I submitted this story because there's been a great deal of talk from tech companies on how to disrupt Hollywood — and I think while anime is a niche (my favorite niche!) that this article gives a very good insight into just how hard that might be to pull off. It a very expensive and high risk market to play in — and this article gives the numbers to back it up...
It's important to keep in mind, though, that this article (and its follow-ups) is written almost entirely from the perspective of the Japanese industry, not the American one. I'm not saying there would be no benefit to disrupting this industry, or that there are no reasons to do so, but even once you get past the inherent differences in business models etc., you still need to keep in mind that this industry is far more lenient towards piracy than Hollywood, and the American[1] anime licensing industry even more yet: for decades (throughout the 80s, 90s, and a good part of the 00s), American licensors basically turned a blind eye towards piracy, and the Japanese studios largely didn't seem to care about Americans pirating their stuff. Even when the companies started taking action, though, in the American companies' case, it started out with earnestly and politely asking people to stop pirating licensed series (and, surprise surprise, it did work - as it turns out, if you treat people with respect when you ask them to stop doing something, they're far less likely to hate you for it[2]). DMCA takedown notices have only been used as a last resort, and to my knowledge, no one has been taken to court over anime piracy (and certainly not random unemployed teenagers being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars).
[1] I talk about the American licensors, industry, and fanbase here, but much of what I say is more-or-less directly applicable to the same in other countries, as well.
[2] Just so we're clear, I'm being sarcastic here. There's absolutely no reason to believe that if you treat someone with respect, they're going to turn around and hate you for it. There are cases where this happens, of course (and this response may be more or less likely then normal depending on the nature and reasons for your interactions with them), but it's by far the exception.
:D I already have some ideas for this, especially with the current state of the anime industry and subbing. Bandai Namco closing their U.S. Distribution for anime was an additional amplifier for a need to disrupt it.
The main issue is licensing, and showing the "old guard" the new ways to capitalize on the market instead of relying on the current traditions.
Also wanted to add the "current traditions" are similar to the music and movie industry. More so in the vein of music, with the evolution of how fans can acquire anime. So they see no real need to pay for something that comes out months to a year later.
Crunchyroll has VC backing from what I understand and is very much starting to dominate the space -- to the point where they have a team in Japan that just does licensing. Anime News Network tried to do this but had a bad problem when some dopes pirated a video.
The key is to get some very old school japanese companies to change their way -- but the other issue is have a model to make money in a niche market that isn't too big. The later problem might have a long term solution, but the first problem is really the big issue. The only solution might be if the Japanese do their own version of Hulu, or partner with a player like that.
I've been an anime fanboy since 1980 (I ran the Star Blazers Fan Club) and now I'm CEO of Anime.com so this problem has always been of interest to me...
As a matter of fact, so did I, how interesting! I started web development a few years back running a little site providing anime, however, I had to close it down because it got too popular and there were a lot of DMCA complaints and such, I was one of the main competitors of Crunchyroll, but I guess Shinji took the legal initiative before I did.
