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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.
...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.
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.
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?
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
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
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
"Whether it's theft of service, or theft of property, it's still theft."
It's called copyright infringement.
Most fansub groups cease distribution of a given series as soon as it's licensed for production in the US. The point is that until it's licensed there is *no* english translation. Hard to argue that you're costing a company sales when they arent providing that product.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Why are you encouraging people to steal their employer's time and resources for a personal, non-work hobby?
Said the AC at work!
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I wish you lot would just calm down a bit, it's not like you're whiter than white either, and I can't see you're problem if you're not even interested in anime.
And stop thinking that world=USA, there are lots of us in other parts of the world, and, as I stated earlier, most of the time we _never_ _ever_ get a legal release (Case in point, 9/10 of the fansub's I've watched haven't been released under any form where I live, let alone translated), so it's not like the shareholders are loosing money on this.
In short: Fansubs disapear as soon as a legal distrbution method appears, and in most cases the legal version doesn't appear at all, so there's nto much to complaine about.
David
P.S: Before you start moaning that more legal releases would appear but for fansubbing, remember that their probably wouldn't be anything like the number of manga/anime available today had it not been for the free publicity that the fansubbers provided.
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
We kindly ask you to repost your comment without using that many "ironic" parentheses.
Cordially,
"Committee" for "Proper" "Sentence" "Construction"
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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