You think all the staff involved in production of the anime you watch just do that shit for free? Are you the sort that just likes to bitch about everything, pay nothing for everything, and expect the world delivered to you on a silver plate?
I torrent just as much as the next person but I make sure to put some money into the business as well, any show I like, I buy the DVD or figurines or someshit to support it. These companies are making a gamble that they'll be able to sustain distribution of their anime, and if people don't buy, they go out of business and eventually there's nothing left.
Geneon and ADV both made a ton of content accessible to a large audience for a pretty decent price, and that really is quite a feat if you think about it.
I think one of the biggest problems with torrenting anime as opposed to, say, major box office movies, is that there's much less revenue flowing in because it's a niche market targeted toward a generally more technically-apt audience. So there's more people getting a free ride, no ticket sales to offset that, leading to a higher overhead for production. That of course leads to lower production quality and thus fewer people inclined to buy, especially since a good portion of the paying audience is already well aware of what they're getting before making the purchase thanks to the internet.
If more people buy anime and other such merchandise, these companies that you hate so much will get more money (no shit), which they can put toward making their products better and cheaper, and acquire distribution deals and possibly partnerships with other companies. Want to see the Nanoha movie, in a theater, IN AMERICA? (Of course, insert any full-length anime of your choice there.) How about getting actually good voice actors? Suppose they could get a few people from let's say Futurama to do the dubs, instead of the typical third-rate job that sounds like it was done by the night-shift janitor after he sucked on some helium? Suppose they could hire some people to do some quality control, and fix up some of the amazingly bad tween frames that make everyone look like they have Down's syndrome. Imagine if you could go into a store and find something other than fucking Naurto and Bleach. Or if you could turn on the television and watch the new episode of Angel Beats just a week or two after it aired in Japan.
All of those things take considerably more money than American anime distributors are getting from their fanbase.
(By the way, I would seriously like to know what the fuck is up with Western anime companies not hiring fansubbers. These guys put shit out for free within a few weeks of airdate, so what the hell's the holdup?)
