So I’ve been thinking about something for a little while now, and I want some other drama lovers thoughts on it.

As we all know, there was a period there where all of the illegal drama streaming sites were being forcefully taken down by broadcasting companies, etc. that owned the dramas the sites were hosting. Obviously, this was perfectly within their legal rights to do, especially seeing as more and more legal sites were popping up where they could put their dramas and make money off of them.

Of course, this pretty much ceased all fan subbing and also meant a lot of dramas that would have never seen the light of day if it had not been for these fan teams lost their chance to be viewed by a western audience.

Now, maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’ve noticed that this takedown of illegal streaming sites doesn’t seem to really be happening anymore, even though there are still some illegal streaming sites out there. And the sites today aren’t just re-uploading the videos with fan-subs. They’re re-uploading most of the professionally done subs as well.

I only actually know of two illegal streaming sites that are out there right now, because I stopped using all of the illegal sites when they started getting taken down and have only recently started using them again, but they don’t appear to be having issues with these companies anymore. Or am I incorrect in that assumption? Are these companies still as dogged about finding these sites and taking them down?

And I guess this brings me to my next question which is…am I the only one who kind of misses the old days of Asian drama viewing and kind of wishes we could maybe go back?

Just thoughts from a beanie.

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    Also, I name dropped the two illegal streaming sites I was talking about and discovered that they are considered inappropriate words on Dramabeans. Which is totally fine but made me chuckle, lol.

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    How far is your old days of Asian drama viewing? Hehe. Is it the days before drama streaming was a thing?

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      Before Dramafever existed. I started my drama viewing lifestyle on MySoJu which was the original for streaming dramas online. They had EVERYTHING. And if they didn’t have something, someone would put it on there, lol.

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        Lol. I can’t recall if I ever used mysoju but I’ve heard about it before.

        Clubbox, cruncyroll, hjsplit, withs2, sarssubs, megaupload, mediafire, dc++, dialup etc were part of my old drama watching days. It feels so nostalgic. Drama watching has changed so much.

        I started actively watching jdramas/kdramas in Uni and my old drama watching days involved downloading the episodes and also the .srt sub files.

        I even bought drama cds/dvds. Oh the memories. New laptops don’t even have a dvd slot. Hahaha

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          I remember downloading One drama (although there might have been a couple episodes from another one at some point), because downloading was terrifying concept to me, but I wanted to watch this drama that bad, lol. I streamed everything else, because I couldn’t bring myself to download anything.

          And I totally plan on buying DVD sets once I have the means to do so.

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            Iirc, I once bought an original DVD at a legit DVD shop but the subs were awful. It was hard to make sense of the subs. 😂😂

            I still download some dramas that I like. It’s easier compared to back then. I downloaded 50+ East of Eden eps for Park Hae Jin via clubbox, I don’t recall how long it took me. Hahaha

            Walking through memorylane~
            http://www.dramabeans.com/members/katakwasabi/activity/745628/

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            @katakwasabi I honestly don’t even care if the subs aren’t very good, lol. Just owning the show would be enough for me.

            How/where do you download dramas? I’m seriously considering downloading some of my favorites, because I just want to own them so much.

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          It used to really be a community back then. The more commonplace watching dramas has become though and the more accessible they are, the less and less like a real community it feels. At least that’s how it’s started to feel to me lately. At the same time, there’s simply not the same selection of dramas today for us westerners as there was then. Back then, it seemed like everything was out there to watch if you wanted to. New dramas, old dramas, obscure dramas, you name it, someone probably subbed it. Now with legal sites that only have certain dramas and only from certain countries, it feels like there are less dramas to watch. But I know part of it is I’m just nostalgic for days gone by, and I hate endings, and drama viewing the way we know it has been slowing changing and in some ways ending and the genre itself has begun to evolve and change, and that just makes me really sad.

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        lmao i felt like dying the day mysoju died.

        I miss it too, but i don’t miss the quality of what we used to have. Still, i feel like there’s no website not that has EVERYTHING, old drama, old movies, from different nationality. There’s one that starts with a K but it has lots of problem and disappear regulary…

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    I went from Crunchyroll and mysoju straight to Viki and Dramafever. I think the illegal sites are a lot harder to take down these days, as they just keep popping back up with a different URL when they’re taken down. I totally don’t mind paying for content, but when something’s not available legally, I’ll occasionally resort to one of those.

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    Nah I think they just got really good at shifting servers and shit

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