Japan has enforced a new law which will start tomorrow. They'll be taking down a handful illegal anime and manga sites. We'll be required to pay for these services on platforms such as Crunchyroll and Funimation, in which that we don't have the income or credit/debit card to pay for it. This will greatly decrease the amount of anime fans in the world. How will you handle the situation?

Source 1

Source 2

Time to buy as many external hard drives as I can and download all the anime I am going to watch for the next 10+ years. I feel like this won't necessarily kill of all the free anime sites, but it will probably put a decent chunk of them out because they cannot escape as well as something like TPB. 

Seeing as I ended up with a double post, I may as well add something relevant to this one that I had not previously stated. Many people are unable to afford the anime and manga, and the anime and manga are not translated into every language. The price point for these hobbies is extraordinarily steep, and with little to no anime airing on TV in this country or countries, there are very few options. 

Oh wow....this I am not really happy with. Why Japan why....at least I have good amount of anime downloaded onto my laptop....

Well then guess that would even less anime watching from me but still bit bothers me since I tend to watch when I am bored or needing something to do to pass time. So even after things are taken down I hope I can still find places to watch some.

I guess people will either pay or not watch anymore.  That is pretty good so the artists and story people can get paid for their creative efforts instead of everyone benefiting and stealing their material for private consumption.

Good for Japan.  I support them as they try to get their creative people a paycheck so those folks can afford to continue making manga and anime.  If they don't get paid, they have to get other jobs.  They get other jobs and manga goes away.

Why not support the arts, give them some money, and help them out so they can continue doing what you love?  Why steal food off their plates?

I'm with warmaker on this one, pirating art is one of the few forms of piracy I don't like. Sure, I've downloaded some of that free anime they offer us but that is because I intend to purchase said anime once I acquire enough cash. Art, especially when animated and hand done, takes a lot of time for the artist(s) involved to finish to the public's and their own standards. I see it as this, if you spent 5+ hours painstakingly doing making a frame or two expecting to get paid you would want to get paid. Instead, all that work on the frame or two you just made isn't supported. People take it for free and say "Yay we got it for free." And you be like "Why are people like this, don't they want me to continue making art (=_=)" If you don't purchase their art then they cannot afford to make it for a job, because their not getting paid. Instead of being able to pursue art as a career they would be forced to work at a conglomerate like Walmart or Target, or whatever their Asian equivalent is. I don't know. Maybe I just feel like this because a large chunk of a community I'm apart of is artistic and tries to pursue it for a career. :p

Well the problem with this act is that many people in many countries have little to no resources to watch anime or read manga, they can't buy the stuff without it costing them a fortune. Other countries don't have any other way to get it translated but only by watching fansubs (who work with the piracy websites). This act will most likely decrease the anime/manga fan base by a big chunk because it is a really expensive hobby to pay for. It is also really hard to follow an anime or manga when in another country that lacks the right service, this is why some fans from these countries have no other choice but to watch it in those websites that commit piracy. My handling these situation is really calm, since we have china that is probably the most towards-piracy country in the world any websites that were smart enough to make their website in that country will be protected by the country and it will be much harder to hit those websites hard. I just have to find the websites and stick to them. Though I will try to support the authors as much as I can, by watching the anime in the good websites like Crunchyroll or funimation. Still I have not panicked about the situation yet because I am skeptical about Japan's capacity to ban the sites. 

Chindogu : It's a double edge sword isn't it? On one hand I would never
want to undermine nor belittle an artist or their work. But, on the
other I fully realize the position of anime/manga on a global marketing
scale. It's a sub culture,even in Japan. What networks airs anime
consistently? None that I know of. What stores stock subbed of dubbed anime DVDs/Bluerays
and english manga? Specialty stores,and they're often sold at
ridiculous prices.I went to buy the english version of Chobits when I
was like 14, no lie 10 bucks a book, that 80 for the set!

And
realistically every manga won't be a Chobits or Hellsing or GBZ.
They won't gain enough international popularity to have english
translation. Older manga pretty much has no chance of being translated
other than fansubs. So my question is what are they really losing? If 
they had no intention, or ability to monetize their creations outside of
Japan,again, what are they really losing? I can only see them
potentially gaining more notoriety outside of Japan.

Take Yoshiki Nakamura the author of Tokyo Crazy Paradise. It was popular enough to get 19 volumes in Japan but that's about it. It happens to be my favorite manga by the way. Anyway,her next manga Skip Beat! became kind of a big deal. It's still ongoing and it still has a large following, a live action drama in Taiwan, you can even get the english version of the manga at Walmart! And while I may be speculating, I truly believe a large portion of her english speaking fan base has to be people who found her fansubbed mangas and loved them, and in turn upping her marketing potential.

And once again in the defense of fan subs, most non english speaking counties never get translations so.....
By the way sorry if this is a bit long winded.
        

There are probably gonna be some websites left. Illegal roms, movies, and TV shows are online and there are laws against them.