So you watch Naruto on Veoh eh?

There are a few people out there who watch Naruto on a weekly basis. Some people like to download their newest episodes straight off the group who sub them: Dattebayo. Others like to scan veoh or youtube every week or so to get the latest episodes. Well, that might be a bit of a problem since Dattebayo have stopped subbing Naruto forever.

I know a lot of you will simply go 'oh no' in a sarcastic tone, but this could happen to your show

::Edit::  Woops, turns out Dattebayo do this a lot. They just scare their fans from time to time to see their reactions and stop them from uploading them onto streaming sites ::Edit::

Now I don’t watch Naruto so it isn’t really a problem for me, but there happens to be a fair few people out there who like watching Naruto. A quick look at the Naruto Shippuden episode 66 on veoh told me that in one week the episode got 311,587 views. So, understandably, there are going to be some very sad people out there.

But do Dattebayo have a point? Their reason for dropping it is because people keep uploading their videos onto veoh and youtube instead of downloading them. The reasons they don’t like this is because

1. Streaming sites time have made it increasingly difficult for copyright holders to ignore the existence of the groups that subtitle and distribute their property. At some point, they will stop trying to go after the sites themselves and simply cut off the problem at the source, aka: Dattebayo.
2. These streaming sites make a huge amount of money from advertising, so they are basically making a profit from people uploading them onto their site, which Dattebayo don’t like since they want to make them for free.
3. They don’t like seeing their pretty videos destroyed by people streaming them in extreme low quality

So they took the most drastic method they had and dropped Naruto.

So what do you guys thing? Do you think all streamed shows should be stopped and only be downloaded? Or have you always been anti-fansubs and think people should have to pay for it? Or do you think people should keep streaming shows?

My view is defo not the same as Dattebayo. A huge number of people only watch streamed shows. Many people first discover anime by searching on youtube because some friend was wild about this shows called ‘Bleach’. Not only that but I’m guessing that many people start off watching streamed and soon switch to downloading when they realise the difference in quality.

Removing all streamed videos will see a drastic cut in the amount of new people who start watching anime. I know for a fact that if I had typed in ‘Love Hina’ into youtube and came up with nothing my anime fandom would not exist. But it was there and I watched it (in low-quality and all!) and here I am a year later with my mini-manga collection and my Noein dvd boxset, with a nice empty space beside it for when Baccano finally comes out.

And here’s a final thought for you: Who is better for the anime industry? An elitist who won’t watch any of that ‘mainstream crap’ and will only download the latest shows, or some Narutard who watches their show on veoh then goes out and buys all the Naruto action figures and ninja headbands he can find.