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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.
For everyone else asking that question, they apparently translate foreign movies and make English subtitles.
From the article (assuming you're like me in wondering what "fansubbing" is):
Trolling is a art,
>Newsflash: you're not PROMOTING it, you're helping other people STEAL it.
I've got another newsflash for you, copyright infringement != stealing.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Actually if there is no US distribution partner Fansubbing falls into an interesting grey area. This is becasue in the US derivative work (such as a translation) fall under the original copyright. However the last time I read an explanation of it Japanese copyright law recognizes derivative work separately from the original. Thus if there is a US distributor the more restrictive US laws apply. If there is no US presence presumably the Japanese law is the only consideration.
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.
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
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.
Different people have different aptitudes for learning languages. What might be easy for you is quite difficult for others.
While I might be flattering myself to think that I am not, in fact, an idiot, I have attempted to learn Japanese in the past. I failed. Utterly. I have also failed to learn other languages besides my native English. Whatever meager talents I possess lie elsewhere, I'm afraid.
The attacks on other parts of your posts are continuing apace, however I merely wished to caution you regarding judging the effort required by others to accomplish a task based on your own efforts to do the same. In other words, just because it's easy for you, don't assume it's easy for anyone else.
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
no, for example, in Italy some of Japanese production wouldn't be translate and sell because someone decide that he can't earn from that.
so,if a fan of a manga, would take it and make a subtitle for it,why not?
you must know that a subbers stop immediately if a series it's buy from a factory or a TV!
GCS/T/O -d+ -p c++++(++) l+++ u++ e+ m+@ s+/+ n+(--) h* f++(+++) !g w(+) t r+(++) y?
If you want Japanese cartoons before they're released in English, learn Japanese.
And then what? Watch them as they're broadcast in Japanese on local TV here in the States? Good luck! Even if you live in heavy Japanese settled areas you are unlikely to find much Japanese language programming. Fansubs usually come out as the shows are being broadcast in Japan. Fansubbers then do a lot of hard work to provide their own translations of these shows.
Finally, the entire anime fan community has a strong "buy a licensed version" ethos. If the Japanese companies who make these shows were to release subtitled versions of the shows online for a reasonable fee I suspect that fansubbing would screech to a halt (so I don't get what you're talking about with fansubbers "creating barriers to legitimate online distribution" there is no current legitimate online distribution--if there were, there would be no need for fansubs). I think the typical fansub viewer would prefer the original audio with subtitles over any English remake of the dialog anyway.
I do not have a signature
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
http://www.amazon.co.jp/
http://www.yesasia.com/
To name just a couple. I order all the time from both sites.
Not quite, they take TV recordings of animes that aren't available in the destination country, sub them, and release them onto the net, kind of like haveing a japanese freind send you this weeks episode with a resume of what goes on.
As soon as someone in the destination country starts producing (or even state that they intend to start producing) the anime in question, it disapears without trace from the web.
The idea is to get to see footage that will probably never be translated (and in most cases isn't, especially into non english languages, France here), not to kill off the japenese film industry.
I've got loads at home, but I also have a lot of Mangas, DVD's etc that I acquired after they were (finally) released. FYI a 4 year wait isn't uncommun.
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
..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
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.
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
Umm, actually, that was a "professional" translation, not a fansub.
This has been going on for 20 years, and in fact was largely ignored by the anime companies until recently because there was an unspoken agreement over stopping subbing when a license was available.
This was fine for those in the US, but led to a lot of disgruntled European fans who were waiting years beyond the extensive wait for a US release for their own. So, the dispute ended up being about subs continuing after domestic (US) release-- companies like ADV argue that sub distribution should stop after a US release, and European sub groups disagree.
Then add in the pirate groups that were doing their own things outright.
It's been a grey-area issue for a very long time, and is hindered additionally by the fact that the anime release companies in the US pay attention to sub groups to find out what people *want*.
There are a few groups doing fansubs of the Initial D Fourth Stage episodes. They vary in quality, but generally, they are excellent. Sometimes, some of the more technical car terms don't make it through, but generally, they do. In short, I prefer the fansubs to the official DVD's.. which is a pretty sad state of affairs.
I'm curious about who this savant is for whom learning Japanese is "easy if you're not an idiot". Is it the same guy as the one who informed me a few weeks ago that developing the RSA algorithm should "take a CS sophomore 30 minutes"?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
LIES!!!! Their site is still functional.
There are people that sell fansubs on ebay or where ever else. These are not, in the vast majority of cases, the fansubbers themselves. Many sub groups put things like "Not for sale, rent, or auction. Please stop distribution when licensed." up in the opening or the little middle sequence. People who sell fansubs are widely regarded as the scum of the earth.
The argument for letting these groups operate is twofold. First, they do so with content not licensed in the US, so no US licensee is harmed. I don't know what cross-country copyright agreements have to say, but stateside nobody has rights to publish it when fansubbers do their work. Second, they selflessly promote anime. There've been a number of fansubs I've seen with better quality control in the subs than the later official releases. They don't make money. They let people who won't just randomly buy a DVD with no knowledge of the content get a feel for what they want to buy. Dropping $20 for three episodes is easier when you know it's something you'll watch a few times rather than watch once and quit out of disgust.
Anime DVDs make up about half my DVD collection, which is by no means small. The total sum of anime DVDs I've bought without seeing at least one episode prior: 0. Anecdotal evidence? Sure, but I know a rather large group of people, in person, who do exactly the same.
There are arguments against allowing it as well, but if any media company thinks anime would be where it is in the US today without letting the fans run rampant, well, they're crazy. The people watching fansubs are the same people introducing anime to friends and family with a religious zeal. Given the article even speaks of them as "cartoons" like they're for kids or something should give a better picture of the initial resistance that's now being overcome.
If not now, when?
Manga are not subtitled. A translated manga is either a "scanslation" (fan-made, from a blend of 'scan' and 'translation' -- manga are scanned and then translated) or "dual language" (release by Japanese companies for the readership to study English).
"there is absolutely no legal way to watch a dvd from japan here in the states."
This is false.
For starters, personal import of works with foreign copyrights is not only legal, but is specicially excepted from the laws regarding rights of sale and distribution in the U.S. (the text of the law makes a specific example of a tourist bringing back copyrighted works from a vacation as being just fine) The impact on academia of forbidding import of foreign works would be rather dramtic.
Second, you don't need to crack the region coding -- you just need a region 2 device. In my case, for example, I have an older DVD-ROM drive that I have set to region 1, and new one that is set to region 2. No cracking involved.
Third, the above presumes that all Japanese DVDs are automatically region 2 limited, which while common, is not universal and is up to individual publishers -- although I do think that deliberately region coding a disc is equivalent to telling people in other regions, "We don't want your money."
As soon as someone in the destination country starts producing (or even state that they intend to start producing) the anime in question, it disapears without trace from the web.
Not quite. The fansubbing groups will often remove the series from their site, but the episodes certainly don't disapear. Many of them are still distributed after licencing by sites like http://www.boxtorrents.com/.
They would never get official permission. Official permission would limit the copyright holder's ability to stop "real piracy", as the distinction would be negligible.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
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
... 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).
Flagrant, organized, and large scale willful copyrignt infringement
Just a historical note...
In many coutries, if a local translation wasn't made in a reasonable time frame (reasonable varying from country to country) then anyone was allowed to make a translation. As soon as the foreign copyright holder decided to make a local translation, the unauthorized translator had to stop making new copies of their translated version.
The Berne convention banned this exception in Article 8:
"Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works."
rage, rage against the dying of the light
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.
Actually, not al anime is a cartoon. From the webster online dictionary, a cartoon is a "a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor". Not all anime is intended to be that way. Some of them are drawn realistically. Would you consider the paintings of Da Vinci cartoons? Of course not. The same applies to lots of anime shows and movies. And since anime is a medium rather than a genre, it would be better to call it animation.
Just my two cents.
The problem is you assume that the people who get the R2 dvd's (region 2 -- japan) and soft/hardsub the work will just keep the files for themselves. What will happen is the "0d4y$ubb3rz" will hardsub the script to an avi and release it under their groups name.
This also makes the HKDVD folks lives easier. Instead of using bablefish, they can just get the script via a torrent.
Nothing will change if what you suggest happens. Only the people who translate/time/edit the script will get royally shafted.
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
-
What's even more interesting is that a source (of unknown reliability) at a television studio told me that when Sailor Moon was licensed for broadcast in the U.S., the "translator" didn't speak a word of Japanese. Therefore the entire first season was "translated" simply by watching the visuals and trying to come up with a storyline to match.
I'm pretty sure that's not the actual case, as some elements of the story that aren't totally obvious just from visuals managed to make it into the dub. However, Sailor Moon (dubbed by DiC) had the dubious distinction of being considered the worst dubbing butchery of an anime series for many years. For the first season alone they took the two parter finale episodes and trimmed them down into one. They cut out all references to the sacrifices of the Sailor Senshi (Scouts in the dub) as well, making it appear no one died. (Everyone died in the original version.) The result was a butchery like you wouldn't believe, a two part finale that was incredibly touching and moving was cheap and hammy. Fans were royally outraged.Sailor Moon lost the title for worst butchered dub when WB and Nelvana put out Card Captors (based off of Card Captor Sakura). Character personalities were changed, episode order was rearranged to try to make the male character appear to be the main character (he's not, the original title gives it away, Sakura always was the main character) and the new OP theme, well, it almost makes the ears bleed. It took dub butchery to new lows and was (rightfully) lambasted for the implicit sexism of trying to make the main character no longer be female. The dub did not do well. To be fair, the changes were apparently all demanded by WB. Nelvana gave in to fan pressure and put out an uncut, subtitle-only (no dub) version on DVD as well. It was actually well done, so that appeased most fans and it sold (and still sells) well.
Incidentally, Sailor Moon never got an uncut release until many years later. DiC had nothing to do with it though, ADV got the rights and put it out. They also got the rights to the 3rd & 4th seasons and had them dubbed as well. They were aired on Cartoon Network. The 5th and final season still has not been licensed and released in the US and likely never will be.
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
-
In many ways, this is even better than the usual translation job, as it keeps the right-to-left scheme intact (ever run into one of those mangas where the characters are all left-handed? That's sloppy page-flipping for you) as well as preserving the original background art where there's writing.
I take it you're not really big into manga nowadays? A few years back, Tokyopop started a change in the industry with their "100% Authentic Manga" line. All titles remain unflipped, no names are changed, and honorifics are kept in most cases. Since then pretty much the entire US manga industry has followed suit. Even Viz threw in the towel and is now reissuing titles in an unflipped format, and at a new size, that matches the Tokyopop size. (Which, coincedentally, is pretty much the same size as most Japanese manga releases.) Doubleday books entere the Manga market last year and they have also kept the unflipped format. They also include extensive translation notes (although they oddly fail to include notes about some things you'd think they would) and explanations of honorifics. They even leave sound effect text intact, placing the English translations of them close by the Japanese characters.As to scanslations vs. commercial releases, some companies are starting to make the fan scanslations look better by cutting corners. Viz is the one example I can really give of this, check out February's edition of Shonen Jump Magazine which is put out by them. They've stopped being careful with text bubbles, now you can see they've placed white boxes over the old bubbles with the English text in them. Frankly most fan scanslations do better work than this. That I actually paid for the magazine and found such shoddy work in it is really annoying. It's even more annoying that until this issue they actually did a g ood job with the editing, now they've apparently stopped. Translations also seem worse this time, with many things Americanized that there was no reason for. We're talking about things that seem horribly out of place, not changing obscure cultural references to something Americans can more easily understand.