Why you should watch RWBY legally
Before I even begin, I want to clarify that it's not my intent to start a fight, guilt-trip, nor force anyone to do anything they don't wanna do. I am merely here to state the facts, as far as I know, and share with you all the reasonings that brought me to my decision. The goal here is to give you all the pieces of information for you to make yours as well.
That said, let's begin.
RT has been awful, employees deserve better, you're angry on their behalf, and I get that because I am too. But I still want and will support the RWBY through Crunchyroll, and here's why:
Pirating is going to hurt CRWBY much more than it will hurt RT. That's the simple truth, in this cases it's always the bottom line that gets the worst of it, so if your goal is to help the employees pirating this isn't the way to go.
Strictly tied to the first one, if a boycott was needed and useful, then they would have told us so. We're not there, we don't know specifically how this stuff works, so deciding to go on a mass protest in their behalf withouth their consent would probably just backfire and put them in even worse conditions. If they'll ever ask that out of us, I will, but for now that's not the case.
All CRWBY, former or not, has been nothing but excited to share their work with us. They want the show to succeed, to keep going and grow, and they're working so hard to achieve that; it just doesn't feel fair to deny them because of someone else's bad actions.
Crunchyroll is the best half-way if you want to support the show without supporting directly RT. Even if I don’t know how the deal works, I’m pretty sure that considering CR doesn’t care about anything else RT might have to offer, any money sent to them would be specifically for the show to continue (and possibly improve)
CRWBY litterally asked us to support them. We can see that on Geoff Yetter's post,
on A.G. Nonsuch's tweet that Kerry liked (and that even if he didn't I would still trust, because since she did work with RT and met CRWBY, I'm pretty sure she knows better than us)
and Arryn's (animator) explicit answer when someone litterally asked how to support RWBY withouth supporting RT (also, if you check their twitter page you'll find multiple likes and retweets or posts sharing the same sentiment)
Again, this isn't to force anyone to do anything they don't want to. I just want you to have all the information, think about what you goal is and act accordingly. Sadly, we can either support CRWBY or hurt RT, with Crunchyroll being the closest thing to get both.
Now, I know that a lot of people might want to support but can’t afford Crunchyroll (or simply don't see it worth it because they don’t watch any other anime). That’s completely fair and understandable but, if you want, I might have a couple of solutions to offer:
Share the account with someone else. It will cut costs, and for just a couple of months it should be bearable.
See if you know someone who already has one and is willing to let you temporarely use it.
Wait until all episodes are released and then make an account; CR offers a 14 days free trial for their premium subscription, and you could use it to binge the volume and still give it views (you don’t have to abstain yourself from watching the episodes as they air, you just need to give CR these views in the end, and if you don’t want to rewatch you could just let them autoplay).
In case someone is wondering, CRUNCHYROLL DOESN’T COUNT THE VIEWS BASED ON THE ACCOUNTS ALONE.
What I mean is that they count rewatches as views of their own, so if you share an account with multiple people and you’re all watching the show, all the views from each of them will be counted, and it will still support it (if you’re wondering how I know, I maild their Support and asked them directly).
That’s all about Crunchyroll. Technically, no one stops you from waiting a year and watch it on RT's platform; they'll be accessible with FIRST accounts only at first, then become free with ads later as usual. I doubt any of you would want to do that, but a lot of people seemed not to get that it won't stay behind a paywall forever so I thought it was worth sharing. I did say I wanted you to have all of the information after all.
And that’d be all, I guess. As I mentioned, this isn’t meant to guilt trip anyone: everyone is entitled to their feelings and what they feel is right. You do you. But as for me, I’d rather accidentally benefit some assholes in the process of helping someone who deserve it than having innocents get hurt because of the actions of some assholes higher ups.
RWBY is a unique show that deserves to live, and CRWBY (and I mean all the people, past and new) has been working so hard, for so long, to get to tell their story and make their dream come true. I don't want all of their work and struggle to be in vain as much as I don't want to lose my favorite show. So, I will listen to them and help them the way they ask me to. That's my goal.
Find what your goal is, and act accordingly.
Reblogging @weiss-royal-schnee's tags because it's a good point and advice
