A surprise announcement has been circulating the boards today concerning this Japanese anime studio’s decision to take legal action against sites distributing fansubs of its titles. This includes series such as Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Genshiken, School Rumble, Gankutsuou, RahXephon, UFO Princess Warukyure and Pugyuru.
Could this be the start of an industry-wide crackdown and what is the likely outcome?
As much as that sucks for us, it’s fair. After all, Japanese people can download fansubs too, and the fansubs aren’t supposed to be used that way. If the company sees it as a threat, it’s their right to stop fansubs. It’s too bad I won’t be able to see the rest of Genshiken.
What I find funny is that they sent the message to website that just provides a linking service not the actual fansubbers. And from what I have read on other such sites they have no intention of stopping such services. From what I have read it seems that Media Factory has no real legal options since the anime is not licensed in USA and that no one is making any money off the fansubs.
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Originally posted by bishounen_blue:
As much as that sucks for us, it's fair. After all, Japanese people can download fansubs too, and the fansubs aren't supposed to be used that way. If the company sees it as a threat, it's their right to stop fansubs. It's too bad I won't be able to see the rest of Genshiken.
Nah, Japanese people would rather download the raws from the same source fansubbers get them. Higher quality (as it's not re-encoded) and no annoying texts.
But I agree that Japanese companies have a right to protect their property. I don't have a problem with fansubs of unlicensed series myself, as there's no alternative for a Japanese illiterate, and the Japanese producers hardly expect westerners to import their material in its untranslated state.
I think this could be related to the fact that a lot more anime is produced with future license income from the west in mind. The less people who have seen the series as fansubs, the more are likely to buy them when they are released here. It might sound like a logical conclusion, but depending on who you ask, you might hear the opposite: a lot of people don't want to purchase something they don't know the quality of, thus they shun what they haven't watched beforehand.
Anyway, I think that they are overestimating the role of AnimeSuki in the distribution of fansubs. On the other hand, there are translator groups who have ceased subbing Media Factory series as a result of this, so it certainly had an effect on fansubbing in general. It remains to be seen if other companies will follow Media Factories example. If a lot (too many?) of them do, groups may start ignoring them and continue subbing anyway.
I'm kind of amused, really. Mostly, it's a kind of morbid curiousity in human behaviour, I watch fansubs and don't want them to go away. A combination of curiousity and optimism, which I guess is why I'm not particularly bothered by this.
What will survive the longest: What remains of fansubbing ethics, or the existance of the several groups who currently abide by them? If you chase away all the groups who follow fansub ethics, you'll be stuck with more groups who don't care whether a show is licensed or not, which in the long run will harm the income of anime and licensing companies much more.
[This message has been edited by AG3 (edited 12-11-2004).]
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Originally posted by DragonLord:
What I find funny is that they sent the message to website that just provides a linking service not the actual fansubbers. And from what I have read on other such sites they have no intention of stopping such services. From what I have read it seems that Media Factory has no real legal options since the anime is not licensed in USA and that no one is making any money off the fansubs.
They may have no legal basis for it but they can sue anyway. Animesuki doesn't have a defense fund or anything.
Besides which, they also sent cease-and-desist letters to actual fansub groups (some of which have already told the company where to stick it). This is going to be ... "interesting".
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Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Besides which, they also sent cease-and-desist letters to actual fansub groups (some of which have already told the company where to stick it). This is going to be ... "interesting".
BTW: how can they sue some internet-folk who they dont know a thing about (what i'm trying to say is, how do they know where to send the cease-and-desist letter)
Doesn’t legal action across international borders inevitably run into problems? I mean, if sueing companies based in other countries was so easy, wouldn’t all the REAL anime pirates in Hong Kong already be shut down? Unless the Japanese companies enlist the aid of U.S. distributors in this fight, I don’t think they can really do a thing besides pose and threat. Even then, sites that aren’t based in the U.S. wouldn’t be prosecutable, right? As far as I see it, the only way this could go anywhere (assuming fansubbers were to not comply with the cease and desist messages) is if there’s some sort of international effort to curtail fansubbing. That’s just not going to happen. There’s simply bigger fish to fry.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-03-2005).]
quote:This may not relate to the legal status of fansubbers, but recent actions taken by the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] indicate it may depend on country.
Originally posted by Dark_Shiki:
Doesn't legal action across international borders inevitably run into problems?
Last month cease and desist letters were sent by MPAA lawyers to owners of the largest BT and ED2K index servers. Many of the European sites were intimidated enough to shut down. One site in Sweden continues to operate in open defiance of the order. Another group in the US decided to fight the action in court and is asking its supporters for contributions to a legal defense fund. They estimate it will cost $30K/month in legal fees, but say they already have raised sufficient donations to cover the first month.
Whether the industry succeeds in shutting down distributors or only harrassing them, many people are taking the threat seriously. While these developments only affect fansubs indirectly, they could have a "chilling" effect on downloaders and other participants.
Well, keep in mind that the EU, and the member countries themselves, have various trade and copyright honoring agreements with the US. This means that if you have a US copyright, those countries that honor it will consider it a legal copyright there. Many nations have such “honor mine and I’ll honor yours”. IIRC, its required to become a member of the WTO.
The big fight internationally right now is over how long copyrights shouls last. US has extended its to 90 years, but its still 50 years in the EU, AIR. So a lot of early pop rock is coming up public domain there, but still protected content here in the US. Same for movies and books.
I believe that Fansubs disscutions are on a grey are that depends mostly on the Moral that each one of you have, it’ll tell u if u want or not to download it… but (as my friend Dark_Shiki would say, and in wich i dissagree till certain point) Moral is a Relative thing that cant/shouldn’t be taken in consideration for a disscution when you are trying to be 100% objetive (as would happen in a legal issue)
Right now i doubt Japanese companies can do any harm to the fansubs, and i also doubt that they really care that much, because they dont actually think in the ‘rest of the world’ when making an anime or a Manga, they just think about selling in Jap. now, if that Anime/Manga reaches overseas and gets translated, that’s other thing that is called ‘piracy’ and is ‘illegal’ but i dont really want to talk about this topic…
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Originally posted by The Unholy Avenger:
Right now i doubt Japanese companies can do any harm to the fansubs, and i also doubt that they really care that much, because they dont actually think in the 'rest of the world' when making an anime or a Manga, they just think about selling in Jap. now, if that Anime/Manga reaches overseas and gets translated, that's other thing that is called 'piracy' and is 'illegal' but i dont really want to talk about this topic...
Well, obviously at least some of the Japanese "do care that much," or this incident wouldn't have happened, right?
I'm not in the mood for another philosophical debate right now, so I'll refrain for the moment from making any comments concerning the morality (absolute or relative) of fansubbing.
I would have to side with Dark Shiki. All companies like to make money. Most companies, put into the position of having their products translated and bootlegged to other countries would want to clean up that activity. Once cleaned, then they would consider pursuing an “official” translation for that country.
The fact that fansubbing spreads/grows their branding and product awareness is immaterial. The fact that cheaper alternative being out there is generally viewed as bad.
The lawsuit shows that the percieved English market is growing, and could be profitable. But whether they will follow through? Only time will tell.
Just how these things seem to go.
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Originally posted by Darkstar:
The fact that fansubbing spreads/grows their branding and product awareness is immaterial. The fact that cheaper alternative being out there is generally viewed as bad.
Actually, the "cheaper alternative" will always be there...Hong Kong bootlegs. If people really just want to pay as little as possible, they'll all turn to "real" bootlegs as soon as fansubbing bites the dust. The problem with that is Hong Kong bootlegs cost money, and while a person who watches a fansub may buy the licensed version, there's little chance he'll pay twice if he already has a paid bootleg. And since bootlegs are harder to come by than fansubs (since they require an actual purchase), they don't even serve to spread awareness and provide any sort of compensatory "boost" to sales of the licensed product (as fansubs do).
Of course, this argument has a rather large flaw too. Can you spot it? [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-25-2005).]