Forum - View topicNEWS: Tokyo Anime Center Posts Stop! Fan-Subtitle Notice
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| dormcat Encyclopedia Editor  Posts: 7337 Location: Hsinchu City, Taiwan, ROC |
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A price comparison page can hardly justify its legality. Anime Castle used to have a "DVD (Hong Kong Import)" page (the link is no longer functional and redirects you back to the front page just like the VHS page, but they are still visible under Anime Video tab), and many brick'n'mortar and online shops still carry both legal DVD and bootlegs simultaneously. |
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Mohawk52 Posts: 3858 Location: Celebrating Lindsey Hawker murder suspect arrest, in Basingstoke, UK. |
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Last edited by Mohawk52 on Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dargonxtc Posts: 4154 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Well I don't know about Tawain or the UK, but in the US both of you are partly right.
In laymans terms, it is perfectly legal to own a region free DVD player. However, it is illegal to buy one, or modify a normal one. Figure that one out.  
Going back to public records the Clinton administration was steadfast about including the terminology as written into the act. Most likely due to high dollar pressure from the MPAA. |
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| birdboy2000 Posts: 22 |
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| I watch fansubs. Once. I try to do it on youtube or crunchyroll, so I'm watching on lower quality.
I also buy anime. Regularly. Sometimes the ones I've seen subbed, other times they're shows I've seen at anime club or heard amazing things about. More often, I go from fansubs to manga; I get more story for less. I'm not going to dump $200 dollars on a set of DVDs - I'm a college student, I really don't have that kind of money, I prefer to stick to boxed sets and find a much better buy getting old anime on the cheap - but ANN is failing to convince me I'm not a fan because I don't give every extra cent to Funimation and ADV. I want the industry to prosper, and quite frankly the attitude at /a/ and among many fans my age distresses me, but the extremism here is just as messed up. Besides, while I love anime as an artform, I love the shows which exist more than I love anticipating the next season. And Japan produced great works in the 80s and 90s, when the American fanbase was tiny, and they've produced subpar series when Geneon was pulling in money. My favorite shows need fansubbers, at least if they're going to be seen as anything close to the original. Japan doing a crackdown isn't gonna make Disney issue a Digimon DVD with a Japanese language track. Call me a thief if you like, but its more or less equivalent of watching it on TV - and yes, I know cable costs money, and I would *gladly* purchase the anime network were it an option over here, but I'm pretty sure shows which air on cable sell better on DVD. Also, there's genuine market saturation. Most elevens read the manga and ignore the anime, and a growing number of Americans are following in their footsteps. Shows are getting licensed which would never be looked at a few years ago, and there isn't that assurance of quality buying an unknown anime off the shelf as there used to be. No one wants to go back to the days of one language on VHS, nor to see the anime fandom diminish(and it is growing significantly, albeit not exponentially) but there's a certain value in talking about the same few series, and I can't say I'd mind a few less titles on the shelf. |
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| tissuebubble Posts: 49 |
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| This is a non-response to the problem. They can complain all they want but without doing anything it is just corporate whining. The cat is out of the bag.
They can try going after uploaders but other than winny which was broken Share and Perfect Dark use onion routing techniques to ensure that the uploader is protected. These systems are pretty strong and involves more than the RIAA just checking your Kazaa or Limewire upload folder. And I doubt they really have the resources to go after out of country downloaders using bittorrent. They need their own services that offer high quality, fast, and reliable services. They need their own iTunes or Hulu service. That is the only way to dent the onslaught. People actually want to be able to go to a reliable place to get their media and are willing to watch commercials or pay a small fee for it. The advantage over fansubbers is that they can make it really simple all in one place. No need to set up a bittorrent client, search through trackers, wait for it to download. Now you can stream and go. The goal should not be to stop the pirates but beat the pirates. The RIAA and MPAA showed you can't stop them. But you can make them less desirable to everyday users. PS It is not stealing, it is copyright infringement. They are different. When you steal something you take a physical good which means they are out of that good. Copyright infringement you copy something and do not deprive the originating person their use of said good. Stealing is a criminal act while copyright infringement without commercial gain is a civil case. Which is why many people don't see it as harmful. They will say "hey, if I Tivoed it then I would be able to watch it whenever I wanted and I could skip the commercials anyway. Who cares if I tivo it or download it." And people were making mix tapes long before the internet was a big thing. So they don't see giving their friends a copy of a song as big deal either. |
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| Mohawk52 Posts: 3858 Location: Celebrating Lindsey Hawker murder suspect arrest, in Basingstoke, UK. |
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| tissuebubble Posts: 49 |
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It is a case because it is still illegal. The idea was that by giving someone a limited monopoly over an idea or work that it would encourage people to produce new and better things. Overall, it worked. Of course many people will say we went too far in the opposite direction and now we are being hindered by it but that isn't the point right now. But you can go to court for speeding but that doesn't make you a felon. The point remains that it is different and looked at differently under the law.
Among other things. It also is something that someone else paid for (the retailer) that you took from them and deprived them of that good. You actually harmed the retailer however when you copy something you harm no one. You don't help the person doing the work but you don't injure them either. You keep the status quo. Where as if you stole it you actually took money out of their store.
One is answerable in court under criminal charges by the retailer (not the owners of said work) while the other is in civil court by the owners of the work. They are pretty different.
You are missing the point that to most people using tivo or downloading a video are about the same thing. Legally, yes, they are different. But when one is actually doing it they don't really see the difference between clicking a torrent or setting up a tivo.
Technology has scaled but attitudes have not. When Napster first came out everyone was saying "I can give a file to my friend legally for free. It just turns out that everyone is my friend!" This, obviously, did not pass in court. However, that same mentality has continued. Saying times have changed is ridiculous when the mentality of allowing everyone to copy is still around. And your idea that " fansubs in the VHS days were counted in a few hundred a year at most. Downloads now are counted in the 10s of thousands a month and rising" makes an arbitrary metric the cutoff. You have to see why people who think that 100 fansubs a year is okay then 1000 must be okay. And since 1000 is okay then 10000 must be okay. Can't you see how it is easy to jump from one to the next? Really comes down to if the Judge believes it is infringing or not. I'm not saying I am for or against them. Just saying that having a debate on fansubs is stupid as they will not be going anywhere. It is time to look past them, write it off as a lose, and work on beating them. That is where the money is to be made. |
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| Mohawk52 Posts: 3858 Location: Celebrating Lindsey Hawker murder suspect arrest, in Basingstoke, UK. |
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And yet again no thought was given to those who created and invested their time and money to originally make that copied download. You completely ignored them in all you just wrote. You're incorrect in saying it's stupid to argue, It's more correct to say it's futile when dealing with a brick wall of selfishness.  |
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Shiroi Hane Subscriber Posts: 1747 Location: Wales |
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Where is the anime dimension and how do I get my country there? |
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| Zac ANN Executive Editor  Posts: 4298 Location: Death Star Cocktail Lounge |
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ANN isn't trying to convince you of anything. We have a handful of extremists on either side of the argument that pop up here and make the same posts over and over again in every thread, resulting in white noise. It's difficult to make the case that someone who downloads everything they watch illegally - without buying a single thing to aid the production - is a "fan". It is also difficult to make the case that someone who downloads or watches streams and also supports the artist by purchasing DVDs or merchandise is not a fan. All in all there are many, many very nuanced angles to this subject. The problem is that the argument always - always - gets immediately extrapolated to the two most extreme arguments and then bitterly fought over in absolutist black-and-white terms, again and again. There is no room for nuance or reason on the internet, I suppose, so we have to distill everything down to soundbites or unfair, 10-word assessments of someone's position on the issue and then fight over that. I don't really participate much in these things anymore because my position seems to be vastly misunderstood, and even when I do attempt to clarify - even in very simple ways, like "I'm not against fansubs, they serve a purpose and are not inherently damaging, but the mass proliferation of them and the creation of a new community of people who vow to never send a single cent back to the creators is not a good thing" someone will always shout me down, misinterpret and unfairly characterize me as "anti-fansub" and then argue as though I have ever said "All fansubs are bad always", which has never been my position at all. I'm not the only one this happens to - many others with similarly nuanced positions on the issue are also shouted down. It's tiresome, and so those of us who actually do see shades of grey in the various angles this issue can be approached from grow weary and simply decline to participate in the debate any further, leaving only the screaming extremists to gnash their teeth and flail in the remains. |
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| tissuebubble Posts: 49 |
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I'm not ignoring them, I'm telling you what the law says (that it isn't stealing) and how people feel about it (that they aren't hurting people). You may feel differently but that doesn't change what the law is or how people feel about what they do. It's more correct to say it's futile when dealing with a brick wall of selfishness. Rolling Eyes If you wish to phrase it that way. I don't see the difference between stupid and futile (if something is futile doesn't that mean doing it is stupid?) but word it how you wish. |
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| Andromeda Posts: 119 Location: Florida |
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Quoted for truth - and also for the fact that it points out something many English speakers either forget, or simply never think about in the first place: fansubs aren't just Japanese shows with English (or French, Spanish, etc.) subs on them. American shows and movies are incredibly popular overseas. So, naturally, there are fansubs of those to. Just like we can get the "raws" on YouTube in our own language.  (I think it's interesting that Heroes is apparently popular in fansub form, too, considering how much the creators have said they insert manga/anime/video game references in the hopes of pulling in the Japanese audience, just like they did the American geek audience, when it gets officially brought over there)
I find it interesting that American companies have been freaking out over internet movie piracy for a few years now, but they of course never mention fansubs. So when you think about it, Japan's behind in one respect, but ahead of the West in another...
So basically, we can sum this argument up as "it's just like every political issue ever"? 
The same problem exists with debates on abortion, the environment, education, stem cell research, cloning, you name it... you're either "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice", notice, for instance. There's no such thing - if you listen to the "white noise" - as "somewhere in between/undecided", despite the complexity of the issue. Complex issues which tend to have multiple and varied and complicated effects have a disturbing tendency to get boiled down - stupidly, I think - to a black and white "you're either for it or against it" type of argument. Which defeats the entire point of even having a debate in the first place, since nobody ever changes positions. They simply yell louder, to be heard above the din... It's sad, really. But, even more sadly, it's far from exclusive the fansub issue... ETA:
The law is actually extremely vague on this issue, since the laws of today were mostly written years ago - when it wasn't possible to distribute illegal copies for so little monetary cost, and when the sellers and producers of bootleg material that were the problem, not the buyers - without the sellers, no illegal material would exist. Keep in mind, too, that while technology may have currently outpaced the law, laws are mutable, and could always change. As a side note, I would like to request that you please stop talking in terms of "people", and refer to specific persons or groups instead. When you say that "people" don't feel something is wrong, you're generalizing. And on this issue, the truth is there is no universal agreement on it, nowhere near it, so generalizing is poor form. -Andromeda |
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Asian Guy Posts: 118 Location: ASIA - Land Of Anime - |
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| Technology has scaled but attitudes have not. When Napster first came out everyone was saying "I can give a file to my friend legally for free. It just turns out that everyone is my friend!" This, obviously, did not pass in court. However, that same mentality has continued. Saying times have changed is ridiculous when the mentality of allowing everyone to copy is still around. And your idea that " fansubs in the VHS days were counted in a few hundred a year at most. Downloads now are counted in the 10s of thousands a month and rising" makes an arbitrary metric the cutoff. You have to see why people who think that 100 fansubs a year is okay then 1000 must be okay. And since 1000 is okay then 10000 must be okay. Can't you see how it is easy to jump from one to the next? Really comes down to if the Judge believes it is infringing or not.
I'm not saying I am for or against them. Just saying that having a debate on fansubs is stupid as they will not be going anywhere. It is time to look past them, write it off as a lose, and work on beating them. That is where the money is to be made.[/quote] tissuebubble al what you said are falling in the hole of "taking someone belonging without permission are stealing" even you call them copy, recording or whatever you call it. When you watch something on Tv, the Tv owner aready license it, they buy the program license to let you and other peoples that can receive their Tv signal can watch it. If you copy them back then it is LEGAL as long as you don't distribute them back to other peoples because you have no LICENSE to distribute it back. The Anime losers who fansubbed Anime are not having license/permission to do what they did. So when you watch, copy or download it you also considered as a criminal. This logic is the same when you accept something from your friend while you know what you receive are coming from thiefing. This will be the same to anyone who buy bootlegs stuff when they know what they buy are bootlegs. Anime downloaders = Anime thief = Anime losers [Edit: If your responding to a single users entire post it's best just to respond and refer to them by name. Quoting the entire block is really a bit excessive. If you're responding to his post piece by piece it may be necessary, but just responding to a whole post doesn't really require the full quote. - Keonyn] |
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BellosTheMighty Posts: 760 |
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Truer words... I have to say that I, too, am getting quite sick and tired of all this yelling over the fansub issue. I imagine this was what the dub/sub wars were like back during the VHS days. I wasn't around back then, but I took in similar idiocy when the grand anti-dub crusade broke out in the Sailor Moon fandom. Hmm... you know, I noticed back then that there was a lot of ranting on the mainstream Sailor Moon sites, but practically none on the Sailor Moon HENTAI sites. I think it was the unity of purpose there- we were all around to have fun and relax, no need to bring negativity into it. Perhaps what we need around here is an X-rated ANN variant? 
DBZ had it worse, from what I hear- one reason I never stopped by that fandom, despite enjoying the show's first two seasons. I admit I was, however, a big fan of Chris Psaros' OCD approach to analytical deconstruction. He ranted as much as everyone else, sure, but he tried to be fair and reasonable, he went into great detail and backed it all up with the facts. And when the fandom went to hell, he was smart enough to get out. If his site is still around, it could some day be a valuable primary source to people studying the history of anime in america. In any event, I think this fandom feud is ultimately a short-term thing. People- including newcomers to the community- are being severely put off by the amount of yelling in every single fansub discussion. My experience with these situations is that the eventual result of catching flak from both sides is to adopt a "You're all jerks" attitude and become apathetic to the issue. Meaning, in the long term, this issue will fizzle out, if it doesn't dissolve entirely after some massive paradigm shift in the industry. In the meantime, my advice to those who hate it is to stay cool and read Shortpacked. Seriously, if you ever want to have a laugh at the expense of interneters who shout themselves blue, browse the Shortpacked archives awhile.  |
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| tempest ANN Editor in Chief  Posts: 7059 Location: Montreal |
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As Zac said, ANN itself isn't trying to convince you of anything. ANN as a whole has no opinion on the matter, and in fact, Zac and I, ANN's two most senior editorial staff, disagree with each other on this very topic. -t |
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