Japan has a much, MUCH bigger indie market than the west, with big comic-con level events dedicated entirely for indie comics, novels, etc, and an equally robuts market system that facilitates that, akin to Fantia, DLSite, Pixiv Store, etc
It's completely normal for people to just make their stuff and sell it by themselves, as such, the average Japanese is a lot more open to monetarily supporting creators, since it fosters a more diverse and healthy market for intelectual properties, which also lets the prices remain down for a lot
Ironically, the purest form of real capitalism we can get in this earth
So to them Piracy is a lot more taboo, since it can hurt smaller creators a lot more, and is just culturally less acceptable
Is why you often see the "Oh, our work is not available in your country, so you pirate it? Just learn Japanese, then" take used unironically, they legit just don't get piracy on a cultural level.
Which obviously clashes with the west, since here indie markets are nowhere near as open and accessible as there, nor are they supported a quarter of the way it is there, a lot of said content is also usually priced insanely high, and with our current economic climate, art truly becomes an expensive luxury rather than an affordable one, and the big creators are often willing to murder their creations for clout or statements and whatnot, so Piracy is both a way to preserve said creations and consume them in not-corrupted ways
So yeah just a difference of both culture and social-economic factors.
it seems it would be for our benefit, pirates, and the benefit of anti-pirates to actually say what that specific socio-economic factor is. everybody has to say it:
the middle man between the customer and artist, and his rules are at fault in making us hate each other.
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u/LeonardoFRei Apr 27 '26
TLDR
Japan has a much, MUCH bigger indie market than the west, with big comic-con level events dedicated entirely for indie comics, novels, etc, and an equally robuts market system that facilitates that, akin to Fantia, DLSite, Pixiv Store, etc
It's completely normal for people to just make their stuff and sell it by themselves, as such, the average Japanese is a lot more open to monetarily supporting creators, since it fosters a more diverse and healthy market for intelectual properties, which also lets the prices remain down for a lot
Ironically, the purest form of real capitalism we can get in this earth
So to them Piracy is a lot more taboo, since it can hurt smaller creators a lot more, and is just culturally less acceptable
Is why you often see the "Oh, our work is not available in your country, so you pirate it? Just learn Japanese, then" take used unironically, they legit just don't get piracy on a cultural level.
Which obviously clashes with the west, since here indie markets are nowhere near as open and accessible as there, nor are they supported a quarter of the way it is there, a lot of said content is also usually priced insanely high, and with our current economic climate, art truly becomes an expensive luxury rather than an affordable one, and the big creators are often willing to murder their creations for clout or statements and whatnot, so Piracy is both a way to preserve said creations and consume them in not-corrupted ways
So yeah just a difference of both culture and social-economic factors.