It wasn't all that long ago that it was impossible to legally get Japanese content in the US. They just wouldn't take your money. It wasn't until scanlators and fansubbers created a large market that the Japanese producers took foreign markets seriously. Even then, I have been told by reputable sources that companies like Viz used to pay about $1000 per volume with no royalties for North American English language rights to manga. Japanese producers just didn't believe it was worth any amount of money in foreign countries. Of course that has changed dramatically now.

I'm hoping as we move to a global market with digital distribution, these dinosaur companies will realize that there is no risk to handling world wide distribution themselves. But it means killing the distributors (who were the businesses that helped you get that content when nobody else was listening...).