User blog:LuciaHunter/The issue with satellite-rips

''Note: This post was written to blast out on the ll_wikia Twitter account. Tweet stored here for archival.''

So, it's been ten days since the end of the Final Live and I had really hoped I would be able to get through this year without releasing another statement on the sat-rips but as it turns out, no. There're just way too many people new to the fandom to realise just what happened and what is the difference between a sat-rip and normal piracy.

First of all, to any smart-ass who thinks they're a genius in discovering it, you're a week late to the party. The sat-rips were uploaded on April 4, just days after the Final Live while the real fans were still reeling in shock.

Before anyone thinks this is a post against piracy yadda yadda yadda, let me just note I myself passed the link to the LL Wikia group chat and told them this: "I won't judge whether any of you all watch this or not. I know it's a tough transition to go through and we all need closure." This is a group that consists of LLivers who have been here for over a year, and most of them live in territories that won't ever get a chance to see this until the BD comes out. For them to wait all the way until half a year later, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. (Amusingly most of them are still avoiding it anyway because they don't want to face the end)

So no, this is not a post against piracy. Let's face it, the LL Wikia is a hotbed of piracy. We do that in the hopes that our efforts can inspire people to make purchases- and we do know of many, many people who do. Thank you for supporting Love Live!.

Onto the topic at hand, the Final Live was live-streamed to cinemas around Japan, as well as countries around eastern Asia. This was done through satellite streaming. As you can guess by now, a sat-rip means it was ripped from the satellite directly, what you see in that clip is actually a direct feed of what we were experiencing in the cinemas.

This needs either a group skilled in hacking, or for someone on the inside to leak it out. It doesn't really matter which happened (though we know for both this year and the last that it was the first). The fact is that as long as there's demand, it will happen.

Personally, there are two key differences between a sat-rip and a normal BD rip.

Firstly, a sat-rip is entirely free, with no benefit to the producers.

BD rips still came from BDs that were purchased before they were shared, so at least that is one sale we can talk about. A sat-rip not only has zero benefit to the industry, but it hurts them in a way that makes them unwilling to try streaming. We're talking about potentially having international audiences being deprived of live-viewings.

Yes, Love Live! may have progressed beyond the point where there was no stopping them from holding overseas live-viewings, but what about Sunshine!!? They're new, and just like all new groups, they have a tight profit goal to consistently show that they're worth the investment. LL! didn't get live-viewings until the 4th live, and the proliferation of sat-rips now will only further delay how many lives in until we get to watch an Aqours live streamed overseas.

Secondly, a sat-rip is NOT how the seiyuus and producers would've wanted to portray them(selves).

Do you know when preparations for the Final Live started? As early as December. Imagine this, you spend four months working on one single project, day in and day out. In the weeks leading up, you barely remember what sleeping in your bed for a good eight hours feels like because you're always at rehearsals, recordings or interviews. All this, just to put on a wonderful performance that the audience can enjoy.

And then of course, on the day itself, there was a miscommunication, or a camera error, and maybe the camera was busy zooming in on your team-mate's face when it was supposed to be your turn as the center. These things are not perfect.

But they should be, and can be.

That's what a concert BD is for. That's what that impossibly long wait of over six months is for. They spend that entire time picking out for every single second of the five plus hours live, from what must be over twenty cameras, what is the most perfect view for you. They clean up the sound and polish up the visuals, all for this.

The uninterrupted, perfect viewing experience of the Final Live that they, all the seiyuus and producers, want to immortalize.

This is the youth they want to remember, not all the derps and camera and microphone flaws inside the sat-rip.

This is just my personal argument against sat-rips. I'm not going to bother to argue with anyone over this- there're enough of these on the internet ever since last year. I'm just hoping to enlighten some of the fresh LLivers in the fandom so they know what's going on.

So moving on, here's what I hoped for: Less online proliferation of sat-rips. I don't care if you view them, or make gifs and videos for private viewing between you and your friends. Everyone is doing that, yes. But please note that Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, do not equate to private viewing. These are the avenues where companies are likely to pick up that their unpolished work was entirely hacked out and thrown out onto the internet for everyone to see.

And also, please stop harassing the fandom accounts with sat-rip clips. If you haven't seen us upload any sat-rip clips by now, that's a good sign that we're trying our best to ignore you all. Those who have helpfully provided us with clips from news segments, thank you for helping to spread the official footage.

That's all I have. Anyone who continues to harass us with sat-rip clips (don't worry, this applies to very few of you. I can understand people who didn't know their stuff was from a sat-rip, but there are a few individuals who are harassing us with them), I won't block you because that's pointless, but I'll just mute you on TweetDeck because clearly, your opinion isn't worth a thing anymore.

(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ いまが最高!~  ♪ LuciaHunter ♪  02:02, April 11, 2016 (UTC)