Ethics of fansubs

[Raiken]

I'm gonna be pretty no holds barred with this. Until now the issues of fansub legality didn't bother me until a handful of groups decided to drop a certain series a day before it finished. Anbu has an analysis of the exact laws here:

anbudom.net/faq.php

But personally I don't care. Has anyone here ever heard of a group getting into trouble due to legal issues? Anbu posted some retarded picture on their front page of some guys being sad Madlax was licensed but glad Naruto wasn't. You guys at Anbu and Lunar are kidding me if you expect me to believe your not watching the anime you sub behind our backs. Your just covering your own asses with a total disregard for the countless fellow fans. The same more then likely applies to other groups who follow the same ethics. Other groups like animeforever and iy4ever however continued to sub there series even after a license announcement. Why? Because Samurai Champloo had just barely started and american fans would have to wait literally over a year just for there chance to see it all if it hadn't been subbed. Inuyasha is literally 60 or so episodes behind here in america from what it is in japan but thanks to Iy4ever we were able to see the ending of these series shortly after they aired along with enjoying the third movie. They have created a large fanbase for these series who will possibly buy the dvds when they get released. Here's a few things I considered along with the whole issue of subs:

1. There are people who watch subs and give nothing in return but groups shouldn't expect anything because their work is all volunteered and since these people never intended to buy the series in the first place they do no damage to the distributor(this is similar to the whole emulation issue).

2. How much damage does a distributor take when you're giving people a series they aren't even selling yet?(e.g. Madlax).

3. People who make copies of fansubs then sell them for self profit. I find this to be wrong but a small issue considering the only people who probably buy these are ignorant to the concept of fansubbing or can't afford a broadband connection(I can't imagine why anyone else would buy them).

4. Even the best fansubs are moderate quality. People like myself will still buy the dvds after watching the series for their improved quality among other things.

5. Just recently GITS 2 was released. This is a huge budget movie like many others that got distributed for free despite being in american movie theaters and so far nobody got slapped with a lawsuit. This stands to reason that regular anime should be even less dangerous to sub.

6. What about people in other countries that won't even get the dvds and had to rely on fansubs just to see the series? It's most unfair to them to simply cut them off because of something going on in another country.

I'm open to any and all opinions on this issue(so long as it's in an intelligent manner ).

[Benitora]

Very good, very good Raiken. As for ANBU, they do just bullshit. It pisses me of so bad when they have a banner of FMA when they don't distribute it (and I only have episode 29 ).

And if anybody tries to license Naruto... ::takes out Redemmer and Ion Painter from UT2004:: there will be consequences.

[Raiken]

Actually I hope Naruto gets licensed since I want the dvds(and also to hear the complaints of some hypocrictal anbu loyalists). It won't be as big a deal as Madlax since several groups sub that series but the majority of fans use anbu as their source. The manga is already in print here in america.

Another thing I noticed recently, ADV(the people with the rights to Madlax), asked animeforever to remove their Chrno Crusade and Peace Maker Kurogane links which is just considering the dvds are or about to come out. However the main point I'd like to draw from this is that ADV simply asked the group to remove the links rather then threaten them with a lawsuit.

[flan_man]

The thing about these legalities is that they can always be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on what side of the court you're on.

Personally I think these fansubs are perfectly fine to distribute as long as the official dvd's aren't up for buy yet, and even beyond that point you'd have to ask yourself the question whether they could harm any rights. The more people that watch a fansubbed anime, the better that anime gets known. And if dvd's really live up to their name of offering superior quality and exclusive extras, I don't see how the existance of a fansub could have a negative impact on sales. On the contrary, the true fans will pick them up anyway.

[Kazuya_UK]

Personally I can see the fansub groups point of wanting to protect their own asses and make sure they don't get busted because it *could* happen, even if it hasn't been known to yet. I do think that sometimes the companies don't really crack down on them because they know that people getting hold of these episodes that they probably wouldn't have known about otherwise is a good thing because it creates interest and word of mouth, increasing the chances that official DVD releases will be a success. Also, if the fansub groups sub stuff for themselves and friends without releasing it publically then that is their business... they do it for free without most of us giving anything back so we can't really demand they release them.

Other than that, I have to say that I try to buy official DVD's as often as I can, and when it comes to feature length movies I *ALWAYS* buy them. However, I have a real dislike for buying official DVD's of TV series. I started buying series like Trigun and Kenshin on DVD and spent a LOT of money, but I got pissed off in the end because we are all being ripped off really. I mean, *FOUR* episodes on a disc? You gotta be kidding me!!! Even on a single layer disc they could fit maybe 5-6 episodes, and definitely way more on a dual layer disc, with room left for some extras and dual languages etc. When you add up how much an official set of Kenshin discs will cost you, you can understand why people would want to buy a bootleg set, where a good one would be of compareable quality easily.

I know there are two sides to the coin though... the companies that license anime for release in the west probably have to pay a lot of money for the license, and while most of us dislike them, they do have to include a dubbed track which makes it much easier for them to sell it to the masses who wouldn't buy a subtitled anime. All of this costs money, meaning they do have to try to make that money back by including as few episodes per disc as possible. Even so, we are still being ripped off in most cases, so I dont feel bad by showing the companies what I think and NOT buying their releases. If they included at least six episodes on the discs they release, then I might change my mind and start buying official TV series discs again, but until then the only official discs I don't mind buying are feature length movies.

Just my 2 cents ;D

edit: just noticed this:
www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=183617

See now even though this release only has 4 episodes, I might buy it because it has some good extra features and the price is reasonable (£14.99), unlike some of the discs I have seen previously that had 4 episodes for £19.99 and more. I have my home-made DVD's of this series, but this one has go my interest now ;D

Kaz

[Raiken]

In my case it's because atm I can afford dvds despite the expense plus I have bad luck with boots for some reason. The price for a series obviously can vary from length and episodes per disc are the same. For example a typical 26 episode series will be 6-8 discs with 3-4 episodes each like Kaz mentioned but longer series like gundam wing that are 49 episodes will have at least 5 episodes a disc and will be cheaper per disc too(5 bucks per episode of gundam wing whereas it used to be 10 bucks per episode of evangelion which is insane). For the time being I buy official releases pretty much because I simply can.

[Kazuya_UK]

Raiken said:

In my case it's because atm I can afford dvds despite the expense plus I have bad luck with boots for some reason. The price for a series obviously can vary from length and episodes per disc are the same. For example a typical 26 episode series will be 6-8 discs with 3-4 episodes each like Kaz mentioned but longer series like gundam wing that are 49 episodes will have at least 5 episodes a disc and will be cheaper per disc too(5 bucks per episode of gundam wing whereas it used to be 10 bucks per episode of evangelion which is insane). For the time being I buy official releases pretty much because I simply can.

When you have a series like Kenshin however with 96 episodes and they only put FOUR episodes a disc... what do you do? Each disc was costing me about £21 (that's including postage), which is roughly $35... now, 96 divided by 4 = 24. So I would have to buy 24 DVD's at $35 each, costing me a grand total of $840 for one friggin series. All I can say is "FUCK THAT", even if I am a huge Kenshin fan.  

While I am on the subject though, I have to say that if it wasn't for fansubs then I would never have found out about Kenshin in the first place. So basically they did manage to get some money off me as I bought the first five official DVD's, which they would not have got if it wasn't for AVCD's fansubs

Kaz

[Raiken]

35 a disc? Even here it wasn't that expensive. That's just insane and I can't say I blame you then for taking the cheaper method. In this situation I would wait for the boxsets which took forever to come out here but with them the series was reduced to a little over 400 bucks. Still expense but definitly cheaper then $840.

[Kazuya_UK]

Yeah, the problem is when you factor in postage etc etc it gets very costly... and that $840 is not even counting the possibility of customs opening each package and charging tax on top of that. It's unlikely, but they could charge maybe £2 tax on each disc if I ordered a couple at a time, adding another £48 or $86 to the cost of the whole thing. Admittedly it is unlikely that I'd get charged for every one, but it is still highly possible I'd get charged for at least a few of them, even if I used the usual tricks to avoid customs tax. If I ordered the box set costing $400, then you can add a good $70 of tax at least to that because I'd highly doubt something of that value would get through customs without a charge.

So in other words, unless Kenshin was released here officially and at a reasonable price, there is no way in hell I'd buy it no matter how much I love it.

Kaz

[Raiken]

That makes sense. The other thing I forgot to consider is that I have a good position to buy these dvds atm. The suncoast I buy my stuff from is in the same mall I work at so I get a small discount(about 5%), I'm in the replay club which gives me back about 5 bucks for every 100 I spend unless I triple the points I earn with a coupon, and I always try to buy stuff the day it comes out because it's usually 5-10 bucks cheaper. For example: yesterday on the 30th I came in to pick up four new dvds that were each priced at $29.99. Since they had just came out three of them were only $19.99 and one was still $29.99. I had a $5 coupon from replay and with that and the discount the whole total came to about 91 bucks. So basically I got 4 dvds for the standard price of 3. Since I also managed to triple the points at the time too I should get back about 20 bucks in the mail. Even with all of this it's about dead even with buying a full box set but I get the dvds as soon as they come out instead of waiting a year just for a box set. I obviously have no patience ;D