Forum - View topicNEWS: Media Factory makes request to stop fansubbing
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kusanagi-sama
 Posts: 1723 Location: Wichita Falls, TX |
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I do that all the time. Even though I might download an older licensed anime series that is just a DVD rip, I delete it after watching it, and if I like it (around 90% of the time) I'll buy it. I only have so much money, but I never complain about how much I have to pay for DVDs. Complaining about something doesn't get you anywhere. What I find even more rediculous is that people complain that a regular movie DVD that costs $15-25 is too expensive (oh and they make between $1500 and $2200 a month). People at work do that, one person will buy a movie, and sometimes ask for someone to make a copy. I get totally disgusted by that (them complaining about the cost, considering what they make), and try to tell them about DeepDiscountDVD.com. Oh, and a few of these people have 15-20GB of music on their hard drive (some of it from the CD's they own) |
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s_j
Posts: 162 |
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mufurc-->
Many people around the world do watch American fansubs, and that's exactly why it's a global problem and old arguments for fansubs simply don't apply anymore. Why has few Japanese companies licensed their products for China (be it anime, or Playstations, or software)? Because of the rampant piracy. So in these places, fansubs perpetuate the problem. I too think previews are great. No one's entitled to it, but it sure is nice to know what you're getting into especially when buying entire tv series. But nowadays fansubs aren't 'previews'...they're nearly-perfect copies of entire shows. You cannot 'preview' a movie in its entirety before deciding to pay for it or not. Why should you be able to do so with anime? Fansubs find their way to places like China and Taiwan, and into the hands of real pirates. Once it's online, it's out there with no control...many fansubbers often end up unintentionally helping pirates release more titles, which find their way back into the states. I hope you don't think I'm making any sort of judgment on people who do watch fansubs, which I'm not. I'm just laying out the case against fansubbing. There are just so many trickle-down problems caused by fansubbing, I think copyright holders should have started phasing them out long ago. |
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eXistenZ
Posts: 6 |
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ya know this brings a question to my mind.
when ever fansubs are brought up, i see the "Fact" of online filesharing, which in itself by definition is NOT piracy, little if any fansub groups, movie<hollywood> dvd rippers or videocam, or even cd rippers of music make any money off of filesharing. Piracy basically means, the unauthorized duplication and sale of a copyrighted material. I dont know where these studios and whatnot, get thier info, but just because i say as an example download the latest eminem song, or latest anime dvd rip, doesnt mean i would have gone and bought it in the first place. i do buy anime, i do buy cd's, i do goto the movies. i dont have the money to buy hundreds of cd's and dvd per year. i would say that most of the audience doesnt, hence we rent, or download. renting does contribute to the creators or whatnot, but only once per copy. rental store pays 50 dollars to rent the dvd, the company makes a bit of money, and "loses" possible sales of said dvd. as for the japanese accessing fansubs. if you were japanese, and had access to japans filesharing networks, like winny and whatnot, would you be downloading the english fansubs, i wouldnt, id be downloading a raw which doesnt have stupid words added to it on the bottom of the screen for english speakign people. as for a comment, i eiher saw here or elsewhere, someone claimed this as a victory in beating piracy. i doubt its a victory, more of a bump in the road. old may fade away, new will spring up. anonymity on the internet will increase, anonymity will be easier to be had, and the struggle will get even harder for those who seek to stop a floodgate that has been opened. napster came and went, but the genie that napster opened cannot, and will never be put back in the bottle. when napster fell, more then a dozen or so sprung up to take its place, and floodgates opened even more. |
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Vukir
 Posts: 66 Location: California |
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I think fansubs are great. Its a way of watching japanese telvision, without having to understand the language completly. But, when a company requests that you stop duplicating their property, then you should stop. If there has been no request to stop the subing, then let it continue.
As for requesting that all titles they own, including unlicensed ones, is proper... That is up for debate. But, they own it, and they can fight over it, for those who do not wish to oblige them. |
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s_j
Posts: 162 |
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eXistenZ-->
There's no question piracy will continue. Pirates have no morals. The issue here are fansubs, and it's a completely different subject. Most fansubbers have always operated under an ethical code. Fansubbers have always professed to be doing what they do to help expand the viewership of anime, and thus help the companies. But as the market expands, the justifications for fansubbing will become less and less true. Vukir--> I'm sure there are anime companies that still see the value of fansubs, and will continue to quietly consent to them. But in my limited experience in print publishing, Japanese publisher know that there are scans and scanlations of their books, and aren't happy with them at all. They simply don't have the resources to tackle this problem, especially when the problem is overseas. Many manga artists aren't pleased at all with the situation, either. I bet for every one that doesn't care less, there are two who feel complete helplessness and disgust. So silence on the part of the Japanese copyright holder doesn't always mean their approval. To put it bluntly, we're taking advantage of them because their avenues of reprisal are limited. |
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icepick314
 Posts: 486 Location: Back in the Good Ol' US of A |
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I have an idea.....
Why not let fansubbers sub only first few episode of the series? I mean if you want to spread the series and let the people talk about it and generate lots of interest, spread just one or 2 episodes. Then anime company should license it and distribute it to US as more fans get more and more interests on a particular title. Course...that's what it should be if we lived in a perfect world. I don't know...I do think fansubs are good idea that I wouldn't haven't known about some series unless I've watched few here and there. People should be more responsible and purchase DVDs to their favorite titles. There are literally hundreds of titles available today and more are coming every month. It's somewhat hard to keep up sometime but I happen to love collecting DVDs including anime. I'm running out of space to put DVDs lately and it's a headache for me. I guess it's ultimately upto how people purchase the DVDs and let the company generate more profits towards more licensing in the future. And DOWN with the glitch DVDs!!!!! |
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kgptzac
 Posts: 22 Location: Neither Heaven nor Hell |
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The discussion of whether the existence of fansubs and how they should be doing the "right thing" is already worn out years ago and it's not a problem for a person who is justifying funsubs today and scorn it tomorrow, anyone could do that nowadays.
Why so much pain about this affair? Let's see. I know the price of anime titles in Japan are more expensive in US, but a single volume of a series could cost almost a hit Hollywood movie. So why people bother to spend x times of money to buy something "morally" has less quality? No offense but are we all speaking English and we all know how the movie market works? Most animes are aired in Japan before (or at the same time) as the DVD comes out. But this is not the case in many "fansub-needed" countries, such as anywhere BUT Japan. Yes, a review and a trialer is not enough even to evaluate a 25-episode anime. People in Japan watch the TV first and if they like them, they will buy them. But in US, fansubs are already taken place and the TV networks don't air new animes in real-time, and you also won't see lot of animes in theatre, which means almost no way you will spend as much amount of money of a movie to buy a 3-episode incomplete volume of a anime series. And because we are not living in Japan, so we need fansubs. If I ever going to buy an anime title, that one must be my favorite, I pay the money to support its creator (and maybe I already have the .avi files on my hard drive). Because we cannot watch a English subtitled (don't even mention dubbed...), as the same time as it airs in Japan, we will go download fansubs. I think the real way to resolve all fansub related leagal issue is to let Japanese publishers release both English and Japanese version at the same time. Maybe it's not really possible to air on US TV as it always does in Japan, an Internet router website can do the trick by stream the English subbed animes ORIGINALLY MADE BY JAPANESE at the day the episode is aired in Japan. There should be a kind of stream video that you cannot get them to your hard drive in any way (unlike the stream technology for today). Then every otaku will pay a little monthly fee to watch their favorite shows in real time and get them in absolutly no leagle issue whatsoever. The fans own online viewing rights, not offline disks right (  sound's working for me.... im not copying ideas from Kazzar)
Maybe the goal will achieve when everyone is using at least DSL for their Internet connection, if it ever does, which I really think it will, then this probably is the solution for international publications. |
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rrowv
 Posts: 10 |
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It would seem to me it would be far easier to go after stores that sell pirated anime first than go after fansubers. An online entity is much more difficult to stop as it isn't locked to a physical location, espcially if their operators are knowledgable enough to hide their identities and move their site around. Besides, these shops not only distribut pirated goods, they often try to convince their customers that buying HK DVDs is legal.
One store I know of in particular lists their physical store address and phone on their website, with directions. They would be so easy to sue: they aren't going anywhere, and their owners are publicly known. A large company (compared to them) should easily be able to sue them into oblivion. So why don't they? They're scared of fansubs, but don't even care about RAMPANT HK DVD sales in dedicated stores? I don't get it. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2267 Location: Online Terminal |
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I only have a couple of series on my hard drive. I'm debating whether or not to delete them because either a) I've seen them and b) they take up space. However, one thing's for sure. Once I buy DVD's (and I hope I will buy them) they will go bye-bye. That's what I plan to do with any show that's decent, otherwise, it would've already been deleted.
Remember, it's not the fansubs that are the problem, it's the people who use fansubs. The ones I get (and the ones I see at anime club) are normally things that I'm stoked to see/buy in the US (although Tsukihime seems to be a disappointment here) I download because I'm interested in seeing anime, not keeping it. |
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bigcathead
 Posts: 23 |
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Hmmm...it's difficult to tell what may be more detrimental to the development of the Anime scene overseas...
could it be... Communities of ardent fans subtitling shows of their own volition. or... THE EXCESSIVE PRICE GOUGING THAT HAS PLAGUED DVD ANIME RELEASES SINCE DAY ONE??!? Did anyone ever get around to justifying the increase in price from VHS to DVD? Those shiny little discs cost even less to make! And they have a larger market!! If I was a Japanese company I might think that this could be a *slightly* larger issue... but that's just me. I'm sure no one else feels the same way. |
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Erufu
 Posts: 191 |
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As long as this company plans to license their anime in the US, I'm not really going to complain. More and more anime is being licensed, and the prices are finally dropping. Circuit City (my benevolent employer) has GitS SAC for 17.95 each, I believe. That's the cheapest I've seen it, but, for such a great anime, that's a steal! My biggest complaint has always been the price. I can't afford t odrop $30 for 4 episodes, and, with no real good place to rent from, it's hard for me to see anime. But, again with the price drop, it's getting better. Anime has to be one of the most expensive hobbies...
If I was in a fansub group and the actual Japanese company asked me to stop, I don't think I would have the balls to keep on subbing. Brave, brave souls... |
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ACDragonMaster
 Posts: 405 |
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I would agree that going after the pirates would be better than going after the fansubbers. Especially since there are plenty of people who might actually be interested in importing legitimate Japanese merchandise and such, however there are so many bootlegs around at times it's hard to find the real thing. At one con I went to last year, I think I found only two dealers in the entire dealers room who actually had non-bootleg import CDs, for example.
The prices are another issue, too. Here in the US, at least, anime DVD prices *are* starting to drop, and getting close to matching the prices of regular DVDs. In Japan however, DVDs do tend to cost a lot more, often with fewer episodes per disc than what we get here. If this is the reason Japanese fans are downloading fansubs/raws off the internet (or even just tape recording the series themselves) rather than buying the DVDs, shouldn't the companies consider whether the prices are too high? True, fansubbing at best occupies a gray area at times, but more often than not it isn't the real problem, simply the easiest to blame. Fansubs aren't hard to find and track down the groups that do them. But are fansubs that are done by fans on their own time and money really that much more damaging to the anime industry than the professional bootleggers out to make a profit? Just some questions to ponder... |
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AchtungAffen
Posts: 26 Location: Sur, paredón y después |
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Fansubs should be the "checks and balances" system of the western anime industry. They should compete with the industry to force them to have better products at better prices. It's the healthy thing to have in a "free market".
And also consider there are parts of the globe, for example Latin America, where there aren't many or well known official releases. So its all about bootlegs or fansubs. I hate bootlegs, but I know many people here don't have broadband to get em so they have to buy the bootlegs. That's even worse. The death of fansub will be a problem for us all, it would give the companies the liberty to do whatever they want, even when its worse a deal for the final user. Thanks God that the 3rd world is not that regulated and fansubs will live there longer. One more point for fansubs is that they're subs (with all that comes from that)... Dual audios suck and those really should be penalized. I'd continue to buy DVD's from America if I hadn't to pay that much for a dub. They're quite expensive for me, and I prefer to waste that money with my ISP than to give a meal to Tiffany Grant, whom I'll never hear willingly. The day fansubs are better than official releases, the day we are being ripped off. |
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eXistenZ
Posts: 6 |
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I had the same idea. but this model needs to be more open. instead of streaming a subpar product, coz even the best streams cant compare to a avi, at least from m viewing of streams. not everyone has a really highspeed broadband connection, a download model would do better. A 150 to 200 MB wmv would have a same resolution as avi. the WMV format would prevent the digital copying of it. you could put a certain time limit upon the release. Example: Naruto Sub in wmv format comes out near same time as broadcast, and say have a 10 day license. so you download the latest episode, or even the episode that aired 4 weeks ago and for 10 days after that you have viewing rights. but instead of paying per episode you pay a monthy subscription fee, like netflix. You get a great access to a huge repository, from newer to older series. also make access to the service widely available. not just creditcard payments made online but a multitude of avenues to pay. like paypal payments, or those not old enough to do paypal, buy like a phonecard at your local convience store. Also, get the american licensing companies into advertising. So like at the beginning and middle of the anime, there is a non skippable commercial. This would keep the prices down. American licensing companys should still get a chance for local dvd sales, with dubs and subs and whatnot. So basically a person like me can run to 7-11 and buy my months subsciption and watch a series thats complete. or keep buying a monthly subscription follow my series. Also another thought is that this service shouldnt be limited to a few studios, but every studio. that way everything from twin spica to naruto is available to sasiate<sp?> everyones palettes. |
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Otakuboy T
 Posts: 59 Location: Morris, IL |
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Fansubbing is best when it's series that have no chance of being released here in the states.
Legend of th Galactic Heroes Live Action Sailormoon Metal Armor Dragonar Getter Robo (classic) Might Gaime Romance of the Three Kingdoms Macross 7 Yugioh Season 1 GaiGaoGar Dr. Slump L-Gaim ....does anyone think that these will be release here anytime soon? |
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