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NEWS: When Piracy Becomes Promotion

Also, does anybody know about Sean Leonard's history of Amierican anime fandom that this guy cites? I couldn't find it online.

Quote:

Japanese animation was exported into the western market as early as the 1960s, when Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Gigantor made it onto American television primarily through local syndication. By the late 1960s, however, reform efforts, such as Action for Children’s Television, had used threats of boycott and federal regulation to push back against content they saw as inappropriate for American children.

I don't see the connection here. Was Speed Racer really the kind of "inappropriate" content targeted?

There's too much theory here and not enough reality. I don't buy the whole "anime clubs built the industry" thing, especially when he cites Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! as two breakthrough shows. Maybe there's an argument to be made, but I've never seen anyone draw a strong connection--it's always "fan clubs exposed people to anime, and then some fans went pro."

But there is also the question of why do fansubbing groups keep putting out eps after eps, and series after series of licensed anime and newly licensed anime?

It's probably because companies...I'll use ADV as a good example...who look to see what's popular (I'm guessing, but they probably just go to the major fansubbing groups, view the tracker stats and see what's going fast) scoop up the license to that series and let it sit around for years with no sign of releasing it soon, then the time comes when the contract is almost up and then release one DVD and don't do anything else with it.

Okay, I can understand that 'years' might be an extreme, but looking at the Anime Expo 03 list of licensed anime that ADV claimed, that would be at least more than one year now, about 5 of more than a dozen I looked at have nothing released as of yet. And I do not claim to know if they are in progress at the moment. So I'm not exactly wrong, just a little extreme on how long.

While I do think fansubs can become a problem, I think Greenfield needs to look at what's going on before placing too much blame on them. Many bootleggers are now simply ripping the R1 discs, putting more per disc and selling them.

Stopping fansubbers won't stop the bootleggers. They will simply go back to doing the work themselves and ripping the work off R1 releases when they come out.

Stopping fansubs won't stop bootleggers. Going after bootleggers & their sellers will stop bootleggers.

If Matt Greenfield wants to stamp out bootleggers, then more power to him... but he shouldn't put the blame where it doesn't belong. Moreso, he shouldn't create a dogma that somehow it will stop if fansubbing stops.