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.

Comments

Re:Ahh!

[gowen]

This has been going on for 20 years, and in fact was largely ignored by the anime companies

But thats a matter of scale. 20 years ago, a very small group of people were doing this -- few had the means, few had an interest in Anime and fewer still had the contacts. Now, everyone and his brother has a DVD burner, certain elements of Anime are mainstream (or almost so), and the uptake of the Internet means *anyone* can download the stuff from P2P networks.

What was once a small, ignorable, minority have suddenly got to be a considerably larger problem.