Apologies: as I live in Australia, my upload speeds are absolutely pathetic and it's going to take some months to get everything uploaded. Additionally, I spent a lot of time uploading some ISOs that I had to delete because it turned out that the archives containing them were corrupted. If there's any release that you want in particular, I can put priority on uploading that so you can get it ASAP. Thanks for your patience!

[quote="dimsim3478"]I've been working on a project to archive as many Pillows video releases as I can get my greasy mitts on, and make them available online for free for as long as possible.[/quote]
See, I don't really understand this. I know that people like free swag, but isn't the point of a fan forum/site to actually encourage people to support the band? How is it doing a service to the pillows to make all of their commercial releases publicly available for free, to anyone?
I'm all down for some under the table piracy, sharin' stuff with friends. But the need to make a massive, publicly available moochers inventory? Shouldn't we, like... actually support the band?

[quote="Mafu"]See, I don't really understand this. I know that people like free swag, but isn't the point of a fan forum/site to actually encourage people to support the band? How is it doing a service to the pillows to make all of their commercial releases publicly available for free, to anyone?
I'm all down for some under the table piracy, sharin' stuff with friends. But the need to make a massive, publicly available moochers inventory? Shouldn't we, like... actually support the band?[/quote]

Half of this stuff you couldn't buy anymore even if you wanted to, and the stuff that's still in print is hard to get in the U.S with the exception of all but their newest releases.

Keep in mind that buying from second-hand resellers like Yahoo.jp or eBay or used merchandise on Amazon.jp dosen't send any money to the band, just the person selling it. You'd have to find these in-stock (which many no longer are) from official retail outlets to actually support the band with the purchase, and not only that but in-stock with a retailer who will ship internationally. Or you can pay a middle-man service even more money to make the purchase for you.

[quote="Spike"]Half of this stuff you couldn't buy anymore even if you wanted to, and the stuff that's still in print is hard to get in the U.S with the exception of all but their newest releases.[/quote]
Every single one of these is still in print, stocked, and readily available for purchase on [url=http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/]CDJapan[/url], which is in plain English, among other sites.

[quote="Mafu"][quote="Spike"]Half of this stuff you couldn't buy anymore even if you wanted to, and the stuff that's still in print is hard to get in the U.S with the exception of all but their newest releases.[/quote]
Every single one of these is still in print, stocked, and readily available for purchase on [url=http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/]CDJapan[/url], which is in plain English, among other sites.[/quote]

This could be my fault for misunderstanding CDJapan, but you'll notice that all of their older releases carry a disclaimer that says "First Press Sold Out" which I inferred to mean these were all reprinted. I mean, most of those releases were (and still are) licensed through King Records which they haven't been signed to in years, so any money generated by these re-releases goes to King Records and not the band (unless they get royalties from it) but again I could be totally wrong about this and if I am then I apologize in advance.

I don't even disagree with your original point (and I admit I was mistaken about the difficulty of getting them from overseas) i'm just not sure if the sales of these reprinted dvd's actaully go to the band.

[quote]But the need to make a massive, publicly available moochers inventory? Shouldn't we, like... actually support the band?[/quote]
...it's impossible to argue this point; you're right that people should support the band. My only concern is that almost all of this content is about to go out of print: since last month, Amazon.jp isn't restocking any of the Avex DVDs and Blu-rays; they're just running out the last of their stock. This either means Avex isn't going to reprint them or Amazon's just not gonna be buying them anymore; we'll have to wait and see if other sellers go completely out of stock too. It looks like those Avex releases on CDJapan are all readily available, but I did notice that [i]Lostman Go to Budokan[/i] DVDs are listed as "out of print", which I think is odd.

So I think the responsible course of action would be to delete this thread and wait until we get some clarity on the issue. I'll message a mod to get this deleted.

Feel free to just edit your post as desired (maybe invite people to PM you to ask for links/help you get rips of things you're missing), but there's probably no reason to delete the thread, per se.

I think the Mafu man makes a good point about the difference in pirating a little quietly and blatantly posting the links here on the "fan forum." Many of us - myself included - have definitely been guilty of this and continue to post things. Maybe we should go back to d/l links are fine for non-pillows things, but keep pillows piracy in PMs and between friends? That would seem to me a way to strike a balance between showing some respect for this awesome band and people not feeling like they're stuck by monetary circumstances to only hear a few albums.

(You should all buy at least a few albums, seriously guys).

[quote="Spike"]This could be my fault for misunderstanding CDJapan, but you'll notice that all of their older releases carry a disclaimer that says "First Press Sold Out" which I inferred to mean these were all reprinted.[/quote]
"First press" are the editions that come with extra swag, like stickers, posters, etc. It's usually to entice pre-orders and runs out quickly, so probably everything will say "first press sold out" within a quick amount of time. The non-first press DVDs and whatnot are exactly the same, minus bonus swag.

While Amazon JP's stock might say "only x amount of copies available", I don't think that's an accurate source to assume that the DVD/Bluray will soon be out of print. Many sites are still selling them.
Also, the pillows are working with King again (they're distributing their new album), so even though a lot of these are "old DVDs", the sales can still very well support the band. I don't mean to bitch so much about the whole piracy issue, but part of the reason that Avex didn't offer them another contract was because the sales were poor. So... it'd be kind of cool to see more support for the band.

[quote="Mafu"]I don't think that's an accurate source to assume that the DVD/Bluray will soon be out of print.[/quote]
True, but some items have actually gone completely out of stock on Amazon except for third-party sellers, and those with stock left don't have the typical "(more on the way)" note to say that Amazon is going to order some more units. The thing is other sites don't list the number of units they have left, and they also don't update their availability status as readily as Amazon does so it's hard to tell whether they're also running low on stock or not (e.g. last year I asked YesAsia if they really did have any copies of [i]Busters on the Planet[/i], as they listed it as available for back-order. Of course, it was long out of print.)
[quote="Marekenshin"](You should all buy at least a few albums, seriously guys).[/quote]
haha would've bought [i]Stroll and Roll[/i] if I had some cash to spare after buying so many Pillows Blu-rays

[quote="dimsim3478"]So I think the responsible course of action would be to delete this thread and wait until we get some clarity on the issue. I'll message a mod to get this deleted.[/quote]
For now, you should concentrate your upload speed to getting that Piper torrent back up. 50GB is a pretty good bounty.

I shoooooooould, but I think I'll finish uploading the rest of my Pillows Blu-rays first. I'd like to have them all up and ready to go in case someone's looking for some under-the-table piracy.

I'm not really in the loop, but is MEGA really the best way to make a project of this scope accessible? I'm out of the free hosting loop, but most of my experience with shit like that is that it's somewhat convenient temporarily, then it either expires or gets shut down, or some cap is reached.

Perhaps it might be a better to use something like... Dropbox, pay for extra storage (hell, set up a little gofundme and we can all chip in to pay).

If you're serious about this project, why not give it the most accessible and useful platform for distribution?

Well, it looks I'm/we're not going to be running the project with full public availability anyway (you can still PM me for links), but in response to your concerns, I don't think files on MEGA expire as long as you keep using your account. I made a ton of duplicate accounts in order to host all the releases I have as I can't pay for extra storage, but I'll make sure to log into each of them at least once a month to keep the files alive (according to MEGA's new terms of service, accounts that are inactive for 3+ months are subject to deletion, but it also says they'll send you emails reminding you to use your account if you don't want it to be deleted).

At any rate, MEGA offers fast speeds, minimal restrictions on downloading, tons of space for uploading (50GB per account), and again, your files don't expire unless your account expires. Other sites generally won't work for hosting files this large unless you have a premium account, and even then, downloading features are restricted for free users. Dropbox is a great service but it's not really designed for hosting media as large as a Blu-ray ISO, and if you're interested in doing so, you're gonna have to pay a lot (and not just a single down payment) for the extra space.

Even if you log in enough to keep the files from being deleted, there's no telling when they're going to be taken down due to copyright infringement. That's another reason why this is going to be a nightmare to keep up unless you try to keep it more discreet.