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NEWS: Judge Compares Anime File-Sharing to Stealing Bread


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Vulcannis



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 41
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:15 am Reply with quote
hikaru004 wrote:
Well the attorney has to do something to gain public opinion because his client is toast.

Or, you know, point out that the judge made a fallacious statement equating two things that are, by definition and by law, different. Which in the west at least would be very good grounds for getting the decision thrown out. You know, kinda like a defense lawyer is supposed to do?
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Fear Ghoul



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:45 am Reply with quote
I think people should be more careful before calling the judge stupid. Judges are far more well read and intellectual than probably 90% of the human population, and will know far more about piracy and copyright infringement than most of the people here put together. If their decisions seem stupid it will be because the law is stupid, which at the end of the day is what the judges, as well as the rest of us, have to abide by.

Due to the number of people here discussing whether copyright infringement qualifies as theft, I decided to actually look up the definition of theft myself and see what insight that gave me. The online Oxford English Dictionary had the following definitions:

Quote:
1 take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. 2 give or take surreptitiously or without permission: I stole a look at my watch.


These two definitions seem pretty much the same to me but we'll run with it. The first definition basically states that if you take possession of something that doesn't belong to you, it constitutes stealing. Sounds obvious and most people are aware of this. The interesting part of this though is that the definition above includes the words "legal right" and "permission", which I feel lies at the heart of this matter. When an artist creates something, that something becomes artistically and legally their possession upon granting of copyright. That is the legal aspect, but most people would agree from an ethical standpoint copyright or not the artists creation belongs to the artist, and so can not be credited to someone else.

This ownership of the possession extends to all subsequent copies of the original unless permission has been given through a contract for a customer to possess a copy of the original and with it certain restrictions regarding what can be done with the copy. This is a contract, and can't be argued with after the fact. The contract takes place at the shop counter, when you hand over your money to purchase the product. Through this transaction, explicit permission has been given to own that product and do certain things with it. With piracy and fansubbing, no permission has been given either to copy the original or duplicate a copy of the original. No transaction has occurred, and no contract has been entered to grant legal ownership to the fansub downloader. Hence, by the very definition above, it constitutes theft.

From a realistic standpoint, and moving away from the technical jargon, by creating fansubs people are given a free alternative to a product that costs money to produce. People that would otherwise purchase the product if fansubs didn't exist now give no money to the artist, resulting in a reduction in the artists income. It is of no use justfiying it by claiming that the extent of damage incurred is unknown or that fansubs introduce the material to a wider base, because that is simply unknowable. The people who buy DVD's are the kind of people who would buy DVD's anyway. They are predisposed towards owning physical media. It's the people who buy next to no DVD's or none at all that really do the damage, and regardless of what they say, if fansubs didn't exist, some of them would resort to DVD's. The sheer numbers of people involved make this extremely probable. And consideirng that the anime fanbase grows while the purchasing of anime DVD's lessens (and has been doing so for about 5 years) I refuse to buy the notion that fansubs and revenue are heading in the same direction. I personally blame parents (who are always, despite what they and other pressure groups might suggest, at the heart of societies problems) for not teaching their children about piracy, mostly because they are ignorant of what their children do on the internet. But I guess they'll probably blame Marilyn Manson or TV or some s*** like that.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:55 am Reply with quote
You, my firend, are correct. The declining market you are talking about is the R1, I belive. But here's what I don't agree with. Piracy or no piracy (i'm not getting into the pro-con argument again), the truth is that most R1 DVDs are inferrior to fansubs, even more so now that we have HDTV rips. Leaving the ethical and legal aspect aside, if a free version is higher quality then the official one.....why would anyone pay money for the official one? Again, from a simple logical point of view, the fansub is free and better quality (not all the time, that is true) while the R1 is not free but lower quality.
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fokkusuhaundo



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 346
Location: San Diego ♥ ☼ ▓
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:32 am Reply with quote
DmonHiro wrote:
Piracy or no piracy (i'm not getting into the pro-con argument again), the truth is that most R1 DVDs are inferrior to fansubs, even more so now that we have HDTV rips.

I'd agree with you if you talking about DVD/bluray rips because the fact of the matter is, anime can often be edited or censored for the television broadcast, and because the studios have to work on a deadline mistakes can be made in the TV broadcast that can later be fixed for the DVD release. However, most fansub watchers that could care less about DVD sales aren't going to wait for the fansubbed Japanese DVD rip release just to watch anime in their full uncensored glory because they desire to watch it as soon as possible. An example would be the torrent numbers for the edited version of Soul Eater aired earlier and subbed by a speedsub group compared to the numbers for the uncut version aired later and subbed by a better quality group.

Quote:
Leaving the ethical and legal aspect aside, if a free version is higher quality then the official one.....why would anyone pay money for the official one? Again, from a simple logical point of view, the fansub is free and better quality (not all the time, that is true) while the R1 is not free but lower quality.

Why buy? I know it can be hard to believe that there are people out there with money willing to buy legitimate copies of anime because they want to help support the companies and studios that make anime possible, not just to have the physical product to put on their bookshelves with the box art and extras.

If most fansub watchers really cared that much about quality, you wouldn't see a growing number of people turning to free video streaming for anime for its ease and convenience over downloading. It's not quality that's keeping these people from buying DVDs, it's having to spend money they don't have. You also can't forget that you need a decent processor and video card to even play HD video files.

I myself do not agree with the judge's comparison of file-sharing and stealing, and no analogy is going to make them the same, but I do believe that the ignorance among the younger internet savvy generation is what really needs to be addressed.
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teh*darkness



Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Posts: 901
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:44 am Reply with quote
Why is it every time we have some news about someone in Japan possibly/definitely going to jail for illegally uploading anime, we get a bunch of posters, 99% with no legal expertise, chipping in their two-cents that the criminal should be let off easy? Who are we to tell another country how to deal with their criminals on a crime-to-crime basis? This is getting really annoying and laughable in its absurdity.
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Jaekay



Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:12 am Reply with quote
Lulz. look at all the piles and piles of excuses, so many people trying to sugar coat the fact that they are committing a crime, they are exploiting an industry because technology makes it easy for them to do it anonymously.


If you could invent a way for a car to be copied without consuming any resources, don't you think the invention itself would cost a huge amount? Stop making up little fantasies to justify real life crimes. Seriously, just stop, it only makes you look stupid.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:46 am Reply with quote
Jaekay wrote:
Lulz. look at all the piles and piles of excuses, so many people trying to sugar coat the fact that they are committing a crime, they are exploiting an industry because technology makes it easy for them to do it anonymously.


If you could invent a way for a car to be copied without consuming any resources, don't you think the invention itself would cost a huge amount? Stop making up little fantasies to justify real life crimes. Seriously, just stop, it only makes you look stupid.


And what makes YOU stupid is the fact that no one in this thread justified piracy or fansubs. Everyone here agrees: IT IS BAD/WRONG/ILEGAL/etc. We know that already. What we were talking about was: "Was the analogy made by the judge correct?"
True, I went a little offtopic with the "why the R1 industry is declining"

PS: There is no such thing as "internet annonimaty", it's just an illusion.

BTW, the judges analogy was not correct, nor could he have made a corect one, since something like this can not happen in the phisical world. You can not copy something for free and distribute it for free outside of the data world.

As for the R1 decline:
1. People who want HQ+++ quality will turn to HDTV rips/ DVD rips for many reasons (mine is I hate vobsub)
2. People who don't care about quality and want to watch it NOW even with 480x120 streams (random resolution)
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Takeyo



Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 736
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:58 am Reply with quote
teh*darkness wrote:
Why is it every time we have some news about someone in Japan possibly/definitely going to jail for illegally uploading anime, we get a bunch of posters, 99% with no legal expertise, chipping in their two-cents that the criminal should be let off easy? Who are we to tell another country how to deal with their criminals on a crime-to-crime basis? This is getting really annoying and laughable in its absurdity.


To be fair, I don't recall seeing anyone in this or other recent threads actually telling Japan what it should do with the various people passing through it's justice system ("hey, Japan! You should be doing this!"). What people are doing is sharing their opinions on the situations and discussing the merits of the various rulings, sentences, etc. Perfectly reasonable behavior on a public discussion forum, in my opinion.
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tygerchickchibi



Joined: 29 Sep 2006
Posts: 1448
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:13 am Reply with quote
fokkusuhaundo wrote:

It's not quality that's keeping these people from buying DVDs, it's having to spend money they don't have.


Or actually having that money, they just don't want to spend it on anime.

There was this girl I heard about who wouldn't want to pay $50 for a boxed set, but she was willing to pay over $900 for some collectible Japanese doll. She will spent over three grand, collecting these figurines.

*sigh.* Price isn't always going to be an issue for a fan, it just really depends on what they're looking at, that's all. That's what I've seen.

DmonHiro wrote:

And what makes YOU stupid is the fact that no one in this thread justified piracy or fansubs. Everyone here agrees: IT IS BAD/WRONG/ILEGAL/etc. We know that already.


That wasn't nice, and you're not speaking for everyone. There has been some discussion of fansubs in this thread actually, which was partly shying away from the original topic. After a bit of talk, it then turning back to the original topic again.

You don't have to agree with what a person said but you don't have to call a person stupid here either.
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krelyan



Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 173
Location: Utah
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:47 am Reply with quote
DmonHiro wrote:
People who want HQ+++ quality will turn to HDTV rips/ DVD rips for many reasons (mine is I hate vobsub)

I would love to see just one good reason or justification for DVD rips.
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Shadowrun20XX



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1935
Location: Vegas
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:25 pm Reply with quote
krelyan wrote:
DmonHiro wrote:
People who want HQ+++ quality will turn to HDTV rips/ DVD rips for many reasons (mine is I hate vobsub)

I would love to see just one good reason or justification for DVD rips.

There is no justification whatsoever,certain thieves just like having Dual Audio for the anime they steal.You can also say full DVDs are simple to rip and share for those too lazy too reformat each of the episodes.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:51 pm Reply with quote
krelyan wrote:
DmonHiro wrote:
People who want HQ+++ quality will turn to HDTV rips/ DVD rips for many reasons (mine is I hate vobsub)

I would love to see just one good reason or justification for DVD rips.


....one good reason? It's written above what you said: "Hate VobSubs"

Oh, and I apologize for calling someone "stupid". I should have used "makes you look stuipd" like the orginal poster did. I shouldn't have called someone "stupid"
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Cat Megex



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 13
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:04 pm Reply with quote
Shadowrun20XX wrote:
krelyan wrote:
DmonHiro wrote:
People who want HQ+++ quality will turn to HDTV rips/ DVD rips for many reasons (mine is I hate vobsub)

I would love to see just one good reason or justification for DVD rips.

There is no justification whatsoever,certain thieves just like having Dual Audio for the anime they steal.You can also say full DVDs are simple to rip and share for those too lazy too reformat each of the episodes.

This assumption holds true only if the DVD in question has multiple audio tracks, and there is not another version that does. In some cases, fansubbing groups make DVD rips of the R2 (although I really just mean "Japanese", because Region 2 includes Europe and several other places as well) DVDs when the original DTV episodes are/were broadcast in a 4:3 letterboxed format, or were recognized as such by whatever video capture cards or recording hardware/software were used to create a copy of the raws.

However, your point still holds true in a majority of situations; I simply felt that it would be good to point out an exception (at the very least, it's the one good exception that I can think of).

(Admittedly, I, too, dislike VobSubs, or at least the look of VobSubs. I mean, if fansubbers, who do it in their free time, can make good-looking subs, why can't the professionals, who do this stuff for a living, do it? Or is it a limitation of all current DVD players? If the fault does lie with the DVD players, then why are they still that way? Unless it's because there simply isn't a large enough market for people who want to watch subtitled R1 dual-audio DVDs....)
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omoikane



Joined: 03 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:10 pm Reply with quote
Fear Ghoul wrote:
Quote:
1 take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. 2 give or take surreptitiously or without permission: I stole a look at my watch.


I suggest you also look up what "take" means in the dictionary, if you're going to be using that as a basis. But because it's a semantics issue, so I'll stop at that (...note that it's called filesharing, and not filetaking).

One thing I think people need to be aware of is that the Judge is first making a moral equivalence point than a functional point. Leave alone that functionally what these guys did is the same as people who uploads American TV shows for people to download (as in, there is no derivative work/use aspect), he's saying something along the lines of the inappropriateness of this kind of file sharing. It's like shoplifting bread. Also note that there's a lot of stress on the point on the file uploader's selfish motives.

Lastly this is really the weird part--the guy is facing a sentence, but I don't really know the ins and outs of a Japanese criminal trial procedure to say if they've already reached a guilty verdict or whatever.

It's also in the context of sentencing that we get to figure out just how guilty a serial shoplifter equivalent is, which I guess for this guy is 1.5 years.

Which, again, I think is pretty boring for a piece of news.
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testorschoice



Joined: 28 Apr 2007
Posts: 468
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:35 pm Reply with quote
omoikane wrote:

I suggest you also look up what "take" means in the dictionary, if you're going to be using that as a basis. But because it's a semantics issue, so I'll stop at that (...note that it's called filesharing, and not filetaking).

One thing I think people need to be aware of is that the Judge is first making a moral equivalence point than a functional point. Leave alone that functionally what these guys did is the same as people who uploads American TV shows for people to download (as in, there is no derivative work/use aspect), he's saying something along the lines of the inappropriateness of this kind of file sharing. It's like shoplifting bread. Also note that there's a lot of stress on the point on the file uploader's selfish motives.

Lastly this is really the weird part--the guy is facing a sentence, but I don't really know the ins and outs of a Japanese criminal trial procedure to say if they've already reached a guilty verdict or whatever.

It's also in the context of sentencing that we get to figure out just how guilty a serial shoplifter equivalent is, which I guess for this guy is 1.5 years.

Which, again, I think is pretty boring for a piece of news.


You know, for a topic that you keep insisting is "boring," you sure write a lot about it. Wink
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