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below are some of my (random) thoughts on this
I didn't read most of the replies since, well, I'm lazy. Anyway, I'm not sure about this but I heard that only Shaman King eps 1-26 were licensed.
About the quality of fansubs, some people think that if they're going to bother fansubbing they might as well do it as well as they can. If that happens to be on an almost professional level I don't really see a problem with it. No matter how good a fansub is it will not be as good as a DVD or be dubbed Razz

Most fansub groups (at least the ones I know people from) are made up of nice people and are actually happy when a series is released in the US, though they'd have liked to finish it first.
AJ was never well liked in the fansub community and I wouldn't care if they get shut down.
Fansubs shouldn't be distributed after it's been licensed in America (though some would argue that not all groups are based in the US), period.
I personally would never buy an anime I had not already seen at least 3 episodes of. I feel it's only worth my money if it's good enough to watch multiple times.

Just to comment on finding an anime store in your area;

I live just outside of Boston. I know a lot of stores that carry anime, but only one store that specializes in anime. There's also only one store that specializes in Japanese books.
It's a matter of preference. If you have to drive a couple of hours to reach your nearest store, would you rather hunt it down via on-line stores?

I agree that, in the past, you did need a fansubber to get the true version of some of the anime (Macross, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc.), but those are now available in their original forms to the US market.
I don't see a problem with the US companies releasing the anime so long as they put out both versions (should they decide to release a childrens version for whatever reason in the first place).
I've said it before that I have picked up fansubs here and there, but they are few and far between, and almost all of them are from anime that will never see the light of day in this country. There is simply no other way to get to see those. Should they get picked up in the future, well then they get picked up, but they weren't on the map when I got them years ago.
Those, you really can't do much about, but if the distribution companies can release anime quickly, with quality imaging, and at a reasonable price (some box sets out there are pretty high compared to others), then what's to complain?
You will never be able to stop fansubbers, or stop people from getting their anime from them, but we're at the point where the lead time between an anime released in Japan makes it over here is shrinking to the point of acceptance. When the time base was two or more years, yes you are going to find people getting fansubs left and right (and that's not just for the anime market either. It's happening in films as well).
We're at what..a year now? Furthermore, if you're in a club, you have a shot at seeing some of the anime before it's made public. What better boon?
Fansubbers simply aren't needed as much as they were before. Again, that doesn't mean you can get rid of them as there will always be people who will opt for getting it for free than paying for it. Right now, though, it looks as if a change is on the horizon. Which way will it go?

getting away from fansub ethics a bit... but...

shintopriestess wrote:

Actually if you read the locked AJ thread most of the ANN members and friends of ANN posted blatantly they had hoped the editorial and the forum thread would help sway people to change their minds.

Yes, we hoped that -- because there was no reason to write the editorial if no one's mind could be swayed. We also hoped that people would bring new and different ideas to the discussion. In some ways, we accomplished our goal. In other ways we did not.

After all, if there's no reason to write the editorial, why write it? Why write fanfics? Why write anything? Because there's an audience that either wants to hear, or NEEDS to hear what's being said. That's why.

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Be less of an anime fan and be totally dependent to the US companies version of what Japanese Anime should be like for American fans.

Being an anime fan is not based on how many titles you've seen or how many DVDs, CDs, or lawn gnomes you own. There isn't an Internet Otaku Rating Site ("AmIOtakuOrNot.com"?), where users submit their collections in an attempt to out-otaku one another.

Howabout reading fanfics? How many read fanfics does it take to equal one written fanfic? Or drawing? Does producing fan-art make you more of a fan? What if you make original characters in an "anime style"[1]?

As such, fansubs have _no value_ in determining if you're a fan or not. Nor do owning DVDs, nor does writing fanfics nor creating fanart. You are a fan if you say you are; it's as simple as that.

You can refer to some people by name because they're well-known, not because they're bigger fans. The whole concept of "bigger fan" is a bit of a misnomer; you aren't "bigger" than anything because you own more than someone else.

.. and if you want to blindly assume that the value of a collection is in direct corrolation to the "size" of the fan, then you should be aware that fansubs have no value - you don't "own" that anime. You can have 1000 CDs of anime, but you know what? The little 6 year old who owns Pokemon DVDs 1-3 is a bigger fan than you, if you want to use collection value as a measure stick. :p

Are you more of a fan if you can speak Japanese? What if you can pretend to speak Japanese? If you fool someone into thinking you're from Japan when you aren't, does that make you a better fan? Are you inferior to Japanese anime fans because you don't see anime at the same time they do?

I'm serious -- what makes a person "more" of an anime fan?

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Sadly when plans didn't go their way they quickly locked the thread :)

38000 reads, 436 replies in only ~60 hours? A failure? Certainly not. In fact, it still generates around 2,000 views per day, probably of new people who haven't yet had a chance to read everything that was posted.

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"Fansub and sub/dub arguments are just the same as religious/political discussions. Nobody gives ground, nobody changes their mind, nobody says, "aha, you may be right, let me rethink my position". There's plenty of other places where people can dicsuss it, it doesn't need to infect each and every forum out there."

I think you're pulling his statement out of context and applying it to ANN.. the person who wrote that was Chris Beveridge, not Chris Macdonald (aka Tempest). Chris Beveridge runs Anime On DVD, and as such he has control over the content on Anime On DVD's forums. He chose, when we first published the editorial, not to permit any discussion about our editorial.

His stance is reasonable; his website does not have anything to do with fansubbers or fansubbing ethics. I think in another time and place, his website WOULD have permitted the discussion, but circumstances as they are, he felt it was in Anime On DVD's best interests not to host any discussion. At least a few AoDVD members did stop by and leave comments, however, so it seems that his decision didn't stifle the discussion.

As for the decision to lock the thread, please go back and read all the discussion. By the 20th page you'll begin to see several of us repeating ourselves. By the 30th page, you'll see several more arguments which were stated and then re-stated, but whose aims were effectively the same.

Of course, if you take a step back and look at the same vein of discussions that have occurred on rec.arts.anime.misc and various other locations over the years there really has been absolutely nothing new to the debate added.. even now on our forums.

We certainly got thousands of fans to think about fansubs instead of just going ahead and blindly downloading them. Did we change the minds of a few people? I think so. Did we change the minds of many? No, probably not.

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"Yes if you cant think to ANN's way on fansubs and accept their desired fansub ethic code they dont appear to want to let anyone discuss it".

No one has ever, nor do I think anyone ever will ever conform to the entire fansub code that we proposed.

The point of writing the code of ethics was not to force anyone to conform; it was meant to bring a set of ideas to the fansubbers as suggestions for what we feel an "ethical" fansub would be.

It was not meant to be a set of laws that if you wanted to be listed as "ethical" you needed to follow. That's what laws are for, and the laws are already clear as to what is and is not legal.

[1] (gah, i hate that term...)

If I mixed the two people I am sorry. As it is their names are too similar and the editorial got so many including myself pis***ed that if I did it was on my error and I am sorry.

I can eat crow when I do make a mistake.

As for changing minds.. well if anything these threads and editorials actually did the opposite and opened more to getting fansubs than before. Following any believe to trust the US industry to feed us anime and to ignore fansubs is foolish to the extreme.

Now that you have gotten over that. What kind of rules do you think should be used or what ideas do you have on new rules?

I'm trying to get this away from the AJ thread and more into new rule ideas and how they would work.

Laughing Hyena wrote:

Now that you have gotten over that. What kind of rules do you think should be used or what ideas do you have on new rules?

I'm trying to get this away from the AJ thread and more into new rule ideas and how they would work.

I think that from my point of view stated in my previous posts in this thread having a code of ethics for fansubbing at all would be mostly counterproductive.

First of all I think a written code is a bad idea, very few people if any will follow it and it's only stirring up negative emotions. Assuming you aren't going to ditch the idea though I think some of it really needs revision.

The biggest problem with it right now is it's language, no one is going to adhear to an ethical code that treats them as unethical. Language like "a fansubber should justify his or her existence..." has no place in a code of ethics and neither do comands like "do not". Ethics are what people should do, not what they have to do, people just get angry when they are told they have to do something. I agree with most of it, but it still pissed me off when I read it, if you actually want people to take this seriously make it more reader friendly.

The next problem I had was with 1a. I read through most of the posts in this topic so I know a lot of other people brought up the fact that it isn't always easy to find old raws. Sometimes it's damn near impossible. If you want people to sub old obscure anime help make it more available. Maybe you could create some kind of database with info on how to obtain old unsubbed anime. There's A LOT of out of print hard to find stuff, but there's bound to be someone somewhere that can find a given series. The fansub community could really use a resource like that, so until that happens you shouldn't tell fansubbers to do the (near)impossible.

My last complaint is 6a. I just don't understand why fansubbers shouldn't put their names/nicks in the credits. Lots of non-profit things give credit to those that worked on them. Education films and such all have credits, heck ANN puts the author's name on it's articles, so why should fansubbers be so humble? If what was really meant was that credits shouldn't be intrusive then I agree with that to some extent. 6a should really be about making the credits blend in with the show or be omitted all together.
Also there was some talk about various effects being used in the credits to feed a person's ego. While this is of course true (in some cases more than others), it's not just an ego trip to use fancy effects. It's fun!! It's sort of like hobby programming or art. It's interesting to play around with and can look really cool. If it's overdone or overintrusive then it's just like a crappy painting, and if people don't like it it's certainly not going to be an ego boost. I think most fansubbers that use elaborate effects don't really do it so much for an ego boost, but more for the process of creating the effects and the personal satisfaction that comes from seeing it when it's done. If other people see it and like it the ego boost is just a bonus not the goal.

Lastly I'd just like to say again that this whole thing seems like a bad idea that's not going to get anything done. Personally I think it fansub ethics can be mostly summed up in two rules. 1. Don't sub/distribute licensed anime (licensed by language not region) and 2. Don't sell fansubs.

Well to first start off my post, I think Annie-Mei and Ramen mixed up where their posts were supposed to go since I don't think anywhere in this particular topic did we start to say that fansubs were the cause of the increase in mainstream anime, nor did we start saying fansubs were a viable alternative to a currently released R1 licensed title. I do recall us saying in this particular post that fansubs are a good MEASURING TOOL for the industry. If Annie-Mei and Ramen intend for their posts to be here... ok, fine, my bad. If we did start saying in the particular topic that fansubbing is the cause for the increase in mainstream anime, oh well. I'm not gonna argue that point(since whether or not I do agree isn't relevant to this topic), but I'd think those arguements should go to a different topic, since it is wildly off this certain topic and as such has caused this arguement to go off topic even more. I'm going to skip over the last few posts since discussing whether you are an anime fan or not has nothing to do with this topic either. And also, before I start my post, I'd like to thank at least the few people, ANN staff or not, in keeping this 'discussion' from degrading into something conductive to a wild flaming war(I think the fact that everyone's posting daunting 5 page posts has something to do with that Wink

). Anyway, here goes. Once again, like I said in my last post, don't just suddenly start quoting half way through this and picking apart a single sentence without considering its relation to my whole post.

I guess since there's another forum post about this(which in a sense I find completely redundant and uneccessary since this whole thread could be pasted over there and the arguements would be the same, aside from being a little more in depth, but whatever), and since we've already strayed far enough from the original intent of this certain post, I'll half attempt to get it back, and half just say my last words here, since from the beginning it was inherently an 'outside' vs. 'inside' arguement. If this was intentional or not from the ANN staff, I dunno, and I'm not here to argue that anymore.

In a sense I'm personally disappointed to hear that there is a distinction between the VHS fansubbers and the digital fansubbers. From what I hear the only real differences are the mode in which the fansub is made, and the mode of distribution. Shouta described that VHS fansubbers(as I unfortunately have to begin making this distinction with some amount of reluctance) were and still are concerned with things such as quality of work and correctness as well as a number of other things. I'd have to respond with a great deal of confidence that digital fansubbers (at least the groups I talk to, which indeed consist of a very large majority of the digital fansub community) are also concerned with quality of their work, and correctness, especially in the translation areas. My proof to you of that is under the 'translations' credit of various encodes. These groups had the sense to check and make sure of the correctness of their work through the x number of translators they list in the credits (note that this is not an arguement over the credits issue listed in the code of ethics, and is not to be treated as such). Another arguement that was made in this topic, which was in a sense reinforced by Shouta and Ghost was that the VHS fansubbers had to invest certain amounts of money to perform their craft(excuse my sudden use of cliched terms, it's late). Okay, I can accept that. But I'd also say that digital fansubbers also have to invest certain amounts just so we can fansub. Are they quite as much VHS fansubbers? I don't know, but personally, I've invested a fairly hefty amount just to be able to digitally fansub(I went off on some of my personal costs in an earlier post so I wont list them again). In regards to the mode of distribution between the VHS fansubbers and digital fansubbers, I would once again ask, what's so different between the two? Once again, I haven't had the chance to fansub using VHS's, but here's my understanding of it. As the name implies, a VHS fansubber uses VHS's to distribute their work. The costs involved? Nothing, or just enough to break even in terms of costs for blank tapes and shipping fees. Likewise, as the name implies a digital fansubber uses digital means to distribute their fansubs, the interenet. The costs involved here? Nothing, except the costs to be able to connect to the internet. To me, there's literally no difference here. We both breack even on the mode of distro. So what about distribution in the event of a title becoming licensed? I would say once again, there's nothing different. Both types of fansubbers stop distribution from the source(i.e. VHS fansubbers no longer ship out and digital fansubbers remove links from their webpages and bots from their IRC channels). Once again, I would claim that in both cases there is literally nothing different because a VHS can still be copied from someone outside the source and continue distribution, just like a digital fansubber's work can continue to be distributed through unofficial IRC channels or through P2p programs like Kazaa(this arguement has been subtly implied, so I've decided to addresses it in some way or another). So really, what's different about a 'VHS' and a 'digital' fansubber? The scope? Okay, I have no reason to argue that the scope of digital fansubbing is larger. Is it a cause to believe that the fansubbers core ethics would have to change because of the scope? I would say once again, no. One last arguement that was made for the differences between a VHS and a digital fansubber was that there is a difference in the emphasis between older/obscure anime and newer/popular anime. Is this actually the case? I can personally argue that it isn't. My proof would be titles such as Tenshi no Konamaiki, Tokyo Mew Mew, Ayatsuri Sakon, Sister Princess, Run=Dim, Touch, Piano, Boys Be, and Kero Kero Chime, among other titles that are certainly not the most popular nor the newest anime that were or are being currently digitally subbed. Sure, I agree that something like 8 different versions of Wolf's Rain(yes there are at least that many, I counted once) is a little unecessary, but can it really be said without a doubt that the majority of digital fansub community is focused on being the first and competing with each other, at the sacrifice of quality? I can only think of a small handful compared to the whole of the digital fansub community that hold to this "must be first at the sacrifice of accuracy and quality" ideology(Note that this is in no way an invitation to continue tthe 30+ page AJ discussion). To me there's nothing different between the two, aside from the generations in which the two worked with(this would include the modes of working, distribution, etc). According to certain people in this post we've both unarguably have had our run ins with what I call the 'for shits and giggles' groups. Ghost also used a term, 'disappointment', to describe the feelings of the older analog fansubbers to the more modern. Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing but respect for the older fansubbers, for the work they did, and I have no intention of argueing about your attitudes towards us. In a way i'm disheartened for one...maybe two reasons.

The first would be, according to this forum thread, there's pretty much three(or four if you break it down even more) distinct groups of fansubbers out there now. The old fansubbers, which has been pretty much coined as a 'trad(itional) fansubber', the 'for shits and giggles' traditional fansubber(of which has been unarguably said, is a very very small minority of trad subbers) and the 'modern fansubber', which can further be broken down into the 'l33t script kiddies'(which I once again argue is the minority of digital fansubbers) and the 'not so l33t script kiddies'. Where I fall into that, I dunno, and I really don't care where you decide to put me. It's not my place on this particular thread to say where I fall. My point is, why are there 3, or 4 different classes of us out there? why is there even this need to distinguish us this much? As I hoped I proved in the previous paragraph, there really is nothing different between a trad subber and a digital subber. We have the same goals, and we both have our share of 'black-sheep' minority. Anyways, enough of my talking about the differences between us. Ghost, Shouta, like I said, I have nothing but respect for the old VHS subbers and what they did, but perhaps something other than dissapointment could be had here. In the end we, we really aren't and shouldn't be different.

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To the international users. Once again, I understand your point of view, in which, as I understand, English is a perfectly good language in which to subtitle and distribute fansubs with. However, keep in mind that many of the English fansubbers ARE based in America. Does that make us better than you because we're in America? Not really. In fact I would say that it puts more pressure on us to follow some more unwritten rules. Because many of us are based in America(and in other cases Canada), there are some interntal fansubber 'unwritten rules', where we can't give out our English scripts for use. I wont get into the details of it, but suffice it to say, many of us would be flamed from within if we did give out our scripts for use because it would appear that we are trying to circumvent some of those rules by 'jumping out of America'. Please understand our side of this issue. Once again, all I can say is, find lots of people where you guys are that love anime and start a fansubbing group whether it be japanese to english or japanese to your native language. And good luck.

======

Anyways, that's all I had to say, and since the coneception of this post to finish(which was an ungodly amount of time. I get sidetracked easily, and was trying to pick my words carefully here), about 10 new posts appeared, right along with another clone of this topic(which I'm still finding uneccessary but whatever), i'll just stop and let the rest of this run it's course. How does this have to relate back to the ethics posted on ANN's website? Given the events surrounding the beginning of this post and the conception of ANN's "revised Fansubbing Code of Ethics" all I can say that it was based off the actions of a small minority as opposed to the majority of fansubbers, digital or traditional. The implications that surround this code of ethics imply that the majority of the fansubbers do things like "make profits from their fansubs" and "intentionally fansub american licensed titles", or "blatantly compete with each other to be the first". Whether this was intentional or not, I don't know, I don't care, and I"m not about to start to argue that. But the implications are there, and need to be considered. Like I said before, if you have a problem with a group or a small portion of groups, take it up with them, and please don't include the rest of us in your classifications(which has been done on more than a few occasions in this thread). Anyway, like I said, i'm done here. Please consider what I've said here for the past week or so. Take it, leave it, I don't care. But if you want to talk to me about it more(note this isn't an invitation to flame either), I'm out there somewhere on IRC.

Wow I never knew threads could be so sickening. But I've been glancing over some of these random and really.. pretty idiotic postings. Hearing the guy from one thread speaking like a politician to another again pressing how since no ones changing their views it got locked and pushed to yet a 3rd thread.

I will give you ding-dongs with this VHS // Digital fansub bickering kids some good info. You can do the year time line and peace it together. One year prior to Ranma 1/2 being released in the U.S I had attended the San Diego ComicCon. While their I found piles of booths seeing VHS tapes of cartoons and things I had no clue about. On a dare and because the girls were cute I got one tape and took it home.. The tapes quality sucked, the picture distorted randomly. Right in the front it said "If you paid anything for this you got ripped off". When Ranma came to the US I became knee deep into Anime and the Japanese Culture surrounding it.

One thing I noticed was EVERYONE who mentioned Anime was spending 50 dollars or more for LD's of Anime because their was no other way than VHS to get the titles. Now unless I'm way off LD's are as they used to say on DVD's release basically large DVD's which people were copying, coding and making fansubs of. Now having talked to fansubbers I know around that time they also got VHS copies of the TV shows,etc. The thing is digitial did exist at the time. The Fansubs never really changed only the fact that the codecs to the quality got better and better.

Now, considering that fans pressed. Fans showed people were they would spend money by getting the Japanese imports. The fans controlled the show.

For those ready to say it was all profit, etc. Well I'll nip that too. For nearly a year I worked at Fry's (for those who know what it is) and they had a PITIFUL small tiny, itsy, nearly invisible selection of anime. It was so small it would leave a milk crate half empty. I spent my time in that dept asking, begging for them to get more as it would sell alot. They told me that they already were as they know and have seen people coming in asking for anime.

Any fool who thinks laying ethics to fansubbing, to control it will help the US gain more fans. Make things more profitable... get a life seriously. That or you're too new to doing the Otaku dance to keep up. You cant lay codes, rules, demand people think the way you want just because you hate a group, or you feel its going to hurt the industry (famous RIAA speech), or its going to kill the anime flowing to the US.

For all the hmming and hahing I hear no one has actually thought that if the US companies were SOOO hurting,, sooo in harm from fansubbers. Didn't anyone consider that they would post to their site. Request from the fans to get their product, or want to hold discussion groups from fans, or do polls from fans?

I mean other than bad mouthing each other. Or having fans from the speed racer age who haven't seen a title past the 80's groan and moan. The companies know us, they can easily ask us for our input. We really arent invisible, and the fansubbers are really the ones you need to thank for it.

Well the fansubbers, the small mom and pops shops who sell those imported sailor moon toys for double their real price and you who are reading this are the ones who really make a difference by buying what you want, getting the fansubs you want, doing what you want.

No one.. not ANN's beliefs in fansubs, not the fartheads Razz

, no ones going to change your mind or the fansubbers.

As it is ANN should not have delved into this subject of fansubbing as they admitted. They dont touch fansubs, dont look at them dont use them. Which as I pointed in their chobits 2 review would have made all the error's in it less than well Twisted Evil

Remember Otaku from the states to the other lands think for yourself and dont let a topic started by people with no real knowledge on the subject cause bad blood. Get your anime, your ah my goddess figures and chii boards and have fun ^^;;

Now ANN really you random editors have stated more than once this isnt a topic you have enough to be even slightly bias so maybe you should lock this thread before July 1st and move onto the news which is your strong point.

P.S. Dont Dis the chii....... well that and your animatrix review is still WAY WAY bias again. -_-; Damn 'history' of anime made two friends stop their interest in anime they said it was boring and made no ... Shocked

sense. You may in the future consider stating the fact that the clips like with Todd Mcfarlane basically only says he watchs anime, etc. didn't really state anything awe inspiring. *blows some dust off the CD and Ebays it for 3 cents and still thinks its too much*

Chiao........ *watchs Stellvia and waits for ANN to have smoke coming out of its ears along with a bashing with their ANN fansub bible*

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Ruuuuunnnnnnn
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P.P.S. Thats a joke for all you serious monkeys who read this

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Now, considering that fans pressed. Fans showed people were they would spend money by getting the Japanese imports. The fans controlled the show.

Maybe they controlled the show before, when the only people who would see it were those who had access to fansubs... but not now. Now when ~2 million people per day watch Toonami, and ~1 million watch Adult Swim. Not when anyone can walk into Suncoast and pick up the latest volume of nearly any in-production series.

Not when a search for "anime" turns up AniPike as the #1 link, and the monthly top-20 series covers the "big names" in anime that have regularly held spots there in the past.

Not when Kenshin, Gundam, DBZ, and Cowboy Bebop are becoming household names of popular anime series.

Anime's not growing smaller.. and the "vocal fans" are overpowered by greater and greater numbers of the "silent majority" of anime-buyers. As such, the vocal fans will continue to have a smaller and smaller say in what fandom does as it grows.

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Any fool who thinks laying ethics to fansubbing, to control it will help the US gain more fans. Make things more profitable... get a life seriously.

... but I don't think you understand why we wrote the New Ethics. We didn't write it to make anime profitable (it already is), nor did we write it to make fansubs profitable (and they should never be). We did it to see if there were some way to protect the English-language market from fansubs after being licensed.

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That or you're too new to doing the Otaku dance to keep up. You cant lay codes, rules, demand people think the way you want just because you hate a group, or you feel its going to hurt the industry (famous RIAA speech), or its going to kill the anime flowing to the US.

No, killing the Japanese industry will kill the flow of anime into the US. Ergo, if no one buys the DVDs (domestic or legitimate import), then the Japanese industry isn't going to be able to pay itself to make new products.

Given the size of fansubs versus the size of the industry, fansubs won't be the death of the industry... not unless fansub leeching becomes so commonplace that, in effect, "everyone" does it.

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Request from the fans to get their product, or want to hold discussion groups from fans, or do polls from fans?

Because fans lead to bad business investments. One of the classic examples of companies being burnt by fan polls is Viz. Back in... ~2000, there was a great amount of outrage over DB manga being released, censored. Planet Namek (the big DB website of the time) ran a "We want uncensored DB manga!" petition. In a short period of time (under a week?) the petition garnered 10,000 signatures, and so when it was submitted to Viz, they decided to make some uncensored DB manga..

They expected sales to go up, as people would buy the uncensored manga to replace the censored version... but, surprise surprise, sales didn't increase much. Certainly not as much as the 10,000 signatures implied.

Nonetheless, some companies are still very open to new ideas from fans. AN Entertainment certainly is fan-friendly. If you e-mail ADV you'll usually get a real life response. TRSI too.

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As it is ANN should not have delved into this subject of fansubbing as they admitted. They dont touch fansubs, dont look at them dont use them. Which as I pointed in their chobits 2 review would have made all the error's in it less than well :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Why? Why should we, or anyone in fact, have to turn to fansubs as a means of determining what is correct about a series? The reviewers know what they know when they watch the series; they aren't dedicated to any individual series, nor are they obligated to have seen the entire series before reviewing it.

The reviews are, in effect, exactly how a normal person would see the series. Maybe there's something more going on, but if Chobits 1 didn't explain it, and if Chobits 2 didn't explain it, then why should Joe Anime Fan (to borrow the name) know about it?

If the reviewer had seen all of Chobits or read the manga and could clarify, that's certainly a bonus, but it is ENTIRELY unneccessary to do so.

If we were doing a special feature on Chobits, then this sort of information would be expected to be revealed unless it were a vital plot point, and revealing it would be akin to spoiling the entire series.. but a review is not a special feature. A review is a fan's thoughts on whether the DVD was enjoyable or not.

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Damn 'history' of anime made two friends stop their interest in anime they said it was boring and made no ... 8O :oops: 8O sense.

If they lost interest in the medium because of watching a documentary, I question whether or not they were really fans to begin with.

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Chiao........ *watchs Stellvia and waits for ANN to have smoke coming out of its ears along with a bashing with their ANN fansub bible*

We (as ANN) have no problem with fansubs. We have a problem with fansub groups continuing to sub and distribute licensed material, as well as being rude to the anime industry; that's what this was about. It's not about whether or not you like Stellvia, or whether or not you believe we think all fansubs are bad.

General Announcement:
I'm getting sick of saying the same things over and over again. I've provided most of these arguments at least twice before in the past 2 weeks, which is an obvious sign that people aren't reading _the facts_, and instead are simply jumping to conclusions based on their own experience. As such, this will be my last post on the matter. PM me if you have concerns or questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Yes, ANN intends a follow-up editorial to the current fansub editorial.

Sorry, I should have posted my replies sooner, but I was being a lazy bastard. There's too much to reply to now so I'll make it a digest of various points I want to address.

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First of all, I don't understand why everybody's getting so worked up about this code of ethics. Sure, there are a few points that are farfetched, but for the most part it's all rules that have ALWAYS been followed by the fansubbers. If you already respect it, why moan and bitch just because it was put in writing? If you read W2k's alternate code, you'll find that it's really not that different. Most of the points, like not making money and not distributing once licensed, are there in the 2 versions. This has always been part of fansub ethics. If the ANN code has a few stricter points, then what's so bad about that? You don't have to respect all the code if you don't want to, after all this is about ethics not law.

I would like to quote the introduction of the article we posted:

Quote:

Abstract: The goal of this ethical code is not point the finger at fansubbers who do not follow its every precepts. This code is intended as an impartial view from a source independant from both the industry and the fansub community. The guidelines outlined below were made deliberately stringent, and could be considered as a difficultly attainable "holy grail" of ethical fansubbing. For example, based on how many of these rules a fansubber follows, one could evaluate how ethical he is compared to others.

Maybe I should have made things clearer in the article, so let's look at this point by point:

The goal of this ethical code is not point the finger at fansubbers who do not follow its every precepts. We NEVER accused fansubbers of anything. We never implied that the majority of the fansubbers do things like "make profits from their fansubs" and "intentionally fansub american licensed titles". If you have a code that says "do not kill", is that because it is implied that most people would kill otherwise? These are very standard fansub ethics, ones that you can find in W2k's code too.

This code is intended as an impartial view from a source independant from both the industry and the fansub community. It is still my belief (especially after seeing W2k's alternate code) that fansubbers will sometimes choose the easy way rather than the ethical way. As an (extreme) example, think of how AJ decided to keep distributing the first 5 episodes of NS even after they dropped the project. I can understand them; they put a lot of effort into making those fansubs and they felt like all that effort was wasted if they stopped distribution so soon after making them. So they chose to ignore the usual ethics. This is a rather extreme example but I feel that fansubbers have something like a conflict of interest here. Whereas ANN doesn't have any interests in the matter: we don't produce fansubs and, even though we are pro-industry (obviously), we don't produce or sell any anime. Oh well, many people here are thoroughly convinced that producing fansubs makes them more qualified to create a code of ethics, so I guess this is a deadlock. One of those "we'll just have to agree to disagree" situations.

The guidelines outlined below were made deliberately stringent, and could be considered as a difficultly attainable "holy grail" of ethical fansubbing. We weren't trying to describe the current code of ethics, we were trying to take ethics one step further. Look at it this way: you couldn't make this code any more ethical and still be able to fansub. This is pretty much the limit. Even as it is, it's incredibly restrictive and is not practical "in the real world". And that was the point: make this a kind of ideal that fansubbers should strive for as much as possible. Saying "we respect all of the code" should be something almost impossible, not something easy to do for most fansubbers.

I feel like the intended message just didn't get through...

=======

For the record, I don't believe there's much of a difference between VHS fansubbers and digital fansubbers. The only reason this was called "A New Ethical Code for Digital Fansubbing" is because VHS fansubbing is all but dead and there were a few points (like the filesize) which applied only to digital fansubbing.

=======

Well, having digested some of the comments made here, I'd like to get some feeback on some adjustments to the code (let's say a "version 1.1")

1a. instead of
- At least once a year, a fansubber should justify his or her existence by subbing an obscure or older title.
how about something less accusing, like
- Fansubbers are encouraged to seek out older and more obscure titles, and not just limit themselves to the new and shiny titles.

6a. instead of an outright ban on credits, how about
- The fansubber’s goal should be to promote the anime they are fansubbing, not to promote themselves. As such, if a fansub contain credits (translator, timesetter, etc.) they should be made as uninstrusive as possible. Those credits should not have any effects that would draw atention to them during the opening.

3d. (new point) I had thought about this one before putting the article together, but for some reason I forgot about it
- When a US company licenses a title, it would be nice if the fansubber would volunteer his timed script as a "thank you" gift and also as a way of saying "maybe we stole a few sales from you but this should more than make up for it".

1c. (new point) To help international fansubbing:
- Fansubbers should help the spread of anime to non-english-speaking countries by making their timed scripts available to non-english fansubber groups. If those non-english fans do not have access to a Japanese translator, the inital rough translation from Japanese should be made available to them (instead of only the version edited for english readability) in order to minimize the errors due to double translation.

=======

I just *have* to respond to this particular post:

Quote:

But hell yes, Fansubs should compete with licensed. Why? Because if there's no competition, then why should the licensers do a good job that's worth the money? Each title is a monopoly then (unless diferent licensers can release the same title). And say: why the hell should I pay for a dub, when I don't want dubs? And I don't mean dub only, but also dual audio tracks.

Competition between fansubs and industry? That's impossible for one very simple reason: no one can compete with something that's FREE. Fansubbers are in effect using "unfair business practices" (there are laws against that, just as there are against piracy). You have to keep in mind that the principles of capitalism are based on LEGAL competition. Because the companies have to pay for the licenses and the fansubbers do not, they're simply not playing on the same field. Now, if the fansubbers actually PAID for a license and still managed to produce a high-quality and free product, *then* they would definitely have out-competitioned the companies.

And why pay for a dub when you don't want a dub? I'll tell you why: because having a dub on the DVD makes it CHEAPER! Remember the good ol' days of VHS when sub tapes cost a bunch more than dub tapes? It's all about economies of scale. Because there's a dub track on the DVD, they can sell more units and therefore charge a lower price than for something that would be sub-only.

Dan42, Wow. That was a very interesting post. I also think the new changes to ethic practices you suggested in your post would work rather well if applied.

Also what I don't get is this whole idea that VHS fansubbers and digital fansubbers are bickering in this thread. Sounds like Shinto Princess really wasn't reading or read and misinterpret what was being said. I said that the old code most VHS fansubbers use works well for their medium despite we are seeing them go the way of the dinosaurs. And that Digital Fansubbers needed some more new rules. Someone said that the old code still works well for both groups and there's no difference which I now agree with. End of story. Now people are blowing it out of proportion.

I'm just tired of people who don't understand what a real flame, troll, or bickering consists of. And I've seen this happen on alot of forums.

Please, for those new in the discussion: Read the whole thread first before deciding to post. As this thread requires thinking before posting.
Dan's post above mine's should be also read as well.

Edit: Again your acting like Zarove. You are not reading my post and this thread right.
I'm not saying that you flame, I'm saying that you do not understand what a real flame is as you accuse the ANN staff and members of this forum of doing. A flame is a post that has nothing but insults aimed at a certain person without any arguments or facts. While some of your comments are very insulting and probably not needed you still put in some interesting statements.

Also believe it or not: I'm in the same boat as you guys. Manga Scanners also have to follow ethical guidelines (Manga Scanners also use IRC). Heck, even people who make websites follow certain rules. And I happen to be agreeing with certain points made by all parties! Why Zoniks, Scooby!

Also I really think you need to go cool off first before you post. Get some sleep and you will probably feel better. Take the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning.

Yeahhhhhhhhh Okay

Well first off
"And why pay for a dub when you don't want a dub? I'll tell you why: because having a dub on the DVD makes it CHEAPER! Remember the good ol' days of VHS when sub tapes cost a bunch more than dub tapes? It's all about economies of scale. Because there's a dub track on the DVD, they can sell more units and therefore charge a lower price than for something that would be sub-only."

Now I've talked to my contacts in CPM and VIZ and also talked to news groups prior who did full fledge articles back on the pricing of VHS Sub and Dud prices.

First off it was stated that Subtitles are naturally cheaper and the lease expensive to do. But because few american fans would go for sub's and it was believed it would reach a smaller market compared to duds they had to turn the pricing around and in order to make dud's cheaper they put the brunt of cost on Subtitled VHS. Please dont use DVD's having a dub as cheaper that makes no real sense or deal. The mass copying and marketing of DVD's lays into the pricing as a Sub VHS will cost 40.00 a DvD of the same title that holds both sub and dud is going to hit about an average for an older title maybe 20 - 25 dollars and a newer release 25 - 30. Your only saving about 10 dollars and dubbing isnt the cost cutting but the fact that the disc itself is easier to make copies from a master. Basics of bootlegging.

So that point is below moot on here cause your foundation isnt based on materials of facts that had been mentioned since anime was growing in the US. As I know but honestly dont remember the site but the question that was posed to an industry professional had been, "Why do Subtitled VHS cost more than Dubs?". The Article has been very thorough explaining how US companies stated sub was a cheaper medium but they felt US fans would buy dubs more.

Thats changed thanks to those nasty evil fansubbers who have their own ethics and fans who just do things like go CDJAPAN and buy direct copies, etc. Or even scarier they learn japanese and make US releases a dull point.

Anyways Crying or Very sad

this is getting boring because I'm responding to a post that again seems to focus on saying one thing and doing the opposite.

Shocked

Seriously folks if your gonna make little quips even small one's please back up with some proof because I'm actually not having to break a sweat to recall information pointing to the gaps in the 'facts' being posted. So far other than my confusing an ANN editor with the moron from AnimeonDVD ( part of a locked thread ). This is getting very tedious...

But if ANN wishs to change focus saying getting DUB's is cheaper well here are some cute quotes from random fandom sites on the debate from pricing to Sub vs. Dub in relation to gaining fans.

article #1

Reasons for watching Dubs:
"Number one, in my experience with manga (and anime) Japanese artists and storywriters do a MUCH better job of telling a story with pictures than their American counterparts do."

Article #2
"English dubbed Anime has generally, though with a few exceptions, been poorly done and continues to be adequate at best and unbearable at worst."

Just to let you know one of these is from ANN's own article archive's Smile

Your statement again is like with Fansub's... your going to open a pandora's box that even animeondvd didn't wish to open and other forum groups really dread touching.

Be careful Twisted Evil

you can get burned touching things that others have better information on.. and no I'm not referring to me.

Actually I'm not trying to flame but post an alternate thought to what appears one sided discussion.

All this thread even appears to say or do is again have people make their thoughts be rules for fansubbers. The thing is fansubbers have better things to do than follow this thread. To be frank I'm only posting back remarks to this because its very funny that these fansub related threads are still continuing here.

Other sites that posted the AJ thread that was started here dropped it about two days before it was locked an ANN is still carrying on with it and this thread seems to only really have about 5 people stating one side of the coin.

Others are just growing bored having their opinions which the 'people for ethical revisions to fansubbers' smash or debate to a point no one wishs to continue talking about.

It's really a simple thing to state.

If you dont fansub, you really have no right to come and tell others how to do what they do. Its like a wood worker telling a metal smith what he thinks the metal smith can do to make his job better. He lacks understanding or experience. As far as translating manga on the internet ( i know someone will touch this ), well anyone can invest a few hours a day, get some japanese and kanji dictionaries and do it too and stop when they dont like how others use their work.

Its still a matter of choice and saying you translate manga doesnt mean you know jack on fansubs.

-_- So please enough with the sarcastic remarks on 'thinking' when this thread is turning into a case of Micheal myers. Just stab this thread or you can just wait till like the last 2 on this subject it gets the "Well no ones even really changing or showing they are opening their minds to whats being said" and this gets locked.

Last edited by Ghost on Mon Jun 16, 2003 4:46 am; edited 1 time in total

double posted, sorry.

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