Another excellent article by Henry Jenkins at MIT Technology Review, on the fan-driven grey-market spread of anime. Copyright cartels take note:

Japanese corporations have sought to collaborate with fan clubs, subcultures, and other consumption communities, seeing them as important allies in developing compelling new content or broadening markets. In courting such fans, the companies helped to construct a “moral economy” that aligned their interests in reaching a market with the American fans’ desires to access more content.

Many have argued that cultural rather than legal, technological, or economic solutions are crucial in resolving the bootlegging crisis hitting American media companies. Rather than suing their fan base, perhaps they should study how their Japanese counterparts profited from this first wave of underground circulation, seeing it as promotion rather than piracy.