Forum - View topicANN x Fansubs
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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So, on several recent threads, there has been a bit of controversy about some of the "higher-ups" of ANN talking about or recommending series that aren't licensed in R1 but are available via fansubs. Thread 1 Thread 2
Now, I'm not trying to start yet another fansub ethics/legality debate, since this thread and this thread have beaten that into the ground. So yes, they're illegal (whether the series is licensed in R1 or not), they're stealing, they're infringing the creators' rights...and some of us on the forum don't watch them at all, some watch nothing but, and most fall somehere between those extremes of the spectrum. But despite all that, fansubbing has been a part of fandom for a long time and is likely to stay around for awhile, whether "necessary" or not. My real intent here is to explore the connections between ANN, including forums, columns, and news, and the shadowy fansubbing world. I felt that this discussion would have taken those other threads off-topic, thus I've created a new one. My opinions to get things started: 1) Mods/staff on the forums making recommendations: Yes, like Judge Dredd, they are the law, and we must ph3ar them, but I'd like to think that they're still fans like the rest of us. As such, if a thread gives an opportunity to talk about some fansubbed series that they like, it's natural that they're going to talk about it. I don't see anything wrong with that, and I don't see why they should be held to some higher level. If "Don't recommend unlicensed series" became part of Teh Rules for everyone, enforcing that would be quite difficult. Also, to the types of shameless pirates that don't buy anything, any recommendation/review is an inducement to steal anime, whether it's something licensed like Love Hina or unlicensed like AIR. Of course, like someone pointed out on another post, "The first rule of Fansub Club is that you don't talk about Fansub Club," and thus we have Teh Rules and Teh Filtarz in place so that ANN doesn't become an information exchange for piracy. 2) Overall website connections to fansubs: One might say that staff recommending unlicensed anime = website endorsement of fansubbing/piracy. The problem is, in order to completely eliminate this perception, virtually all references to new/unlicensed anime would have to be removed, since saying that "Studio A is working on series B for a Winter 2006 airing, and it looks interesting" could be construed as "Series B is good! Go download it!" This would compromise ANN's status as an anime news site--new series are news, and events within the fansubbing world make headlines, such as the Media Factory incident and various C&D letters, both real and fake. Obviously, some things like "Hahaha I jacked this group's scripts and put them up on a torrent site" (yes, this actually was briefly posted on this forum) are irrelevant, but pretending fansubs don't exist means missing news. Even AnimeOnDVD, that bastion of legitimate release information, has said that it works with "their friends" at a certain torrent indexing site (which has been mentioned on ANN news) that lists unlicensed-series fansubs in order to make sure that licensing lists match. (Go to June 17th at the link.) Lastly, if you look into the past archives of ANN, you see far more association with fansubs, so the current state represents less "ANN endorsement of illegal anime" than in the past. For example, the SubCulture Column talked directly about fansub releases and groups, the Ima, kore ga hoshiin da! (I want this now!) column talked about upcoming series to generate buzz, and some early AnswerMan articles went into a bit of detail about a few fansubs. They're not so common anymore, but there are "previews" of specific series like Bleach and Abenobashi that seem to be based on things other than R1 DVDs. Even now, things like the Spring 2006 Anime Preview are built on fansubs. (As far as I know. If I'm wrong, please correct.) I suppose ANN could take steps to eradicate all traces of connection to piracy, but I think that would leave the website and forums a less complete, less interesting place. Will the day come when this link gets filtered because it might possibily be used to find anime downloads? These are merely my opinions from my point on the "ethical spectrum," and I'd imagine that people of different positions will hold different opinions. Have at it! |
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unhealthyman
 Posts: 306 |
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To try and totally eradicate any anime which isn't R1 licensed seems to be a bit excessive and unrealistic. Just look at the threads and interest on recent fansubs - animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23123 , ANN can happily remain neutral, and its current strictly moderated limits on piracy ensures this. I dont think anything else needs to be changed and I think Zalis made the point as well as is needed. Everyone knows that a search or 2 in www.google.com can lead you to bootlegged DVDs/illegal downloads and almost everyone capable of using a computer can, if they wish, be a pirate (Yarr!!!) and so to ban discussion of fansubs etc. is to try and live in some kind of fantasy land.
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Deltakiral
 Posts: 3338 Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK) |
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First off I want to say to Zalis: Thank you for taking time to put some effort into a topic that can hopefully dive into the world of fansub. And now onto the discussion at hand.
Till next time, Delta Kiral |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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It's a matter of ethics. One can not have double standards operating in tandum if one wants their organisation to be looked upon as a respectable site. There is only one way to get early information on what's new in Japanese anime and manga and that is to be in Japan able to communicate fluently in both languages and able to write an informative and interesting reportRetreaved either by watching it there on TV, or cinema, or working the studio PR departments for whats coming next. It shows respect for their existance and enlightens them of their position in the world. If that isn't possible for what ever reason then I personally would rather that no report was done than to know it was only able to be done by illegal means. To do the latter is disrespectful toward the companies that produce anime and manga and makes the site look no better than any other fan site that couldn't care less about where they see their anime and manga, competing for "we seen it first" one-up-manship.
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Stupidman007
 Posts: 394 |
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ANN should be a site devoted to anime and manga, not fansubs, not dvds, and not magazines. If a new hot anime series requires downloading fansubs to be exposed to the public, then in this situation downloading fansubs shouldn't be a big problem. Basically, what I mean is that the anime community comes before the whole ethics debate. Showing the world of anime to more people should the number priority. While it is important to get people to actually buy their anime, that should only come second on the list. No matter how you put it, it's still better to have someone watch anime on fansubs, then if he doesn't watch anime at all. I really like ANN's current ways of dealing with things. There are no direct references to fansubs, and download sites are never given. I really hope it stays this way, because the topics to talk about would be reduced in probably half if all fansub related material were to be filtered out.
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Stupidman007
Posts: 394 |
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Capitalism didn't fail and it's also what you would consider selfish greed before ethics. |
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unhealthyman
Posts: 306 |
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Indeed, I fail to see what communism has to do with anime piracy... I think there were more factors in the fall of communism than the fact that people wanted to watch free films. Communism isn't an ethical system anyway, its a political system, and all example of communism in practice have been unmitigated disasters and unethical violations of human rights.
The point of this thread wasn't to reignite the pirates vs. the world debate anyway.
I think his point wasn't 'greed before ethics' but 'unbiased information.' An encylodpedia isn't supposed to let ethics or a particular viewpoint/bias influence it. |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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The only way around this would be for the staff to ghost write. Personally I am not bothered by this, and I try to get the staffs true opinions as much as possible. And I don't like the idea of them having to sneek around and ghost write just to voice opinions on an anime. I mean this site is all about anime, regardless of R1 status, right. 
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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I don't do this much because I am a horrible speller, but I think you mean accepted. I only point that out as it changes the meaning of the entire sentence. Also I suggest you guys change your line of thought as it will only get this locked, and Zalis obviously has put a great deal of thought into this. |
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Thanks for that, It's been a long day for me. (13 hours and counting).
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jqsilver
 Posts: 30 |
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Communism and piracy aside, I don't think talking about series that haven't been released R1 is greedy. I don't consider hoarding pirated copies of things that you don't intend to sell to be particularly greedy, either, at least in a monetary sense.
Personally, I think waiting until R1 release to talk about things means we're all dependant on importing companies to decide what series we should know about. It would seriously cripple ANN. |
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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You know, let's kill two birds with one stone. "Hey, you have an anime or manga idea? Howabout you write a few articles for us? Just, you have to have proficient writing skills, a sense of making your article as objective and have a NPOV , not have excessive ammounts of grammical errors, and stick to deadline. What, don't like it? Congratulations, you've gotten a basic idea of how the industry works!!" |
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Dargonxtc
Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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I was not singling anyone out. On another thread I got into the whole Capitalists vs. Communism thing (the capitalist pig I am), and I was sternly warned thats all. So I was just trying to give a heads up that all. please take no offense 
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