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Revision to Fansubber Ethical Code?


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Jlbkwrm
Old Regular


Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 94
PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2003 1:27 am Reply with quote
LordRobin wrote:
Jlbkwrm wrote:
d.) For the love of little green things, don't rip an English-subtitled R2 DVD and pretend it's a fansub.


Has anyone ever done this??

------RM


I don't know if anyone is intentionally ripping R2s and mislabeling them, but I remember reading someone stating they'd downloaded what was labeled as an FLCL fansub, when it was really just an R2 rip. I have no idea how widespread it was, or how the mislabeling got started, but I thought I'd throw it on the list.

I'm just automatically suspicious of any OAV purporting to be a fansub that was mastered from a DVD that already had a literal English translation, but I'm not curious enough to download and check the subtitles.
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hakootoko



Joined: 06 Dec 2002
Posts: 74
PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2003 9:54 am Reply with quote
How do you propose to get anyone to accept these rules? Seems kind of pointless to argue over rules from the outside.

I've tried convincing groups online to adopt minor changes to traditional fansub ethics, with no success. In the end, all we can do is decide for ourselves not to download stuff we don't think should be distributed.
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Dan42
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Joined: 02 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2003 11:32 am Reply with quote
Searching for "ethical fansubbing" on google, I found an interesting document. Seems like somebody already tried creating a A New Code of Conduct for Fansubber/Distributors, a long time ago (it seems to apply more to VHS)

I think it would be nice if ANN could come up with a "Digital Fansubbing Ethical Code". After all, if we don't, who will? Fansubbers? Fansubbers agreeing on an ethical code would be like movie studios deciding on the age rating of their movies. Sure they might come up with a good code, but they'd still be influenced by their purpose to distribute free anime. The conflict of interest is too obvious.

I agree that creating such a code seems like an exercise in futility... who's gonna respect it anyway? But then again there's something to be said for having *some* sort of basis on which to evaluate the ethicalness of a fansubber. Even though the fansubbers are not likely to adopt the code, it would allow some level of independant ethical rating.
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hi nu gundam8135



Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 3
Location: colorado
PostPosted: Sun Jun 01, 2003 10:18 pm Reply with quote
I agree with Emerje fan subbers should charge only for thier poduction costs.
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cyrax777



Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 1825
Location: the desert
PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 3:39 am Reply with quote
i just wish someone would bitch slap the r1 rip groups in court. Im sick of sifting thru all the outright bootlegs (r1 rips) when looking for fansubs on usenet.
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radicaledward



Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 776
PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 7:36 am Reply with quote
Most of the R1 rip groups are also ripping regular live-action R1 DVD's - so why even condiser then fan-subbers? For that matter I find it unlikely that they are even big fans of what they are ripping. And is it just me or is DBZ the most ripped anime in existance?
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aceleader



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 3:41 am Reply with quote
I'm wondering, out of mild curiosity, how many of you who posted to this thread or created this 'Ethical code' actually fansub? Or are you just commenting on this from the so-called 'outside'. I mean who are you to tell us what we 'can' and 'cannot' do? Are you going to target all of us for the actions of a few? This whole thing is a joke, since you're basically telling us what we can and can't do.


From the "Anime News Network - A New Ethical Code for Digital Fansubbing" :

Quote:
1a. At least once a year, a fansubber should justify his or her existence by subbing an obscure or older title.


WTF? You mean to tell us we have to sub something we're not interested in? I have to justify my own personal existence?! What kind of idiocy is this? This is a hobby for us for crying out loud. Why do we have to prove our existence by working on something we either have no interest in, or even better yet, cannot find? You give me some old titles(and I don't mean just tell me the title, actually find out where to obtain it with my cash allowance), and if I find them sufficiently interesting to spend my x numbers of hours per week watching and working on it, I'll do it for the 'love of the anime' as you people at ANN so succinctly put. But I'm sure as hell not going to do it to prove my existance to you.

Quote:
1b. A fansubber does the community no good by duplicating another's work. Therefore, if a fansub of an anime is already available, the fansubber should devote his or her efforts to another series, unless said existing fansub suffers from an excessively bad translation.


Oh man. I whole heartedly agree. But once again, who are you to tell us where we are supposed to 'devote all our efforts' to? 'Unless said existing fansub suffers from excessively bad translations'? Huh, so now our hobby is now examined, scrutinized and rated on translation quality? No offense but that already happens around us and we certainly don't need someone from the outside criticizing our hobbies.

Quote:
3b/c. Fansubs are not meant to compete with a professional product, therefore perfection should not be considered a goal. Small improvements in video quality or translation should not be considered justification to create another competing fansub. Fansubs are not meant to compete with a professional product, therefore the audio/video quality of a fansub should not attempt to match or better the quality of a professional DVD. In fact, a large filesize is a hindrance to the spread of a fansub and thus goes against the purpose of increasing awareness of a title. 175MB per 25-minute episode should be considered a maximum and 140MB a better choice.


All I have to say about this is '......' HUH??? 'Large filesize is hinderance of the spread of a fansub'?? First you're telling me I can't spread it around, and now you're telling me to bring down the filesize to make it easier to spread? Once again this is a hobby. I wont be an idiot enough to say "If you go and talk to fansubbers" because i'm certain you have. Instead I'll talk about my experiences of fansubbing, and you can make your own educated guesses on how this applies to the rest of the 'fansubbing community idea' you few have built. I work on anime episode to the best of MY ability. Once again this is a pure HOBBY to me. So think of one reason why I shouldn't work to the best of my ability, with the tools I have, with the knowledge I possess with certain programs, or with the ideas I currently have, on any given series. I use this as practice for my Adobe product skills. What's wrong with that? If it's too good and you think that it's too close to the original intent, then I thank you. I still try to improve some more.

Quote:
4a. Do not fansub an American-produced anime. Even if the company didn't officially announce a "license" or a release date, we know it's going to come to the US.


Once again.... HUH? American-produced? '...we know it's going to come to the US'? How do YOU really know it's coming to the US? Do you have little gnomes in every known american anime company that tell you when a CEO says 'hey let's try to license this series'? Once again, who are you to tell me that you KNOW it's going to come to the US and therefore I'm not allowed to subtitle something? If we KNOW that a series is coming to the US, then tell me why did Comic Party come to the US when To Heart didn't?

Quote:
5. We have an interest in the way other fans behave because it affects the reputation of all fandom.


Reputation of fandom? What's that?

Quote:
5b. The fansubber should promote fansub ethics by displaying the code of conduct expected of the viewer somewhere in the anime (preferrably during the eyecatch), such as: (etc)


Excuse me officer... are we supposed to use verbatim? Because I know of many groups that have these three phrases in various points of their encodes.

Quote:
6b. At no time should money be made from distributing fansubs.


Huh? Check out ebay sometimes. You'll find out that many of those 'for profit' fansubs are other idiots outside of the fansubbing community you defined that are trying to make a profit off of our work. Maybe you should be directing these comments to them and not us? Maybe if you also remember a year ago when several anime groups took measures to combat ebay selling? Or maybe this perchance slipped your mind when writing these ethics for us. In (6a) you tell us not to watermark and what not. We do many things in ORDER to make things difficult for ebay'ers to profit from other people's work. In regards to giving due credit where credit is deserved, if you carefully look around, certain groups are in fact giving credit where it is due.

Quote:
6. If at any time you feel you should be compensated for the work you've done then you're probably doing this for all the wrong reasons.


By all means I agree. Find me a group that's actually demanding costs instead of allowing voluntary people to donate. Otherwise even don't bother writing this down.


From this thread:

Quote:
"Pipe dreams. Most fansubbers are 1337 IrC k1dZ who have to be the first to sub whatever show is obviously going to come out in the US a few months later. They don't have ethics when it comes to theft, therefore no ethical code is necessary." - Zac


Thank you Zac for attempting to start a flame here... but by all means, please do not single out any few groups as a representative sample to the whole of this 'fansubbing community' you people at ANN have defined.

Quote:
"Make your scripts as available as your fansubs." -Jlbkwrm


Oh how some groups would love to hate to do this. But for the certain few groups that wouldn't mind doing this, think for a second, how QUICKLY a 'non-fansubber', as you have defined simply by saying what a fansubber is, could obtain these scripts, a raw episode from the internet and easily sell it on ebay or some other similar form? Who would you blame for this? The fansubber? Would you like to put us into more Catch22 situations?

Quote:
"I'm all for making scripts available online for both fansubs and manga scans. I don't like them to be to kept private and then the fansubbers complain about how the company didn't sub the series right. " -Laughing Hyena


Once again I'm all up for giving you my scripts. But unfurtunately I wont and you can call me an elitist bastard for all I care. As for the complaining... man, go find the nearest non-fansubber and hear how they complain. That's all it is. Complaining. It's like an upstart computer programmer complaining about Windows or a someone saying they can make a better taco than Taco Bell. It happens.

Quote:
"Why even involve the fansubbing community? They can't do anything other than spread negative propaganda about the studio..." -Cookie


Wow isn't this a little hyprocritical. Thanks for spreading some negative propaganda about us. If you DO want use such a strong accusation, by all means either direct it to certain groups, but sure as hell do NOT direct it at the whole community. I can already think of many 'groups' from the fansubbing community you have defined, off the top of my head, who do not by any means slander the studios.

Quote:
Most of the R1 rip groups are also ripping regular live-action R1 DVD's - so why even condiser then fan-subbers? -radicaledward


Yes I wonder this to. They're not fansubbers. They're DVD rippers, just like all those other non-anime DVD ripping groups. By all means, make an ethics code for them, but do it seperatly from this 'fansubber ethics code' that you wrote here.



I'm sorely dissapointed that ANN had the gall to tell fansubbers what we can, and cannot do. I actually agree with ANN, up to the point of licensing however. In fact that is all that applies to the orignal intent of your article: ETHICS. What you have propsed in your article are RULES. They are two different things. Half of your 'code' are numbers which you say we must adhere to. This is a ludicrously stupid idea and should be removed from your website. The only real 'ethical' point you have brought up, licensing, is something that can be dealt with. If you find someone continuing to sub licensed titles, by all means report them to the appropriate companies and let THEM handle it, as Urban Vision has. If a company has a problem with something we're doing, by all means let them email us and we'll stop. But by no means should you be acting like the police or big brother by putting up stuff like this to tell us what we can do, how big episodes should be, or even how much effort I am allowed to put into a hobby as you have stated over and over again. If you want to write an 'ethical conduct' why don't you stop looking in from the outside in and get input from the fansubbing community you're trying to limit.

Here are my opinions, and I feel that they are shared with a large portion of the 'fansubbing community' you have described. Take them as you will. If you have a problem with this, then take them up with me. I speak from my stance, in the assumption that many of the other groups I converse with daily have the same views. I love anime, I love the anime I work on, and I love when an american company licenses something that I worked on(partially in part because some ego allows me to enjoy it when the mass panick arives from viewers, but more importantly from the fact that I know that US companies think a certain series will help promote and increase the awareness of anime to non-fansub viewers). If you think I'm bullshitting you, then that's your problem and maybe you should be writing your own ethics on what you should be believing or not.

-aceleader
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 4:48 am Reply with quote
aceleader wrote:
I'm wondering, out of mild curiosity, how many of you who posted to this thread or created this 'Ethical code' actually fansub? Or are you just commenting on this from the so-called 'outside'. I mean who are you to tell us what we 'can' and 'cannot' do? Are you going to target all of us for the actions of a few? This whole thing is a joke, since you're basically telling us what we can and can't do.


While I was never a fansubber, I was a part of three different groups that had various plans to sub various titles.

Also, since about 1998, I've been watching the evolution of fansubbing from the same perspective as 3NA, LGA, TechnoGirls and numerous other "old guard" fansub groups. I'll try not to put words in their mouths, but my understanding is that most quit because they felt that their work (their work, which was the bulk of the fansub scene at the time) was complete. Smaller groups could continue working on titles that weren't going to be picked up, and new groups could come along and see where fandom's come from.

For example, It's a commonly held belief that Tomodachi Anime's Fushigi Yuugi fansubs lead to Pioneer licensing FY. It's one instance where fansubbing actually did manage to get a series licensed. On hearing that the title was licensed, Tomodachi Anime shut down. They did what they came to do -- and that was to generate enough interest in shoujo that girls anime would be picked up.

Since then there've been other titles -- MKR, Marmalade Boy (licensed, although unreleased), Princess Nine, and a dozen other titles that were "never going to be licensed", yet -were-, in fact, licensed. Much of the original drive of fansubbers was to get more anime here, in America. From a title per month in the industry to now more than 20 from a single company, it's obvious that the old fansubbers job was successful.

Not all of the old fansubbers have quit; a few translators are working with current groups... but of course, seeing things from the perspective of "old fansubbers" has certainly influenced _my_ thoughts on fansubbing.

Quote:
Quote:
1a. At least once a year, a fansubber should justify his or her existence by subbing an obscure or older title.


WTF? You mean to tell us we have to sub something we're not interested in? I have to justify my own personal existence?!


First of all, the ethical guidelines only apply to distribution; if you love subbing modern anime, go for it.. but if you're going to distribute it, you should also show your fans that there's more to anime than just the latest thing in Japan.

No one subtitles Chibi Maruko-chan even tho it's one of the most lauded series in Japan. I was going to translate and subtitle Ogon Yuusha Goldran (a 1995 anime), which has thus far not seen any fan translation as far as I'm aware.

Neighborhood Stories was at least partially fansubbed, but it wasn't completely fansubbed, and it's been 8 years. IMO, it'd be perfectly fine to subtitle the rest of the series now. Romeo's Blue Skies is another very good series that almost certainly won't see a release over here. Why not work on that? Ditto for Heidi of the Alps and any of a thousand other titles.

this list fails to list all the domestic licenses... but there's still QUITE a few series that one can see have either never been subtitled, or were only partially subtitled by groups.

There are plenty of high-quality titles that simply have little chance to be released in the States due to their age. NG Lamune is one of the older series I enjoyed watching years ago, and I was very happy to see it again being fansubbed.

Quote:
Why do we have to prove our existence by working on something we either have no interest in, or even better yet, cannot find?


You can find plenty of these titles on LD with a little searching online. Heck, a decent number even got DVD releases.

Some series (like Goldran) never got LD releases or DVD releases.. so instead you might have to go back to VHS masters. Fansubbers used to use them.. and I see at least one group re-releasing Violinist of Hamelin using 3NA's original work. Those came from LD masters IIRC, but the source that was encoded was a VHS tape, probably 2nd generation.

It's not the greatest-looking encode, but it still seems to have a pretty large number of people downloading it.

There are sources available if you look for them.

Quote:
Once again.... HUH? American-produced? '...we know it's going to come to the US'? How do YOU really know it's coming to the US?


If I put money into a production in Japan, I would certainly expect to have first worked out my ownership of part of the rights. It's not often that you find companies GIVING money away without expecting something in return.

In this sort of industry it is reasonable to assume that any title with American funding, an American company in the Japanese copyrights, or an American company or staff member in the Japanese credits, that it will be licensed by that company.

To the best of my knowledge, no American company has passed on a title that they helped finance.

Quote:
Reputation of fandom? What's that?


It's what the non-vocal fans (the "silent majority" as I like to call them) think of the vocal fans (the "vocal minority"). Although there are thousands of people subscribed to numerous anime forums, and thousands more idling in anime chat rooms, there are tens of thousands who simply buy the DVD and don't care what we say, or if we even said anything at all.

The fansub viewing, even for the 20,000 weekly downloads of Naruto, is still just a fraction of actual anime fandom.

Quote:
Quote:
5b. The fansubber should promote fansub ethics by displaying the code of conduct expected of the viewer somewhere in the anime (preferrably during the eyecatch), such as: (etc)


Excuse me officer... are we supposed to use verbatim? Because I know of many groups that have these three phrases in various points of their encodes.


Yes, and this is a GOOD THING that fansubbers have done. This sort of warning wasn't always present in fansubs.. and it wasn't anywhere as universal as it is today.

Back in the early 90s, instead of "Not for sale or rent" you would more likely see people insulting one another during the fansubs. Arctic Animation was always good for that, IIRC. There was a group that trashed basically everybody in their Nadia subs, by putting 1/30th of a second insults in the eye-catch.

Quote:
go find the nearest non-fansubber and hear how they complain. That's all it is. Complaining.


if it's like that, then why distribute fansubs at all?

Quote:
Thanks for spreading some negative propaganda about us.


Legally, what recourse do you have against AnimeJunkies? Can you call a lawyer and get them to remove Last Exile? You can start a flame war with them. You can tell people who listen to you not to download AJ subs.

... but you cannot stop the root of the problem, which is the bad fansubbers themselves. Only legally-empowered companies have that option.

That's what I was referring to.

And, we aren't saying that all fansubbers are bad (as you seem to have misconstrued). We are saying that there needs to be a revision in what drives fansubbers, because otherwise we will continue to see more groups like AJ, who (in my mind) are no better than 0-day warez groups. In fact, the groups who take their time releasing translations _ARE_ better than AJ, and are more mindful of the industry.
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mufurc



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 612
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 8:43 am Reply with quote
Just a few words from someone who doesn't live in the US...

The Internet and fansubs are more or less "international" (as English is the "lingua franca" of the Internet), however, his "ethical code" seems to be written without giving much thought to people living outside the US&Canada. There are MANY anime fans at places where anime is not mainstream; where anime is NOT getting licensed. For the majority of non-American/Asian anime fans fansubs are the primary source of anime, simply because there is NO other affordable source. So I think either the article should be re-named to "ethical code for fansubbers in the USA", or there should be a few points considered in relation to the topic.

1) "A secondary purpose of fansubs is to give fans an advance taste of anime that may someday be licensed."

Where I live, purchasing a licensed anime from the US costs as much (or even more in some cases) as buying it in Japanese. Now, 2 points:
- not all people have the money to buy everything they like - if I come across a series that I quite like, but I don't have the money to buy it (IF it gets licensed in the US), I can't just say "oh, I'll just rent it," because I CAN'T rent it. So if the rule would be observed by fansubbers, I'd be stuck with 4-5 episodes of a cool series that's however not cool enough for me to pay big money to buy it. I wouldn't be able to see the rest of the series, just because I don't live in America and I'm not filthy rich. I think this is quite unfair.
- an American release has two values for a non-American (for me, at least): picture quality and subtitles (since English is not my first language, it's much easier to read the subs than trying to figure out the dub). Fansub has decent picture quality (even a 140 mb file) and often high quality subtitles - all for free.

2) "Do not distribute an American-licensed anime. Distribution must stop the instant a license is announced. Any distribution after that point gives the licensee legal cause to pursue the fansubber. "

I admit I don't know much about the legal background of licensing, but if something gets licensed in America, it's still legal to distribute the fansubbed version of it (for free, of course) in other countries, where the licensing company is not present... isn't it? (just a question, I really don't know how licensing works)

3) "Do not fansub an American-produced anime. Even if the company didn't officially announce a "license" or a release date, we know it's going to come to the US."

Again, see above. Yeah, it's going to the US, but it's not going to Hungary (where I live). And even though it's going to the US, it's gonna cost much to buy it HERE. So if it's not a title that I love with a passion (LoGH, Berserk, etc.), then I'll just stick to the fansub.

In another thread, someone wrote "so what you guys are saying is the true spirit of anime is in buying an amercian dvd and any such products. granted i see the the problem in the fact that they should have taken down the episodes they had, but this is ridiculous. what you're saying isn't fandom, it's capitalism." I completely agree with him/her. And yes, this IS business and about money, however, only in America. I see no reason for people from other, less "anime-infested" parts of the world to be deprived of a certain series only because it got licensed in America. (note: this is not against the US or anything.)

All this said, I'm patiently (impatiently) waiting for the English subs release of Legend of Galactic Heroes. It's 110 episodes + 3 movies + 2 more OAVs, but I would gladly pay for it - if only it got released in the US...
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Phoenix
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:17 am Reply with quote
I agree that a fansub should no longer be distributed once it's been licensed; however, licenses don't apply internationally.

I know that if something is licensed in the US it's considered licensed in Canada as well, I don't know if it's true, but it's how things work. However, how would it work for another country? For example in Canada we get manga from the US and France in the national languages (I'm not including those we get in Chinese like this). If a manga is licensed in France and is distributed in Canada in French, does that mean we're not allowed to read the scanlations of that manga? Even if the scanlation we're reading is in English and not French? I've actually been wondering about this for a while.

This applies in a way to what was being previously said about fansubs being for an international audiance. You can't restrict the people who are downloading them by what their nationality is, at least I don't think it's possible, so by taking them down you'd be making sure that those who don't live where it's been licensed can't get it. The Kenshin manga has been released here for years, but does that mean that all scanlations of it should be taken down because it is technically available in North America?
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Coral Skipper



Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 223
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 10:25 am Reply with quote
I have an idea of how ANN might be able to control fansubs at least somewhat. I recommend putting links for fansub groups that follow the ethical code we have proposed here. I do realize that ANN relies on advertising on its website to run so I'm not proposing putting the list in an obvious place that is more obvious then the banners. I think that it could work because the people who go to ANN and download fansubs would find it easier to just use a link to get to an approved website. Also if the purpose of fansubs is to promote a show then the fansub groups that follow these guidelines would get more hits then the others not linked because of people who normally would not download fansubs downloading them from those sites. It may encourage more fansub groups to follow those guidelines. As for enforcing the guidlines I recommend getting a few forum goers to check out each fansub group at least once a month.

I think this will help, but I would like to hear other opinions on this.

The only reason I am even suggesting this is because you would have to be naive to think fansubbing would stop, so we might as well try to have some thing resembling control over the fansub community.
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Dan42
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 12:23 pm Reply with quote
aceleader wrote:
I'm wondering, out of mild curiosity, how many of you who posted to this thread or created this 'Ethical code' actually fansub? Or are you just commenting on this from the so-called 'outside'. I mean who are you to tell us what we 'can' and 'cannot' do? Are you going to target all of us for the actions of a few? This whole thing is a joke, since you're basically telling us what we can and can't do.


I'm sorry you took the whole thing that way, aceleader. I'm not going to respond to your post in full because most of it is just you being angry at being told "what to do". Even when you agreed with the ideas (you see? we *do* have some points in common), you were still angry. I thought the opening paragraph made it clear: we are not telling anybody what to do, we are not forcing this on anyone. We don't have the intention nor do we have the capacity to play police and enforce these "rules". In fact these aren't rules, they're ethical guidelines. Whether you follow them or not is really up to you and your conscience. Fansub ethics are an OLD topic and we're not the first to try to come up with an ethical code of some sort. This is just one more addition to the debate. In fact, I would be happy if anyone suggested amendments to the code. mufurc raised a number of very good points concerning internationalization.
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Dark-Magik



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:14 pm Reply with quote
Out of curiosity, for those that created this "ethical code" how many of you actually fansub? From what was in that ANN version of the "ethical code" you seem to be telling us what we can and what we can't do. Who are you to tell us(fansubbers)what we're allowed to work on and what not to work on?
Quote:
I have an idea of how ANN might be able to control fansubs at least somewhat.

Control fansubs? Are you plain out ignorant Coral? Fansubbing/digisubbing will never be controlled by any person or group. You think fansubbers will all of a sudden follow these rules just cause you or some outside group looking in says so? Sorry to burst your bubble but it will never happen.
Quote:
1a. At least once a year, a fansubber should justify his or her existence by subbing an obscure or older title.

Why should fansubbers have to justify their existence just to please those that aren't even apart of the scene themselves?

Sure it would be nice to see "older" series be done but it's not that simple as you make it out to be.
Getting sources can be extemely difficult to impossible depending on how old the series is and how much it might possibly cost(unless you guys are willing to donate some money Shocked ).
Getting people to actually want to work on it is just as hard when they rather work on something they want to do and enjoy.

Quote:
1b. A fansubber does the community no good by duplicating another's work. Therefore, if a fansub of an anime is already available, the fansubber should devote his or her efforts to another series, unless said existing fansub suffers from an excessively bad translation.

All I can see this do is make fansubbing more of a game of "Who comes out first will be the only version availble". All this will do is force groups to do internals and possibly release through "other" methods just to smite others.

Quote:
6b. At no time should money be made from distributing fansubs.
Why are you telling fansubbers that? Go take a look at EBay and you will see tons of people selling fansubs on CDs and now on DVD-R's.

I hope you guys realize that by argueing over how fansubbers should do things etc. and making all these revisions to "your" ethical code means absolutely if nobody from the fansub scene will follow it.
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radicaledward



Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 776
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:23 pm Reply with quote
Dark-Magik wrote:

Fansubbing/digisubbing will never be controlled by any person or group. You think fansubbers will all of a sudden follow these rules just cause you or some outside group looking in says so? Sorry to burst your bubble but it will never happen.

I can think of at least one group that can control fansubbers - at least here in the US - you might have heard of them, they go by the name of FBI. Let's not kid ourselfs here, all fansubbers that are in the US are breaking copyright laws, and if the industry pushed for it the groups would be shut down quickly. Therefor, it is best to keep things on good terms with the companies so that people don't start going to jail.
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Lucca



Joined: 17 Aug 2002
Posts: 67
Location: Amoung the Fern-Growers
PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:32 pm Reply with quote
Maybe there should be some common ground on this matter.

How about we not make them "RULES", but rather "GUIDELINES". This way, they can always be up for discussion based on what's best for each indvidual.

For instance, I don't agree with the "Only Previews for Fansub". I, personally, like to see whole series fansubbed, or subbed up until licence. That way, there can be that happy median between "What if it never gets licenced and we lose interest?" and the "You KNOW it's gonna get licenced!" argument.
Personally, I thought Haibane Renmei would NEVER be licenced... well... it was. Just an example.
A happy medium could be a guideline stating "Don't Fansub EVERYTHING."

And how about instead of making this an ANN thing, there be a sepeate site... kinda like a Clique, or banner exchange (much like the READ ME disclaimer for blogs).

This way it's a matter of choice, and for those who show it, you can be assured that there can be no harm done by leeching from this company/place/ect.

I hope I'm making sense...
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