Future of the fan sub?

[Sukunai]

After hearing what is happening to Newtype USA, and the Geneon story and lately comments connected to ADV (which I am not certain on though), I am wondering what is possibly the future of the fansub scene.

I say this as for a long time the fan sub community has sought to keep a supportive image as much as possible. Well of course we all know there are people in the anime crowd that share stuff after it goes commercial and couldn't care less. And there are even some cretins that SELL anime fansubs.
But generally fan subbers like to keep it a friendly activity.

But is the power of the internet working for us as much as it is working against us?
Is the power of the internet harming dvd sales even while it is trying to help?

I've seen the question asked, "would you settle for commercial anime dvds undubbed and merely properly subbed?". Most of us watch so much anime subbed in the first place. Even people that greatly prefer to watch anime dubbed will watch good anime subbed if that's all they can do.

If the providers of commercial anime eliminated the dubbing part of production for the English speaking crowd, would it make it more cost effective enough to aid in sales enough that it would return to being profitable enough?
I have KOR in subb on dvd, as well as my Urusei Yatsura subbed only dvd. I didn't suffer for lack of dubbing. My Maison Ikkoku same thing. And I frankly refuse to watch Sailormoon in English even if it is an option

Anyway, getting back to the question. What's the future of the fansub?
I know I have long been able to record anything on my TV in Canada. I am assuming Japanese viewers would say the same.
It's never been seen as "piracy" by any means since they created the VCR (although some declared doom and gloom back then).
I refuse to consider it any more of a foul if the recorded show is altered to have subs inserted to the image. I also don't consider it a real foul sharing for free anything I was legally allowed to make in the first place.

But, even if it isn't a major legal foul, is it hurting the dvd scene all the same?
Or are the commercial operations merely not exploiting the market intelligently?
Is the current situation with dvd sales all the problem of poor marketing?

What would you pay to legally download an episode of an anime show?
Would you care enough for the future of anime to pay a small sum instead of a free download if the video quality was at least professional grade quality?

And of course, where and how do you actually watch your fan subbed anime?
Myself, I refuse to watch lousy grade quality anime on youtube or any other online streaming option. I'd rather download it and watch it through my superior options.
My niece watches all her shows as stuff off youtube. But's she's not really a fan, just spends all her time in front of her computer

[BasharOfTheAges]

Even moreso than the record industry or the movie industry, the anime dubbing industry has mistaken "I will watch it, but not pay for it" fans from "I have the money to spend on this kind of stuff" fans. They have greatly overestimated their potential sales and licensed and dubbed everything under the sun and are now put in the position of realizing their market isn't what they thought it would be.

The downturn in the economy has made luxury spending far more scarce - that reduces sales from market share A, children with little or no income of their own (this is a big market share). Their assumed market share B, college students (that have been shown to be the age group most prolific in supporting fan subs) don't have any money. They never had much to begin with, but with school prices rising and the economy the way it is, money is tighter than ever. They're buying less, but were thought of as the group that would buy more. Market share C would be those that have expendable incomes - again... economic pressures might reduce sales a bit there too.

Releasing subs-only discs would probably only increase sales if they were somewhere around half the price of the dubbed discs they sell now. The economy remains a deterrent to luxury spending en mass.

Fansubbers may have to worry about scapegoating if the dubbing industry goes south (by the same flawed logic the MPAA and RIAA use regarding assumed sales), but the nature of the new forms of P2P make it difficult for shutdowns to do anything but hurt the reputation of the industry like (we assume) they have always feared it would.

[Sukunai]

Good comments Bashar.

I have been thinking the anime industry may well have completely over estimated the real market available.

I pay 45 bucks a month for my broadband (which is quite literally unlimited). Sounds expensive until you realise I can download approximately 1 gig of data an hour non stop (assuming I had somewhere for the data to go).

As for buying anime, well my purchase of Air TV got this response from an online non anime friend of my own age (she's a 40 something lass) "what are you nuts?".
Compare the price of Air TV with the price of a season of say Stargate SG1 and it's a real difference.
Stargate is a season for the price of a single anime dvd in some cases (like Air TV).

That has to count. And while all my local anime friends (5) are all guys my age or close ie we can't even recall our youths any more , we ain't swimming in cash.
I have 1 friend that is single, lives at home, has a good job and can indulge buying anime regardless of cost. But I am sure the norm for atypical anime fan is under 20, not working a typical adult income job, and not in a position to casually buy anime.
I am sure a lot of anime fans are more like my niece. Doesn't buy it, watches it, and doesn't even collect fan subs.

It was great to see anime appear in mainstream stores, but they are rarely stocked like a product that has any importance. And usually if a show is a serious retail product, it's sold as complete box sets or not at all. Anime being sold as individual dvds prior to sold as box sets, is likely a bad idea. If you can't find all of a set, it must have a negative impact on consumer interest.

[Kalium]

Here's the simple facts:
- Fansubs are here to stay. The culture is such that they aren't going anywhere, and domestic companies can't meet demand at a reasonable price in a reasonable timeframe like fansubs can.
- Therefore, companies must compete on quality.

Given that fansubs are now quite commonly superior to commercial DVDs, I think the companies would be wise to start hiring from the better subbing groups.

EDIT: An example! Ergo Proxy. The fansubs I watched had excellent translation noted. The commercial DVDs didn't have so much as a fucking word of notes.

[Sukunai]

Well I can't see a day when fansubs are not available (refer to comment mentioning how some will provide convenient ways to find same even if a commercial release appears).

But I think operations like Animesuki might disappear if someone showed up with the proper paperwork and told them to stop or else. And that would be a major bummer.

I get most of my fansubs off of the newsgroup scene, and frankly that is unlikely to ever need to acknowledge objections.

I think a lot of sites might go "invisible" suddenly if the heat was suddenly turned on. Or at the very least, a lot would potentially "disappear" in favour of walking around with a bullseye on.

I think it would be better if YouTube was given the squeeze if the industry thinks it's losing too much cash. YouTube is at least an "identifiable operation" and one that would be easy to sue if they didn't dump anime. I guess that would sure piss off a lot of the mob though.

I agree on the comment, that some times the industry can't keep up with the fansubbers. Hell, a lot of the guys here doing amvs can run circles around the people making real mainstream music videos as far as I am concerned.

[ZephyrStar]

Even moreso than the record industry or the movie industry, the anime dubbing industry has mistaken "I will watch it, but not pay for it" fans from "I have the money to spend on this kind of stuff" fans. They have greatly overestimated their potential sales and licensed and dubbed everything under the sun and are now put in the position of realizing their market isn't what they thought it would be.

Well said.

And on the topic of fansubs, yes they will always be around. And if places like AnimeSuki go under, there will always be some other way of getting the information to aquire the files, some new site will pop up.

[OropherZero]

Fansubs will exist as long as Share and Winny are still around (if they aren't then I'm sure a third variation of these software will emerge) because at the end of the day, the first step in fansubbing is raw providing, it needs to come from somewhere, usually a group decides on a raw providing group which in turn gets its stuff from these programs (lots of variations, different channels, quality etc). In an article on ANN recently a man was arrested for uploading an episode of Gundam 00 onto Winny. I *think* one of the raw groups dropped Gundam 00 and I'm sure there are some ~_~ groups reacting to this. Also Romeo x Juliet got hit hard when GONZO demanded Funimation do something about fansubbing, but its one of those rarer cases like what the company which did School Rumble, kimimozo etc did a few years ago. The fact that shinsen immediately complied sends a message to the anime companies that they can strongly affect fansubbing if they put in the effort, though there will always be one or two new groups taking on the dropped series (Shakespeare for example). Shinsen seems to be the big focus these days, it used to be Lunaranime but they are practically dead now.

Anyway not that it matters too much but shouldn't anime companies follow the example of fansubbers and do kareoke to the OP and ED? Its not a biggie to me, just now when I watch a dvd which just has plain text, it just dulls in comparison to the fansub which can sometimes have some really creative looking kareoke (zomg at IY4-ever's Shakugan no Shana kareoke)

[x_rex30]

EDIT: An example! Ergo Proxy. The fansubs I watched had excellent translation noted. The commercial DVDs didn't have so much as a fucking word of notes.

Yeah same with naruto, you don't know what scrolls are saying or anything, but in the fansub you do. I thought it may have to do with how the dvds are designed. When I watch it with friends I wish they could understand certain things in the DVD but I am forced to rely on the fansubs. Maybe I didn't get what your saying, but anyway, that's my example of something that makes fansubs in a way superior.

[Sukunai]

Nice post OropherZero

I don't reeeeeeally know squat about how and where anime raws actually come from.

I know they have to come from somewhere.

It's the same with ANYthing on the internet, it has to come from SOMEwhere after all. It had to be obtained and someone had to initially upload it to some actual location before it was eventually available to anyone else.

So it leaves me pondering, if the licensed anime operations all collectively and politely asked the fansubbers that are obviously the people that have to have gotten the raws in the first place, to not fansub anime..... would anyone listen?

Currently I consider there to be two groups. The noble crowd that ditches anime fansubs when it goes commercial, and the crowd that couldn't care less.
I don't know if there are any fansubbers that can be described as fansubbing whether the licensed operations like it or not. I DO know there are sites online that will host links to sources of fansubs that are for licensed anime. And they don't care that the anime is now commercially released.

Nothing surprising about knowing there are people that won't care.

But it's no shock that a lot of the fansubbers, when told to stop, will. No one wants to go to jail over an anime show when there are countless other shows available.
I wonder though, what would happen to anime that is licensed, without ever having gone through being fansubbed, if it was marketed straight to dvd?
I wouldn't have heard of it. I wouldn't have seen it on tv. They wouldn't have been registering MY response in Japan to it's initial showing.
I don't read anime literature (and if Newtype USA goes, I sure won't be either).
I don't really visit online sites looking for anime news to be honest either.
I usually only hear of anime through word of mouth.
I actually have found MOST of my anime, through finding it on a site where I was getting another series initially.

I think the commercial success rate for dvd anime not fansubbed is sufficiently dubious, that I wouldn't be risking MY money on it.

So is it that the only people objecting, are the ones that can't see the forest for the trees?
I think commercial licensing operations can't exist without fansubs.
It's simply not the same as downloading games, movies etc.
I'm not Japanese, I don't speak Japanese, and short of a fansub I likely won't be watching much anime.
Of all the anime I have seen on anime, I KNOW the majority would never have seen the light of day without the fansub community.