Ask John: What’s John’s Take on the OreImo Leak?

Question:
With the uproar on 4chan and MyAnimeList over the hacking and the premature release of ANN’s simulcast of Oreimo, and the loss (at least for now) of the rights to continue simulcasting it and another series, and the unending “fansubbers are evil” slamfest it spawned on ANN’s own forums, I find it a bit surprising this anime news has not made it here on AnimeNation. What are your thoughts on the hacking of ANN’s contracted servers, the illegal upload of Oreimo, the fallout from this, and the different reactions it has spawned on 4chan, MyAnimeList, and on ANN’s forums?

Answer:
The AnimeNation News Blog is a leading English language anime news resource online; however, it’s also a blog for a privately owned anime specialty retailer. While word of the leaked second episode of Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga nai certainly spread like wildfire through the English speaking anime fan community, Mania.com limited reporting on the event, and the AnimeNation News Blog chose not to cover the story at all. As the manager for the AnimeNation News Blog, I personally made that choice for two reasons. For the past dozen years I’ve always attempted to limit the AnimeNation News page’s reporting of stories that paint anime in a negative light or potentially encourage actions that undermine the stability of the anime industry. Furthermore, AnimeNation, and seemingly Mania, chose to be considerate of our friends at ANN by limiting address of this embarrassing situation. Particularly since the AnimeNation News page is a blog, I don’t feel a journalistic responsibility to exhaustively cover every news event that occurs in the anime industry. I maintain some degree of discretion to selectively bring attention to news stories which I believe are interesting and beneficial to readers.

Unauthorized access and redistribution of an anime episode from a licensed American streaming server has happened before. The same organization that hacked ANN to steal the second episode of OreImo illicitly secured and redistributed One Piece episode 403 from FUNimation servers in May 2009. The One Piece leak caused the Japanese master licensor to temporarily order a stop to the show’s online distribution. A similar response followed the OreImo leak, although the North American licensor and Japanese master licensor were different, in the second instance. One Piece simulcasts eventually returned, probably because of the influence and prominence of the American distributor and the high profile of the title itself. The same situation may not occur with OreImo because the distributor is smaller and the title lower profile. In both instances the leaks were predicated by human error. Someone forgot to enable effective security measures which would have prevented the illicit accessibility. Despite tremendous criticism from the fan community over FUNimation’s lack of proper procedure to ensure security, a year later an entirely different company made the same mistake. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Leaks have occurred twice so far and will probably happen again. Ultimately, this unfortunate situation is simply an inevitable growing pain inherent to the evolving commercial distribution of anime.

Anime News Network deserves, and has accepted, some responsibility for permitting the circumstances that allowed digital piracy. The hacker should be blamed for illegally accessing Anime News Network’s servers and knowingly circulating the procured episode without authorization. And the anime fan community at large deserves some blame for fostering the environment that encourages early, unauthorized releases. Anime fans, and all fans of entertainment media, are naturally selfish. Anime fans immerse themselves in anime because anime offers a private world created just for the viewer’s appreciation. Human beings naturally consume and instinctively desire pleasure and entertainment. If we can have something attractive and appealing now instead of later, we want it now. Regardless of the exact number of OreImo fans in America, anime fans worldwide instinctively want new anime as quickly as possible. Although we may be loathe to concede, access to anime immediately upon official release is nice, but access right now is even better. The desire to have anime, to possess anime as soon as it springs into existence is always a subconscious urge which will always impact anime distribution. Fast will never be fast enough. Even simultaneous worldwide distribution will never be able to satisfy the natural otaku desire to have new anime before it even literally exists.

Worldwide streaming distribution is clearly part of the future of anime distribution. Advances in technology and consumer sophistication have made returning to a strategy of staggered or limited worldwide release impossible. As long as anime exists, fans want it. If we can’t get it legally, we’ll get it illegally. Such is the primal nature of fandom which the anime community has long tried to suppress and civilize. Hackers deserve criticism and punishment for their inability to restrain their most primal desire, but they act in part because the poorly suppressed desire of the entire fan community motivates them. I don’t wish to justify, condone, or excuse digital piracy, only explain it. Our nature as anime fans consists of a conflicting desire for immediate gratification and a rational recognition of the necessity and benefit of legitimate commercial procedure. Fans that either instinctively or self-consciously prioritize ethics and rationality condemn digital piracy and egregious hacking. Indeed, the momentary irrepressible desire to possess a new episode of OreImo immediately has lead to significant loss of revenue & reputation for Anime News Network, and the entire English speaking fan community is now unable to watch OreImo and Togainu no Chi with the blessing of the show’s creators and owners.

However, other anime are still simulcasting, and future shows will inevitably simulcast. And eventually an individual at an online distributor will again forget to implement full security protocols, and another episode of some future show will leak to the fan community early. We, as anime fans, may struggle to prevent this disagreeable situation and may condemn it when it occurs, but it occurs precisely because we’re anime fans. We all share responsibility. We all share the responsibility of taming our personal desires for the benefit of the larger anime community. Pure criticism without any acceptance of culpability is just hypocritical. We all want new anime now. The most commendable otaku respect and support the commercial industry’s increasing efforts to satisfy that demand.