A new twist in the Fansub wars....

[Myriad]

http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/legal/mediafactory.html

Will more Japanese studios follow? I hope not. Fansubs help me decide what new titles I will pick up. I am all for Fansubbers stopping when a title is licensed and picking up official releases.

[Effect]

Same here. Fansubs do help me decide what shows I want to spend my hard earned money on. Still I never thought that companies outside of Japan lost any money on fansubs. Since they would have never gotten those sales anyway. A lot of shows still aren't brought over by other companies.

Though what makes me wonder is do the raws really hurt them? Aren't a lot of series shown in TV in Japan as apart of cable or free in that people can record them if they want. Meaning that the few raws that might be released on the interent might now even be causing that much trouble in lose of profit. So I really don't see why companies would make a big fuse over fansubs. Wouldn't fansubs show current companies importing anime which shows are most likely be popular with fans or what genre is currently popular so they can take a jump and start seeking the rights to shows in order to bring them over so they can sell dvds or get it on TV so they can reach an even larger audience and more more money?

I don't really see the downside of fansubs for the Japanese companies to be hoenst. I mean its not like they would be losing money when they wouldn't be making any money off of those in english speaking companies anyway. Especially if the show hasn't been licensed or a good chance it won't be.

Edited December 10, 2004 by Effect

[Jemstone]

Effect, I always saw fansubs as ways of PROMOTING unlicensed anime. I can tell you all the anime I downlaoded and loved I have bought the region 1 set. I've seen all of Gundam Zeta yet currently going crazy for my domestic set to arrive. Just like I can't wait for a domestic set of FMA, Rahxephon OVA and Samploo (among amny more). This really sucks. Thankfully, I have all of Kimi Ga saved on ym HD but this is a big blow.

[Effect]

Same here. I always thought fansubs was how companies knew which shows to get the rights to so since they know people would pay for officially translated dvds or vhs with an english track or at least subbed that they can play in their dvd players or vcrs. I've gotten a lot of shows due to viewing fansubs. Hell I'll be getting Scrapped Princess once its out in a heart beat since I loved it when I saw a fansub copy of it. I've been like that with other shows as well. Companies know people think like this. Yet people do save money as well cause I've seen shows I would not want to waste my money on cause I didn't like it. I always figured fansubs was part of the reason why anime has gotten so big since it opened more of it to fans and companies outside of Japan.

[Jemstone]

It's just so unbelievably stupid. I'm not gonna go to a store or online and buy a series I have never seen and have no idea what's it about. Not all anime is previewed in mags like Newtype promo discs or available in sample demos discs. I wouldn't eb surprised if tehre wa sa huge drop in anime sales if this continues to be a trend. It's just so STUPID!

[Lynx7725]

Hmm. Fan subbing, as I understand it, has always been a grey area.

Technically, it is undeniably a violation of the copyright owner's intellectual property rights, but traditionally it has been accepted as "free" advertisement by the owners.

The reason why licensed anime are often pulled from fan sub lists is probably related to the sue-happy nature of the American society, but that's a different discussion.

Fan subbing does hurt the owners.. because there will always be a propotion of downloaders who see no point in buying official licensed versions (especially in my censor-happy country.. hey, we like T&A too.).

Yes, we all say "Support Anime! Buy Licensed DVDs!", but remember, people are cheapskates by nature.

The other side of the coin is the principle behind it. If you do not enforce your copyrights for every infringements, you run the risk of letting one (harmless) offender go by that will allow someone else to use as a precendent to do something you really don't want to happen. Legally speaking, it's safer -- and cheaper! -- to send a C&D than to potentially fight a big court case later.

Coming back to my opening, up till now, the industry (as I understand it) works something like this:

• Japanese Company create anime for Japanese Audience
  
• Fan subbers pick up series and subs it
  
• American companies watch for downloads to determine popularity
  
• American company license from Japanese Company, and sell licensed copies.
  

So, it is to the American company's interests to let fan subbers go on -- because, as some of you points out, it tests the market for you, FOC.

But if the Japanese company wishes to get into the US market, does it make sense to let fan subbers do it? No, because it cuts into the US distribution margin for them. What we should be looking out for is whether MFI is getting into the US Distribution market on its own.

The bigger question is whether Japanese anime companies are in general trying to create animes aimed at the US audience.

Now, the above is my opinions and logical exploration, it can be wrong.. so you're not obliged to agree, though that will be nice for my ego.

[Jolly Rogers]

Face it, anime is mainstream now, there is too much money involved for them to just sit back with a closed eye. They've seen how Napster killed CD sales.

[Myriad]

Face it, anime is mainstream now, there is too much money involved for them to just sit back with a closed eye.  They've seen how Napster killed CD sales.

People are dloading instead of taping.........

Back on topic.....

Too much beer now can't add anything to thread........

Edited December 10, 2004 by Myriad

[Brewtal]

Meh, only show there I even enjoyed was Genshiken. Even then I preferred the manga. If they wanna enforce the copyrights on newer shows more power to em, as I don't watch that junk anyway.

Maybe now fansubbers will be forced to work on older shows like Ideon, L-Gaim, Xabungle, Dougram, you know stuff worth watching.

[Effect]

I can understanding a translating company not wanting fansubs around once the show has been licensed but it doesn't make sense for a Japanese company to send a letter in from my understanding.

- Japanese company creates an anime and is shown on tv or released on dvd in Japanese and in the R2 format.

- Sales are primaryly and almost all Japanese sales.

- No english version or R1 version, thus no sales from outside of Japan unless someone imports a R2 version and knows fluent Japanese(most likely low numbers)

- No lost money from English speaking customers since the product wasn't aimed at them anyway. No one is claiming ownership either, last time I checked.

So I just don't see, mainstream or not why a Japanese comapny would get into much of a fit over series that haven't even been licenese or doesn't show any signs that the shows will be.

Napster, well I think bad music in general had just as much in killing CD sales as downloading did, if not had more to do with it. That an the crazy pricing for CDs in general.

Edited December 10, 2004 by Effect

[mikeszekely]

Face it, anime is mainstream now, there is too much money involved for them to just sit back with a closed eye. They've seen how Napster killed CD sales.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not.

[mikeszekely]

But if the Japanese company wishes to get into the US market, does it make sense to let fan subbers do it? No, because it cuts into the US distribution margin for them. What we should be looking out for is whether MFI is getting into the US Distribution market on its own.

But as far as I know, even when a company has international branches, the products created by one still have to be licsenced for distrubition in other territories by the other branches. I mean, take Gundam Seed Destiny, for example. Seed's been reletively successful both in Japan and in America, do it's innevitable that Bandai America will release it here. But, until Bandai America has to liscense it from Bandai Japan. Until they do, it's considered unlicsensed.

[Wes]

And we were giving Hamony Gold a hard time with their C&D letters.

There's two thoughts going thru my mind: 1. Company paranioa, swatting at the flies, and 2: Could this be a fake? I could be off, but some people are really good at making really oficial-looking letters, and if it is true that a Japanese anime companies really has no interests in foreign markets, why bother? Don't they get lump-sum payments from their licenses?

[Lynx7725]

But as far as I know, even when a company has international branches, the products created by one still have to be licsenced for distrubition in other territories by the other branches. I mean, take Gundam Seed Destiny, for example. Seed's been reletively successful both in Japan and in America, do it's innevitable that Bandai America will release it here. But, until Bandai America has to liscense it from Bandai Japan. Until they do, it's considered unlicsensed.

It doesn't really matter in this case.. Yes, the license still need to be purchased/ issued, but in this case Bandai US and Bandai JP will just have a nominal transaction to satisfy the legal requirements. For all practical purposes, it's Bandai all the way, so they have a vested interest from the start to go for the fan subbers -- every fan sub copy out there will cut into their profit margin.

The point is, American (any independent really) companies wishing to sub and distribute anime are not likely to take any serious actions against fan subbers, because the fan subbers are providing a FOC service. So long the Japanese animation houses have no interest in distributing their works in the US markets, there is no vested interest for them to take action against the fan subbers, and the current status will remain.

But when the Japanese animation houses have intention to distribute in the US, they will start protecting their IP rights from day 1. That is expected and is really the worrisome thing for the "free" anime community. If the trend is for Japanese firms to start producing direct-to-America content, then fan subbing is likely to be hit. How badly depends on how aggressive the Japanese firms push.

[JB0]

Face it, anime is mainstream now, there is too much money involved for them to just sit back with a closed eye.  They've seen how Napster killed CD sales.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not.

Actually, it WAS Napster. Sort of.

When the RIAA attacked Napster, it started a boycott of CDs.

Most of the Napster users were using it as a preview system, and actually buying CDs. So the users felt that it was an attack on legitimate purchasers.

And legitimate studies up to that point had connected INCREASED CD sales to file-sharing.

After that firstl lawsuit, it was all downhill.

Boycott starts, CD sales fall, RIAA cites hard #s as evidence of file-sharing damage instead of just preaching their pet theory, RIAA is unable to shut down modern sharing programs due to their decentralized nature, so they commit PR suicide and directly attack the consumer, causing further reduced sales as they alienate their purchasers even more, reduced sales cause more lawsuits, lather, rinse, repeat.

[Nightbat]

Actually, the drop in cd-sales has simply been oversaturation of lousy product

In the old days, you bought a single which had a different B-side, nowadays you get

4 tracks, where 1 as the one you heard, and the other 3 are remixes, at 3 times

the price of an old single

Same goes for albums, there used to be 10 distinctly different tracks on an LP,

now it's 7 + 2 remixes and an interview at 3 times the price

Not to mention that if you release alot of bands in a certain genre, you have alot

of people wanting them all, but that's impossible, so people buy what they can

and try to get the rest for free

I have money for 3 cd's a month, and every month there are 6 acts/artists I like releasing an album

*my legal anime purchases already overshadow my entire audiocollection in value

mostly thanks to fansubs

I sometimes got a lemon buying an anime simply on reviews

[JB0]

*my legal anime purchases already overshadow my entire audiocollection in value

mostly thanks to fansubs

I sometimes got a lemon buying an anime simply on reviews

I've never really used reviews for guidance, beyond genreal theme.

I usually just rey on instinct.

Amazingly enough, this mechanism serves me fairly well. I'm somewhat good at dodging the real stinkers and picking out the gems.

[Sumdumgai]

I don't really care if the other companies start cracking down or not. I've had some good times watching fansubs, but a lot of the time the subbers translate just as bad as the US companies, or change the dialogue.

And I can see some reasoning for the cracking down. There were a lot of guys that I used to know that would just get all the fansubs for free or cheap and keep those, never spending the money on the US releases. If a large number of people do this, there's a loss in profit for the US company.

I'm really picky about what series I watch now anyway, so I don't care if fan subbing gets cracked down on. It's like people scanning manga and putting it up on the internet as a "free service".

What I do care about is that the doujinshi market stays healthy and running. Leave my doujinshi alone, that's something that would never work in the US but works beautifully in Japan.

I'm butting out of this thread now. "That's all I gotta say about that."

[Gui]

Personnally, I think that companies should understand the need of fansubs and take their own initiative into the process: I mean, instead of providing a simple trailer and a credit part into the commercial section of the DVD, they should give an entire first episode of a show to give to the consumer a pretty good idea of the overal serie or OAV, how it looks and plays but also how it is translated, etc,...

Video game companies already do this since years now: they provide for free an entire part of their latest game and people know if it is worth the money or not, or at least a pretty good estimation is possible. Why something which works into a field shouldn't work into an another after all?

[JELEINEN]

Not surprising. The Japanese companies had already said they were planning on doing something about fansubbing at various conventions this year. Primarily it's because at this point most studios rely heavily on profits from foreign distribution and they perceive fansubs as cutting into that profit. There is also the issue that fansubs distributed online are not geographically limited and so are possibly even effecting their own domestic market (in other words, Japanese people downloading shows).

There are a couple of interesting points here. First is that they sent the letter to animesuki, which is fairly scrupulous when it comes to this sort of thing. There are many sites and networks out there that are not. I don't think they're going to stop anything unless they can either go after the people doing the subbing themselves or the people downloading them. A difficult endeavor, if not impossible.

The other interesting thing, especially to me, is that if a fansub group chooses to fight the C&D letter, we could finally see the Berne Convention put to the test. The Berne Convention is the international treaty in which all the signed countries (including the US and Japan) agree to recognize each other's copyrighted works. There is a serious question as to the constitutionality of the convention because the Constitution does not expressly provide our government with the power to enforce other countries' laws. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt anyone involved in fansubbing has the funds for such a fight, which would likely require a Supreme Court decision.

Edit: There's also a third reason as to why the Japanese companies said why they were going to go after fansubbing. A lot of the bootleg DVDs are using fansubs as source material, either as translations or even as video source.

Edited December 11, 2004 by JELEINEN

[ewilen]

instead of providing a simple trailer and a credit part into the commercial section of the DVD, they should give an entire first episode of a show to give to the consumer a pretty good idea of the overal serie or OAV, how it looks and plays but also how it is translated, etc,...

This is a great idea.

It would also be nice to get more TV (including cable and potentially other legal broadband) exposure, although it would also be a good idea to provide the viewer the option of viewing with sub or dub. (For example, use SAP for the original Japanese, and a closed caption signal for the subtitle.)

Otherwise, the only stuff I would buy sight unseen would be Miyazaki movies and Macross stuff, unless the price is really low.

Perhaps they could sell vol. 1 of a series or OAV for a nominal price, or sell cheap (or give away) "samplers".

[ewilen]

There is a serious question as to the constitutionality of the convention because the Constitution does not expressly provide our government with the power to enforce other countries' laws.

I didn't know there was controversy over the constitutionality of the Berne Convention, although your summary of the makes sense. This is an interesting topic. Can you point to any references?

[Jemstone]

instead of providing a simple trailer and a credit part into the commercial section of the DVD, they should give an entire first episode of a show to give to the consumer a pretty good idea of the overal serie or OAV, how it looks and plays but also how it is translated, etc,...

This is a great idea.

It would also be nice to get more TV (including cable and potentially other legal broadband) exposure, although it would also be a good idea to provide the viewer the option of viewing with sub or dub. (For example, use SAP for the original Japanese, and a closed caption signal for the subtitle.)

Otherwise, the only stuff I would buy sight unseen would be Miyazaki movies and Macross stuff, unless the price is really low.

Ewilen, this is what I've been saying for a years that an anime network should be like. Unfortunately that's not even how it's been when ADV finally launched their network. Furtehr mroe it's still rarely available for even what they do show to be widely seen.

[JELEINEN]

I didn't know there was controversy over the constitutionality of the Berne Convention, although your summary of the makes sense. This is an interesting topic. Can you point to any references?

I can try. Most of the reading I did on the subject was a few years ago when I first got involved with fansubbing. Lemme see what I can still find and get back with you.

[mikeszekely]

Face it, anime is mainstream now, there is too much money involved for them to just sit back with a closed eye.  They've seen how Napster killed CD sales.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not.

Actually, it WAS Napster. Sort of.

When the RIAA attacked Napster, it started a boycott of CDs.

Most of the Napster users were using it as a preview system, and actually buying CDs. So the users felt that it was an attack on legitimate purchasers.

And legitimate studies up to that point had connected INCREASED CD sales to file-sharing.

After that firstl lawsuit, it was all downhill.

Boycott starts, CD sales fall, RIAA cites hard #s as evidence of file-sharing damage instead of just preaching their pet theory, RIAA is unable to shut down modern sharing programs due to their decentralized nature, so they commit PR suicide and directly attack the consumer, causing further reduced sales as they alienate their purchasers even more, reduced sales cause more lawsuits, lather, rinse, repeat.

Which further emphasizes that it WAS the recording industry, not Napster/file sharing. Blaming Napster in that case is like blaming the knife for killing a stabbing victim instead of the knife-wielder.

[mikeszekely]

But as far as I know, even when a company has international branches, the products created by one still have to be licsenced for distrubition in other territories by the other branches.  I mean, take Gundam Seed Destiny, for example.  Seed's been reletively successful both in Japan and in America, do it's innevitable that Bandai America will release it here.  But, until Bandai America has to liscense it from Bandai Japan.  Until they do, it's considered unlicsensed.

It doesn't really matter in this case.. Yes, the license still need to be purchased/ issued, but in this case Bandai US and Bandai JP will just have a nominal transaction to satisfy the legal requirements. For all practical purposes, it's Bandai all the way, so they have a vested interest from the start to go for the fan subbers -- every fan sub copy out there will cut into their profit margin.

The point is, American (any independent really) companies wishing to sub and distribute anime are not likely to take any serious actions against fan subbers, because the fan subbers are providing a FOC service. So long the Japanese animation houses have no interest in distributing their works in the US markets, there is no vested interest for them to take action against the fan subbers, and the current status will remain.

But when the Japanese animation houses have intention to distribute in the US, they will start protecting their IP rights from day 1. That is expected and is really the worrisome thing for the "free" anime community. If the trend is for Japanese firms to start producing direct-to-America content, then fan subbing is likely to be hit. How badly depends on how aggressive the Japanese firms push.

But that's EXACTLY my point. A Japanese animation house doesn't intend to market their product directly in America... they intend for another company to license it from them.

And in this case, it's not actually a group of studios who are involved in this... it's one specific studio, Media Factory, that's sending out the cease and desist letters, and it's apparently because Akane Maniax was realeased on fansubs before the R2's. Even if fansubs are intended for Westerners, Japanese fans would still have access to them. And if Japanese are downloading fansubs instead of buying the R2 DVDs, then one could argue that the fansubs are cutting into the Japanese market.

[ewilen]

But that's EXACTLY my point. A Japanese animation house doesn't intend to market their product directly in America... they intend for another company to license it from them.

It doesn't matter. If the existence of fansubs reduces the potential revenue of a US release(*), then potential licensees won't pay as much in fees for distribution rights. Thus the fansubs would reduce the value of the of the property to the original Japanese animation house, and it would be very much in their interest to crack down on fansubbers.

(* I'm agnostic on whether this is really the case.)

[wolfx]

Wannabe decided that they have no legal dangers....thus they are continuing with fansubbing School Rumble. They actually have lawyers in their fansubbing group...

From ANN:

In addition to what was reported yesterday, the law firm representing Media Factory has sent letters to several more websites and fansub groups. Members of some fansub groups have stated that they plan to continue fansubbing various Media Factory titles. A spokesperson for Wannabe Fansubs has officially announced that it will ignore the Media Factory request and "exercise indifference."

[JELEINEN]

Doing some research...

So far I've found that US courts have held that "Berne Convention on copyrights did not require United States courts to enforce copyrights of other countries, when those copyrights did not satisfy originality requirement for copyrights set forth in United States Constitution," (The Bridgeman Art Library vs. The Corel Corp.). I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what all this implies though.

Most of what I'm finding is that a lot of the debate over the constitutionality of copyright extensions involves the Berne Convention, but I haven't read deep enough to know how for sure.

[ewilen]

Thanks. These links appear to contain all or most of the judgment:

http://www.corbis.com/professional/copyright/docs/bridge.htm

http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases...FSupp2d_191.htm

And this link has a summary with commentary, about halfway down the page:

http://www.asil.org/ilib/ilib0206.htm

The important point, from our perspective, is that the court believes that Berne is not "self executing". This means that the treaty didn't become US law because the US signed it. Rather, the provisions of the treaty were executed by a new law passed by Congress, the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. So the main issue for fansubbers is American copyright law as amended by the BCIA. This means, basically, that the US gives the same protection to foreign-created works as it does to those made in America, not that the US applies foreign protections to foreign works. Now, it's pretty obvious that if an American created a work in, say, Spanish, and then some other Americans took the work, subtitled it, and redistributed it for free, they'd be guilty of copyright violation. Continuing this line of reasoning, there's really very little doubt as to the outcome of a lawsuit against fansubbers, even if they could afford lawyers.

The court does admit that the Supreme Court hasn't ruled whether Berne is "self executing". If it is self-executing, that could mean that the treaty itself obligates the US to apply foreign laws and/or the provisions of Berne directly, instead of just implementing them through the BCIA or similar acts. The probabilty of this seems rather remote, though, for very clear and compelling reasons (see paragraph 15 of the Cornell text). In any case, this would really only be an issue if fansubbing violated Japanese law but not US law. And although I'm not a lawyer (and nothing I've written here should be construed as legal advice), it's obvious to me that fansubs are illegal under US law.

[ewilen]

Wannabe decided that they have no legal dangers....thus they are continuing with fansubbing School Rumble. They actually have lawyers in their fansubbing group...

I took a look at their forums and it seems like they've decided that the intent of the C&D letters really had to do with Akane Maniax, and for that and other reasons they've decided, by whatever code of ethics they adhere to, that it's "okay" to continue with their project. But this part has little to do with the law.

What does have to do with the law is their belief that, essentially, the technology of bittorrent is enough to insulate their website from liability. (Here is a timely article related to the issue.)

Here's the thread in their forum: http://www.wannabefansubs.net/tenma/index....p=296entry296

Essentially, they appear to be hoping that the C&D letters were a broadbrush response to the Akane Maniax issue, and they're going to keep doing what they do until they're convinced that Media Factory really means to shut down the School Rumble project.

If they're right, then maybe this should just be seen as a warning to fansubbers who get ahead of the Japanese DVD releases, and things can continue more or less as they have.

[nhyone]

Well, fansubs have gotten too easy to get and are of too high quality. I admit that when I get a good quality fansub, I am much less inclined to buy the original, especially if I ended up not really liking it.

I wonder why some of the groups bother to comply. If this is successful, other Japanese studios will join in and then there won't be any fansubs left!

[JELEINEN]

Fansubs are illegal has always been the assumption I've worked under; just uninforcable (up until now anyway).

[ewilen]

I think it's not that copyright laws were unenforceable against fansubbers, rather that they have been unenforced because the Japanese companies didn't bother to try to enforce their rights, for whatever reason.

Edited December 12, 2004 by ewilen

[JELEINEN]

I think it's not that copyright laws were unenforceable against fansubbers, rather that they have been unenforced because the Japanese companies didn't bother to try to enforce their rights, for whatever reason.

Yeah. Bad wording on my part.