[Nyororin]

The anime/manga market in Japan isn`t really what is being discussed to begin with, so it doesn`t have much of an impact on the subject. There is surprisingly little "stealing" of manga in Japan. Everyone buys it, and just because of the nature of it digital versions are not very popular.
"Stealing" of anime, yes, but only to an extent as most of the time it`s easier to just record the show yourself - legally - from television when it airs. People who will buy still buy. Right now the biggest neck for DVDs in the Japanese market is the fact that while everything is broadcast in 1180i, most of the time only a DVD comes out. But that doesn`t prompt people to copy the DVDs - it just makes them think very hard about buying them when they have the show recorded in full quality on their HDD recorder. The market has started to figure this out and is putting more stuff out on Blu-ray and even occasionally at a normal price, finally. But it will take a while to catch up.

People complain and complain about how much anime/manga costs in the "west".... Without realizing that the price is directly related to the fact that they`re not buying. Things cost money to publish - and if few people buy then it costs MORE money because the initial investment has to be paid off by fewer people. You can`t expect a company to sacrifice itself and go bankrupt just to supply anime/manga.
If people were buying it like crazy then the price would start dropping. It would become truly profitable to license and publish - so more companies would spring up and compete bringing prices down even more.

But everyone comes up with some complaint or other and doesn`t buy... So the companies that do go through the trouble have to charge a lot to scrape by.