Courage, Wife and Downloading

I wanted to write about an NGO's report that filesharers buy more media stuff than non-filesharers but the initial Slashdot post was a bit thin and the report is only available in Dutch. Today another post on the same report popped up again on Slashdot linking to an article with a bit more content.

Basically, one of the highlights is that filesharers buy as much music as non-filesharers. They also buy more DVDs, games, merchandise and attend more concerts. This... sounds kind of familiar.

I haven't bought a pop music CD in years. But I don't download pop music either. I haven't listened to the radio using a radio for ages. Once in a while I'll still tune into BBC World Service and BBC3 via their respective streams on their websites. I haven't bought a Hollywood movie DVD in ages either. That's mostly because I don't enjoy most of them anyway, I've given up going to cinemas on my own and I fly pretty often now so I can watch them on the plane if I really wanted to (but most of the time I end up watching Chinese, Korean or Japanese movies).

But I buy lots of anime DVDs and usually only of series that I've downloaded, seen before and anticipate wanting to watch again. And again. Stripey and I call this last criteria The Jeff Lawson Test.

Interest in anime and manga, buoyed by a constant bit-torrent of downloads, also feeds the desire to buy other undownloadable stuff. Like figures. T-shirts. Towels. Hug pillow covers. Etcetera. Conversely, fading interest (not another dreaded hiatus post!) in downloading anime also means the drying up of spending on goods and merchandise. And sometimes these matters have their own life cycles.

The diviners of the powers that be can still misread the stars and prescribe some pretty damned silly things like thinking the Water Spirit is really the Drought Demon and that the bearer of its Egg Must Be Killed. Which is why a translated copy of that Institute for International Law report, we needs it.

Oh, and in case anyone didn't get the title: here and here.

(Manual LOL) Related Post: Anime piracy as a demand creation and sales generation phenomenon

Related posts:

1. Evangelion 2.0 @ the movies with Wife-chan
2. So you think you know anime BGMs? (Part 2)
3. So you think you know anime BGMs (Part 3)