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Updating the Pirate Anime FAQ
Joe Curzon writes "Over two years ago, I created what is now probably the most comprehensive and detailed guide to spotting bootleg and counterfeit anime/manga related goods - The Pirate Anime FAQ. A special version of the FAQ has also been published at numerous Anime Conventions around the USA. However due to commitments in the "real world" I have not been able to update FAQ almost a year. :( I would like to iron out any creases and update the whole thing in one go, so I was wondering what improvements would the Otaku readers of /. recommend? The DVD section and Fansub section are in need of the most attention and I plan to deal with that soon, but I was also wondering if there were any subtle changes I could make to improve the FAQ as well?"
If you see it on eBay and they say it comes on CD-R, then I'd recommend avoiding it ;-)
Why slashdot? Why not?
I enjoy buying bootleg Hong Kong DVD sets. I'm not trying to justfy it, it's still a form of piracy. But so is just about every song and movie you download off the net. The primary difference is that I still get relatively nice packaging and sets at prices that are sane enough for me to afford. I can't justify spending $300 to watch an entire series. And some sets, like Maison Ikkoku that I've gotten don't have good US alternatives. Viz Video was once releasing it at $30 a two episode tape but stopped before they even finished. Even then this is a 96 episode series. Would anyone in their right mind pay $1440 just to watch a TV show? (Although I do believe Viz Video has recently started to release the show in a series of pricey boxed DVD sets - Unsure of how these will be)
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
One of the things pointed out in the DVD section is that the logos of Anime Cartoon and Video Animation (Animation Video) look the same meaning they're the same company. That's kinda funny considering they actually are two different companes. Animation Video's logo looks like Anime Cartoon's because AC releases better quality sets and so they wanna be associated with that. PS - Another logo in that same section actually IS another name/logo for Anime Cartoon. And it doesn't look similar at all. Just goes to show that you can't recognize piracy with copying for even priates copy wachother. ;)
It might help if you refrained from using the word "Otaku". To you, it may mean "enthusiastic anime fan", but to anyone who actually speaks Japanese, it means "pathetic loser with no life". If you're intending to inform people about a subject, you might want to avoid offending them.
"To you, it may mean "enthusiastic anime fan", but to anyone who actually speaks Japanese, it means "pathetic loser with no life"."
This reminds me of Star Trek fans who get hung up on the difference between Trekkie and Trekker. Once they start to care about this distinction, all hope of obtaining a life is gone with the wind (or, gone with a stream of tachyon particles, as it may be)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
For one thing, you could change the colors on the web site. The bright green and blue text is very hard on the eyes, try dark blue and dark green instead. You should also consider removing the menu GIF animation.
I agree with you that anime is very expensive, but so are most other TV shows. Unfortunatly I think this is due to the DVD format it's self. It was designed for movies, and as such can only hold 4 or 5 episodes of a half hour show per disc. And with shows running into 6 discs for a single season for some shows (this is from Buffy season 2) at nearly $50 it's very expensive.
This all assumes you can even get it. The Cowboy Bebop collection is no longer sold, so I'd have to buy each disc individualy. The Betterman saga is something like $150 in a full set.
This is why I hope Blu-Ray discs and players appear soon. While they may not add to much for movies (full HDTV or something maybe) but for collection like series, they would probably reduce the cost a ton. Or you could fit all of the Starwars triligoy on one disc (episodes 4, 5, and 6) or any other trilogy. So even if it costs 5 times as much to make a blu-ray disc, it holds as much as about 7 DVDs, making it cheaper (not including the cost of packaging 7 DVDs, labeling them, running that many production lines, etc).
Blu-ray, where are you?
PS: I don't condone privacy. I could download entire series, but I don't think that's right. I'll wait untill I can afford them or they are on TV.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
A couple hi res examples of authentic goods might be usefull, perhapps an image or two from some of the major series's would be helpfull.
I live in a small town, theres only one place to get stuff, so I lack a basis for comparison on most items. As such, a library of authentic barcode/copyright information would be usefull for a website. I know I am interested in series X and Y, so looking up what the barcodes/info should look like for that exact series would be great.
paul reinheimer
Video Companies chose to ignore moral fansubbers for many reasons
One of the main reasons is because the Japanese companies can't get the people in America due to licencing laws. If its not licenced in America, its not illegal.
Now there are moral fansubbers who throw their fansubs away when said series becomes licenced, and go but a full quality DVD.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
I have a poster of Card Captor Sakura on my wall because I harbor deeply unnatural feelings for cartoon characters, not because I care about authenticity!
Seriously, this resource has nothing to do with stopping "piracy"; you may claim that's an issue but what this is really about is *fraud* - which you should be opposed to even if you support piracy (as I do.) It does nothing to stop pirating of TMs or whatever, it just stops these pirated goods from being passed as licensed/authentic, which matters a lot to collectors.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I think you should update your pirate anime faq with more coverage of internet fansubs. Specifically you should have lots of ed2k and bittorrent links to good stuff like One Piece and Hikaru no Go.
But seriously, you should point out that lots of fansubbers do better translations than the official ones, and that many people download fansubs because of the greediness of the official distributers, who often put out a dvd with just 3 eps on it, and since anime series tend to be at least 20 eps long that's a lot to pay per series.
You could also mention that official dvd releases of anime in Japan often have the cool extra value of a collectible figure.
Also you should highlight the shift from fansubs on vhs to fansubs on the internet, and how we don't have to put up with rubbishy quality anymore.
Maybe you'd like to include a bit about video codecs and how the Japanese are crazy for their realmedia format, and how xvid is taking over from divx in the west.
graspee
When I first got into Anime around 3 or 4 years ago (When I was 14 or 15) I found it really interesting that everyone who offered Anime up for download or Anime fansub groups would not promote distribution of licensed Anime, and that's still true today. (Though, it kind of sucks cause Anime is ussually licensed before the fansub group can even finish it) If you request or go around looking for licensed Anime, you won't really find it, or if you do it will be on a P2P network or some other non-fan supportive medium.
The entire FAQ is an interesting success story which shows that not everyone is out to pirate and rip off companies just becuase they can. If you have a good product which people like, it will accumulate a fanbase and they'll help create junior policies and "implied social contracts" against people that would harm your company. It's why I thought FOX made a huge mistake with their "cease and decist" letters against Simpsons fansites which caused many of the best Simpsons fansites to go off the web, all because they had some JPEG's of Bart or a 2 minute video clip of their favorite scene in an episode. Now everyone is realizing that fansites help companies earn more profit (because you have more explosure & a dedicated fanbase, among other things).
What you say!!
I'm sure this explains why so many Anime's have women heroines, whereas most American cartoons, especialy action cartoons, have stereotypcial male heros protecting helpless, or at best sidekick class women? Considering the Japaneese culture is less tolarant of woman's rights than the USA in most ways, it is IMHO amazing the positive image of women that many Anime's portray. Note, I'm not talking about the XXX rated stuff, XXX rated stuff in ANY format tends to be crude and potentialy offensive, that has nothing to do with the fact that some is Anime.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
"Taiwan is not a signatory to the Berne Treaty Convention, it is, technicaly, part of China"
Taiwan is a separate country at this time from mainland China. Both call themselves "China" in their names: Republic of China, and People's Republic of China, which causes some confusion.
Everyone treats Taiwan as a separate country from what is typicalled called "China" most of the time (PROC), except when the PROC demands it. Then when the PROC turns its back, it is time to treat Taiwan as a distinct Asian nation, just as Japan and the Phillipines are.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Positive image of women in Anime? Maybe. But that's only a secondary consideration to the producers of the stuff, I'm sure.
The real reason so much Anime has a female protagonist? Tits. That's it. Tits. I would think this is obvious.
but I'd argue that there is some price fixing. One of the products of price fixing is piracy.
Consider that new CD releases (at least in my city) have been slowly getting cheaper by about a buck every other year since 1999. A lot of new releases try to include something extra, like multimedia files, or a DVD. Why? They're trying to give value to a consumer that won't bat an eye at breaking the law. Offer value, and you can beat free.
Right now, what really strikes me as suspicious is that Canadian DVD prices (I'm Canadian) and US prices are numerically the same. I went to the US and thought I could get the Kubrick DVD box set -- but it was 199$ USD! This shocked me, as the same set was 199$ CDN back home. That (at the time) meant Canada had it for 100$ CDN/64$ USD cheaper. CNL, a Canadian DVD retailer, was the only place I found online that had prices comparable to the local ones, because all the other sites were in USD and thus 1.5x as expensive as buying locally.
Ask yourself why a DVD would have the same numerical MSRP when things like video games and music CDs have different MSRPs in our two respective countries. Ask yourself why CNL says they can't ship to the US.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Among other reasons, it is *fan*subbing, so typically it creates an installed fanbase in a newly-licensed country that, more often than not, will lap up the higher-quality licensed DVDs and merchandising. Also, in some cases, a series is considered so niche that it would never be released outside of Japan. In those cases, I suppose the companies don't mind fansubs too much because, short of importing the Japanese DVD and hiring a personal Japanese translator, there would be no other way for a foreigner interested in the series to watch it. Finally, sometimes the popularity of a fansub brings to light a new market for a series that the companies had previously thought would be profitless... and we all know how all companies jump at the chance to make a profit.
--- Bwah?
There are four basic anime plotlines:
1) Scantily clad girl uses super powers to save world.(Evangalimoon (sp?), Ghost in the Shell)
2) Group of characters with amusing defining characteristics saves world in their own unique (Sealab)
3) Big fucking robots blow shit up, shitty subplot with overdrawn romantic scenes and ludicrously dumb villains. (Gundam)
4) Brooding dark Swordsman or Vampire does lots of brooding dark stuff, girl falls in love with him cause he's "mysterious", saves world from unspeakable evil. (Samauri X, Vampire Hunter X, D or what have you)
People mentioning BitTorrent and fansubs don't get the picture. Nobody sane downloading One Piece off of BT believes they are getting an official product, and furthermore they are paying $0.00 for it.
The problem with "pirated" anime is that bootleggers attempt to pass their bootlegged goods as the "real thing." Many anime fans, especially novice anime fans, believe that they are getting a real collector's item when they buy these products.
Of course, there are ways to spot bootlegs. If you are looking for official merchandise as a collectable, you should always be wary of deals that seem too good to be true, and always look out for the warning signs.
The anime itself:
Obviously, a series being sold on eBay as a VCD or CD-R is a bootleg. That goes without saying.
However, most bootleggers use DVDs nowadays, and have done an extremely good job making their product appear to be official. You can prevent yourself from being duped if you are keen on things.
Anything with subtitles in both English and Chinese is a bootleg.
Almost anything that is "region free" is a bootleg.
If the price is too good to be true, it is probably a bootleg. Region 1 (US) anime DVDs range between $20 and $40. Region 2 (Japan) anime DVDs are even more expensive. Someone offering all of Lain (which is released on 4 DVDs in the US) for $20 is either crazy or selling a bootleg.
You can also look to make sure that the DVD packaging displays the name of a known distributor (ADV, AnimeWorks, etc.) or conforms to the packaging displayed on the original web site.
Anime Sound Tracks:
This can be a little trickier. Taiwanese bootleggers like SM and EverAnime often do a great job of making their bootlegs look EXACTLY like the real deal. The CDs are stamped, the sound quality is equal to that of the real thing, and even the packaging and appearance of the disc look exactly like the real thing from Japan. The only real way to tell is by looking at the name of the distributor, and the price. You will almost certainly pay a premium for the "real" thing, which could cost you $30-$50+ depending. SM CDs, on the other hand, are typically $5-$15.
The strange thing about bootleg Taiwanese CDs is that sometimes even reputable, legit. businesses who otherwise wouldn't have anything to do with bootlegs sell them.
Merchandise
Merchandise can be tricky, because there is often so much of it that it is hard to keep track. Obviously, you want to look for the copyright somewhere on the merchandise. If it isn't there, it may be a bootleg. Many "wall scrolls," character cards, etc. are bootleg merchandise.
Ultimately, the only way to probably make sure that you are getting legit goods is to know that it came from a store in Japan (though I'm not sure if that is 100%, since there are doujin-type goods out there that are fan-made).
Comic Books:
I know that bootleg manga are out there as well, but since manga isn't all that popular in the US yet, there are very few manga distributors. Viz an Tokyo Pop are two of the biggest ones. I guess just check to see if the manga is published by an authorized distributor.
And while doujinshi is not "bootleg" material, techinically, many newbie fans buy doujin not realizing what it is. It complicates things if they've bought an ecchi doujin, which is likely since a lot of doujin is pornographic. They don't find out that what they've bought is a "fan comic" until they open it up and see their favorite anime character getting gang raped.
Doujin is usually easily spotted because the art style will be different. However, many doujin artists are actually very good (a lot of pros got their start as doujin artists, and some still make doujin under "pen names") and can copy the original style. Sometimes the artist will be nice enough to write a warning on an ecchi doujin. It also will typically be larger / differently shaped than the manga volumes.
Of course, doujin in itself can be collectable. But I know many people who accidentally bought H doujin from dealers or when they went to Japan for the first time. Many I know who still lived with their parents high got in serious trouble. ^_^;
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I understand that for many of the smaller anime companies (AnimEigo, CPM, etc.) legal action is finscally difficult and logistically unfeasable to puruse, given the location of most 'bootleg' discs (southeast Asia) and the lax copyright infringement laws in place there.
Still, it would be nice to hear from as many representatives of the anime production community possible regarding what a fan concerned about the legality of his/her purchases should do, if anything, when they come across a website selling illegal material.
Along that same vein, perhaps it would be enlightening to find out if the animators, voice actors and musicians get any sort of royalties from sales, or if they are only paid under a one-shot deal contract. For example, musicians (London Philharmonic, I think) were paid a one-time fee for recording the Star Wars soundtrack. They receive nothing else from sales of soundtracks or movies. I'm not saying if that situation is good or bad, that's business.
However, either way, 'bootlegging' can and will affect the animators some way; either the animators won't make as much directly from residuals and/or the animation distributors and studios will have lower sales numbers, leading to less possibilities for new works to be created and licensed. This in turn can hurt fans; if sales aren't good for a series, there is less of a chance that the series spin-offs, extra episodes and related movies will be released.
Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
In most circumstances Taiwan is almost like a country. They do have their own currency and (small) army, but they can't do things like get a seat at the UN or sign international treaties without the PRC's approval. They're like a teenager still living at home. Sure they can go off to the mall for a while without mentioning it to anyone, but if they decided to knock out one of the walls in their bedroom without telling the parents, there'd be hell to pay.