instead of giving billion dollar corporations their money.

same, hon, same

[90sDBZ]

Ideally there would be no piracy because it doesn't support anyone involved in the production of the series and its dubs.

However we don't live in an ideal world, and there are cases where we can't support certain products, such as the Westwood and Blue Water dubs, which have not been legally available since 2006, and they have only been accessible through other means. The unfortunate fact is dubs, which have only aired on TV and never had a home release would be at risk of becoming lost media unless they are recorded and shared among fans online.

So in a sense piracy should not be condoned in most circumstances, but as a last resort, for dubs that may become lost to time unless the fans preserve them an argument can be made for piracy being an option where no legal alternative exists for that particular product.

I have gone down routes I'm not proud of to get fan remasters of the Westwood and Blue Water dubs, but I'd buy both in a heartbeat if they were ever released physically, despite purchasing, particularly Dragon Ball Z all the way through almost 5 times.

This is the 1st thing I thought of. Those dubs, as well as Funimation's unaltered broadcast dub, would be lost to time without fans preserving them and sharing them online. Ocean Kai still hasn't seen the light of day, because the parties involved don't seem to empathise with the fans enough to put it out.

Another thing to consider is the weird situations with streaming that always seem to crop up. I personally don't pirate anything DB related, and I own all the shows through official releases, but a lot of people can't afford to collect all of it. For some weird reason only Super is available to stream in the UK, with DB/Z/GT/Kai all being unavailable.

One Piece is also in a bizarre situation, with Crunchyroll UK only having the sub despite other countries adding the dub. There is a home release with the dub, but collecting all those sets would be a nightmare.

It really does frustrate me when fans of shows get screwed over because of rights issues. Another example I can think of is the recent Walking Dead spinoffs being unavailable to legally watch in the UK despite the main series being on Disney+ since 2021.

And a few years back Gotham Seasons 1 and 2 aired on TV here, only for Channel 5 to drop the series before Season 3 could air while remaining silent on the issue. We ended up getting Season 3 on Netflix a year after the US. It was tough to avoid spoilers.

As a UK DB fan I have to acknowledge things are infinitely better than they once were. We couldn't even get a home release prior to 2012 when Manga UK rescued the franchise and gradually revived it through home releases and theatrical screenings. Prior to that our only legal option was paying import fees. I could hardly blame anyone for pirating the show back then.

[MasenkoHA]

I'm only against piracy for indie stuff because they made it on their own without billions on their side. Also, Piracy can save art. Nosfertau (1922) would have been gone forever if it wasn't for piracy. That movie still exist today because bootleg film copies exist in other countries after Bram Stoker's wife wanted copies of it destroyed.

I'll second this. Don't pirate works of arts made by people who aren't backed by megacorporations, support your local musicians and artist and filmmakers.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For some weird reason only Super is available to stream in the UK, with DB/Z/GT/Kai all being unavailable.

From what I understand when Manga UK first licensed Dragon Ball Jerome Mazandarani was very anti-streaming, so I can imagine he didn't secure streaming rights (probably mostly out of fear of it hurting DVD sales) and Funimation/Crunchyroll never went back to change that. I'd say the same would be true for One Piece but the sub being available exclusively is very strange as I'd assume it is one license for both sub and dub.

As a UK DB fan I have to acknowledge things are infinitely better than they once were. We couldn't even get a home release prior to 2012 when Manga UK rescued the franchise and gradually revived it through home releases and theatrical screenings. Prior to that our only legal option was paying import fees. I could hardly blame anyone for pirating the show back then.

Agreed, Dragon Ball in the UK really should be a case study of when to not underestimate a franchises potential. I remember years before the orange bricks came here in 2012 hearing people say they wouldn't sell because anyone who cared imported, but they still sold well in spite of that, even considering how controversial they were. It baffles me that AB Groupe didn't have any faith in it as they are a French company and must have known about how much of a phenomenon the series was in their country for a decade and a half when they had the UK/Irish rights. Luckily it seems AB are run by fans now, as evidenced by the beautiful Dragon Ball Blu-Ray with broadcast audio (another interesting point in this context as it could have only been acquired through other means) they put out, but back in the day they could have done so much more than just release the Big Green dubs and put out toys of random characters when viewers had no context (like Super Buu toys when the Cell saga was airing as well as Janemba, Hirudegarn and Tapion despite Fusion Reborn and Wrath of the Dragon never airing on TV).

[MasenkoHA]

t. I'd say the same would be true for One Piece but the sub being available exclusively is very strange as I'd assume it is one license for both sub and dub.

I would guess it's the logic that most people are watching the dub so making the subtitled version available online won't hurt dvd and blu-ray sells.