The end of fansubs?

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:56 am

Corran wrote:I'm not freaking out but I won't lie and say that I'm not concerned.

...normally I wouldn't double post to edit something but I messd that sentence up badly...

(Despite previewing the post three times. -_-)

Mroni · Post by **Mroni** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:59 am

And I would like say corran that your avatar is wackable. Oh yeah and People are going to keep fansubbing so don't worry about the japanese companies. Lets keep an eye on the trials going on here in the U.S

Mr Oni

J-0080 · Post by **J-0080** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:19 pm

billy_wires wrote: Even so, there are probably two reasons [MOD42: Website name removed.] is falling under attack:
1. They ([MOD42: Website name removed.]) are extremely popular (less likely).

Well, 1 out of 2 isn't bad.

Anyway, considering I don't really [read: 4 episodes of 2 shows and 35 of One Piece] watch fan subs at all this doesn't bother me too much, but if I did I don't think I'd be to worried.

billy_wires · Post by **billy_wires** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:40 pm

J-0080 wrote:
billy_wires wrote: Even so, there are probably two reasons [MOD42: Website name removed.] is falling under attack:
1. They ([MOD42: Website name removed.]) are extremely popular (less likely).

Well, 1 out of 2 isn't bad.

Anyway, considering I don't really [read: 4 episodes of 2 shows and 35 of One Piece] watch fan subs at all this doesn't bother me too much, but if I did I don't think I'd be to worried.

HAHAHA. Yeah, I forgot I'm not supposed to say that; a similar discussion is going on elsewhere. My bad.

paizuri · Post by **paizuri** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:28 pm

I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but the Akane Maniax OAV, which is one of the properties MFI cited, was released as a fansub before it was even available in Japan. That's just outright piracy seeing as it was never publically broadcast, regardless of whether or not japanese consumers were downloading it.

Anlushac11 · Post by **Anlushac11** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:34 pm

The only series on the list that concerns me right away is Genshiken. Now I gotta wait til its released in USA and I will buy it, its currently one of my favorite series.

Without fansubs I would be leery of buying it since it didnt look allt hat interesting but thanks to fansubs its a gotta have.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:46 pm

I've seen three 'downloaded' fansubs, two a friend sent and one I got myself (took forever), but a friend of mine had a huge collection of fansubbed *tapes*. Oldschool? She had dozens of tapes of the Inuyasha fansubbed series - now she has the dvds. So I can see where fansubs would make people buy a series - to have a high quality copy of it.

Myself, I get anime based on the fanbase - fanfiction, fanart, fanvideos. If they try to crack down on fansubs, will the fanbase shrink? That would affect me since I *do* buy anime without watching it first, if I read/see enough fanwork to catch my interest in the original.

My question is for popular anime - where do they think these eager and impatient English speakers are going to turn if they take away the free previews? Will Japanese sites offer free intro subbed episodes to create a fanbase that can then go on and encourage dubbers to buy it? Or will fansubs be replaced with even cheaper and readily found bootlegs? And if people pay for bootlegs (instead of downloading for free) are they likely to pay even more when (if) the anime gets licensed officially?

I can't see any way where killing fansubs *won't* hurt anime companies. Unless they replace them with some sort of 'free introduction' program of their own.

Not that they can kill kill fansubs. We can still get mp3s online and US companies have gone insane trying to stop that. Only the ethical distributors will stop upon request.

Things would be so much simpler if Japanese anime companies would sub their own work and sell it here - and leave the dubbing to the US distributors. They'll get twice the money if they sell their own subbed tapes/dvds to the Japanese-audio fans, and then toss out the lisence for dubbed tapes (or dubbed dvds if it's an anime like Digimon). I know I'd kill for a subtitled Japanese version of Digimon, and the dubbers certainly aren't going to bother doing that when their audience is satisfied with dubbed tapes and free fansubs.

jasper-isis · Post by **jasper-isis** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:14 am

None of the recent shows have captured my interest, so I'm not really concerned at this moment. Though I would be pretty bummed if in the future they suppress fansubs of the new Ah! My Goddess and Full Metal Panic! series.

The commercially-minded ones among you would argue that I have no need for those fansubs anyway, since I'm a fan of the shows and would buy the DVDs no matter what. But that can't really be said for potential new fans who have never been exposed to these shows before. Thus I like to argue in favor of fansubs, as they can hook viewers AND keep them coming back for more.

___

Arigatomyna wrote:I know I'd kill for a subtitled Japanese version of Digimon, and the dubbers certainly aren't going to bother doing that when their audience is satisfied with dubbed tapes and free fansubs.

There are dubbed tapes? Where? Are you talking about home-recordings of the broadcasts?

Except for the movie, I haven't been able to find Digimon on any type of R1 media. So please, do tell.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:44 am

Arigatomyna wrote:So I can see where fansubs would make people buy a series - to have a high quality copy of it.

However, I'd bet that these days that's becoming less of a reason, as video filtering and encoding improve and fansubbers start doing things like switching from AVI to OGM (thereby letting them use softsubs).

Garylisk · Post by **Garylisk** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:51 pm

Yes yes, this is indeed a big deal that a Japanese company has asked a group to stop subbing a series. It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened, but in the past, it was a hoax done by a group of "concerned fans" who were worried about British DVD distribution or some such nonsense.

Anyway...

The fact that there are fansubbers out there that keep fansubbing a title after it's licensed suggests to me that this incident won't have any affect on things. Much like the groups that ignore the American license, there will now be groups that will ignore the Japanese company's warnings as well.

Let me assure you that Japanese companies, the big wigs in any case, don't like fansubbing much - Especially stuff that's easy to access on the internet, since there's a lot of Japanese people downloading fansubs just because that's an easy way to get the anime, even if there's ugly English subs at the bottom. I once used to hang out at a certain anime company's website's BBS (AIC), and the administrator there, who WAS a cool guy mostly, didn't like fansubs. He absolutely would not tolerate discussion of them in any form on the board. When Tenchi GXP and Tewnchi OVA 3 (As well as Puchi Puri Yucie) came out and started getting fansubbed, he was not too pleased about some of the forum regulars there also being fansubbers. He even made me remove my website link from my sig since it linked to my fan webpage which spoke of fansubs, though didn't link them.

So yeah, it makes sense that some sompany officials are up in arms about fansubs. But I think for the most part, it's a gray market, and will continue to be one.

Oh, and on the sbject of fansubs - I think they fit right into fair use laws. They are a good example of "Fair Use - Parody". It's the same law that lets Saturday Night Live get away with using actual TV show theme songs for their skits and not have to do anything to get rights to do so. The purpose of us making AMVs is not to pirate anime or music, it's to create something USING those resources, and such, is fair use. So yes, I believe that AMVs are not just a gray area, but are in fact legal, and there's not much that can be said about it

But that's a whole other subject, heh...

Anyway, that's all I got right now.