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Bootlegs vs. Fansubs.

And at ADV's panel at AWA9, they said they were under pressure a lot to include hard subs (unable to be removed) to discourage Japanese consumers from importing R1s. 8O

Doujinshi are well... I wouldn't put them in the bootlege category. They aren't advertising themselves as something that's official. They usually say "fan comic" across it. Doujinshi are just manga made by fans for the heck of it. They don't make a profit off of it really. And even the original creators tend to make doujinshi of their own creations that their publishers don't approve of: example, Naoko Takeuchi's Sailormoon: Infinity, and Sakura Kinoshita's infamous Tactics doujinshi.

The Japanese for some reason overlook doujinshi, or have some loophole in their laws or something, I don't know. The only legal action I can recall taken on doujinshi was when Disney threatened to sue the pants off anyone who made a Kingdom Hearts doujin.

Now there is the equivilant to a fansub with manga. Those are called scanlations, and that's when a group of people scan a manga, translate it, edit it into english, and distro it on the internet. Those people make absolutely no profit at all, and aren't really as egotistic as the fansubbers. You can't really sell scanlations... it's kind of hard. It would be a lot of ink, and paper...

Besides. Copyrights, in general, are useless. You can not copyright characters, situations, events, only the original art and the 'exact' story (following the rules of plagerism).

What about people living in areas where anime is hard to get, and when you do find it it's outragously priced? For example, I live in New Brunswic Canada, and believe me, to buy one DVD it usually runs me abot 60 to 70 dollars!!!

As far as fansubs, the US companies use them for 'advertisement' and to get an idea of potential popularity. The line as drawn at the date of license for the end of fansub circulation.

Japanese law on doujinshi is that they can do anything they want, as long as they keep the total print run under 5000. ONce you pass that they can sue you. Disney of course hates the law, and basically said "Sure it's not illegal, but we'll sue you anyway, and can you really afford to take us on?"

But Greenfield and Williams emphasized that the wave of anime fansubs which can be downloaded is leading to a growing problem of piracy in Asia. Since there are no limits on who can download the fansubs, and because the fansubs are of near-broadcast quality, the fansubs are being downloaded by bootleggers and sold at cheap prices in Asia, said the ADV representatives. "They (fansubbers) would put it on the Internet and three weeks later, it would be on sale in Hong Kong as a bootleg." Greenfield said. "In parts of Asia, there is no market for anime because fansubs have killed it. When you start giving it away for free to anyone who wants, it you're stealing and you're killing the industry."

But Greenfield and Williams emphasized that the wave of anime fansubs which can be downloaded is leading to a growing problem of piracy in Asia. Since there are no limits on who can download the fansubs, and because the fansubs are of near-broadcast quality, the fansubs are being downloaded by bootleggers and sold at cheap prices in Asia, said the ADV representatives. "They (fansubbers) would put it on the Internet and three weeks later, it would be on sale in Hong Kong as a bootleg." Greenfield said. "In parts of Asia, there is no market for anime because fansubs have killed it. When you start giving it away for free to anyone who wants, it you're stealing and you're killing the industry."

Of course all this has little to do with the anime industry in the West.

Yeah you're right, it's not like the companies that make those animes need the asian market. They can easily afford to lose old/new business.

1. I can watch series well before they come to my local store.
2. I have saved a lot (up to 500 UK pounds / $906 US so far) of money by not buying DVDs and if I did own the first volume of a series, I don't have to buy the rest I just download them.
3. Big O is going to be on UK TV next month, I don't need to watch it, I already have the complete series on my computer.
4. The quality is so good I can easily transfer them from my computer onto VCD and DVDs now.
5. My family and friends don't need to buy any dvds I can easily lend them some of the VCDs and DVDs I made.
6. If all the fansubs I owned were offical DVDs I would have 219 dvds if all were priced at $26.98 I would have had to have paid $5,908.62 yet I only paid $11.99 a month for a broadband connection.
7. Last anime DVD I got was in June - since then I have only seen fansubs. (an idea of how much I use to spend on legit I still own 457 anime VHS since 1995)