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Fansubbers Under Fire
CNet is running a story about new developments in the fansubbing world. The article provides some background, and then discusses
Media Factory's recent letters to fansubbers demanding removal of their shows. Historically the studios have turned a blind eye towards the work of the fansubbers, and the assumption has always been they they secretly approve since the fans work is amazing market research. I've bought countless DVDs based entirely on the work of fansubbers, so I hope that this isn't the beginning of the end.
"We decided we should still promote the series," said Nolan, whose group is continuing its translations. "If we receive a letter ourselves, then we'll stop."
See, this is the kind of attitude that's so pervasive in the psuedo-piracy community (not TECHNICALLY pirates because they're not making money, but they're effectively engaging in "non profit piracy"). "Oh, even though it's not our content and we have no right legally or morally to take somebody else's work and give it away for free, we're just PROMOTING it".
Newsflash: you're not PROMOTING it, you're helping other people STEAL it.
If you want Japanese cartoons before they're released in English, learn Japanese. It's fun and easy if you're not an idiot, and you can do it while you're at work if you have headphones and a cd-rom drive.
I hope Media Factory nails these guys to the wall. I'm tired of them creating barriers to legitimate online distribution by distributing stolen copies of other people's content. Maybe if folks would stop STEALING things online, movie and music distributors would be a little less wary of wading into the digital pool to test the waters. After all, who's going to buy a new release online for $5 when they can get it a week early for free?
The facts here are simple. You can't just take other peoples things and do whatever you want with them. It's not legal, it's not right.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
For everyone else asking that question, they apparently translate foreign movies and make English subtitles.
have they learned nothing from the collapse of the record industry?
From the article (assuming you're like me in wondering what "fansubbing" is):
Trolling is a art,
There are entire communities of fansubbing writers.
It's illegal, it's wrong, and it's certainly not good for you. If you're rich because of what's being shared.
If you want Japanese cartoons before they're released in English, learn Japanese. It's fun and easy if you're not an idiot, and you can do it while you're at work if you have headphones and a cd-rom drive.
Why are you encouraging people to steal their employer's time and resources for a personal, non-work hobby?
Young Girl: Oh no! A man with mirrored sun glasses!
Evil Man: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Young Girl: What are you doing? What's in that suitcase?
Evil Man: Ha ha ha ha ha! I have my Rapectopus in this suitcase!
Young Girl: NOOOOOOOOO!
Evil Man: Ha ha ha ha ha! Now I will release my tentacled monster! He will delve freely into your nether-regions! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Whether it's theft of service, or theft of property, it's still theft.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
So apparently it's ok to take others' work that doesn't belong to you, and, perhaps because you've put a little work into it yourself, and don't fundamentally agree with regional releases, it can be rationalized that it must be "ok" to use and release it for free! And then when a content owner does come along and actually take notice (because if they didn't notice before, certainly that means it was tacitly approved of, even though you didn't ask permission, because certainly *everyone* must be aware of your phenomenal work!), you'll come up with further reasonings why you don't have to respond to the letter or spirit of their request!
I understand perfectly now, thanks!
...for two reasons.
(1) "Anxious times in the cartoon underground." Nothing like the term "cartoon" to once again give people inaccurate impressions of the entire anime world. I expect better from CNET.
(2) I will not buy DVDs blind, nor will I watch anime dubbed. I require at least a sampling before I plunk $ down on discs. Fansubs meet this requirement and have determined every single one of my anime purchases, with the exceptions of those series that came out before fansubbing really existed.
The coolest voice ever.
Well, if companies like Funimation would actually translate the real words instead of making most of them childish, then people might wait until the anime is released to the US because the translations are correct. It is amazing to compare the translations these big corporations do, compared to the real script.
Isn't this a really bad idea, considering this is a major news outlet and your day job? Could OSDN be considered to be condoning piracy?
No doubt some people go too far in their fansubbing, but on the other hand it is very rare indeed that a corporation will be or even can be reasonable (think of how their stockholders would react to a corporation allowing unauthorized copying of their content). That is why the law must provide the balance. If you think that there ought to be a reasonableness to this kind of thing the I recommend that you make your feelings known. Support the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
One thing I know for sure, if we do nothing then eventually we will live in a world where you have to pay every time you read your kid a bedtime story.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
From the TFA: "It is technically illegal. When we announce a title, if there is a site that is distributing fansubs, then we contract them and ask them to remove it". Have you ever seen the notes on your anime "Please delete this stuff when it is officially released in your area. [Or something similar to it]" That's basically about it. And nothing is wrong with it. If everything is done in the proper (friendly) manner, what's the problem? Let's not blow the fire, guys ^_^
Get over it already. If it's drawn it's a cartoon. You must be one of those arty-farty types.
I can understand both sides of this issue. But assuming that the trend of the distributors cracking down on fansubbers continues, why not have the fansubbers just release their subtitles with no video?
This would allow the die-hard fans to either purchase a legitimate non-English DVD and apply the subtitles themselves (there is lots of software to do this available). This would, in theory, remove the legal burden from the fansubbers since they would no longer be distributing the actual video.
Everyone wins in this case: the anime fans would get to watch the series earlier than they would if they waited for a true English release, the fansubbers continue doing what they do, and the studio/distributor still gets their money from the sale of the DVD.
I know that many anime fans often prefer the fansub to a commercial subtitling because the fansubbers often include translations of on-screen items, not just dialog, so you can figure out if those kanji in the window are significant to the plot of if they are just decoration.
Newsflash: it's still illegal.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
I wish some Hollywood studio would finally exercise their IP muscle to stop these endless new verses of "Kumbayaa". Seriously, though, when do old songs/characters/stories become the folk "tradition" from which Hollywood mines its most popular and lucrative properties, prevalidated in their market?
--
make install -not war
Isn't this a really bad idea, considering this is a major news outlet and your day job? Could OSDN be considered to be condoning piracy?
I'm pretty sure he means that he's purchased legit DVDs based on viewing the fansubbers' work beforehand. As I have.
I know I have bought many DVDs because I got the fansubs, and they were good.
I'd be rather apprehencive about buying a $70 set of some show I would have never heard of if it weren't for fansubs.
Besides, once the series' get liscensed, the torrent is removed and the file is taken off the tracker listing.
And most people go buy the DVD.
Like the OP said, fansubbing makes for incredible market research.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I have always know that companies thought it was fine to fansub new releases of japanese anime as long as they stop and remove the content once it was licensed in north america. It frusterates me that this would disappear, it can take along time for series to be released on DVD, and even longer to be shown on TV. With fansubs I can get a new episode from a series usually within a week and at good quality and clear translation from the effort that fansubs do for free.
I don't get it, why are you all bashing the fansubbers? It's like taping an tv episode for a friend in a forein country and translating it for them. I don't think language should be a barrier to determine what is piracy and what isn't. I mean, anyone can watch tv for free and tape it, hell record it if you like on an HD. So I don't see how it's wrong in any way, unless of course it's licensed in the country you live in, which in this case is most likely the states.
So again, how is this different from doing it with US shows and giving it to a friend in Europe who doesn't want to wait forever to receive it on their network, and while you are at it, translate it for them?
I actually feel a lot more comfortable with people who engage in indiscriminate copyright violation than I do those who specifically single out Japanese copyrights as somehow "not counting" -- Japanese works as not being "official" until they're published in some more important country like the U.S.
forgive my ignorance about fansubbind/anime/etc.. my questions are those of a complete layman (but a layman who works in the entertainment/film industry).
most of these are JP-only cartoons that are dubbed/titled in english (presumably for american or EU audiences on the net).. i fail to see how this really affects the target demographic that the cartoons were released for. I'm not saying it's 100% okay to take someone else's work and give it away for free (modified or not).. as it isn't yours.. but certainly there are shades of gray in every avenue.. and i have to imagine that giving away a retitled work to an audience that would have never had a chance to see it anyway (as it plays on tv in another country), when the original work probably played for free in japan anyway (on tv) seems a little more "gray" than it does "black."
we release commercial products, and certainly i dont want anyone to give them away for free, but if i found out someone had DIVX ripped my latest DVD release and subtitled it in japanese, it wouldnt exactly break my heart. in fact, i'd probably be excited, because if we had any sort of widespread downloading success in japan, those people [who dubbed my videos] would actually just be growing a potential market for me.. whereby someday we could release a native japanese version and sell 10x as many units because we are now that much more of a household name in japan.
not saying you're wrong, just saying it's not as cut and dried as you imagine it to be (imo).
My opinion as a very minor fansubber (and this is held by various large fansubbing sites I'm not going to link from slashdot) is that it is fine to fansub until some American company announces they have aquired the licence to an anime, at which point you stop.
These people appear to be continuing to distribute and subtitle anime after this has happened. In some cases it looks like they are continuing to distribute a fansub after an anime is released.
Personally I think just as bad as downloading an actual pirated copy of an anime. Of course I do do that. But I know it's pirating and don't try to pretend it's anything else.
These companies don't appear to be going after fansubbers who are fansubbing things which haven't had, and probably won't get, an American release.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
I have bought several anime DVDs. I was going to guy the GITS:SAC series. Then I saw how much it was and that it wasn't all out yet. So I downloaded it. I guess I could have Tivo'd it off CN instead, but it is more convinient to have on my laptop.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Most fansubbing groups operate on morality vs. legality.
They will sub, and release, a series until there is a company that picks it up and says "we are going to do this". And then they drop it. At which point, most drop all sources for all episodes both future and already released. This is why studios don't have a problem with most groups. It doesn't dilute the market enough to bother with.
I don't consider this practice immoral. However, given the current state of copyright laws, it is illegal. Doing fansubs, or DLing them is an at-risk practice for all parties involved.
Much like driving 5MPH over the speed limit, or doing a rolling stop at a stop sign. Illegal and immoral do not always coincide.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
They're cartoons, you fucking cretin. Nothing more.
Thank you for that insightful reply. In the public consciousness, the term "cartoon" denotes shows along the lines of Spongebob Squarepants or Invader Zim - shows that are a far cry from the likes of Gasaraki, Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, or Evangelion. They're more adequately serviced by the term "Japanese animation," or "anime," or just something other than "cartoon," which does not do the anime realm justice at all.
The coolest voice ever.
if that is what the author means here he may burn in hell, selling fansubs is the real STEALING! Most of fansub sellers are stealing the work of the fansubbers to make profit of them and with selling them they destroy the fansubbing scene! Everyone buying fansubs is supposed to rot in hell!
If you're an honest user of these communities' work, react by not buying the licenses of those series where the studios don't let you see fansubs as preview.
If fansubbers' argument that they actually promote purchase of the English-language license is true then the Japanese studios will soon back off when their offerings are less competitive because American licensees' profits are lower.
Media Factory should have been less blunt since as mentioned the "dirty little secret" about digisubs is that companies actively use this as a marketing tool to know what is hot and what is not. They get a lot more feedback through watching fan activity than they ever did in those "reader response cards" and web site mechanisms. Even so, I can't blame Media Factory for wanting to protect their investments. They took the time and money to create shows to market in the Japan and the US and are irked to see their work handed out freely. Although they could have handled in a more friendly fashion the fact is that they asked these groups to stop and it is in their right to do so. They should have handled it with a gentle handle instead of the blunt instrument of psuedo-legal issuing of offical letters.
The fansubing groups need to get off their high horse and honor the request. In the past, "fansub ethics" have always said "honor the request of the creators" reguardless of reason. As much as these guys think they are "promoting the show by sharing" they continue to ignore the reason they are asked to stop which is that there is a seedy element in fandom that just wants cheap shows to watch.
Both sides should just acknowledg each other and walk away from this situation cleanly instead of fuming and dwelling on it. The system works best when it runs silent not when red flags and warning bells go off.
For those who may not be familiar with such translations:
....
In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb
Operator: We get signal
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on
Captain: It's You !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
Cats: All your base are belong to us
Cats: You are on the way to destruction
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time
Cats: HA HA HA HA
Captain: Take off every 'zig'
Captain: You know what you doing
Captain: Move 'zig'
Captain: For great justice
If one is a diehard anime fan, like the 'subbers are, then this seems like a great way on the surface to introduce anime titles to a large audience.
Suppose you reverse the situation and take some obscure English Language cartoons and have a Japanese translator 'sub them and distribute them for money in the Japanese Islands.
Obviously the subbers in either situation would have entered the packaging-and-distribution-for-money business, without any payment to the original production company. And, *wink wink*, that's all OK here because the Editor-in-chief is one of the biggest consumers of this type of media.
Wouldn't it make more sense to send some money to the studios and have them produce more cool anime instead of seeing someone else make money purely on the distribution of their work?
Have you Meta Moderated t
as soon as that letter went out. Animesuki stopped even stopped showing torrents. I hope Media Factory understands that by cutting off the fansubbers, they'll have an unknown success if they attempt to licence their current series to the US. The fansubbers are one of the best ways to gague how a new series will do here and in the rest of the world.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
You make no sense at all your post is littered with so many errors it is difficult to count them up!! I am one of the people you are calling thieves and I run a small website which is involved in fansubbing Goriko No Porkio which is >herebr br
I wouldnt do this if the original cartoons were available in english because i speak english better than japanese despite being a japanese native. If they made them available i would buy them so they arent supplying a product so how am I stealing this my friend??!!!and as for learning japanese, I already know japanese as does everyperson who fansubs, or they couldn't do it, so it is just irrelevant! back to the drawing board, and apologise.
I do also share music but I buy the albums when I have enough money, so noone loses anyway you are one of these accountants who are so straightlaced they can't see past to the spirit of the laws rather than the actual wording. your crazy interpretation would fail in a court of the law!!
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I fail to see what the issue is here. These people know what they're doing is illegal.
End of story.
Myself, I've used fansubbers in the past.
;) ) to read all the subtitles. Which was OK, but now that the series is coming out on DVD in the US with dubbing I don't have to be there every minute. So I'll start buying the whole series as it comes out so she can watch it without me.
My daughter (age 6) had what I call a "Disney princess image" issue. Thanks to the Disney cartoons, she let me know one day that "Princesses don't fight - they just wait for the prince to rescue them".
I didn't like that idea.
So I found other things for her to watch, like "Magic Knight Rayearth" (cute little girls fight with swords against monsters), "Kiki's Delivery Service", "Angelic Layer" (cute little girls with robot dolls that fight each other into submission), and so on.
One of those is a (formerly) fansubbed series called "Stellvia of the Universe", which features a girl attending school in a space station, dealing with the ins and outs of school life. Shima (the main character) is a geek girl, and my daughter and I got a kick out of her (mis) adventures.
The only problem was that Daddy had to be there since she's not a fast enough reader (hey, she's only six
But we've started on other fansub works, like the "Ah! My Goddess!" series now running in Japan. We sit together, I read the subtitles and do the voices for her, and she's started picking up a little Japanese. When the series reaches the US I'll still buy them.
At the same time, I respect the animation studios who might not want their work fansubbed. In those cases, I'd recommend the fansubbers could create external subtitle files (I believe these are idx files that work with VLC or MPlayer), and people could be encouraged to rip their own DVD's to AVI files with special instructions, like "Use Handbrake at X rate blah, blah, blah".
This way, animation studios could still sell DVD's, funsubbers and fans like myself could still get "previews" of a sort. It would be better if the studios would work with the fansubbers and sell the movies online for cheap (say, $3 an episode in a nice XVID format or some such, $1 to the fansubbers and $2 to the production company), since thanks to them I'm going to wind up spending about $150 in DVD's that I would not have otherwise.
Guess we'll wait and see what happens. I'm sure there are people out there who only watch the fansubs and never buy the DVD, but as the article mentions, there may be a few if the "middle area" (the ones people watch on fansubs but have no intention of buying ) animes that lose sales as a result. (Which is why I think the "buy fansubbed for $3" would be a better result for everyone involved.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Sorry, I thought this was a "news for nerds" site.
[insert witty sig here]
So - I watch a few fansubbed anime tv series. Most notably - every Wednesday night (or so) "Naruto" is fansubbed and torrented. It had aired hours before in Japan, on broadcast television. A group of fansubbers was kind enough to translate the spoken Japanese to a pretty good English equivalent - and encode it up in a convenient movie format.
This content is not, and perhaps will not, ever be available to me otherwise. Yes - I've a general interest in learning Japanese. No - it won't be enough anytime soon (if ever) to be able to enjoy these shows without translations.
When series are licensed by companies, the fansubbers (generally) shut down [or at least have the decency to go 'underground' - where I don't care to follow] - this is pretty much how I know something has been licensed, and I suck it up and deal.
So, legally - morally - etc. What are peoples opinions? Am I a bad evil man?
I don't think so. Dattebayo!
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Let's go after the fans!!! That way NO ONE will buy our crap! They all be pirates, yarr! If your business is failing, DON'T BLAME YOUR CLIENTS.
He got it right, the commercial english translations are quite often terrible. They dumb things down to cater to people who aren't interested in the first place.
The people who actually like these types of anime often like it *because* of the original plot, not some lame hacked up version.
I dumped this from a PDF file Lunar Anime received. Most of those in the fansubbing community know that we respect US licenses, so we're also respecting MFI's request. Please note that Lunar is only doing KgNE from that list.
--
Name of sender:
FUKUI Kensaku
fukui@kottolaw.com
Admitted in Japan and New York
TELEPHONE:(813)5766-8980
FACSIMILE: (813)5466-1107
KOTTO DORI LAW OFFICE
MINAMI AOYAMA POINT 1ST FLR.
18-5, MINAMI AOYAMA 5-CHOME
MINATO-KU, TOKYO 107-0062 JAPAN
December 7, 2004
LUNARANIME.ORG
[removed address]
Re: Copyright Infringement on Web Site
Dear Madame/Sir,
I am a legal counsel of Media Factory, Inc. and writing this letter in that capacity.
Media Factory, Inc. ("MFI") is one of Japanese major animation film producers and owns or jointly owns with other companies copyrights and trademarks regarding various Japanese anime films including the following works ("Works"):
Gankutsuou
Rahxephon
Genshiken
Kimi ga nozomu Eien
Recently, MFI found that certain unauthorized copies of the Works are uploaded to the following web site(s) considered to be managed by you ("your web site") and/or that users are induced on or through your web site to certain web sites containing such unauthorized copies. Such unauthorized copies may be downloaded by users in many countries including Japan from such web sites without charge. We believe that a large number of unauthorized copies have already been flowed out through such web sites.
www.lunaranime.org
Needless to say, unauthorized copying and upload and distribution of such copies are serious copyright infringement. Absolutely no money goes to creators and anime producers of the Works from such illegal distribution.
I hereby request you to cease and terminate said upload and/or inducement immediately and erase all the copies of the Works under your possession. Please confirm the termination and erasure in writing to my contact address set forth as above within ten (10) business days of your receipt of this letter either by mail or facsimile.
In case we cannot confirm said termination and erasure within such period, we will need to consider commencing necessary legal action.
This letter is sent without prejudice to any of MFI's rights or remedies. Sincerely,
FUKUI Kensaku Attorney at law
Simple. Don't buy content from those manufacturers.
Buy the fckin's discs used or borrow them from a friend.
..in general, fansubs are made because there is no official english version. You can occasionally get separate subtext files too (some come as video + subtext file), but for the most part they come together.
Like elsewhere, the shows are typically aired long before they appear on DVD (even foreign DVD). So the only means of getting the video, unless you happen to be in that country, is to download a copy. Think of it as the usual "I download Stargate because it's not available here" with a translation to boot.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Hello, it's Slashdot, you should know already!
Like Windows, it's all allowed because it opens up a previous non-existing market. The SOP for video distribution in the west at the time was: Nobody but kids will buy "cartoon shows" so why should make a US release? Once the market becomes real though, that vector into the market becomes "evil" and must be stopped. Now that the market is tightly controlled so we can be forced to purchase shoddy subtitled DVDs of Ghost in the Shell 2 and thousands upon thousands of versions of Dragonball Z (both censored and uncensored) These uppity fansubbers are getting in the way of REAL business. (Like forcing them to FIX Ghost in the Shell 2 or that Manga does a lousy job of DVD transfers)
Futher ironic because Fansubbers have a "code of ethics" in that if a title gets picked up for distribution in the west, they stop distributing it.
They only need to look at Sci-Fi's success with Battlestar Galactica (which has been bittorrented everywhere from the UK where it was shown over the fall). Guess what. It's STILL popular and still has more viewers than any other show on the Sci-Fi channel AND beats Enterprise. (And the Uber geeks have already seen it.)
The moral of the story is: People like stuff that doesn't suck. And they'll pay to see it again and again.
Cartoon underground!
Yet more hijinks from the Intellectual property mafia. I mean, here is a group of people, providing translation services for free, and what does the company do? It sues them!
Any half way wise business person would have made some kind of partnership with fansubbing groups already. Selling digital content is also an obvious step for a niche market such as this, where it is too expensive to sell physical media to a relatively small audience(ref iTunes). However, instead of taking the sane and profitable alternative, these companies instead waste, possibly thousands of dollars, filing cease and desist letter and doing legal research and other such bull. It's getting to the point where if someone who hasn't paid for your product has seen, even a segement of it, then some form of copyright theft has taken place. Companies seem to treat their intellectual property as sacrosant these days, with absolutely no consideration whatsoever for any distrobution method that isn't single physical copy.
Are the fansubbers infringing copyright? By subtitling, no. By releasing the video on the net? Probobly yes. Are they performing a service for which there is a demand? Yes! So here we have at least one example of copyright law retarding economic development. Not that this makes it fully OK. Just an example of how the IP Nazis may not be as good for the economy as previously thought.
May the Maths Be with you!
As someone who appreciates anime, I can say from first hand experience that it's probably not the Fansubbers fault that the fan base is growing but sales are flat - especially in the mid-quality series.
After finding the fansub community, I can say that it's a GREAT resource for several things: checking out the latest and greatest coming out of Japan, finding obscure series that will probably *NEVER* see the light of day in the U.S.. An added bonus is that when a series comes out in the U.S that I've already seen, I can either purchase them on DVD if I think they're worth my hard-earned dollar, or pass if I think it's garbage. Additionally I ALWAYS make it a point to recommend lesser-known but well-done series to my other anime fan friends.
I think that the flat sales that the companies are concerned with is a sign that their consumer base is getting smarter with their purchases. I know I hate buying something on DVD that looks really cool to find out that it's a single 30 minute episode - especially after shelling out $20-$30. As the medium becomes more commonplace, I expect that this trend will continue.
Under U.S. Law, the purpose of Copyright is to promote the arts and sciences by giving a means by which creators of intellectual property can be paid for their work.
Therefore, while fansubbing might be technically illegal, if we wish to determine the ethics of it we need to look at the question of whether it promotes the art or stifles it, and whether it enhances revenue or diminishes it.
From the article, it would appear that fansubbing has both promoted the art and enhanced revenue for the creators - but the market may now be reaching a point where in some cases fansubbing may (possibly) diminish revenue. It still seems to be contributing to the promotion of the arts, however.
Therefore, when considering the ethics of the situtation (as opposed to mere legality), there is only one thing to consider: does fansubbing diminish the revenues of the creators or their assignees? The fact that most fansubbers remove their material when a commercial conflict comes up shows good faith on their part, but that may be insufficient. In any case, the development of the U.S. market for anime may have changed the equation, so that what was formerly ethical (though not technically legal) may no longer be ethical.
Even that, of course, is in doubt. There is a good deal of reason to believe that the free sharing of material has helped commercial distributors far more than it has hurt them.
Baldur
"[fansubbers] take Japanese cartoons, translate and subtitle them in English, and release them freely on the Net."
To expand more accurately on that, fansubbers take unlicensed/undistributed (outside of Japan) anime movies/series', translate and subtitle them in English and release them freely onto the net until that anime is licensed/distributed by a publisher (ADV, Manga, Pioneer, Central Park Media, etc) at which point they halt translation/distribution of said anime movie/series.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Fansnubbing is nothing new, why just the other day I got snubbed by some kind of Hollywood star and I'm not going to sue him or demand that he say hello to me or anything. Why bother?
I was at an Anime showing conference where they had a showing of a newly unauthorized translated show.
At the end of the showing the presented introduced an executive from the company that made/released the show. The presenter indicated he was there so they could negotiate the rights to translate the show we just saw into English.
After a couple of years I saw the English version of that very same show appear on the shelves of the local video store. Since I was so impressed with the first English version I saw a few years before I snapped it up. Sadly the translation was perverted by the executives' involvement. The original translation I saw done by the fans was a much better interpretation of the dialogue.
I think that some fans are so fanatical they do a way better job then a company employed translator. For example look at some assembly manual that have been translated from another language into English. It is clear to tell that English is not the first language and the translation is not done with the passion a true fan can accomplish.
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
I have purchased official DVDs with english subtitles of every anime I had fansubs of shortly after its initial release with english subtitles. Fansubs are the ONLY reason there is a viable anime market in the United States at this time, they are the meat and gravy of college anime clubs and can easily generate the base market needed to make the cost of licensing and subbing an obscure title worthwhile. Cracking down on fansubbers, before a license has been picked up for US distribution is insane. After it's been picked up, there shouldn't be any fansubs of the show available from any reputable fansubber so feel free to slaughter the basterds who continue to distribute it after you have announced some sort of licensing or plan to release a subtitled version. On a side note, it may be worthwhile in some cases to hire the fansubbers to do the subbing, I wish they had done so for Fushugi Yuugi, the fansub was better quality all around, that they didn't is lamentable but is still not an excuse for not downgrading to the comercial sub.
Alternatively, try the Baen model and see if it works as well for anime as it does for books.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
It's so easy to get fansubs these days with BitTorrent, the fansubbing scene is really nothing like it was only a few years ago.
When a popular series like Naruto has a new release, within a week there will be 100,000-200,000 downloads just from the group that is first to release it (Dattebayo). Add the other popular groups in like Anbu and you're looking at 200,000-300,000 downloads a week. Clearly the demand and distribution capacity is huge, a double feature episode will move over 80 terabyte of data easily in a little more over a week. I can understand the companies starting to get nervous.
Another large problem is that when a series does get licensed, whereas previously this was seen as a good thing today it will be met with extreme hostility from the users who are used to getting their anime fix for free. I pity the company that dares license Naruto before it's completed its run in Japan.
I see only one solution. The companies theselves must provide a service to rival the fansubbers. The animation houses themselves could microcharge for the episodes online. With simultaneous TV/net releases I do see a large portion of the current fansub base supporting such an effort. It could pave the way for other TV series moving towards online distribution, in my opinion it's only a matter of time and who will do it first.
It's like deja vu all over again.
So you say that somehow the companies are losing profits from fans releasing a series in a country where no legal/official release will ever occur?
Linux is not Windows
Excellent point, we have an economic problem that was never discussed in 5 semesters of class. That is: "What is the price point at which someone will buy a product instead of paying someone else to steal it?"
Personally, I think the greatest benefit of these fan translations is that it keeps the companies relatively honest. Fans already know the dialogue can be competently translated, so there's less excuse for poor dictionary-switch translatings or covering up harder dialogue with protected laughter that has nothing to do with the movement of character mouths. Heck, a few companies have made use of fan translations when doing their subtitling.
That said, with the company's request, they should immediately shut down translations of that company's work. *wry grin* It will likely mean lower sales due to decreased publicity, but that's that company's perogative. We must respect that.
^_^ So glad you understand now.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
This post sponsored by Ninja Burger. "
if you're going to be elitist about your show not being a cartoon, with the assumption that cartoons are "for kids",
You might try reading my post more carefully. I never said that anime didn't fit the technical definition, I said that the term "cartoon" is misleading because in the public's eye it carries lots of childish connotations that are simply inaccurate when looking at the anime world as a whole. In this case, impression takes precedence over the exact definition.
The coolest voice ever.
Go ahead and borrow it. Just make sure you give me my idea back after you are done with it.
I hate loaning out ideas and then not having the people return them.
Good. You have no idea how annoying many fansubbers are. They consider themselves morally superior to all other pirates, because they only sub and download unlicensed anime, which they generally claim is legal (ignoring all evidence to the contrary, of course.)Maybe this will help beat into their heads what they are doing is still illegal. That said, I don't think it's wrong. It's not like the Japanese are losing a huge market and massive revenue and little Japanese schoolgirls are starving in the streets, having to sell their panties for money (oh, wait...) I'll save you from the endless, oft-repeated attack in IP law, though. -Celebi
"Companies worry that the easy prerelease availability of fansub versions means that the otaku class has already seen their products, and no longer need to buy anything but the must-haves."
Perhaps they companies don't understand that this is how it's SUPPOSED to work. I'm not going to shell out $250+ for a series and find out that I don't like it. Fansubbing gives me the option to see it as a whole and buy that which I really like. And just for the record, I have a WALL of anime that looks like Suncoast.
There's also the issue of market saturation VS. otaku and the "casual buyer".
If someone told me that I'd have to shell out $500 to find out if I'd like Babylon5 or not, I'd tell them to shove it!
"Not the Earth!!! That's where I keep all my stuff!!!" - The Tick
So, what you are saying, is that it's OK to release US movies on Internet Torrents as long as I subtitle them in, say Swedish, and ask them to be deleted after they are released in Swedish subtitled format?
And that would go for any other language as well?
Almost all Anime never makes it to North American Television, and when it does - it is dubbed.... BADLY. They specifically pick Anime series that are designed for children as the executives are stuck in the mindset that Anime = Cartoon.
I prefer watching my anime(or any movies for that matter) in it's original language with english subtitles. Almost all of the series that I watch have no other option than to download the fansub as even if I decide to *wait* for the official english version... there's no guarantee that one will ever be made!
It bears mentioning that when you put these video files up on the net, they are just as accessible to people in the domestic Japanese market as anywhere else. I would tend to imagine that is of some concern, especially in the case of those late-night niche series that make all their money off video and merchandise sales, rather than advertising, like Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. They would need to approach foreign sites distributing video files just as much as they would approach Japanese ones.
Most fansubers that I know of are distributed in the US. (That is not to say all, I just don't know of many) The fansubing setup is based around the fact that until the series are liscensed in the US, there is no distributor and no one has a copyright on it (look at Tolkien and Paperback copies of LotR as an example).
As for Japanese works as not being "official" until they're published in some more important country like the U.S. It's just that there is no copyright in those contries on those works until they are Licensed. Not I say License and Not Publish. Once a series has been Licensed in the US the ethical ones stop translating and releasing the series.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Might I suggest you leave immediately and go somewhere you belong, like a Monster Truck Rally Afficionado forum, for instance?
No matter how much additional style or substance is added to it, anime still qualifies as an animated cartoon. Apparently, CNET is aware that they are speaking to a general audience that is not as refined in their... well, cartoon-watching.
Flagrant, organized, and large scale willful copyrignt infringement.
hawk
If you honestly believe the Subtitled community is the majority of the DVD buyers BOY ARE YOU OUTTA TOUCH WITH FANDOM! Hell our anime CLUB is 90% dub lovers who occasionaly stand subtitles! They have preferred on more than one occaion watching FANDUBS over FANSUBS (this is a group of 50+ at a university.) ADV would be perfectly happy and making bookoo bucks like they always have since the Japanese do not have the actors/expertese available to make a english version themselves. And if you honestly think the Fansubs are more accurate I dare you to name the series released in the last 5 years that is true on. Yes they might not have honorifics, but plenty of the Japanese companys REQUIRE them to be removed in hopes of gaining a TV broadcast. Remember rule #1 in anime: Nobody screws up anime better than the Japanese. Nobody.
> I've bought countless DVDs based entirely on the work of fansubbers,
WHAT THE FUCK!! Don't you know *anything* about this stuff? The fansub groups explicity do not want that to happen, because that is exactly what causes the companies to need to crack down, idiots like you buying illegal copies.
Fansub groups and most anime fans will even go so far as to STOP distributing the fansubs when a given show becomes available commercially in their market. They understand how vital it is that the producers of the content get to profit from their work.
Has anyone else noticed that the voice acting they use for the American versions of most Anime is HORRIBLE? There's always some guy talking in a throaty voice, one guy that sounds debonair, one guy that sounds like a big oaf, and then there's always some guy that has some kind of british accent. That's not how the Japanese sounds!
Even when I buy anime on DVD, I still end up watching it in the original Japanese with subtitles, because the English that it ends up being produced in is so horrible. I can stand poor translation, but just don't couple it with poor voice acting.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Why of course! They are "losing" money everytime when you merely think about their sacred, divine "intellectual property" "product". If you were a good citizen of the corporate republic, you would have immediately run and "bought" the "product" because by thinking about it, you are "experiencing" in part the "joy" of the "product" and thus "depriving" its "creator" of his justly deserved "revenue".
P.S. Don't forget to buy individual copies for each time you plan to "experience" it, think of the poor starving "content producers"! Think of the children!
I wonder why? Do you suppose there might be a reason?
figures someone would reply as AC with that shit.
Hey!
I'm going to start fansubbing all Disney titles to Swahili, and distribute them on the internet freely to everybody, and tell people to stop distributing my copies once Disney releases a Swahili version of all their work.
Anybody wanna join my fansub team? Any people skilled in Swahili around?
"...Japanese translator 'sub them and distribute them for money in the Japanese Islands..."
Your error is clear. Fan subtitlers DO NOT make money off their work. Any money charged, if ever, is done to cover the cost of reproduction, and during the days of video tapes these charges were done not by the subtitler but by the people who did the copies and made them available.
Combine this with the consistant efforts to purge licensed materials out of the system, and the persecution of fan subtitlers becomes even more absurd. They didn't make any money, while creating a pre-primed market for the title when it is released in the new language, IF EVER.
And what's all this anglo-centric crap anyway? Am I the only person in the world who has seen fan-subs in French, Spanish and Russian? Oh of course, the companies don't care about fan-subtitles in those other languages, because of the size of the American market. So it is about money grubbing, not about fan-subtitling itself.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
When she hits 16... Show her Revolutionary Girl Utena... Its the story of a girl who decides she doesn't want to grow up to be a princess...she wants to grow up to be a prince! (she wants to do the saving) Note the story gets dark.
Besides, you're completely missing the point. While making profit is important to every company, it's not really the issue here. These companies aren't doing this about lost profits -- they're doing this because they hold rights over these cartoons and they intend to keep it that way. They want to have control over what is released and when.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Maybe someone never told you, but the Japanese firms do NOT BREAK EVEN ON TV ADS...they BREAK EVEN on the DVD sells.....They HAVE to be priced that high to BREAK EVEN on a production.
Well, all big content providers are, without exception, evil. So your thesis works perfectly.
But seriously, the goal of the large content providers is to make money. Public companies have to do that. They can't do things out of largesse, because they're not legally structured to operate in that fashion. They are structured to make money for shareholders.
Giving things away for free can be justified as part of a long-term profitmaking strategy (witness Internet Explorer among other examples). But the problem for content developers is that when perfect copies of content can be made, even ONE copy of a song or a movie could become copied again and again until it spreads worldwide. If your company sells content for a living, this is not an abstract question - this is about life or death for your company.
It is life or death because the content providers haven't yet figured out that while copying technology has been perfected in the digital age, that doesn't mean that they can't make money in other ways. The iTunes Music Store is one example of a way in which content providers are slowly learning that other options can be created.
Because of the advances in technology that allow perfect copies to be made, it's easy to say that the big content providers are evil scumbags who want to milk us for every penny. I would argue instead that they are a cartel that has grown fat an happy on an antiquated business model. They have to be prodded into realizing that the times have changed, and that their business model needs to change accordingly.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that the law must provide the balance. Numerous cases surrounding P2P and copyright issues have boiled up in recent years, but while P2P decisions from the courts have been somewhat encouraging of late, the copyright problem is only getting worse.
Corporations will act in their self-interest, and it is up to the people to ensure that corporations act for society, not the other way around.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
When Pioneer produced Tenchi Muyo in both Japanese and English at the same time, they created one of the few "Anime" titles that I actually enjoyed dubbed in English.
If the Japanese production companies want to make money off of the English language market, I am very happy if they do so. However, until they license their product in English, the only thing my looking at a fan-subtitled work does is produce a greater market for when they finally do release their title, If Ever.
I'll be looking into who it is making all the noise, and make sure not to buy their products in the future.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
From what I understand in the artical a fansubbing group was still distributing an anime that was licensed by an American(?) distributor. What about anime not controlled by American companies? Wouldn't unlicensed anime be regulated by laws of the country the controlling company was based (japan)? What are the japanese laws on copyright? Overall I think the /. blurb was misleading and the artical poorly written. Could someone explain what the problem is? We already knew it was illegal to distrubte licensed anime, what about the episode of Naruto that I am going to watch tomorrow?
I wonder if this has anything to do with the market being a little more "flooded" than usual. In that case it would compare well to the MPAA...
Fansubbers release subtitled versions of anime online. Fans download. More downloads/activity = more popularity. Anime companies use popularity to determine US sales.
Now, anime has caught on more in the USA. Anime factories want to release more anime, faster, and with less regard to quality. What previously sold well due to predetermined popularity will now sell by volume. But those that don't want to watch crap can download the fansubs and determine that it is, in fact, crap and not worth buying.
It's like theatre movies and shelved music. The good (or at least, popular) stuff is selling more than ever, but people are better prepared against the crud. Industry wants to sell both, so they fight against the evils of "piracy"
The problem is, it's not perfect. I can attest to the fact that people do not go out of thier way to snap cd's and dvd's containing fansubbed anime. So the process is messy. And although i have seen anime torrents vanish from the web without a trace, high quality fansubs remain on the web for people to download at their leasiure, and then keep. Also with the quality of todays fansubs, why buy DVDs? In fact i may have 18gb of fansubbed anime sitting in my bag right now...or not.
However consider the amount of money that they make becuase of the fanbase that the fansubs established. Then compare that to the amount they loose becuase of copies that float around the web. I think that fansubs do them a favor.
I think he meant he bought official commercial releases after having seen the fansubs.
NT
"It's not the language. It's expensive, and if you won't pay you should take it for free."
What you're saying has nothing to do with the language. You might as well say "Why the hell buy the DVD at full price (Jap price)? Wait until it's in the bargain bin (US price), that's cheaper. But pirating it (aka getting the fansub) is cheaper still, so I'm doing that insted".
If you really can't afford it, get a job. Even McDonalds or mowing your neighbors lawn, if you're younger than that. They set the price, not you. You have no right to dictate what others should charge for their products. Just because working to earn the money to pay for it isn't "easy and fun" is not enough.
Imagine at pay day you came to your employer and said "I'd like my $5000 please." "Your work last month was only worth $2000 to me." "What? Give me my $5000" "Oh, you won't accept $2000. I'll just take your work for free then." Basicly, that's what you're doing whenever you use that excuse. They've done a job, set a price - then you come along and just take it because it was "too expensive".
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Fansubbers should use some sort of DRM license that would allow them to pull playback rights once officially licensed versions are released.
The only Japanese anime I even care about anymore is Ghost in the Shell. The first season was excellent, and I watched every episode that came out. When it was brought to the US, something happened to their voices. They becames pussies. I've heard of parallels with DragonBall Z and other anime being "pusserized" with voice actors unable to catch the emotion of the characters in their voices.
Ironically, it upsets me more to have a bad voice actor than the fact the anime is in another language. If they could overcome this obstacle, and the time issue (bringing these episodes over to the US within a month), then I might not use fansubs anymore. Until then, I would hope they'd be honored that someone like me enjoys a series so much he is willing to watch it in another language and still buy it when it finally comes over to the US.
The critical point you're missing here is that:
If it wasn't for fansubs, the US anime market would never have existed.
Because fansubs were what started it. Most of the early Anime companies were actually fansub groups who decided to go legit. And almost every Anime otaku I know has upgraded their fansubs to legitimate versions when the release has come out.
So, big whoop. Their series won't be heard about until much later, most Anime fans will wait to see the DVDs at a convention or something before shelling out hard cash, some otaku will get hacked off and boycott the commercial releases just because of the suit, and firms who haven't done such things will get all the club and convention airtime TMF are missing out on. It's hard to think how they could have shot themselves in the foot much more comprehensively, other than maybe suing Anime societies for running unauthorised screenings to multiple people.
I also wonder if 'selective enforcement' claims could start bouncing around given that the same distributors turn a blind eye to the creation of derivative works within Japan, such as doujin manga featuring characters identical to those in released series.
> I've bought countless DVDs based entirely on the work of fansubbers, WHAT THE FUCK!! Don't you know *anything* about this stuff? The fansub groups explicity do not want that to happen, because that is exactly what causes the companies to need to crack down, idiots like you buying illegal copies.
To me, what he said was that he bought DVDs based on what he saw from the fansubers. As in, watch fansub, go buy official release on DVD. Not, watch fansub, buy DVD that was made using fansub.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I ackowledge that there is the possibility of fansubs diminishing the sales of anime here in the States, particularly as the market for anime expands beyond the 'hard core'.
However:
I don't fall into the normal demographic for anime fandom by any stretch (being middle aged, married, with children.) Fansubs introduced my wife and I to anime, and are a big part of the reasons we continue to purchase the titles.
We spend between $500-$1000 a year on anime DVD's now (1 purchase per month is our house hold rule.)
Would we stop buying now if fansubs disappeared? Probably not at this point, but at $100 a purchase in some cases, it sure helps to be able to watch part of the series.Without fansubs we would probably buy less and stick to the bigger titles that we could find lots of reviews about.
fan subbing is pointless now, most groups fan sub the most popular shows, which are often licensed internationally before they air (or was funded by an American anime company) and are released in english a year or 2 after they air in Japan. This is why most of the good fan subbers have gotten out of it (and moved on to legit jobs in the industry) and we are left with a pack of kids that barely know Japanese (and English) making up translations (for example translating 'Mafia kidnapped young kids' as 'Mass Naked Child Events')
Considering the amount of places available to try anime for cheep or free (netflix, more and more going on TV etc) fansubbers should go the way of the dino.
Besides its just cartoons, you can pretty much follow it knowing zilch Japanese. I know about 5 words in Japanese and don't have a problem following raw (aka untranslated) anime.
You're the one trying to change the way people use the word theft, not the other post.
Copyright violation is theft. Why? Simply because everyone else says it is. That's how words get definitions in the English language, through usage.
But what of the "if it's theft, how come the person still has theirs?" canard? Well, that's true they still have theirs, but that's not relevant. You never heard of stuff like "Michael Jordan stole his moves from Dr. J"? If Michael Jordan stole those moves, how come Dr. J still has them? How about "Good artists create, great artists steal"? Did the artists who said this really mean stealing objects? Or stealing ideas?
No, it isn't a word definition. So more likely you don't like copyright ingringement being called theft or stealing simply because you don't like to be called a thief. Well, too bad, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Elvis Costello, someone who actually did create works had no problem calling himself a thief:
'Every pop musician is a thief and a magpie. I have an emotional affinity for certain styles, but none of them belong to me.'
Maybe it's time for you to get over your hangups instead of trying to change the world to suit them?
Super Milk Chan
Many of you are making faulty assumptions comparing the Japanese and American markets:
#1 Did you know the Japanese productions do not "Break Even" until DVD sales/rentals...THAT is why they are priced so high. TV does not break even on a show...it helps market it for sales/rental so that it will break even later.
1a. This means if you fansub, you are contributing AGAINST a production breaking even.
1b. If you torrent this is even worse as the last tracker I kept stats on over 40% of the traffic was non-US (~30%+ asian)...AKA the very rental/sales market that pays for productions!
#2 Fansub translations are better than commercial.
LOL! I've met the translators they get their material from!...At best they are above average AMATUER translators...many write scripts that are so bad they have to go through the projects english speakers to make sense.
Take this in comparison to professional level translators that run the finish product past the Japanese firm in many cases and have access to the ORIGINAL CREATOR. If there are differences, guess what, alot of the times its on purpose as someone WANTED IT THAT WAY from the Japan firm!
Example: series: FLCL fansub name: FuriKuri. REAL NAME: FoolyCooly Thanks to the R to L slur in Japanese this was told to SynchPoint by the CREATOR, the CREATOR told the fansubbers on more than one instance (at a con) THEY WERE WRONG. (ex: Name: Alice = Arisu or occasionaly Arise)
Never forget the #1 rule in Anime:
NOBODY screws up anime more than the Japanese!
I personaly purchased or at least started to purchase nearly every anime title that I enjoyed and felt it is worth it. Being that I felt that the creators deserived my hard earned cash in some format. Theres some titles that are in "licenceing hell" that I want to end up buying the leagl region 2 dvds. To say thanks to the producer of said title.
If I didn't have fansubbs I would probaly be forced to use the sad excuse for a rental system that exists for some genres. It has gotten better over the years for the rental market. Overall I see the legal problems with fansubs and see the great usefullness of them for the american distribters. Alot of time fansubs are used to gauge how well the fans are liking a title or genre. Also if said title is worth charging tons for the licence. Right now the sleeper genres are for the most part the genres that fansubers avoid for the most part which is the sports anime and the likes. This is pure opionion on my part.
I am your lord jdarr bow bow down and pled to me and give me your anime and computer parts.
I think they meant that the fansubs encouraged them to buy the DVD's. Not that they bought DVD's full of fansubs.
One Piece.
whoever is modding this as informative is just retarded. It was obviously a joke and poking fun at the quality of many fansub translations.
FMA, actually, any release by anime1 before their main subber quit 2 months ago.
The most telling thing to me is that fansubbers sub series because they enjoy them, not because they want to try to earn money off them. It seems like most commercial releases just do elaborate dubs and stick on a few trailers for other series. But as the article mentions, they don't put the effort into it that fansubbers do. There's no painstakingly yet beautifully done karaoke, no pretty and easy-to-read color-changing fonts, no translations for all the onscreen signs or Japanse jokes. And most commercial releases have a fair number of grammatical errors in their subtitles, which personally annoys me. I understand that things like these probably don't both most of their audience, which is why they don't do them, but it would be nice to see a US studio put as much effort into their releases as fansubbers do. If you really love a series, it shows.
A trend that may be influencing bad sales could be that companies are forcing people to buy individial dvd's instead of letting people buy the *complete* box set. I ONLY buy complete box sets because it is cheaper than paying for each individual DVD.
What bugs me about Media Factory's actions is what also bugs me about the general crackdown on fan sites, fanfiction, etc.- it amounts to a form of thought crime.
I understand the goal of all entertainment producers is to make content which thousands- millions- of people will enjoy. They want us to fall in love with their shows/books/movies, buy all the merchandise- dolls, shirts, DVD special editions, etc.- to become fans of their product/content.
But they don't want us to think about what they create. We can't speculate (publicly) about what our favorite character would do in a particular situation. We can't include a picture of our favorite anime babe on a website. In this case, we can't even translate their product to a different language, potentially opening up a new market for them, with no financial gain on the fan's part.
Maybe, deep down, they fear us; our ability to see implications in their story that they didn't (The Matrix), to mix two pieces of their music together and come up with someting unexpected (Gray Album); to do simple things (like translating) that they can't.
I was too lazy to get to the parent post, so I'm replying to yours. I'm sorry.
Japanese is most certainly not fun and easy.
If they are really so confident they are doing no wrong, and maybe even doing the copyright holders a service, why don't the fansubbers simply ask the copyright holders for permission? Could it be that they are afraid of getting an answer they don't want to hear?
Dear Japanese Anime companies:
I've been watching anime since about 10 years ago. Before the internet era, all we could do was renting some limited anime at very specialized stores. It's very scarse. We would meet and gather money to rent (or even buy) one.
However, with the internet, we've been able to know the most recent japanese releases. Of shows that would take 3 or even more years to be officially released in the US.
Please allow me to ask this question: What use is making a perfectly legal show if nobody outside your country is going to see it? Where will you get the reviews, if people won't understand a thing of what's being said? Who will buy your series? But most important, did you plan to earn money thru exportation of the series you're producing?
Maybe you don't want to accept it, but in a certain sense, you owe us. Both the fans and the fansubbers. We're otakus, too. We respect you and appreciate your wonderful work. But please, don't take away from us this thing that we love so much... if you do, the direct consequence is that we'll have to stop watching anime (not because we don't want it, but because we won't be able to see it at all) and stay with the mainstream imports that are no good.
Anime is not widely distributed in other countries apart from the US - like in Latin America. You can see there only the most popular shows like Pokèmon, or Yu Gi Oh. These shows are garbage to the true Otakus. We want the good shows, like Evangelion, Saber Marionette, Cowboy Bebop, Detective Academy... most of us wouldn't have even heard of them if it wasn't for the fansubs.
There is another thing to consider. The "popular" shows that go on open TV usually have more than 100 episodes, and are transmitted daily. But the small shows that have an average of 25 episodes, have very little chance of appearing in open TV. What to say of OVA's? 8, 6, even 3 chapters?
In Mexico the common idea of Anime is a lot of guys fighting with superpowers. That's their idea because that's what they've seen of Anime. Here there are many people with very limited resources. We barely have money for cable TV, much less for satellite TV where the specialized anime channels are.
Please. Don't kill the worldwide Anime community.
Sincerely,
your fans.
I've been a pretty big fan of anime, and the main reason I've always assumed that they ignore fansubs is that international copyright law is a sticky issue. Japanese companies going after American fansubbers could create some problems. It's the same reason the RIAA and MPAA don't go after people who release US movies overseas before their domestic release date. By pulling their fansubs once a domestic release has been announced, fansubbers can somewhat protect themselves once the animation in question has US laws protecting it.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Sorry, I know nothing about anime, but as a jazz buff, this title seems really absurd. It conjurs up images of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers trying to run through "Groovin' High", or maybe Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie jamming on "Deep In The Heart of Texas".
Haven't these companies noticed the massive amount of bootlegs/imports coming in from Hong Kong? I can pay $120 - $200 for a series from the legitimate publisher, or $30 for an import/bootleg that is nearly the same quality, but on fewer discs. It's not like sites that sell this stuff are hard to locate either, led alone the amounts you find on eBay.
I think piracy is cutting into the market a heck of a lot more than fansubs. I'm amazed that so many of the sites continue to operate, seemingly within the US as well.
I'm in the UK and a well known Gundam fanboy (my name is based on Gundam and FMA). Bandai have totally given upon Gundam in Europe and now you can get very little but import manga from Amazon and DVDs which wont play on all DVD players (region crap). So I have to fansub the series, but I do go out of my way to buy all the Gundam models and mangas I want, or even don't want in some cases. Bandai and Sunrise earn more money through Gunpla (Gundam models) then they do through DVD sales. So clearly I'm putting my money back into the series through "alternative" ways. Many people work the same way as I do.
I like muppets.
It appears that the controversy here is over copyright infringement when the "fansubbing group" releases an entire video with their translated subtitles attached to them. While I agree this is copyright infringement, I would also like to point out that, according to the Berne Convention Article 8, translating copyrighted works is the exclusive right of the copyright holder.
I would love to hear of any legal precedent that says that this doesn't apply in the case of translating Japanese audio to English text.
URL is http://www.lolikon.org/guide.html
I'd also like to point out that fansubs are likely to spread the Japanese culture a lot more than any dubbed-and-slashed US versions released. Granted, this may not be an amazing thing for American companies looking for quick profits on a new frontier, but I believe Japan as a nation will benefit in the end.
Fansubbers make subtitles for series that are not released in countries outside of Japan. Generally fansubbers stop making new releases for a series when the international rights are sold, and some stop in the negotiation period before rights are officially sold. Ultimately everyone wins.
The problem is that lately a few fansubbing groups are ignoring this custom and continuing to make their oun releases reguardless of whether or not an 'official' version is being distributed. This is what is ticking off the american subtitling/distributing businesses, and rightfully so.
Naruto could go down as one of the most ruined, but probably still successful, licenses ever if it comes to the US.
It has too much potential kid appeal, and is probably way too expensive of a license, to just dub and put on late night adult swim unedited with all the blood, bone injuries, perverted characters, etc.
Under the Berne convention, everything copyrightable is copyrighted by default. You don't have to include a (c) either. The copyright is equally valid in all signing countries, which is ~100 nations, and all of the important ones. This post is copyrighted in the US and Japan. So is yours. It's as simple as that.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I was always told that anime that was licienced in the US didn't have a US copyright so it was perfectly legal to do fansubs until it was copyrighted in America of at least in a manner that is respected by US copyright law. Now can anyone tell me if this is actualy true?
Actualy, I beg to differ. Of all the series I own, I only bought one before having seen the fan sub of it. Simply put, I don't feel like putting money into something which is often hit or miss as the series goes on before having seen whether it keeps my interest. Especialy at a rate of ~25-30 a DVD. Aside from that one series, every other one I own was bought after I had decided that I enjoyed the series after watching the fan subs.
So as far as this customer is concerned, the fan subs are the only thing convincing me to buy these products.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
There are redundant threads in this article about this particular statement and what it means: "I've bought countless DVDs based entirely on the work of fansubbers, so I hope that this isn't the beginning of the end. "
;-)
My interpretation was that CmdrTaco had purchased the work done by fansubbers. And if that was the case SOMEONE made money. Check out A guide to getting cheap Anime and and then try to explain to me this is not still going on with DVDs. It is not like being out of the days of video tapes is a vast revolution people no longer making copies for profit.
It may be that you have never read a cease and desist letter written by French, Spanish and Russian lawyers. It does not mean they do not exist.
Have you Meta Moderated t
It would be like a TV episode *IF* these fansubbers weren't sticking them on bittorrent and letting thousands upon thousands of people download them.
Thousands of people from other countries with LITERALLY NO ACCESS to the series in question.
At least you should do a little research and stop bashing something you have no F'ing idea what it's about. Tell me. How much money do the japanese companies lose, if a person sees their anime in a country that they wouldn't sell to, anyway?
I have an anime friend from the Filipines, another from Guatemala. And I live in Mexico. The very scarse Anime DVD's are twice as expensive (in dollars) than DVD's bought in the US. Not to mention the extremely high price the dollar has around. Let's say an anime DVD costs you $60 bucks. Well, here it costs about $120. Take the money parity, and it would be about $360. ONE DVD.
And that's in the BIG CITIES of Mexico. Outside them, the _ONLY_ way to have access to Anime is thru satellite TV or thru downloaded fansubs.
I hate the ignorance of americans like you, who keep thinking that your country englobes all the world, and anything beyond your borders is some fuzzy grey area. Hellooooo, the internet is not only about the U.S.!
I don't know which country is more isolated from the world. Japan, with the language barrier, or the U.S., with the cultural and censorship barrier.
At the very core, what the fansubbers are doing amounts to charitable work for a for-profit organization. At some point that company is going to step in and assert their ownership over their works, lest they fall into the public domain.
Look at the logical cocnclusion of fansubbing:
- Japanese company creates anime feature
- Fans subtitle it and redistribute it on the internet
- A large fanbase for the company's works grows outside of Japan
- Company responds to consumer demand by releasing officially dubbed versions
- Company has to shut down the fansubbers because of the direct competition
Honestly, success for the fansubbers (raising awareness of the feature) means that the company will have to pursue legal action against the fansubbers.
gb2/l
So is this 'fansubbing' thing only for Anime? Are there fansubbings of regular movies? Because if there aren't, it would be a great idea. Hmmm... there's a lot of great Russian movies that I would love my American friends to see. *lightbulb*
Sweet pink jesus batman! It IS something else. It's not piracy, it's copyright infringement. I'm guessing there were no boats involved, no? Guys with peglegs and bad teeth? Ah. Not piracy, copyright infringement. You know, if more judges chuckled and called lawyers silly when they made this mistake, it would be a good sign.
That is all, no other nitpicks. :)
Implement the "pay-per-download" scheme on fansubs. In other words, LICENSE the anime (as non-exclusive) to fansubs, asking for a specific donation per download.
It works for the music industry. Why not anime? The difference would be that, instead of doing business with rich men, they'd be doing business with their fanbase.
There actually is a legal procedure in the US for gaining the legal right to produce and distribute a translation to a work that cannot/will not be translated by the origional author. I am pretty sure that most fansubbers don't go through that procedure.
There are several subtleties to the fansubbing debate. The "legal" one is that, in general, respectable fansubbers only work on series that have no official distributer in the US - that is to say, the only way to get them is to buy DVD's from Japan. There are also a number of "orphaned" series that were aired years (sometimes decades) ago, and the financial incentive of bringing them to the US is small. Therefore, the anime-watching community has no recourse *other* than buying DVD's from Japan...or getting the fansubbed versoins.
The second aspect is quality. That's right - quality. Having compared fansubs and "officially" subtitled version, I can say with confidence that fansub groups do an amazing job, and, in general, the quality of their work is *much* higher than those of the official translators. And this is not hard to see - fansubbers are doing it for love, so they try very hard to convey the shades of meaning, and even provide cultural explanatory notes to some aspects of the translation. You just don't get that on an official DVD (especially, for those who have read the article, ADV's). The official distributer wants to make money, so slapping the subtitles together makes sense.
But, you will argue, what about the English dub - they had to put money into that.... That's true. The problem is that your average anime fan would rather stare at goatsex.se for 8 hours than listen to 1/2 hour of English dubs. To put it bluntly, dubs are horrible. They are sometimes less horrible that others, but overall, they are impossible to listen to once you've heard the Japanese. The reason for this is that Japanese anime is voiced by professional voice actors called "seiyuu". They go to schools to train to be voice actors. Many seiyuu become celebrities, and having a good "voice cast" can be an important promotion point for a given series. No equivalent exists in the English voice acting community, or at the very least, the really good peopl are not doing work on anime. Consider - recent Disney shows have used voice talents from famous Hollywood actors - for, literally, the "voice" recognition aspect. This does not mean that those screen actors are qualified to convey emotions and feelings using just their voice.
Thus, aside from the legality and relative permanence of storage, official anime DVD's don't have much going for them. True fans prefer the Japanese audio anyway, and the fansubbers do a beter job with the translations.
The problem here is similar to the rest of the copyright debate - greedy people who put out trash, and then use legal action to force people to give them money (ok, ok, no one is holding a gun to your head, but they certainly make it so that the only legal way to have the product you want is to go through their crap)
You DON'T GET IT. You don't have some unwritten RIGHT to see something that the copyright holder didn't intend you to see.
You want to see it? Get on a plane, go to Japan, buy them.
You can't afford to go there or buy them? Oh dear me. Heaven forbid.
Do I cry my eyes out because I can't afford a BMW, but, man, I really really deserve one!
(Also, I'm not American, so strike out on that one, tiger.)
"Outside them, the _ONLY_ way to have access to Anime is thru satellite TV..."
There you go. You have a legal way to access Anime. You just negated any argument you had. You can't afford it? TOO FUCKING BAD.
"Hellooooo, the internet is not only about the U.S.!"
Hellooooo, this isn't really about the internet, captain genius.
"At least you should do a little research and stop bashing something you have no F'ing idea what it's about. Tell me. How much money do the japanese companies lose, if a person sees their anime in a country that they wouldn't sell to, anyway?"
It's not about the money, brainiac. It's about the OWNER of the content having the right to distribute what THEY OWN in whatever manner they choose.
I'm really sorry it's hard for you to get your fix of cartoon women getting raped by alien tentacles, but you're not in the right.
... that quite a few fansub groups no longer have a website or an IRC channel. They simply sub the files and distribute them to a few trusted individuals.
Once they're distributed, they're virtually impossible to eliminate because they're sent over bittorrent, usenet, p2p networks, and online storage services like Streamload. There are still tons of copies of Ranma 1/2 encoded in old Realplayer files floating around.
I would imagine that in the long run, the companies' crackdown on these groups is going to make the groups change their stances from simply subbing until US licensing to subbing until completion regardless of the licensing. The companies might be right in their defenses of their abilities to distribute their products, but Americans don't have the ability to watch a show to completion and then decide they want to purchase the DVD like the Japanese do (OVAs not withstanding).
This would allow the die-hard fans to either purchase a legitimate non-English DVD and apply the subtitles themselves (there is lots of software to do this available)
If fansubbers started distributing their subtitles in .lrc format or some other text-based subtitle format, then the anti-fansub anime distributors would have three targets to go after:
I am a retired fansubber, from a pre-digital group called Lupin Gang Anime.
When I was fansubbing (1997-ish to 2001-ish), the purpose of fansubbing was to rescue obscure works of anime that had fallen through the cracks. They were works that, for one reason or another, had never been licensed overseas, and didn't seem likely (at the time) to be licensed. For example, I subtitled half of Zeta Gundam, "safe" at the time because Bandai refused to license any Gundam works to anybody, and my partner subtitled the Lupin III TV series, "safe" because it was very old and very long. Both have, of course, since been licensed - who knew? But the idea, in part, was also to encourage others to actually go out and buy the import LDs so that they could run their own subs at home.
Then came the digisubbers, and the situation quickly degenerated into "k-rad 0-day anime warez." People grab rips of TV shows and begin subtitling them the day after they were first aired. There's no chance of anyone buying the import DVDs - they haven't been published. Its just a big ego contest to get the latest stuff out quicker than anyone else. This, while litterally HUNDREDS of great works from the past four decades remain in undeserved obscurity. Anyone subbing Ashita no Joe? Fang of the Sun Dougram? No...?
So of COURSE the studios are getting upset. They are not even being given the CHANCE to sell their products before they are plastered across the internet. At least the old-school fansubbers sold them a few extra LDs...
A personal example I can site is Ghost in the Shell. I got all of the fansub anime (which is not available here AFAIK) and because of my heightened interest saw the movie Innocence. They would not have gotten my money had I not been "brought up to speed" by the fansub. I have also contributed to their pockets by buying the hardcopy they produced. I think it is another example of not taking advantage of the "new marketing" My 2c
not just a way of doing business *coughcough*ADV*cough*, but also a cult-classic compilation of some of the kind of bullshit dubbing children of the 70s&80s should be nostalgic for, featuring how-they-lied-o-vision, and gems like the flintstones hawking winston cigarettes and a black & white porky pig saying "son of a bitch".
sadly, this animeCon favorite has yet to be encoded for the net, but several other fims by Corn Pone Flicks are available, most notably "star wars, by george lucas, age 9" made using nearly every starwars toy you ever had.
I'd say more to degrade american dubbers and praise volunteer fansubbers (especially the copyright-conscious ones), but I think the rest of the comments on this article have it covered nicely.
as goku said when his best friend from childhood was gutted then detonated before his eyes... "darn!!" @_@
"Not stealing" does not imply "not illegal". Running a red light is a crime, but it's not theft. Likewise, infringement of copyright under U.S. federal law is a crime, but it's not theft[1]. I liken copyright infringement more to trespass than to anything else.
[1] I single out federal law because it governs copyright disputes in the vast majority of cases, but a few states do still have something similar to copyright infringement as part of their theft statutes.
What you say is equivalent to crying that you cannot afford a DVD, so you should have a right to download it for free.
.000001 peso for the extra air conditioning expenses because your body was there.
If the person in question has the internet and a mailing address, they most certainly have access to legit DVDs which are available for purchase online. You do admit that they are prohibitively expensive, and I will give you that. However, you continue on, making your case that a person has a right to watch anything they want to irrespective of if they have the money to pay for it or not. I don't believe you have made a case that this is so. This is equivalent to saying people should have free admission to a movie that is not sold out. The theaters do not lose seat sales, yet would you argue that you have a right to be in there for free? Yes, a right. Because you are essentially arguing this. You didn't take anything from them, unless you want to complain about costing them about
ANBU is an anime fansubbing group I hold in high regard for the quality of their work. This is what they have to say about the legality of fansubs...
What are the legalities behind fansubbing?
This section pertains to information regarding licensed works and their legality. ANBU is a fan subtitling group, not endorsed or affiliated to any company or author. As a result, ANBU is subject to various laws and restrictions imposed by several International and U.S. Codes. Furthermore, ANBU respects the wishes and license of American companies. This is why ANBU has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to licensed materials. All such materials must cease distribution as soon as the license has been made official and public. Fansubs in themselves are illegal, testing our luck when a work has been licensed in our country is asking for trouble.
Many emails come to us saying that, "I am not in the United States, so send us the fansubs." This is not possible. As several members of our fansub group reside in the United States, as well as our web server - we are subject to the laws of the country we reside in. Furthermore, as our website is hosted in the United States, it can be seen as facilitating and encouraging such distribution, and we would be held fully responsible.
If you enjoy our fansubs, and would like to continue to see us produce more, you would not ask us to participate in any endeavor that would endanger any of our staff and cause any litigation to occur as a result of our free service to the community.
In a more detailed note, we will outline several of the laws regarding this topic for your perusal.
17 USC Title 17 (U.S. Copyright Code)
17.1.106 (paraphrased): The owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to do and authorize the following:
1) Reproduce the work in copies
2) Prepare derivative works
"...the fair use of a copyrighted work, (...) for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
This means that only the owner/creator has the right to reproduce (copy or distribute) any of their works. It also includes 'derivative' works which means, anything made from the original is also covered under this. Essentially this means that Fansubs, which are a derivative of the original work, cannot be distributed without the exclusive consent of the copyright owner. Derivative works can also include screenshots, movie clips, and music videos using the works.
Many people try to state that fansubbing is included under 'fair use', however it is very specific as to what constitutes 'fair use' and translations are not.
Berne Convention Article 2 - Literary and Artistic Works Covered
2.1 The expression "literary and artistic works" shall include every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and other writings; lectures, addresses, sermons and other works of the same nature; dramatic or dramatico-musical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show; musical compositions with or without words; cinematographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography; works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving and lithography; photographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to photography; works of applied art; illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science.
2.6 The works mentioned in this article shall enjoy protection in all countries of the Union. This protection shall operate for the benefit of the author and his successors in title.
This essentially states that the work of an author in any nation who signed the convention, is protected in every nation under the convention. See below for an ent
Direct away from face when opening.
It would seem to me that there is a lot of grey area when translating a copyrighted work into another language. Two people can translate a work and come out with completely different verbage. This fact alone lends to the idea that a translation is an expressive art form on its own as it is part individual interpretation [read: opinion] and as I have observed, complete editorial [read: spoofing]. While an original publisher might have issue with their work being used in this way, I'd have to say that it's pretty common that MOST publishers feel that way whether it's a traditional spoof or editorial work, a good/bad review or ... something like this.
I think there are some First Amendment rights that should be considered here.
Publishers are responsible for the quality and consistency of their product and wherever possible, to avoid consumer confusion with regards to something said in a fansub that might be offensive or otherwise stir up problems for that company. In that sense, a publisher acting in this way would be preventing potential problems or even keeping them from repeating themselves as I am certain they have already occurred.
Copyright holders are always held to the position of "defend it or lose it" regardless of how frivolous the case may be. A classic example is the spoofing the "priceless" credit card commercials which has been over-done a thousand times over. They are simply doing what they are responsible for doing and it's really a shame that the law is applied in this way and I think it would be safe to assume that a great many people on the plaintiff side would rather not prosecute in any way at all realizing the benefit of fansubbing and that it's bad business to sue your fans and customers.
A solution might be in providing the fans some means of officiating their work... maybe this too is a bad idea but I think it can be agreed by all parties that it's bad to alienate your fans and especially in the relatively small niche of anime fans.
If fansubbing is under fire, you're having the same problem as every other warez scene had before. The semi-solution is to go underground of course;) This is just what every other warez scene did years ago..
The reason why the CowBe dub is so good is because it is written well. The person who wrote the ADR script did their homework, the dialogue has the feel of a good Film Noir from the '40s.
If it weren't for the boneheaded move of hiring Billy-Bob Thornton to do the voice of the Shinto priest, the dub of "Princess Mononoke" would have been perfect. Again, it's the result of a good writer doing the ADR script. Neil Gaiman in this case. An interesting exercise is to watch the dub version of "Mononoke" while reading Miyazaki's literally translated words. Gaiman spins a good epic tale, Miyazaki's words are like poetry.
Another dub I have a soft spot in my heart for is the first Streamline dub of "My Neighbor Totoro." Jerry Beck directed the ADR session. Some of the folks who later went on to become part of the voice cast for "Ren & Stimpy," including Cheryl Chase whose greatest fame is for the character Angelica from "Rugrats." I personally can't wait to see the subbed version of "Totoro" for the first time...I'd like to see how close the Streamline dub was to the original. (I suspect not even close.)
As far as the fansub issues go, I bought the whole legitimate R1 Geneon set of "Haibane Renmei" on the strength of the fansubs. It's a masterpiece, and I could tell it was even through the occasionally awkward sub job. However, the fansubbers did get some things right that Geneon's translators didn't quite convey. "Black Seal," for some reason, sounds better to my ears than "Sin-bound" for the condition that poor Reki and Rakka shared. However, "Passover" and "Year-Passing Festival" have different connotations for someone raised Jewish. This was an example where the fansubbers' choices of translation went horribly wrong.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
This is the first I've heard of "fansubbing". I wonder if the translations are accurate.
Proverbs 21:19
distinction....
cartoons (us style) are animation.
anime (japanese, korean) is animation.
cgi-graphics (final fantasy movie) is animation.
right track, wrong catagory
No, I respectfully disagree. I did not read wrong. It is either deliberately or mistakenly ambiguous. It is not obvious from that sentence that he has bought countless of his DVDs from licensed distributors. Only by giving him the benefit of the doubt can you come to that conclusion.
CmdrTaco by his own admission is a major Anime fan. He has a "hand" in AnimeFu, to say the least, as you might know. Do you think it would be smart to place bets as to the source every one of the Anime features in his collection?
Have you Meta Moderated t
I'd like to see the studios pay the fansubbers and include their translations on the DVD under a menu option like "English fansub version" or something. It's usually a more literal translation to Japanese and I prefer to watch my anime in Japanese with subtitles anyway (Could you guess ;-)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That people want to watch that crap is bad enough. You're telling me that in addition to waste their lives on lame Japanese cartoons they also "invest" time in traslating them? No wander our society is in the crapper. After they get the subpoena they should get a hint and get a life.
is a browser, duh...
The fact that Fansubs don't cost money is where you missed the point and probably why you took the meaning you did.
Fuk U... a perfect name for an attorney.
I agree with you. One of my points was that content companies *think* they need to protect all of their content with an iron grip simply because they don't understand that their old assumptions are no longer valid. My larger point was that this just makes them stupid, not evil.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There is no natural moral wrong in copying. One does not destroy the original art work by copying it and hence does no harm to the holder of the original. We've created a moral wrong by setting up this social contract, where as a society we will give the artist certain rights if they create more art.
What we've lost sight of is that this social contract is for the benefit of society as a whole, not the artist. If the artist is not willing to distribute the works (by taking advantage of the copyright) then they are breaking their half the of contract.
Perhaps copyrights need to be modified so that if the art is not distributed any longer, or in a particular region, the copyright holder loses the copyright protection in that region.
The Disney "it's going in the vault" advertising campaign drives me crazy. We gave you a copyright for a reason, and it wasn't to screw us over with availability.
Once again I respectfully disagree about missing the point. The P2P costs money in terms of bandwidth. There are Fansubbers out there with varying degrees of ethics on the subject. There is a lot of money out there to be made. My opinion is that it is not all free and good. How about if we agree that one could take the high road and sub their own Anime as a hobby to show their friends? But we should also agree that not everyone is taking the high road? Fair enough?
Have you Meta Moderated t
There you go. You have a legal way to access Anime. You just negated any argument you had. You can't afford it? TOO FUCKING BAD.
Oh but you can, so it's not YOUR problem, right? Sure, blame the victims.
Do I cry my eyes out because I can't afford a BMW, but, man, I really really deserve one!
Anime isn't a BMW. Of course, If you want to compare that with stupid hollywood productions, 99% lead and sex, 1% content, well I'd say Anime is a Cadillac instead. But I'm talking about a work of art, that everybody should have access to it because, NOT of its monetary value, but because art should be enjoyed by everyone. The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, safe from being stolen, but EVERYONE can see it for a small fee.
I'm willing to pay fee to the producers of anime - not the millionaire middlemen who, like the RIAA, just squeeze all the money they can get from their customers to get another BMW in their collection.
I just want the middleman out. If they want to put ads into the anime I want to see, I DON'T CARE.
And FYI, I'm NOT into hentai. Hey that makes me wonder. How do _YOU_ get access to anime? If you weren't into it you wouldn't know about all that tentacle stuff. You hypocrite.
Just because I have internet access and an e-mail doesn't make me a millionaire who can afford all the uber-imported-and-over-inflated anime.
Signed as AC. I won't waste my Karma replying your empty arguments.
Newsflash: you're not PROMOTING it, you're helping other people STEAL it.
...and, apparently, nothing to do at work.
Yeah. God damn those pirates.
Anything that doesn't cost money and contains others' intellectual property must be THEFT..
If you want Japanese cartoons before they're released in English, learn Japanese.
Yeah, I'll get right on that. How do you say "haha yeah right" in Japanese?
you can do it while you're at work if you have headphones and a cd-rom drive
Maybe if folks would stop STEALING things online, movie and music distributors would be a little less wary of wading into the digital pool to test the waters. After all, who's going to buy a new release online for $5 when they can get it a week early for free?
Oh for God's sake, people, stop trotting out this tired old horse and beating it every time something even remotely resembling copyright infringement shows up on Slashdot.
This is so wildly different from mp3 and movie piracy that I'm ashamed I'm even replying to this inane post. Your points are stupid. Your insight is weak. You have no idea what you're talking about and you are pissing in the pool of rational discourse with this absurdity. Please reformulate your ideas into something cogent and sensical and I'll try and reply in kind.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
-In Absentia
You don't have some unwritten RIGHT to see something that the copyright holder didn't intend you to see.
(completely aside from the fansubbing issue) What gives the copyright holder the RIGHT to restrict who they "intend" to see their product? If someone is willing to pay for the product, what right do copyright holders have to use region coding, encryption, or even language itself as a barrier to that transaction? Why are copyright holders allowed to use their monopoly power to discriminate?
Lawyer: So what did you do today son?
Son: I down loaded some Fansubbers material.
Lawyer: What are Fansubbers?
Son: [insert explanation here]
Lawyer: To Arms! We Must Sue these vile pirates!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for the are subtle and quick to anger.
Anime may be one of the more popular genres of product that is fansubbed, but fansubbing is NOT strictly an anime thing. Fansubbing is also done to a host of other products, many of which would never, ever reach other countries.
For example, most of the fansubbed video that I watch are Japanese TV dramas. Stuff like Muko Dono, Gokusen, Koukou Kyoushi, etc. This kind of stuff - at least at this point - is never going to make it to an English-speaking market. The few times that it does - for example, the first (and maybe second) series of Trick was released in a few cities in California - it never then hits video or DVD.
In the case of Japanese drama, yes, it still isn't 100% legal, but as the stuff is not going to come out here anyway, I won't feel immoral for downloading and watching the stuff. If companies were willing to translated the stuff on DVD and release it here, I'd purchase it in a heartbeat. If the Japanese companies were to join the growing trend of Japanese DVDs that have English subs, I'd pay the money for a legit version in a heartbeat.
However, stuff like Japanese drama, or just regular Japanese TV shows, or TV shows from any country that are never going to make it to us English-language-speakers, I see no harm in the fansub community getting a hold of them and giving them a wider audience.
If you are using fansubs in place of purchasing equal legit product, or if fansubs are still around once the product hits the market, or if fansubs are done for something that is a sure release in the English market, THEN I think there's a problem.
Though I certainly agree that the parent was making an outrageous comparison (and generally being a troll), at the most basic level, the AC has a point. Those who fansub--and, to a lesser degree, those who download fansubs--know that the law says that you're not allowed to do that. They disagree with the law--after all, who the heck is it hurting?--so they disregard it. Though the type of law is clearly very different, and far less oppressive, a case can certainly be made that there's some civil disobedience going on here.
The big difference I see, and the part that gets really contentious, is that in this case it all boils down to money. The big companies want to be able to make more money, we don't think we should have to spend as much money. This makes the issue seem much more petty.
But if the big companies get their way, and no one challenges them, then we may end up with something far worse than high prices for DVDs.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I wonder how this is going to affect the Fansubbing of several anime series like the Mysterious Cities of Gold that are no longer available in the US.
Speaking of MCoG, does anyone know who owns the rights to it, it was owned by a company that was started by Jean Chalopin, D.I.C., but, the company was purchased by Disney a while back.
If Disney owns the rights, I wonder if they will sue anyone distributing copies.
If anyone does know, do please reply.
Copyright infringement was criminalized quite a few years back. Cybercrime
Labels went with classifying it as music because it would have been a hard sell as poetry readings.
Ahh! I see now. It's perfectly ok for a distribution company to let fansubbers do free market research for them, as well as essentially creating a market for their product, greatly reducing the need for costly advertising. After all, with a several year lag time, and more costly DVD's to reflect the actual price of research done, these companies would *certainly* make more money. Theft is ok for corporations, just not consumers.
I understand perfectly now, thanks.
By your mistaken logic, the evening news is a situational comedy because it's on television. Those that agree are either making a statement about the news or do not understand what they are saying. If you have something against Japanese animation, speak your mind. Using the wrong word just makes you sound foolish.
-Hope
Sorry, why exactly is he wrong?
You didn't say anything about his points!
I don't see what's wrong with getting a fansub of anime that's not avaiable in the US. The company is not losing sales, because I would not buy the anime in question if there were no subs, even if the Japanese DVDs were free.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Anime are animation.
(Some) cartoons are animation.
Anime and cartoons are neither mutually exclusive nor equal.
If your analogy reflected your previous statements correctly it would say:
Opera is rap.
Snoop dog is also featured in rap.
This obviously incorrect, since, even if there are rap operas, not all operas are rap.
Of course this is all pointless anyway, because we're both arguing by (differing) definition.
I think the point of the original post is that cartoon implies (at least where I am) animation for children such as Warner Bros. shorts, whereas anime is for a much wider, less specific audience. Calling anime "cartoons" gives the impression that anime is for children.
I believe this bothers some people for two reasons: 1. They are insecure in their own adulthood and feel that calling anime "cartoon" reflects poorly on them personally. 2. They feel it works to turn away people who might otherwise become interested in anime if not for the perception that anime is also for children. (Which is bad for them because it means a smaller market therefore less frequent, more expensive releases.)
I realized I'm joining the discussion a whole 3 hours late which means no one will probably read this comment, but what the hell...
First, a little history:
I used to fansub shows starting about five years ago, but my roots in online fansubbing go back even farther, to 1997. I was one of the three groups (although I guess I was really only one person) who pioneered online distribution of fansubs in the first place, back when RealPlayer G2 had just come out and Cable modems and DSL were just first available. I used to take VHS fansub tapes, encode them to RM, and make them available on my website. If you run across old Sailor Moon RM files, or Macross 7, or later on any of the Fumei Anime encodes, that was me.
Then DivX and broadband changed everything, and the whole online scene exploded. Now, you had people in Japan ripping raws from TV in high quality (beginning with Noir and Vandread, they were the real breakout series for Digital Fansubbing, or digisubbing) and groups translating and reencoding these raws, you no longer had to wait for an old-school tape fansubber to translate it and distro tapes. It was revolutionary.
But about that time I started to see where things were headed, and I got out of fansubbing more than two years ago because I came to realize that the modern fansubbing scene is nothing more than the next warez scene. Everything turned into speed, speed, speed, and became less about quality and the love of anime and more about online prick-waving contests about which group was cooler and got their releases out faster. I grew out of that crap when I was 16, thanks.
Today's market no longer needs fansubbing. Fansubbing was important back when shows might never get brought over to the US, or releases might not occur for another 4 years (like ADV and Excel Saga, for instance), but today the domestic anime companies get their product out in reasonable timeframes (it's no 1 week wait time, but that's for obvious reasons), produce good product (if they don't they hear about it forever, ask ADV about Eva Vol 1 sometime), and do a bang-up job of trying to get the whole phenomenon out to new people.
Anything good that gets aired on Japanese TV will be licensed in the US, period. Everything that's being produced in Japan now is licensed before it airs, so this crap about US companies looking to fansubbers for direction is bunk. All fansubbing is these days is whole-sale piracy on the one hand and another silly adolescent online rat race on the other. When you have "release" groups, distro groups (read torrent sites), and all of these things have three letter abbreviations, you know it's just the new warez scene.
That's why I got out. The last show I enjoyed subbing was Kokoro Toshokan, because I knew it would never get brought here (indeed, it still hasn't after three years). That was what fansubbing was about. Today's scene is a terrible perversion of the ideals of fansubbers of old.
"I want to get more into theory, because everything works in theory." -John Cash
It's important to note fansubbers don't digest Anime for little kids to consume. The dubs are lame enough, but cutting scenes and rewriting plots are unacceptable, and it ruins the Anime.
Not all Anime are cartoons for kids, but that doesn't stop some licensed hacks digesting excellent pieces of work, or dumbing it down to kiddies.
Just more reasons why fansubs are superior to licensed hacks.
Incorrect. See Wikipedia.
"Are you aware of the frequent occurrences of the mass naked child events within the country?"
I wouldn't necessarily say that the amateurs have the pros beat.
they're actually feeding each other and biting each other, as it's a mutual exchange (money for goods) and screwing each other.
I can see the others,
but Genshiken?
AFAIK there's only the 12 episodes and the subject is hardcore Otaku culture. How many people are going to even understand it outside of japan.
Non-Otaku that is..
After all, it didnt even make it for a full season there. It has it's moments, but now way is anyone going to pay $7-10 an episode for it, which is what the typical DVD set costs here in the US.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
OOOooooohhhhh, that makes a heck of a lot more sense :) Thanks for pointing that out, both you and Ironsides.
Yes, definitely, fansubs are pretty much equivalent to free global advertising.
And you think R1 anime DVD prices are bad? R2 (Japanese) anime DVDs normally have 2 episodes per disc.
In fact we would not be here if it were the way you seem to think it should work because you will be still paying per-copy fee to the inventor of the "wheel" (he has absolute and never ending rights to his creation, which he passed onto his heirs, no?).
;-)
Obviously you have not priced a set of "Goodyear" tires lately...
Have you Meta Moderated t
Further, dictionary.com lists "animated cartoon" as:
Now, go back and re-read my post. Anime still qualifies. Try again.
Is that fair? Maybe. Maybe not. But your only recourse (save that of illegal behaviours) is to petition the lawmakers to change said laws.
Fansubbers typically choose anime that is released in Japan, but has not been liscened for distribution in other countries yet.
.VIV frmat (vivo). We will not further speak it's name here. Other formats have come and gone, most everything is done in divx or ogg/xvid format now. Quality is very high. I think this may have something to do with the crackdown.
Fansubbing has been around for quite a while, and traditionally it was done using VHS equipment. My experience with the fansubbing community has vastly changed in the last few years due to changing video compression capabilities. VHS fansubbing usually was associated with poor quality, where you would be getting 2nd, 3rd, and even lower generation tapes. The first fansubbed anime I ever got on the internet was in the
The legality was questionable to begin with. You have a huge industry in japan, with a negligable market in the US. They used to overlook it because they do not sell in the US. Things have changed, and now more and more anime is making it's way over here. So now you have a situation where it isn't illegal to copy the anime and sub it for the US, it will be if the anime ever gets liscensed for distro in the US. It becomes more and more of a problem the more mainstream anime gets.
As always, wikipedia beats me to it. More or less what I have said above.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
One thing that is not taken into account is the free promotion. For myself I normaly will not buy a movie or series until I've seen it, since most series are not run on us televison the ways to watch new and upcoming Anime is though fansubs. I started watching fansubs in High School, back when you send a VHS tape and self addressed stamped mailer(and no cash) to a fansub redistrobuter and each video on thier list of "stock" had diffrent grades and quality. I atteneded anime conventions mostly to see other fansubs of series I had never heard of. The wackey thing is I buy and have bought things I have and have seen on fansub. The reason for me is it generated an intrest in the product. I replaced my fansubs of Visions of Escaflowne, Neon Genesis Evangelion(bought 2 1/2 times 1 VHS set, 1 DVD set and some of the special edition rereliced volumes), Bakuretsu Hunters, Thouse Who Hunt Elves, Martian Successor Nadesico, and many others with the offical US DVDs. Certinly not because it was cheaper, but I wanted to support the creators and have a better quality version of the series.
Yes, a few consumers will be satified with the fansub but these are the same type of people that are more than happy with the quality of a taped from broadcast televion verses a DVD of a movie. Often times, in my experances, the fansubs have glitches or are not of the best image quality, while the divx versions are much better than the old tape swap it's still far from DVD quality.
I have to say, if there were no fansubs I would not buy nearly as much anime as I do. The next big series I'm personaly waiting for it's US relice is Naruto, where my intrest in it formed from a random fansub I downloaded.
Advertising dollers spent by the creator to get consumers attention $0, consumers intrested in buying an over 110 episode series with movie tie in Priceless.
s/petition/bribe
http://animefreak.ath.cx:9000/index.php/2004/08/16 /fansubbers-today/
People need to spend more time seeing how it was done in the past. Fansubbers today have NO talent.
Ten years ago, it would have never been thought of to see anime plentiful in stores like HMV (a music and video store chain in the Commonwealth), the video department of Best Buy, or to see entire companies acquiring rights to anime on a monthly basis and releasing professional copies every single month. Of course now, it is reality and many of us spend oodles of money buying anime on DVD and enjoying it on a daily basis.
What has also changed is fansubbing. Years ago, you would have had to go on the Internet to see who was distributing what, mail them a VHS tape, and then wait a few weeks for a copy of whatever series you wanted. It was a slow process and I remember a few times having to do that in order to get copies of certain titles.
These days, it's as simple as going to a website, finding a torrent, and then download the series. With hard drives becoming larger and cheaper, broadband Internet access being provided to millions of people around the world, and with write-able DVDs providing gigabytes of space on a single disc, it's really easy to download anime today without having to worry about space or time.
The process has changed too. Today, anime fansubbers have people working in Japan ripping digital television feeds, encoding them for use on computer, have them sent to Japan, and then the fansubbers go to work at it, having it done in a period of a few days.
Beforehand, most would have had to wait for the laserdisc to come available, and then it would be translated by hand, timed, then the script would be checked before the master copy was made on to a SVHS or VHS tape.
The huge difference here besides speed is the fact that ten years ago, the fansubbers themselves knew each other by face and lived rather close-by in most cases, whereas today most of the fansubbers live on six different points of the planet instead of six kilometres from each other.
However, fansubbers today lack class.
If you paid attention to what I said two paragraphs ago, fansubbers ten years ago would have had to wait for a laserdisc to come available in Japan before being able to do their work. That would have meant having to pay for a copy, which would mean that at the very least the fansubbers were paying for a copy of the series.
The huge difference here is that fansubbers do not pay for a copy of the anime they subtitle. In fact, unlike their former analogue counterparts, all their work is done in digital means, and there is very little loss to quality of the video when they release their works.
Ever looked at a fansub VHS copy of your favourite series and then seen it on DVD or a master VHS copy? Do you notice that the quality is VASTLY different? Do you notice that the translation is generally better?
Compare a fansub copy of Mahoromatic to the same episode on DVD. Notice how the image quality is similar? Notice how the sound is somewhat similar?
Fansubbers today think they're doing the right thing by promoting a series and of course, at the same time throw their dicks around when they're the first to release a certain series. They plaster their names all over the series during the openings as if they're involved with the anime series itself, when in fact they're not.
Their idea of having their releases with the best quality what so ever does not make themselves look all that great when you take a sober look at things. The incentive years ago was that you'd get a copy of the series on VHS from a fansub group, then once a copy was licensed, you'd record over your fansub copy and then buy the legitimate product.
I have met many friends who do not do that. They collect anime on nothing but recordable CDs and DVDs. And it cannot just be my friends, as I know numerous of people out there do not buy the DVDs once they're licensed and still continue to watch the series via their fan subbed copies.
To make matters worse, fansubbers today are all kids. Just like kids, they squabble over stupid little things and get into a
They arn't pissed off about the translating they're pissed off about the distribution of the videos? Why not just release the translations (which are much smaller and easier to share anyway) and let people get the video which ever way they want? Also all this crap about linking needs to stop, linking should not be illegal.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
But it's shown on TV in Japan, so it really
is freely available. Any local otaku who might
have ever bought this has already taped it or can
get it from thier otaku friends (they travel in packs, you know..)
Re: DVD prices, they are the real reason why anime doesnt sell, who's going to pay $120 for a 1/2 season show? Or $500 for something like Full Metal Alchemist that went to 54 eps? Or the $1000+ that LoGH would command?
The only hope for sales in that price range is to people who have seen the entire fansubbed series and want the high quality DVDs.
I've never bought any Anime series that I've not seen in it's entirety fansubbed. That includes OVAs as well, although some of them I saw in the theater first. (and wish the DVD was as good, but they dont compare to film)
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
What's also important to note is fansubbers retain the sponsors' names in their distributions. Although most of these names are Japanese, some are English names.
Anime-Kraze's fansub of Area88, for example, included the untranslated ads for Area88 t-shirts and DVD offerings; moreover, the Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari (One Hundred Stories) series had mentions of DVD offerings.
First my Music.
Then my Movies.
Now my Anime.
Is nothing sacred?
Ughnnnnerrrrahhhhh.
There are websites (such as Kloofy's) that distibute subtitle files *only*. These are usually formatted text files read by media player software. These sites leave acquisition of the source video up to you. This is probably the best solution for all parties concerned.
Share and rate p
They are making a fuss because of what the U.S. is doing to them over I.P.
IT would be absurd to release this stuff for free if you have to pay for it from other people.
I suggest people in other countried get on with our "piracy"... their silly conflict doesn't concern us.
It began with http://www.animesuki.com/Animesuki receiving http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/legal/mediafactor y.html a legal notice from Media Factory. Animesuki quickly responded by removing the material in question, while the fansub groups proving the material continued producing it. (Animesuki is a tracker, much like http://www.torrentspy.com/) http://www.wannabefansubs.net/ has continued producing episodes of School Rumble (which is owned by Media Factory). Now just recently their site has gone offline. I'm still wondering what happened. Any insights anyone?
Dollar Highway Financial News
Piracy 3: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright.
It seems like they're should be a way to do the subtitles as a media player plugin that could overlay them in sync over the original Japanese DVD. That way the subbers could still do their work without having to distribute the copyrighted works. Has anything like this ever been tried?
Like that is going to happen.
Has it occurred to you that a lot of people downloading the fansubs for free don't really use them as previews, and never intend to buy the DVDs?
Besides, times have change now that fansubs are becoming less necessary. Compared to the past, titles are being licensed quicker, more shows are being picked up, you get more eps with DVDs, and companies have a good idea of what shows are going to be popular. As for the "try it before you buy it," you can rent the stuff at a local anime shop or use an online dvd service, and more of the hot titles are being broadcasted on cable/satellite TV. There are also various sites that provide reviews of series/dvds.
Anything that someone else could extract a little enjoyment out of will get you sued.
So it stands: there are cartoons. Some cartoons are animated. Logically, it does not follow that all animations are cartoons. When you get to college, consider taking a course in logic as it applies to set theory. It's an easy A.
-Hope
I prefer watching fansubs to official releases.
Why?
Because fansubs are usually fairly litteral translations, so i get the original menaning even though the english sentences might be a little awkward.
Professional subbers on the other hand seem to think "What would an american say in this situation?", which is completely wrong since, in most cases, the charachter is japanese.
And yes, I am learning japanese but it will take some time before I can decode the longer sentences in real-time.
A good point, and one often overlooked; the assumption usually made is that US Laws == Universal Laws, and this is a dangerous (and seriously questionable) assumption.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Extreme example: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. My favorite anime, bar none. Time from release (1985) to US release? Nineteen *years*.
It's a case of "without anime clubs / fansubbing, I would never have gotten to see what has become my favorite show."
Anime clubs, and later, fansubbers, allow a broader spectrum of shows to make the leap from Japan to other countries than the for-profit corporations did, and still do.
That said, please note that I signed up for the preorder of Z Gundam, the first day it was announced, and waited through all the delays in order to buy it.
This brings up my second point; the US release from commercial companies are often altered, unfavorably.
In the case of Zeta Gundam, the opening and closing themes have been removed, and replaced with incidental music from the series, and sound effects have been inserted at "appropriate" moments during the title sequences. This is quite a jarring change, and should have been mentioned by the releasing company, at the very least.
So, anyhow, fansubbing is frequently the only way to get unaltered episodes of shows from Japan.
Your theory of official translations being better than fan translations doesn't really hold true in practice, at least in my experience.
I know a good deal of Japanese--learned from both college and anime--and I can almost always tell when a sub isn't saying what the speakers are saying. I've seen this far more often in licensed productions than I have in fansubs. Furthermore, the licensed subtitled DVDs I've seen invariably use the blocky, boring, yellow or green "default DVD subtitle font". It looks pretty ugly. On the other hand, some fansubs I've seen are truly masterful. For instance, the new (as in, only 3-4 episodes are yet out in Japan) Aa! Megamisama! series now airing in Japan is being fansubbed by AnimeOne (I think...might have the name wrong), and they are able to put in:
- Credits for themselves mixed in with the regular credits in exactly the same font and color
- Karaoke notation in the form of falling feathers that fade gently away when they touch the subs, as well as other words that appear and fade out beautifully for the backup singers
- Subtitles for on-screen text that is in the same color and style as the on-screen text, and so well positioned and moved about that it looks like it belongs there
- And more that just shows the amount of care the people put into these
It's always very clear from the quality of the translation, the culture notes, and the subs that fansubbers are doing this for the love of it, and the "professional" subbers are just doing their job, and trying to save as much money for their company as possible.Try watching some of the "amateur" subs before you lambast them next time. You might be surprised.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The Japanese TV executives should be taken out and horsewhipped. Not by the fansubbers who they are insulting, but by their company's shareholders. They are refusing to cash in on a goldmine.
This is what happens for a fansub: 1) the episode is played on Japanese TV. 2) someone in Japan records that episode, and either transmits it over the internet to a fansub group, or simply makes it available on a bittorrent so anyone in the world can download the raw version. 3) Fansub group translates the dialog, creates the subtitle file, merges raw version and subtitles to create fansub version -- usually within a week or so. 4) Makes fansub version available on bittorrent, or IRC bot, or whatever.
If you visit the official Japanese websites of these shows before the show is broadcast, you'll see that they have plenty of character art already produced. This prior investment in artwork is critical.
Given the VAST demand in North America and the rest of the world for English-subtitled anime shows, what the Japanese TV execs and producers should be doing is: 1) create the show as per usual and show it on Japanese TV like they always do. 2) A day or two BEFORE the show is aired, provide the show to the English-and-Japanese-speaking anime nut they hired who will work for peanuts just for the chance to live in Tokyo, and let him translate it. 3) Subtitle the show from the translation. 4) Transmit it over the internet to a facility in North American (and anywhere else there's enough demand). Include a DVD cover that was produced by your art department from the character artwork they've already created! 5) Have the facility all ready to produce DVD-R copies of the episode, with English subtitles and official DVD cover, on demand, for $7 a disc plus shipping. Perhaps put two episodes on a DVD, and sell 'em every other week.
They only burn a DVD and print off a cover when they sell it.
Provide a fast, official, fairly cheap, legal alternative to fansubbers, and beat the fansubbers on speed to market, and you can make a hell of a lot of dough. And, as all the "special new release of Lord of the Rings with more comments from the best boy and third director" show, people will still buy the later deluxe version DVDs with fancy artbox for the series they really like.
No, this won't shut down the fansubbers completely, because there's always someone who won't buy no matter what, but then you're not getting their money anyway. This is a fantastic revenue possibility, and the only reason I'm posting this instead of trying to set it up myself is that I speak no Japanese, have no capital, and I know the Japanese TV execs are just too damn stupid to go for it anyway.
Gee, I wonder how many slashdoters who are at work are going to get busted for clicking that link when someone checks their logs.
A certain fansub group released fansubs of the Akane Maniax OVA just days before the DVD was to be released in Japan, inciting the ire of the company and leading to the letters. Of course, the real problem are not the fansubbers. It's the horde of Japanese P2Pers using programs such as Share and Winny. I mean after all, if fansubbers can't get access to the RAW files (unsubbed episodes), they can't sub it now can they?
The letter clearly listed Rahxephon as one of the shows, now Rahxephon has been on dvd in australia for ages now (years) and we get most stuff after america and I think after Europe. They're nailing a pirate group not a legit fansubbing group.
I've bought countless DVDs based entirely on the work of fansubbers ...And the infinite amount of money flowing into the anime industry is evidence of this massive purchase. I hear the industry (as a collective unit) has recently bought Japan, and intends to ship it to Mars (the radiation will be necessary to make tentacle demons a reality)
/.'ers hate so much. ;p
The problem isn't *you*. The problem is that, collectively, enough fans use fansubs in place of DVDs for 2nd tier shows, that it's killing the small guys in the industry.
Soon, we'll only have ADV, Funimation, Bandai and Geneon. And 3 of those 4 have formed business alliances with one another.. It's quickly forming the same sort of monopolistic field that
When a Japanese animation company notices one or more of their works showing up on tapes or dvds from and unknown source, and the show has all sorts of glitzy animated karaoke titles, font-and-color matched text, still frames of a 'subber group logo, etc. they don't say, "oh, a fansub," they say "what _company_ did this?!" That is when Gonzo / Bandai / Geneon / Bones / Gainax / Aniplex et al start the legal ball rolling because when the result looks commercial, and the authors of the bootleg work are going to be treated as if they were an infringing company. The fact it is an informal group of fans isn't going to lessen their ire: it is about the look of the finished product that concerns them, and whether the authors "have more heart/love" in their effort than an official release is irrelevant. Thus things like the Media Factory C&D.
Fansubbing was _almost_ dead around 1998 as domestic (USA) releases were ramping up to the point that the time lag between Japanese TV broadcast and US store-shelf purchase of the same show continued to shrink. Then came desktop video encoding, and the "digisub" was (re)born. Better capture hardware, better encoder schemes, better titling software and most of all--cheap, widespread broadband. Now a show is digitized as it is shown on TVT or WOWOW, etc and sent to a subber group in a matter of perhaps an hour. Subber groups, like Las Vegas hotels, vie constantly for one-upmanship thus you get the incredibly lavish animated title fonts, twirly song lyric titles, fade-in/outs etc. the results of which mean a fansub torrent of a given show will exist from 1 to 5 days after the original Japanese broadcast. Unfortunately the translation tends to be rather weak, but if the colloquialisms created by the groups are "hip" enough, people will accept them and think they're spot-on.
Then came bittorrent, and you have achieved the current position of digisubs. The problem the companies and their licensees now observe is loss of potential sales. Furthermore, when a show is popular enough, fansubber "morality" goes out the window in favor of the screaming masses who "want their anime now dammit!" Take the show Full Metal Alchemist, the most popular show of 2004. It was licensed for US distribution about halfway through the 51-episode run, and while 1 or 2 sub groups ceased subbing it, a dozen more jumped into place to take up the slack. Yes, some of these groups are outside the US, but the point illustrated is popularity vs. morality. It is going to happen again, too, with a show called "Bleach." ONE episode of FMA typically got *30,000* leechers, from ONE TORRENT! It is numbers like these that concern the animation companies and their licensees, and that is why the legal engine is going to start rolling--hard--on folks again.
A cartoon is by definition humorous. Ghost in the Shell is not humorous. Grave of the Fireflies is not humorous. Pokemon is intended to be humorous. Pokemon is a cartoon, the other two are not.
You have confused the term cartoon with animated 2D drawing. This is incorrect. There are animated 2D cartoons. Not all cartoons are animated. Not all animations are cartoons.
Really, this is very simple.
-Hope
One of the best posts I've seen on this (constantly and mercilessly rehashed) topic.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Really though. For Christ's sake guys, Troll? Flamebait? The guy's expressing a perfectly legitimate opinion on the legality of the issue which happens to co-incine with the industry attitude towards it. I can't see a problem with that.
And I don't care if the guy is considered a regular "Troll" or not, the point is valid, it should be "+n Interesting" even if you don't agree with it.
Grow up.
use Blunt::Instrument;
Alright, I don't know why this is suddenly hitting the news now, as we've been under fire from companies many times. I used to - I retired just two days ago due to lack of time - fansub with the group Anime-Kraze. Usually as a part of the quality check team, but I've also done editing and timing from time to time. We've had companies come in to our IRC channel on a few occasions and either ask us to stop or threaten us with a Cease and Desist order. Heck, Bandai came in once and asked that we stop subbing and distrubting various anime series that they had just aquired the license to. Now, unlike some groups we do respect the companies enough to stop at the first request, and this request required us to stop about 3 series, and stop distrubting another 5 or 6. While, yes, what we technically isn't legal, and is a grey area as to whether or not it is illegal, the fact that we do this provides immense interest and advertising for the series that these companies wish to license. And while some people may be content with the versions we create, there are far more poeple who will buy a series based upon their experience with the fansub editions. I, myself, have bought 5 boxsets and about another 30 dvds based on this; for both the series that I helped to fansuba dn the series I've watched by other groups. Truth be told, while the companies don't offically support us, and have the right to request that we stop providing fansubs to something that they hold the copyrights in this region, they unofficially are in favour of our endevours. It allows the general public a fair preview to something that they may not be inclined to watch otherwise, as well as encouraging them to buy it once it is available. I know that over half of the series and anime dvds I have bought I wouldn't have had I not seen a fansub version. I wouldn't be able to justify the price, nor would I likely have exposure to it since not many retailers around my area carry a large stock of anime. I purchase most of my anime online for just this reason. Our coming underfire is nothing new, and will continue to be part of the work we do. This is partially because of some of the worse groups, some of you may have heard of a group called Anime-Junkies, well do anything and everything AND refuse to stop subbing it when the license owner asks. There are a lot of groups out there that take pride in their work, us at Anime-Kraze included. We put a lot of time and effort into our work, and most of the time it comes out just as professional if not better. We screen our versions three or four times before we release it, to make sure that there are no errors present, in either the video or subtitles. Since I started fansubbing I've noticed numerous errors in commercially available anime, errors that we made sure were not present in our works. So, if anyone tells you that all groups are only about speed and not pride in their work, they are mistaken. That's just a stereotype placed upon us by the reputation of the groups notorious for it. Point in case, our "coming underfire" is nothing more than a publicity stunt. It draws attention to the fact that we exist, giving the masses access to some of the best marketing for their product, while at the same time keeping us in line. If you want to look into it a little yourselves, do a search on google for these groups: Anime-Kraze, Anime-Keep, Anime-Empire, Anime-one, Anbu. There are many more out there, but these, I have found, to be some of the best out there. Ps: For those of you who may believe that we would rather you watch our versions over those commercially available, we actually encourage you to buy the shows you like and support the companies that create this wonderful shows. Without your support, companies like Production IG(best known for their Ghost in the Shell series), Gonzo(Kiddy Grade, Last Exile), Bones, Xebec, etc... wouldn't be able to continue providing such works for your enjoyment.
There's no fighting in Kiki's Delivery Service. There is drama and tension and the heroine overcomes some obstacles, but there is no fighting.
In Angelic Layer, the fighting is more like sport fighting than actual fighting. The fighting is between robot dolls controlled by the girls to determine who is a better robot controller. Much of the details in the fights are about how differences in size of opponents influence optimal fighting tactics.
In Magic Knights Rayearth, the girls are transported to a alternate universe, given magical powers, and asked to rescue a princess or something. So they are doing something somewhat noble. The ending has a strange twist if I recall correctly.
Fighting isn't a bad thing, by the way. Fighting to defend your life or your family from someone who doesn't believe in pacifism is never wrong. And fighting in entertainment is just for fun, so don't take it so seriously.
My other first post is car post.
The Japanese will tend to download the raws (no subtitles) rather than the fansubs that have English subtitles all over the place (often including obscuring the opening theme with karaoke lyrics).
The Japanese companies also complain about Japanese fans buying Region 1 DVD's because they're cheaper and often have more episodes per disc than the Japanese Region 2 releases of the same show.
My other first post is car post.
You are correct in the interpretation of the OR rather than AND; however, this does not further the opposing argument. Any of the following are considered cartoons according to Webster.
1. a preparatory design, drawing, or painting (as for a fresco)
This is a simplification of a drawing for planning purposes.
OR
2 a : a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor b : COMIC STRIP
Here we see the traditional definition including satire and humor and the additional item of caricature.
OR
3 : ANIMATED CARTOON
This is entirely self-referential. An animated cartoon may be referred to as a cartoon. That's nice, but it does not tell us anything about the nature of cartoons, only that animated cartoons exist, which we know.
OR
4 : a ludicrously simplistic, unrealistic, or one-dimensional portrayal or version (the film's villain is an entertaining cartoon).
Again, we see the satirical angle, particularly with respect to political and dark humor. Humor does not have to be funny.
So, that leaves zero definitions that imply that all animation is cartoon. As it should be.
-Hope
Something similar to this happened in Canada, namely involving U.S. DirecTV. (Un)fortunately, DTV signals get to canada just as well as the rest of the united states, and furthermore, you can get pirated DTV boxes and cards to decrypt the network and watch it for free. For a long time it was a "grey" area due to one very similar reason: You can't buy directTV here. If you can't buy it, you're not stealing it. As such, there has been rulings about it, and Bell argued that they offer a service similar to DTV and thus this is unfair loss of profits (Bell's potential profits).
Anyways, to sum it up, the court ruled in favour of the citizens, as you can't buy DTV here so they should offer it before complaining.
Now, that's Canada's courts, i'm not sure how America's operates, but i have a feeling it's borderline shitty.
For anyone who doesn't get this, I know there's a DBZ episode where some oni have "HELL" written on their t-shirts. When it came to America, they censored that as "HFIL" which makes NO sense at all. I don't remember if they even tried to explain it. I know they did a lot of other things like that, many of them very confusing, but I don't know if they referenced "HFIL" anywhere else. (Ob sidenote: Final Fantasy players should know that that "white" spell you saw so much of was really "holy" but was also censored. They did something like a search & replace to make "holy" into "white" in US releases).
I can't begin to list all the reasons why fansubbers do what they do. All I know is I appreciate the service they provide. Since they are providing content that is interesting to me. The 'official' channels of distribution are failing. They are just bitching because it's now big enough so their accountants are saying they are loosing x millions of dollars over this.
Bullshit. Adapt or wither away.
The digital lifestyle is here. Get with the times big name distributors and provide a way for your Internet userbase to get the content legally. That means either changing the laws or providing some sort of Internet mandate of fair use.
Sure once people have something for free they are ill pressed to start paying for it. Unless it offers something of value to them.
How about:
1) Better quality.
2) Good translations.
3) Non-overbearing DRM (although I prefer no DRM).
Once they provide those, Internet anime fans will pay for it. Unlike now, the fansubbers provide everything they want. Beat em at their own game.
Am I the anly one who sees this solution?
*sheese*
-FlynnMP3
But even with this new interest, sales of DVDs--which amount to about 5.7 million copies a year, according to internal industry estimates--are holding steady or dropping. Companies worry that the easy prerelease availability of fansub versions means that the otaku class has already seen their products, and no longer need to buy anything but the must-haves. Of course, it's got to be the fansubbers. It certianly can't be the fact that it's $25 for a DVD that only has three or four episodes of the 26 episode series...
We have, until now, always beleived that the companies knew this and were SUPPORTIVE of our efforts at getting the american populace intrested in Anime. Often major distributors use the popularity of a fansub to figure out what to take the trouble to make official translations. We are the market and the advertisers. We did more even than Pokemon to get Americans intrested in Anime. We want good translation to be available on the shelves at blockbuster and many of us regularly send email to such chains making such requests. We always thought we were not just tolerated, but even appriciated. (The "leaks" of some scripts furthered this beleif.) We tried our best not to interfere with the ligitimate distribution channels.
If you see a fansub Anime, it WILL include screens, possibly at the beginning and end, possibly cutting the Anime like commercials on broadcast telivision, imploring all users of the file NOT to distribute after liscensing, often this is followed up with a request for the viewer to BUY the DVD once it is out. Most of us do. I will continue to buy liscensed Anime, and I will continue to download fansubs, but only from companies that HAVN'T sent their cease and disist letters. I won't fansub your stuff if you don't want me to, but I also won't buy it.
The announcement BTW to many of us felt like being hit in the groin with a 2x4. We were shocked and truly hurt. Perhaps we were delusional about the companies views of us, but we felt betrayed. I hope that this isn't the beginning of the end but hope is a thin, and insubstantual thing. I'm not sure it is enough to hold up the community. I am glad you are here with me Sam, here at the end of all things
Little Brother, watching the watchers
"the Media Factory episode has shaken the complacency of the fast-growing anime file-swapping community"
now.. the non-shareholding observer might infer that the fast-growing anime file-swapping community has shaken the complacency of lazy media companies...
Consumers in the US and EU markets badly want these series in target-language form.
If a bunch of fanboys in the US and Europe have full (and accurate) subbed versions available before the distributors do, then the company that produced the film has quite clearly missed an opportunity to enter the richest media market in the world with a product that cannot be locally substituted.
If Media Factory were a publicly-traded entity in the USA, they would be lucky not to be sued by shareholders for dereliction of fiduciary duty after announcing something like this - along the lines of "if 5,000 people have downloaded fansub-x over bittorrent, then why the hell wasn't it on sale in their local DVD store?"
I don't imagine people in the US realise this, but the extent of piracy on the net has already had a demonstrable beneficial effect for UK consumers; previously, to save money, studios had held back the release of US films in the UK for several months, to allow them to send over English-language prints that had previously done the rounds in the US, thus saving tens of thousands of dollars on extra celluloid prints, while Germany and France got the film in the same week as the USA.
Now, thanks to studios shitting their pants about kazaa and edonkey, releases in the US and UK are simultaneous.
So digital piracy is bad for everyone, right?
I believe most studios in Japan make most of their money off of merchandise sales, not revenue from DVD sales and/or TV rights. So up till now, these studios in Japan have had US companies pay them for licenses and/or have had college kids do a lot of free work on their behalf getting their products into the American viewing public, creating more merchandise selling opportunities. Maybe that's why they have been staying quiet all this time? It's basically a win-win situation for most of these Japanese studios.
First off, fansubbing and the fans who download them are (mostly) different from those who have a hard drive filled with enough music to program a radio station for the better part of a year. It's not just about getting free stuff; it's about getting their hands on a product they love and would buy if there were actually a legal avenue available for them.
The aforementioned moral code about stopping distribution once a show is licensed is for the most part followed. Unfortunately, as it gets easier to download high quality subs, and more folks come online with broadband, the percentage of 'moral' vs the 'free-for-allers' will tilt more in favor of the new kids on the block (think free). This is unfortunate, and sucks for those of us who are loading up on DVDs in between mammoth downloading jags.
But what I really want to get at is what the HELL is wrong with big business these days? In the current climate, no business seems to want to have anything to do with taking a risk or exploring the possibilities of a new revenue stream because there's a chance it just might fail.
Blame it on the government. Blame it on cookie cutter marketing automatons. Blame it on those Ameritraders who demand ROI on every share of stock purchased. Whatever.
The popularity of fansubbing proves there is a massive untapped market out there. For example, let's look at episodes 112-114 of Naruto (which is admittedly THE poster child of successful fansubbing). These three episodes were downloaded an average of approx 129k times each. If the big business of Anime were to get off their collective ass and figure out a way to successfully charge the very reasonable amount of a buck per episode, they'd have generated over $15 mil of additional revenue over the run of this series. That's probably enough to either pay the throngs of animators who work on the series a serious bonus, or produce several more seasons without worry of losing a dime.
Granted, this is a utopian scenario; if episodes cost a buck, certainly the number of "paid" downloads would drop. However, the situation is now, absolutely no revenue is being generated from this show in the English-speaking world. With around 120 episodes, the only real hope is to license it to a network and put together a few highlight DVDs, as there's no room on the self for the entire opus. How long will it take to match the $15 mil that could have already been earned?
Instead, we have the current situation, where fansubbers are in danger of becoming vilified on account of trying to obtain a product they want but absolutely cannot buy legally with any convenience. (If you call Japanese language only R2 DVDs convenient for the masses, you're on a planet that lacks a sufficient supply of oxygen.) Instead, many of us are stuck with the likes of Best Buy whose shelves are stuffed with yet another rerelease director's platinum cut of Evangelion (which I already love and own).
Folks, while I realize Anno Hideaki still has to cover his bills for ongoing therapy, the fact is that business carping about failing to grow their DVD business is pure BS. Give us a little diversity, not another round of platinum reissues of the same seven classic series.
Back in the boardroom, I'll bet those same marketing automatons I mentioned earlier are plotting how much cash they can wring out of the High-Def revolution when it finally arrives.
Of course, most of them will have been downsized or replaced by a new guard of young "talent" by then. I'm sure they'll have some new ideas about packaging....
Every so often somebody ask's if I'm THAT cryptochrome of the "Cryptochrome's Hotline Anime Review" AKA CHAR website from way back when. I am. Yes, it's dead. Read on for why.
I first got started on anime back when a Japanese friend loaned me unsubtitled videotapes straight from Japan of popular TV shows and OVAs; The original Patlabor, Dirty Pair, and Urusei Yatsura Movie 4 (which I have since seen subtitled, and it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense - thanks, Mamoru Oshii). I was immediately hooked (especially on Dirty Pair). Later I joined the anime club in high school, saw Akira and Tank Police (also untranslated, but at least we had a script), and my fate was sealed.
I watched rented anime now and again in college, but there were few titles available, multi-volume series were never complete at any local video stores, and buying was far too expensive for my student budget. Plus I had other distractions.
And then I discovered online fansubs. Suddenly a wealth of anime was at my fingertips, in a variety of formats. There was VivoPlayer, which I think was not so bad for the time except it lacked little things like "fast-forward", "reverse", and any sort of seek. MPEG was good quality but far too large, and so RealVideo took over. A standard episode was about 50MB in size and was likely a bad capture of a videotaped fansub. Hotline (now defunct) servers grouped themselves into ad-hoc communities of file traders. Lacking a steady broadband connection, I started a website with reviews of all the anime I had seen.
Then somebody hacked together the original DivX, which immediately took over the scene. Fansubbing groups began to organize themselves in IRC channels, and do their own work. The then-new DVDs and recording cards made capturing clean video much easier. File sizes and screen resolution quickly grew with the advent of broadband, higher computing power, and big hard drives, eventually settling on the now-standard 175MB per episode (that's 4 per CD-ROM). There were only two problems. Number one, raws were hard to come by, because somebody in Japan had to send them to America. Somehow that was resolved thanks to clandestine Japanese P2P. The other, and more important one, was that fansub distribution was bottlenecked - there were never enough servers. The IRC channels were your best bet, and products eventually percolated down to DirectConnect sites (Hotline Software had imploded by this time).
Then somehow I discovered BitTorrent - relatively early, with the free porn to beta test it - and I realized immediately it would change everything. That this was what would allow unfettered anime distribution, and it would be a killer app for BitTorrent itself. I told Bram - he wasn't interested. I told the IRC distro servers, but they were too busy serving to care. I think I even borrowed a tracker and seeded a choice episode or two, but most people were too busy trying to get a download slot on the regular servers to install some beta software they'd never heard of. But a few months later, a couple major channels set up stable torrents for their releases. Weeks later, every major fansubbing group that didn't suck was doing it. The gates were open. Viewership and fansubbing groups increased dramatically. EVERYTHING that came out of Japan was getting fansubbed. I discovered the parallel world of manga scanlation (comics translation) around this time, which I strongly suspect was an offshoot.
Funny thing is... by this time, I was getting tired of anime. Like Hollywood movies, once you've seen enough of them you realize they are all the same, and most aren't very good. Sturgen's law applies: 90% of anime is crap - but then again, 90% of everything is crap. I always knew that, but I had to burn out on it before I would stop trying to watch everything I could get my hands on, which thank to the exploding Fansub community was a lot. Fortunately, 10% of it is not, which is the only stuff I try to watch these days. But I let my site die, which was ta
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Nothing wrong with that at all. I wish they'd create more subtitles, in every language, for movies and maybe even their own alternative soundtracks.
What I can't figure out is why they'd bother encoding the whole show and distributing it. Why not let the viewer buy the regular untranslated DVD and just download the alternative subtitles or soundtracks they want and let the player synchronize everything. It's not that hard.
I don't see how THAT could be considered illegal. And then people could remix the movie and burn it back to DVD for their own use.
I know a lot of people that'd be interested in alternative soundtracks of some movies just to remove the foul language and things like that. It's not hard to create a control file that tells the movie to blip out words or even skip frames (that might have nudity or whatever) and I could see some major support behind a group that did those kind of fan editing. Get a big pro-family organization to fund the legal battle to protect these rights.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Did anyone else with anime specifically disabled in their preferences see that fsck'in green haired wanton on their front page?
ANIME SUCKS
While I have to say i'm not at all an Anime nerd but I do know the general diffrence with "fansubers" of today and the ones of just 10 years ago is the great majority of the stuff they release as "fansubed" is comericaly avalible in most languages already. Too many "fansubers" will just rip the DVD appropriate to the language they want to release in and claim it as there own. And that has crosed the line of fansubing and flat out piracy. This is just not the days of trading low quality 3rd generation VHS tapes at conventions. Today the greater majority of Anime is released all over the world. I wont name names but today we have groups releasing stuff like Cowboy Bebop and claiming it as a fan sub when all they did was rip a R1 DVD and keep the R1 subtitles as they are. If thats not piracy then I just dont know what piracy is.
Your lack of forsight and ethics (yes the RIAA and MPAA also lack ethics, that doesn't change a thing) have brought this down on those who had a well known moral code to respect the copyrights when possible. You have turned this from grey market to black market. You fired the first shot. You, because you didn't want to pay for something legaly when you could get it free illegaly, ruined a beutiful thing. Yes, some things are, indeed sacred. Or should be. Things like ethics, law, and responcibility. These are things those like you care nothing for. It was never your music. They were never your movies. It was never your Anime. But you didn't care. Now the best source of Anime is threatened. Online communities are threatened. A wonderful multicultural learning tool is threatened. Because you didn't want to pay for what you took.
I write this post not only for the poster of the parent, but also perhaps even mainly for, those who echoed his sentiment without even the faint hint of humor he seems to have injected. I write this for those who truly somehow think they are entitled to the fruits of other people's work. You can try to justify it, you can point to pages of atrocities comitted by "the other side" but two wrongs have never made a right. If you think you are going to change laws with your "civil disobedience" think again. You have changed laws. You brought us the DMCA. You will continue giving your opponents a target and continue making any true copyright reform a marginal issue, because it can easily be pointed out that you just want stuff for free. You make me sick.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Keep in mind that from the japanese companies perspective, the subtitles might not even enter into the equation.
This is somewhat like the copies of the Star Wars movies that showed up all over the internet, with the minor inconvenience of Thai or Korean subtitles. To a Japanese native speaker, the subtitles are an annoying distraction, but you still have a high-quality rip of the show (along with a chance to practice your english).
Which is, theoretically, what happens. Once a piece is licensed in the US, the anime-fansubbers stop distributing it. Many pieces also have a disclaimer at the beginning to this effect. *wry grin* Whether it actually happens or not is debatable. Also, whether the people who'd downloaded it buy the official edition when it comes out is debatable too, although there's really no evidence either way, just claims by either side.
One of the problems I've heard of with digital fansubbing versus the old VHS-way is the same problem shown by software. Electronic copies are perfect (or at least close enough to perfect for me), which means that when a piece is fansubbed, the 50th person in line to get it still has a fairly pristine copy. In comparison, VHS tapes generally came with a "generation" number which told you how many times it had been copied from a copy. By definition, fansubs were second-generation at least, as the tape had to be copied to get the subtitles in. By the 3rd generation, the image quality was muddy. 5th generation was practically unwatchable. Because fansubs were generally lower-quality by this copy-of-a-copy, there was a strong reason to buy official versions when they came out. Now, the only real reason is for one's conscience, and for the little extras that come with the product. (If nothing else, most DVD cases have original artwork by the animators which are rather stunning)
Now the other issue which I've yet to see confronted is what happens when the official release comes out and it's crap. Take, for example, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. A badly translated and heavily editted version labeled "Warriors of the Wind" was released in the US which had muddy quality, bad translation, and about half the movie missing. Most people I know salved their conscience by buying the US release, then using their fansub, at least until they could get a Jpanese import, but it is an interesting dilemna.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
If he's really a Flamebaiting Troll, then why have so many people responded? No, his post would have been ignored by all but the greenest Internet noobs.
The moderation tally says Troll but every one of the 40 Replies Beneath My Current Threshold say Interesting.
Oh my goodness, chortle chortle, it's the cowardly freeloader again.
Since the IRS code requires the IRS to send out an invoice for taxes owed, I will wait until they follow their rules and do so. April 15th is only the deadline for my own voluntary filing of a claim if I choose to do so.
However, as also stated in the IRS code, since I have made no money from what they define as "Revenue Taxable Activities", that is profiting from the sale of alcohol, tobacco and/or firearms, I do not expect to receive such an invoice exactly as I have not in the past.
I don't know what you do on April 15th, I party.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics