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NEWS: Japanese Industry Launches Global Anti-Piracy Effort

I wonder how fansubbers will feel about this. I have sometimes heard that they feel pissed when a product gets licensed because "they compromised our hard work working on this series". Yeah right! You are taking some else's work and subbing it. Licensing a series is getting permission to do this.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with pirated anime. While I despise bootleg DVDs (cheap Chinese black market trash) and don't much care for those who would knowingly purchase them, I view fansubs as a necessary evil. This is because of the simple fact that most anime will never see the light of day in the R1 market. There's only so much money to dole out for licenses, which is why we'll only get a fraction of what the Japanese get, not to mention complications over the rights to certain series may preclude them from being released over here anytime soon if ever (for example, anything Macross besides the original and Plus). Even when a series is licensed, it doesn't guarantee a release as on occasion the licensor may sit on the title and let it expire (it took ADV three years to release Kurau Phantom Memory; it's a wonder it didn't expire). Older licenses may expire without being relicensed. And let's not even get into anime that gets Macekred by groups like 4Kids, who refuse to release unedited DVDs of anything they do.

When the demand side's desires aren't met by the supply side, they'll find some other supply. Fansubs meet that demand by supplying to anime fans translated anime that would otherwise never make it to our shores because they are either never licensed or are licensed but the license is allowed to expire without a release or simply expire due to age and the title goes out of print. While technically illegal, I believe fansubs, when used properly (as a stopgap measure for viewing unlicensed titles), should be tolerated as long as demand is not met (by selling licenses to domestic distributors), and their consumption would cause no harm to the original Japanese producers as the consumers outside the Japanese market would ordinarily have no access to their titles in their native tongue. And as others have pointed out over the years, fansubs serve as free promotion and may help get a series licensed. While some may argue in favor of the only legit alternative to fansubs, — importing DVDs from Japan — that doesn't adequately meet demand since there is no English translation. The consumer would essentially be given a product that's only partially usable, not to mention they would be paying upwards of twice of what they would pay for any English-language release. Only fansubs adequately meet the demand for unlicensed titles.

However, fansubs have the potential to be easily abused. More reputable fansubbers & fansub distributors will cease distributing a title that has been licensed and real anime fans will buy the legitimate English-language version (which is the only real means for the non-Japanese fandom to support the anime industry). However, those with fewer scruples will continue to produce, distribute, or consume fansubs of licensed titles, and they are hard to control given the nature of electronic file sharing. Those so called "fans" have finally been given the chance to support their hobby by buying English-language (subs or dubs) anime on DVD or watching it on TV (where it is supported by ad revenue), yet they refuse those things, opting rather to continue using the free but illegitimate copies that are supposed to be serve as a mere stopgap solution to lack of supply until the title is licensed. By licensing a title, the supply side finally comes through and meets the demand for English-language anime, but the more amoral segments of the demand side would rather continue consuming fansubs, which would upon the point of the acquisition of a license become a totally inexcusable product.

So, fansubs are a double-edged sword. They are valuable and perhaps necessary service for fans of series that have not been and may never be licensed, but when they continue to be consumed after a title has been licensed they cause financial harm to both the Japanese producers and the domestic licensors. Furthermore, this abuse may result in the added negative effect of a crackdown similar to this one. If fansubs do become of thing of the past — and who knows what effects that would have on the R1 market — because they were abused and the fansubbers are all forced to shut down, then anime fans will no longer have a means with which to watch any unlicensed titles (which most anime will remain), and the so-called fans who, thanks to domestic licensors, were given the chance to support their hobby and refused to do so will be the ones to blame.

That's cool, I'll just sit here and wait for them to release shows to the UK.

What's that? You'd rather stop me from watching/buying anything I want because I'm a filthy Tea-sipping philistine?

Then 'eff you, Japan, Treat me like a criminal, get exactly what you expect. *Loads BT-Vision as he's always done*

Hint to Japan and whoever else wishes to promote this sort of (In theory correct) action: The less red tape you put between me and your product makes the chance of me just waltzing to el-randmo-anime tracker and taking what I want pour gratis go WAY down.
The sooner everyone learns this and I can watch/buy everything I want to watch, the sooner I can support this intuitive.

Untill then, no dice, Japan.

This article snippet will be one of the various sources I do for an unbiased (just informing) speech about the hurting anime industry for my public speaking class.

i think we all know they'll fail miserably in their efforts just like every other 'stamp out piracy' attempt by every other media entity has failed. knock one down, another few pop up to take its place. you can't stop it. emphasis on can't. unless you plan on shutting down the net which just ain't gonna happen. instead of using all that time, money, and energy in a campaign destined for failure, they should look at downloaders and wonder why they do it. it ain't the provider, it's the end user that's the real 'problem.'

it's been pretty well documented for years what people want and how they want it. and it's also been pretty well documented that companies haven't met the demand in all that time. yeah, we've got an anime channel, funi is streaming, but is it enough? is it even necessary? i don't think so. same way a company can create the anime and put it on tv, same way they can sub it (in whatever language) and put it online (streaming and download to own for a reasonable price in high quality) on their own without the immediate need for licensing. that way certain people (downloaders) get what they want, when they want it legally.

but since that distro model doesn't quite exist just yet for some reason, you have the fansubbers who meet that need. front like you hate 'em, we all know what's real. when companies start doing what they do legally, problem solved. the simple fact that the subbers do it and meet demand should've been an eye-opener to these people. but they see it as a threat rather than a form of innovation. that's right, you heard me, INNOVATION! you got the original hi-qual file for htpc's, a smaller portable format for pmp's and cell phones, and even a compatible version to watch on gaming consoles if need be. does any anime company provide these options? nope. do people want 'em? yep. if available, would they pay for 'em? if fairly priced, probably.

also, the subbers help generate interest in an anime whether they'll admit that or not. the companies just want their piece of the collective pie (which they're completely and totally entitled to) but are doing jack to cut a slice. it's backwards thinking like that (probably from the old guard) that's stifling the anime and media industry. do a couple generations really need to go by before they start seeing the light? let's hope not.

Last edited by pparker on Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:54 am; edited 1 time in total

Not to ignore you, LordRedHand, but I so love it when the irony of timing becomes simply overwhelming... (EDIT: and PetrifiedJello... see my later mea culpa. I totally missed your previous post for some reason before writing this.)

Secret ACTA Internet chapter leaked: Global DMCA and 'three strikes'
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/20233.cfm
Google (for more)
http://www.google.com/search?q=acta+internet

My favorite for summarizing the results of this proposed and secret action (emphasis mine):

"The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright. (I will add that this is also used as an anti-competition business tactic -- pp)

* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html

But this statement cuts through immediately to the insanity, and the danger, of it:

"The proposal is based on the assumption that ‘intellectual property rights’... trump personal privacy, data protection, probable cause, and lots of other important principles in western democracies."

http://torrentfreak.com/proposed-treaty-turns-internet-into-a-virtual-police-state-080524/

One purpose exists for it, and that is to theoretically increase revenue for entertainment companies. If you ever needed an example of short-sighted, bad intentions toward mankind for personal gain without regard for consequences, this is it. The net effect of this would be to enable and enact a system of harassment and control virtually the same as the Chinese censorship system. The agreements and technology would all be in place to surveil and to penalize Internet users without due process of law, directly counter to fundamental rights of U.S. citizens.

This isn't proposed legislation, meaning that the public are not being allowed to participate its formulation in any fashion. Hell, they aren't even being told about it. The participants are the entertainment industry and the law enforcement organizations under the executive branches of government, with the full blessing of our current U.S. administration. Exercise of The Freedom of Information Act revealed less than 15% of the text of the agreement, and none of substance, because those involved have gone to great lengths to keep the entire document and the process completely secret. I will be most interested to see if it even reaches the front page of newspapers or is suppressed in the general media. I predict that even if it does, it will be downplayed and spun in so many ways that the public will never understand the implications.

When Orwell wrote 1984 and Huxley wrote Brave New World, they were prescient and thoroughly understood human nature. While speculative in nature, the works factually represent how far human beings will go in the wrong direction given the chance and the capability. China is moving precisely in that direction by the book, and of course Orwell already had Nazi Germany, Japan and the USSR as examples (which makes Huxley all the more impressive in extrapolating the history of oppression into a future, total global context). The authors had to envision or assume technology capable of enabling the societal and governmental conditions. The enabling technology has emerged. We can spy on every human being visually, we can monitor all communications including personal speech, we have governmental mechanisms in place to bypass due process of law and representative legislation. We have the means to enable a police state across the globe. All that remains is the will and the resources to use them, and modern governments have plenty of each. Recent events show that printing enough money is no problem.

I just find it too ironic that the supposed upholders of the rights of artists, who have historically been at the vanguard of freedom, are the very people attempting to destroy it. Obviously, they are lying about their true materialist intentions. And if anyone thinks this is an overreaction, I just have to remind you that the vast majority of humans thought Hitler was justified in his actions as late as 1939 and that Stalin died of old age having murdered more humans than anyone else in history. We humans have a bad habit of repeating mistakes and avoiding confrontation. Unless we get smart enough, soon enough, it's only a matter of time until we make that a big one that takes us beyond recovery.

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Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Industry Launches Global Anti-Piracy Effort

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NEWS: Japanese Industry Launches Global Anti-Piracy Effort