Yeah, the current copyright law/legal system doesn't take the internet into account very well. Especially when it comes to fan fiction and other fandom pursuits.

Obviously, suing fans is the quickest way to piss them off -_-

But at the same time, its designed to protect the creators and make sure they see profit for their work. So there needs to be some such system in place.

Hope you don't mind me following you over here. Interested in what you have to say. I've enjoyed debating.

And yes, being an optimist is my curse. But I can be very pessimistic about other things. Just have to get me on the right subject.

@Dagger IX1:

I think so. I replied to this turn of events in a comment on the essay, so if you don't mind I'll just copy-paste:

"Sweet lord. Is the messiah on his way? Has the Mayan calendar finally run out? Did someone divide by zero?

I'm tempted to say that my article has been rendered somewhat moot a day after I've written it, but on the other hand... while this is a step in the right direction, it bears some scrutiny. The first thing I notice is that they've chosen a pair of shounen series - which seems like a smart move, given that those are the sort of shows that are most likely to survive in the DVD/TV market if this trick isn't effective. Beyond that the shows look like they're all going to appear in a streaming format, which says quite a bit. It says that they're not willing to grant the fans the same crazy-huge resolutions that come with most fansub releases, and it says that they don't want these things sticking around on people's hard drives where they can freely enter circulation. In other words: they don't want to offer us a quality that might compete with DVD sales, and they don't want the "pseudo-fansubs" still around when that happens.

All of this is fair enough and seems well thought out, but frankly I don't think it's going to work. I just don't think this kind of model is going to bring the fansub audience back into the fold. Fans just aren't going to be satisfied watching postage stamp-sized copies on Youtube and Crunchyroll or shelling out $2 for slightly better quality on BOST, and they're really not going to be happy about not being able to keep any of it (except through underhanded means, but even that doesn't solve the quality issue). Basically, it's an interesting move - risky but well-considered - that, I think, just isn't going far enough to make the difference. This is toeing the water when the future of the industry requires a cannonball."

I'll have to correct this if they really are offering "fee-based download of high-resolution movie files" (with no restrictions?), but in the meantime let's just wait and see.