Did YouTube keep SM alive?

The days of SM licensing limbo were exactly the same as the days where YouTube was becoming a thing (2005-2010).
That meant whole episodes in multiple languages where uploaded to YT, and fans all around the world could see them without regional blocks. When Toei got hold of the series' distribution again and companies had already established copyright patterns on YT, those videos were eventually removed and all they left were small clips of episodes or compilations. Usually big baddie defeats and transformations, which is still a good window for eventual new fans.
Do you think this is one of the reasons "the West" received Sailor Moon back so well was due to it still somehow being "fresh" in people's memories?

Oh man I miss when it was so easy to find the Optimum dub and the ADV/Pioneer subs on Youtube. ADV and Pioneer had their problems to be sure but I like that I could actually read the names of the people who worked on the show and Sailor Warriors and Sailor Soldiers is always better than Sailor Guardians.

But yes I think the era of “Being able to find almost any nostalgic show on Youtube” definitely helped kept Sailor Moon as a recognizable brand

This thread reminds me of the days when you had to pay a fortune for those OOP ADV sets.

Yeah I think YouTube did keep Sailor Moon alive in a way and always having a lot of videos related to it too during all those years. I remember back then that I was able to watch the episodes of the series on there and I also watched a lot of Sailor Moon AMVs too which brings back a lot of memories.

i had the ADV sets! I stop to eat for a month lol

Who remembers when Sailor Moon wasn't showing on easy search results when typing it?

That was a weird time but it did start showing up again recently.

Back then, it was virtually impossible to watch “Sailor Moon.”

The ADV sets were OOP and cost a fortune, the Geneon ones were very expensive, too, and Stars was never released here. I remember people talking about a very expensive Stars boxset with English subs, this one.

The DVDs from that era became expensive collectible items.

Where did it happen? In the US? I'm from Brazil and this never happened in our version of YouTube. And SM is a lot less popular here than in the US.
Sometimes, feminist pages on Facebook owned by Brazilians unfamiliar with Sailor Moon translate memes about Uranus and Neptune being "cousins" in the dubbed version, even though this never happened here. That used to really piss me off back in 2014/5.

Yeah, in around 2010-2012 YouTube did something where if you typed anything close to "Sailor Moon", it would not show up on the pop-up results below the search bar so you had to type "Sailor Moon" in full yourself to find videos with her name.

It was like that for a long time until a year or two ago.

I have those. Good memories.

What pisses me off is Viz claiming copyright strikes against old dub clips and episodes even though we have no idea if they even own the rights to it. I'd understand if they were copyright striking if they had plans to rerelease it, but it's looking highly unlikely. This is why I hate the Google and YouTube partnership. Too much good stuff gets taken down.

It's only one of the many reasons it's still active. Deviantart and social media platforms helped along with fans that keep buying the same re-re-re-release of the manga. Corporate tie-ins like Uniqlo helped too.

Just wanna add even garbage fanfics like 'Artemis' Lover' and the Sailor Ballz trilogy somewhat helped.

Google owns YouTube.

Yeah and I hate that and I wish that some other company besides Google owned it instead. The only Sailor Moon stuff that hasn't been taken down yet are the old Bandai era musicals. And I need to finish watching the rest of those before they get taken down.

I think they are in licensing limbo, and I really doubt someone will ever try to release them officially again. I wouldn't worry in your place

Any company that owned YouTube would have to do the same as Google. Or it would get into legal trouble with copyright infringement. Because “Sailor Moon” can now be purchased on DVD or legally streamed, TOEI can pursue legal action and force YouTube to delete the videos. The DIC dub is technically treated as “Sailor Moon,” so there is basically no difference.

I remember before Viz got the rights to Sailor Moon I binged watched the 90s anime subbed, PGSM subbed, and the Dic/Cloverway dub all on YouTube one Summer. I actually watched the 90s anime subbed a second time too. Those were good times.

Oh definitely. Without it I would have never re-discovered Sailor Moon. I originally watched Sailor Moon during the DiC years as a kid in the 90's and but did not continue it past the "Black Moon Stick" episode. We didn't have cable growing up so I didn't even know it was airing past that. I was taking Japanese in college to fulfill some credit requirements and it sort of motivated me to find the Sailor Moon subtitled episodes on YouTube where I was able to finish the rest of the series. Sailor Moon was my first introduction to anime and with YouTube's help many years later it turned me into a total fan.