Besides, a lot of the costs are the actual packaging and physical products themselves.
No, no, no, that's not where the cost comes from. It's literally less than a dollar to make the physical product.
The cost comes from producing the show (all the skilled workers that must be paid) + covering the cost of those productions with successful shows. Most shows will not be successful, so the producers depend on playing the odds that even if only 1 in 10 animes they produce are successful, the 1 that is successful will bring in enough money to cover all their costs and then be profit. Imagine the person who owns the rights to the Death Note show right now... He or she could have produced 100 failed animes, but Death Note will rake in so much cash just with merchandise and being one of the few DVDs people will actually want to own, that it more than makes up for it...
That's why donating to just the author can be a problem, which I admit in my earlier post. It works better in the music industry where people don't necessarily need a big recording studio and expensive mastering, but with animes unless you're already rich you can't afford to produce yourself. I mean, the deals authors initially get aren't very good, but if they can prove they make good stuff over and over that's when studios will seem them as less risky and make them nicer deals.
I say as foreigners our only option is to donate because we can't get our hands on legitimate copies without paying someone who isn't even related to the production costs (some 3rd party jackass who buys cheap in Japan and then marks up 1000% selling it to us).
Most people are shy about using their credit card online, so I don't think your idea is a viable business model. What many companies are doing now, however, is offering their content on the internet to be streamed with their ads. Which is fine, and it seems to be working. It just doesn't exist for foreigners that want to watch anime yet, because they don't think there's enough money in it to justify hiring dubs/subbers and trying to compete with already established communities that torrent everything.
Maybe write a letter to them, I guess. I think they legitimately just don't beleive they can make money off us, and maybe they just need convincing.
