As new digital technologies proliferate, tension between consumers and corporations has increased due to the new challenges confronting entertainment industries. Historically, the anime industry has leveraged the activities of fans through strategic ignorance in order to grow the foreign market in the United States. I am interested particularly in exploring how these fan communities functioned as proselytization commons to develop this market -- that is, how their illegal activities actually created growth and benefits for the industry. These fan activities, however, have also created pressures and potential harms for the industry by demanding a departure from a traditional physical-media business model. Furthermore, since anime fandom is an especially participatory community, rights-holders will increasingly be faced by more unauthorized reproductions of their works and expectations from fans of the ability to engage with this content. I have chosen my sources in order to reflect the multi-faceted perspectives currently competing in the debate over how to balance the interests of creators and fans. In my paper I will examine anime fandom and its relationship with the anime industry as a paradigmatic case of a "hybrid economy," where balance is achieved through cooperation between both groups in order to maximize the benefits of fan engagement while minimizing the harms.

At the Futures of Entertainment Conference, several panelists discussed potential models for understanding the motivations behind participatory culture in fan communities.  As a result of increasing access to the internet and lowered barriers to participation, audiences have developed an expectation about the ability to autonomously engage with the materials that make up their cultural space.  In order to succeed, media companies must be able to meet these consumer demands and also effectively incentivize and reward individuals for creating value.  The interactions between these fan communities and the media companies that attempt to capitalize on their labor is therefore framed as a “social contract” that ought to produce benefits for both sides.  Many of the mistakes that media companies have committed in their interactions with fan communities have been a result of misunderstanding the ethics and ecology of remix culture.

An understanding of community dynamics is essential for discussing anime fandom, which has been one of the most vibrant and engaged fan communities in the United States over the last 30 years. Indeed, the anime market in this country developed through the voluntary labor of fans that imported and translated works that would have otherwise been unavailable to the English audience.  The anime industry therefore stands in the enviable position of already having a well-developed community that is engaged with and interested in their media properties.  In order for the anime industry to continue its growth and expansion into the U.S. market, companies must develop business models that demonstrate an understanding of the motivations behind these fan communities and utilizes them as vehicles to monetize fan labor.  Although the industry is still in the process of developing and deploying a digitally-grounded model, companies have demonstrated an awareness of the demands and expectations that fan communities hold and are attempting to incorporate them into their plans.