~Bandai warns fansubbers~: from the AOD frontpage [Archive]

Iridium

08-22-2006, 06:22 PM

That's the way it goes I suppose. I have no idea if this will actually improve sales in a real way. There's probably no true way to answer that question either, as the demand for every product and series is variable and there's no real way to gauge how many buyers truly choose not to purchase when they could get it for free. But I can see how Bandai wants to protect their licensing investment considering that GiTS is an extremely popular franchise.

As to backlashes, this would probably only cause hatred among the crowd that always finds some method and "justification" to get it without paying, and would never buy it anyway. No need to waste tears over those people.

Though I think that the fires that fuel fansubbing will be fanned whenver an R1 company puts out a glitch disc. We shouldn't be paying money for defective DTS and such. Professional production should mean professional, problem-free products. While fansubbing is illegal, the R1 companies don't have any right to make a profit either. I don't think that the fact that it is licensed is enough to warrant a purchase; it must be worth the money!

lostnomad84

08-22-2006, 06:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:

And yeah, go them. They have every right, and I hope they squash anyone pirating their shows.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I fully agree. Bandai has proven in the past to act on their treats, so if I were a fansubber, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. However, as history has shown, no matter how threatening, from either the American licensor or from the actual Japanese company, subbers have continued to sub titles. So, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a lawsuit directed twoards a subbing group for Solid State Society.

Lego

08-22-2006, 06:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
lheiskell said:
This is something people are going to have to get used to.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I welcome tougher enforcment for KNOWN licenses, I still think it won't work. Hell, I would love DVD rips to go away, and for more people to buy DVD's so the price goes down and anime is more available. Will it happen? Not likely.

The problem you have at Funimation Lance, and the problem Bandai has is that you have a whole generation of anime fans that think anime is free, and that they have the right to watch it as it airs via fansubs and the internet. We've had many lengthy debates about fansubs, and it usually boils down to the same excuses.

1. Zomg they cost to much
2. Zomg fansubs are translated better
3. Zomg I like the karaoke and the text
4. Zomg I can get them as they air, Japanese people watch them for free, why can't I?
5. Zomg _____(insert company name) is evil

I wouldn't be surprised if you get some people who want to boycott Bandai's SSS release. What kind of shit(pardon my language) is that? Why would someone boycott a company for wanting to protect its investment? Anime companies aren't charities, they don't put out anime for free. The problem, at least to me is that R1 companies have been so wishy washy on this subject for years, that no precendt is set, and many will go ahead and leech anyway. I still think that instead of solely going afte fansubbers, that you guys(R1 companies) should go after some of the prolific DVD rippers. You have that imbeded attitude that a lot of anime "fans" have that they deserve to be able to see anime for free. It's all a load of bullshit and excuses. I'd love to hear a response from Lance or any other rep to see why it has taken this long for them to finally want to something.

golthin

08-22-2006, 06:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
dasboot said:
Whilst I might have opinions on certain issues which I shall leave unsaid for fear of moderator reprisal..as far as licensed anime goes, there is no excuse whatsoever for anyone to even think about subbing GiTS:SSS now that Bandai has made this public statement.

Bandai has taken action in the past with great effect and they will do so again. You take on Bandai at your peril.

Is there any hope of seeing a crack down on DVD rippers soon ?. Whilst the fam community gets all the spotlight DVD rippers are still carrying on in the background and it makes me sad when I see certain places who are gleefully ripping R1's. That needs to be stopped right now.

I just recently dropped Lance a line telling him of a couple of places Funi's legal department would be interested in :c

-dasboot

[/ QUOTE ]
I wish them the best of luck with that. Most distribution channels in the USA are respectful of licenses. It is the offshore channels that don't care. I have seen GITS first and second season out there and it seems they can't do anything about it. I already own the first season, waiting for the second season to have the problems solved before buying it.

RZetlin

08-22-2006, 06:51 PM

It's not a biggie.

All the pirates have to do is to rip the official version from Bandai.

Texhnolyze

08-22-2006, 06:58 PM

I don't think it'll cause more people to buy it. The people who were just going to watch it for free will just find something else to watch for free instead.

dasboot

08-22-2006, 07:01 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:

While I welcome tougher enforcment for KNOWN licenses, I still think it won't work.

[/ QUOTE ]
In a good majority of cases it has. When a fansubber has been served with a cease and desist order and/or had their website taken down it's usually done the trick. However a few people will still try to do it underground sadly :/

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
Hell, I would love DVD rips to go away,

[/ QUOTE ]
So would I, theres no excuse for DVD rippers. The one group that I reported to Lance via email was doing 4 Funimation series and a host of other series.

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
and the problem Bandai has is that you have a whole generation of anime fans that think anime is free, and that they have the right to watch it as it airs via fansubs and the internet.

[/ QUOTE ]
You need to make a distinction. Theres 3 groups of people.
1) Old school fansubbers
2) New school fansubbers
3) DVD rippers

Category 1 is the type who sub a show to persuade an R1 company to license it and instantly drop a show/pull it from distribution on announcement of licensing and encourage people to buy.
Category 2 is the "screw R1 licensors we'll sub it anyhow cos we don't want to wait for the R1 companies to get their act together and we can do it better than them.
Category 3 requires no explanation.

Category 1 is a dying breed. The fan community has got a bad name and bad rep because of Categories 2 and 3. Sadly I see this as a continuing trend because of the "anime should be free culture".

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
1. Zomg they cost to much

[/ QUOTE ]
They should try buying R2's THEN they would know the meaning of cost too much /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
The problem, at least to me is that R1 companies have been so wishy washy on this subject for years, that no precendt is set,

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree, there should be a consistent across the board policy. Prelicensing stuff helps immensely because fansubbers won't even start to sub a show if they know it's prelicensed (with some sad misguided exceptions)

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
that you guys(R1 companies) should go after some of the prolific DVD rippers.

[/ QUOTE ]
I will reserve my opinions on fansubbers for fear of moderator reprisals but as far as DVD rippers go hit em with the full force of the law.

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
You have that imbeded attitude that a lot of anime "fans" have that they deserve to be able to see anime for free. It's all a load of bullshit and excuses.

[/ QUOTE ]
Fansubbing at least back in the VHS days used to be all about generating enough buzz amongst the fans to make a company license a show. Sadly that is not the case nowadays and people are just doing it because they don't want to wait for a R1 company to pick it up and cos "anime should be free". Some people need to step back and think. Some shows just scream instant license so why bother if it's a sure fire license. On other matters I will reserve comment.

I would indeed welcome more statements like Bandais as there would be no more wishy washy "does this or does this company have a license" being used as an excuse to fansub shows.

-dasboot

Lego

08-22-2006, 07:14 PM

Man, I'm in a bunch of interesting conversations tonight. I'm mainly talking about the new generation of subbers if you will dasboot. The ones as you put it:

[ QUOTE ]
Category 2 is the "screw R1 licensors we'll sub it anyhow cos we don't want to wait for the R1 companies to get their act together and we can do it better than them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't wan to get into a fansub vs DVD debate again though. I would love to talk about companies cracking down on people though. I personally don't have a problem with someone who tries to give a show publicity so it gets licensed, then once it's, they say "hey guys, it worked, go support the offical release". I think this happend with Fushigi Yuugi. I remember a fansub group(who will remain nameless) that was working on the Ninja Scroll TV series. Urban Vision told them to stopped subbing it with a cease and desists, and they literally told the company "fuck you" in a email.

That is who I have a problem with. If companies like Bandai and Funi want to make their intentions known and have it be a public example, why not go after all the fansubbed and ripped anime on sites like Youtube?

Kris Z

08-22-2006, 07:14 PM

Well, as much I despise most modern fansubbers and the entitlement mentality that this new generation of anime fans have. I don't think it is a good idea because it will drive them futher underground.

At first they will just host torrents on their sites. Then the will try to add themselves to other places like the Pirate Bay or Torrentspy where piracy is accepted as "fighting the man." What makes it more ambiguous is that they think they are actually doing people a favor, so they actually keep these places alive as some sort of "holy war" fighting against the "big corporations"

What needs to change is not the DVD rippers, it is the mentality of the idiots who buy into the crap that what they are doing is justified because anime is somehow "free" in japan. Which of course takes out the obvious fact that there are never commercials that are added to the fansub. Nor are you forced to watch the commercials like the Japanese fans.

Whatever, stuff like this piss me off because the audacity of these so called "fans" that ruin the industry. What pisses me off even more is that some of them think that the are the true anime fans, not the people who actually buy the DVD's and support the anime they like.

Edit: I forgot that not only will they use illegal torrent centers, they will also use IRC. Gotta love people like that /images/graemlins/icon_rolleyes.gif /images/graemlins/icon_rolleyes.gif /images/graemlins/icon_rolleyes.gif

bayoab

08-22-2006, 07:17 PM

This poll is missing a "No, it won't matter much at all." The GITS franchise is pretty much established at this point. I suspect this is more a threat against subbers than an attempt to maximize sales.

Lego

08-22-2006, 07:20 PM

The sad thing is no one takes license enforcement seriously any more. Look at Media Factory, a Japanese company. They went after groups who were subbing shows they helped make. They barked for a while, then went back to their normal buisness. R1 companies have barked for a while, then dropped it. With the way anime is distributed on the internet these days, you need to have a consitent and constant policy to deal with these things or no one will take you seriously.

Most people will go "oh, Bandai is barking again, they'll be quiet after it's released" and thats what usually happens. I'm all for Bandai doing this, but I'm looking for a little consistancy. Taking out fansubs who do the movie are all well and good, but what about DVD rippers, bootleggers, people who sell subs on ebay, and places like Youtube?

dasboot

08-22-2006, 07:27 PM

Region 1 companies need to interact more directly with people.

There was an incident I heard about where Bandai visited a group directly on IRC and asked them to stop subbing a show.

If R1 companies actually did that and sent reps in, there would be nothing more scary than having a direct "face to face" conversation with a R1 license firm rep rather than using indirect measures of having torrent trackers taken down and so on.

It would also be easy to collect information about people who are channel operators and use legal powers to get their ip addresses and serve cease and desist notices directly to the individuals ISP's including legal requests for names and addresses rather than the long way round of trying to take out web hosts.

I'm quite sure that IRC Server Admins would be more than happy to co-operate with people with legal authority in such a venture.

-dasboot

Lego

08-22-2006, 07:29 PM

The two industries that I see being the most fan friendly is the game and anime industry. Both feature a strong level of mixing about with their fans and buyers. I personally think the main problem that you have is that people will go download a show because they don't know when, or if a show will be licensed. Granted I realize that you can't license everything as it comes out, but when something like Ergo is pre licensed or you have Geneon USA in the Black Lagoon credits, you can go "nice, this is coming out in the US" and not worry about it.

Kris Z

08-22-2006, 07:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
The sad thing is no one takes license enforcement seriously any more. Look at Media Factory, a Japanese company. They went after groups who were subbing shows they helped make. They barked for a while, then went back to their normal buisness. R1 companies have barked for a while, then dropped it. With the way anime is distributed on the internet these days, you need to have a consitent and constant policy to deal with these things or no one will take you seriously.

Most people will go "oh, Bandai is barking again, they'll be quiet after it's released" and thats what usually happens. I'm all for Bandai doing this, but I'm looking for a little consistancy. Taking out fansubs who do the movie are all well and good, but what about DVD rippers, bootleggers, people who sell subs on ebay, and places like Youtube?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, people forgot that even after the whole debacle of Media Factory, groups like <name removed> still kept on subbing School Rumble. Ironically only stopping when it got licensed by Funi.

What adds even more insult to injury is that I would see 5 or 6 groups doing the sub simultaneously even when Media Factory raised a storm. In fact I bet right now there are probably 3 or more groups still fansubbing this series even if it is licensed.

Personally I want all anime companies to be much more protective of their licenses because the fact that they don't care that fansubbers are still subbing after a series is licensed, or even released on DVD makes the younger generaion of anime fans have the entitlement mentality that all anime should be free. Heck, by not doing anything they are enforcing the mentality and making this epidemic get worse.

Just like a certain group kept subbing Kaliedo Star, even if ADV themselves financed the series making it by default licensed by them. What added insult to injury was that it was the same people that kept on subbing Kaliedo Star even after it was "officially" announced. They kept of subbing it for the sake of finishing it.

Would Kaliedo Star have sold better if ADV was merciless in protecting their license? Probably not. The fact that they let people fansub the series and distribute it well after being licensed continued the mentality of "free anime." After all, if a person saw the Fansubs for it, they have no need to buy it because they already seen what is going on. What makes this worse is that fansubs could be watched over and over again just like a DVD. That lessens the impact even more and the little desire this person has to support their series.

mifuneral2

08-22-2006, 07:33 PM

It doesn't bother me at all. I plan on buying Solid State Society whether I see it early or not.

Kris Z

08-22-2006, 07:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
The two industries that I see being the most fan friendly is the game and anime industry. Both feature a strong level of mixing about with their fans and buyers. I personally think the main problem that you have is that people will go download a show because they don't know when, or if a show will be licensed. Granted I realize that you can't license everything as it comes out, but when something like Ergo is pre licensed or you have Geneon USA in the Black Lagoon credits, you can go "nice, this is coming out in the US" and not worry about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, you go to an Anime Convention and you see that the Anime/Manga Industry are some of the nicest, most fan friendly companies in the entire planet. They listen to fans when they ask for certain series.

In fact they are one of the few industries where they ask us on a regular basis, "what do you want licensed?" and for the most part, if their is enough profit in the series it is licensed.

The manga industry is very receptive for what is popular with fans and what people wanted. I was a huge fan of the manga "The Gentleman Alliance" aka Shinshi Doumei Cross and went as far as to buy the import manga. To my suprise, the series got licensed before the run was even done. I bet that my new favorite manga series Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni will get licensed from Square Enix by a company and get a very swift release.

Most industries don't listen to the fans and are even out of touch with the fans. The anime/manga industry are the last one who are guilty of this from what I have seen in Anime Conventions and just overall fan response.

golthin

08-22-2006, 07:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
bayoab said:
I suspect this is more a threat against subbers than an attempt to maximize sales.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, that doesn't make sense. The reason that companies want to protect their copyrights is because they want to maximize sales. Wether it works or not is another thing,
people that watch fansubs instead of buying DVD most likely won't buy the DVD anyway. They will either rent them or just watch the show on TV.

fractured78

08-22-2006, 07:40 PM

I don't care either way. Unless the release is horribly mangled (which I doubt will happen) I'll pick up the movie. Well, unless it's as boring as Innocence was. *shudder*

And yes I know about the early mangled releases of the TV series. I did the replacement program just like everyone else.

golthin

08-22-2006, 07:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
mifuneral2 said:
It doesn't bother me at all. I plan on buying Solid State Society whether I see it early or not.

[/ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter to me if anyone fansub the show or not.

treatment

08-22-2006, 07:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
fractured78 said:
I don't care either way. Unless the release is horribly mangled (which I doubt will happen) I'll pick up the movie. Well, unless it's as boring as Innocence was. *shudder*

And yes I know about the early mangled releases of the TV series. I did the replacement program just like everyone else.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. This BEI-announcement is kinda weird.

It's like they don't have any confidence on GITS-SSS selling well in R1 that will negate the "magical lost sales" from the subbers.

I'd like to think that despite all the glitches of the tv-series, it sold very well in R1. Especially with the [AdultSwim] tie-in broadcast. I'd like to think that SSS will do even better.

Or maybe BEI's just looking at the sales-numbers of Innocence?

Warren

08-22-2006, 08:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
lostnomad84 said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:

And yeah, go them. They have every right, and I hope they squash anyone pirating their shows.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I fully agree. Bandai has proven in the past to act on their treats, so if I were a fansubber, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. However, as history has shown, no matter how threatening, from either the American licensor or from the actual Japanese company, subbers have continued to sub titles. So, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a lawsuit directed twoards a subbing group for Solid State Society.

[/ QUOTE ]

You summed up what I was thinking pretty well. No matter what kind of legal action is threatened, there will be somebody who will fansub the series. Then again, I know several people who call themselves fans of movies, anime, and games who will not spend money on their hobbies and continue to pirate stuff they like. /images/graemlins/anger100.gif

christianlf

08-22-2006, 08:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
Or maybe BEI's just looking at the sales-numbers of Innocence?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you trying to suggest Innocence sold poorly?

(you'd be wrong)

Shale

08-22-2006, 08:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
bayoab said:
I suspect this is more a threat against subbers than an attempt to maximize sales.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, that doesn't make sense. The reason that companies want to protect their copyrights is because they want to maximize sales. Wether it works or not is another thing,

[/ QUOTE ]

Makes sense to me. Not sure if I agree, but if they've decided to come down harder on fansubbers, why not use a big-name title to do it? The idea, I'd think, is to put fansubbers off subbing Bandai properties in general, and more people will hear about this than if the news release was "Bandai to fansubbers: hands off Mermaid Melody Pitchi Pitchi Pitch."

(Yes, I know they don't have that. According to the GHLL, they actually don't seem to have any unreleased licenses that aren't big names, which is probably another reason they're using a big name here.)

treatment

08-22-2006, 08:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
Or maybe BEI's just looking at the sales-numbers of Innocence?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you trying to suggest Innocence sold poorly?

(you'd be wrong)

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to share the official dvd sales-numbers (including returns and stuff) for both Innocence and SAC (both seasons)?

I'm very interested.

darkhunter

08-22-2006, 08:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
Or maybe BEI's just looking at the sales-numbers of Innocence?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you trying to suggest Innocence sold poorly?

(you'd be wrong)

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to share the official dvd sales-numbers (including returns and stuff) for both Innocence and SAC (both seasons)?

I'm very interested.

[/ QUOTE ]

From what I understand, Ghost in the Shell Innocence did really well. It was top seller for animenation and amazon's top anime list. It was name ICv2's top 10 anime property. Also there was an ani-manga based on innocece that was release for it. It had tons of buzz before its release. Even right now, the ranking it has on amazon is pretty good in comparison to other anime at the time of 2004 (Innocense in the 7000, Champloo vol. 1 in the 20,000).

Also this article by ICv2 (http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/6120.html) suggest it did really well in theather as well.
Also why would they make a third movie if the second movie didn't do well? Of course nobody is gonna have solid proof unless they are bandai or an insider, but I wonder why you suggest it didn't sell well? Is there any reason?

And here's a comment for SAC I found on ICv2
[ QUOTE ]
But Bandai's titles, particularly Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Wolf's Rain have a strong appeal to the growing teen and older anime audience, and managed to sell well both in mass market and independent and on-line outlets.

[/ QUOTE ] [

jecca-neko

08-22-2006, 09:00 PM

Where's my "meh, I don't care about GitS anything" option? /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

More relevant to the topic, I think this is a good thing. Not all, but most of the fansub watching community nowadays uses their fansub watching as an excuse to not buy legit anime for one reason or another.

treatment

08-22-2006, 09:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
--snipped--

[/ QUOTE ]

You can quote amazon and icv2 all you like.

Like I asked Christian, I'd like to see the official dvd sales-numbers for both Innocence and SAC. Being a known SAC-fan here, I'm very interested on these dvd-numbers since I'm confused as to why BEI would suddenly declare open war on the subbers with SSS as the forefront title, considering GITS is a well-known strong title-brand in R1, despite of and regardless of it being subbed or not in the past. There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

Shale

08-22-2006, 09:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said it yourself - GitS is well-known. It gets the word out. Why is that not a valid reason in itself?

treatment

08-22-2006, 09:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Shale said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said it yourself - GitS is well-known. It gets the word out. Why is that not a valid reason in itself?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not a Naruto-fan, but I know Naruto's a more well-known title right now, and yet VIZ ain't really doing nor announcing anything drastic and aggressive like BEI did suddenly with their announcement on SSS. VIZ's demeanor suggests they're very confident about Naruto's sales-numbers that they can pretty much indirectly ignore the subbers.

In contrast, BEI had warned subbers before with SAC, but this new announcement from them seems to have a more aggressive/combative tone to it than BEI's previous warnings over the years. That is what's so surprisingly suspicious about it.

darkhunter

08-22-2006, 09:31 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
--snipped--

[/ QUOTE ]

You can quote amazon and icv2 all you like.

Like I asked Christian, I'd like to see the official dvd sales-numbers for both Innocence and SAC. Being a known SAC-fan here, I'm very interested on these dvd-numbers since I'm confused as to why BEI would suddenly declare open war on the subbers with SSS as the forefront title, considering GITS is a well-known strong title-brand in R1, despite of and regardless of it being subbed or not in the past. There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like I said, if those arn't good reason, can you give me reason why I should think it sold poorly? Are you just ignoraing all the reason I gave?

Ghost in the Shell is a huge franchise, they want to protect their investment....that's why they're asking that this title not be fansubbed. And ICv2 is a respected industry website. It focuses on sales and has a lot of insiderr information. They post report that they do research on and Ghost in the Shell SAC sold well. You can denial all you want though.

christianlf

08-22-2006, 09:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
--snipped--

[/ QUOTE ]

You can quote amazon and icv2 all you like.

Like I asked Christian, I'd like to see the official dvd sales-numbers for both Innocence and SAC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahahaha, you're rejecting Icv2 as a valid source now and asking for something you know damn well no one can deliver? Hey man, carry on. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

treatment

08-22-2006, 09:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
--snipped--

[/ QUOTE ]

You can quote amazon and icv2 all you like.

Like I asked Christian, I'd like to see the official dvd sales-numbers for both Innocence and SAC. Being a known SAC-fan here, I'm very interested on these dvd-numbers since I'm confused as to why BEI would suddenly declare open war on the subbers with SSS as the forefront title, considering GITS is a well-known strong title-brand in R1, despite of and regardless of it being subbed or not in the past. There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like I said, if those arn't good reason, can you give me reason why I should think it sold poorly? Are you just ignoraing all the reason I gave?

Ghost in the Shell is a huge franchise, they want to protect their investment....that's why they're asking that this title not be fansubbed. And ICv2 is a respected industry website. It focuses on sales and has a lot of insiderr information. They post report that they do research on and Ghost in the Shell SAC sold well. You can denial all you want though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't know why you're asking me to give you a reason on why it sold poorly when I'm the one asking for the numbers to find out if it actually did poorly or not.

You're free to quote icv2 and amazon all you want, tho.

christianlf

08-22-2006, 09:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
I really don't know why you're asking me to give you a reason on why it sold poorly when I'm the one asking for the numbers to find out if it actually did poorly or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I don't know, because you inferred that Innocence didn't sell well?

treatment

08-22-2006, 09:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
darkhunter said:
--snipped--

[/ QUOTE ]

You can quote amazon and icv2 all you like.

Like I asked Christian, I'd like to see the official dvd sales-numbers for both Innocence and SAC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahahaha, you're rejecting Icv2 as a valid source now and asking for something you know damn well no one can deliver? Hey man, carry on. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm actually interested in icv2's numbers, too, alongside the official numbers so we can do a good comparative case-study. However, just quoting icv2 saying it did well without providing numbers is about as reliable as my dog speaking fluent german. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Shale

08-22-2006, 09:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
Shale said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said it yourself - GitS is well-known. It gets the word out. Why is that not a valid reason in itself?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not a Naruto-fan, but I know Naruto's a more well-known title right now, and yet VIZ ain't really doing nor announcing anything drastic and aggressive like BEI did suddenly with their announcement on SSS. VIZ's demeanor suggests they're very confident about Naruto's sales-numbers that they can pretty much indirectly ignore the subbers.

[/ QUOTE ]

...maybe Viz isn't as worried about the effects of fansubbing on their wider lineup (perhaps because Viz has a very small lineup outside of the TV-dependent titles like Naruto and Bleach)? Again, I'm saying that this might not be about the sales of the big-name series at all, but about using a headline-grabbing title to make Bandai look threatening to fansubbers in general. Viz's treatment of Naruto has exactly nothing to do with that.

golthin

08-22-2006, 09:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
Shale said:
[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said it yourself - GitS is well-known. It gets the word out. Why is that not a valid reason in itself?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not a Naruto-fan, but I know Naruto's a more well-known title right now, and yet VIZ ain't really doing nor announcing anything drastic and aggressive like BEI did suddenly with their announcement on SSS. VIZ's demeanor suggests they're very confident about Naruto's sales-numbers that they can pretty much indirectly ignore the subbers.

In contrast, BEI had warned subbers before with SAC, but this new announcement from them seems to have a more aggressive/combative tone to it than BEI's previous warnings over the years. That is what's so surprisingly suspicious about it.

[/ QUOTE ]
this might just be an attempt at free publicity for the show.

Tomcat

08-22-2006, 10:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
this might just be an attempt at free publicity for the show.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's just legal wrangling. This way they an go after whoever they want to target, and they can't claim they didn't know. They are warning them.

Of course, I'd like to take all the lawyers and bootleggers, strap them the bottom of a rocket, and launch them all into space. I have no need for any of them, and I think that both groups are about equal.

For the record, I purchase anime that I wish to support. To date, I've spent more than $20K on anime. Sure, there are those that spend more, if they can afford it. If I don't like a series, I'm not going to buy. I'd like to know first, though.

-TC

mighty_vespa

08-22-2006, 10:09 PM

Yeah, these "polling options" are real objective. Tch. If there were a fourth option that said "Bandai's stance will have little to no impact on SSS' sales", then I probably would've voted.

Anyway, Bandai/Manga/Production I.G own the rights to this work and they can damn well do what they want with it. They're the one's who get to decide how I watch this film. Not "Tickytacky-Takoyaki Fansub Team" or whoever the hell these folks want to call themselves.

I applaud Bandai and Manga's move.

No. They don't think that any of this bring about the End of All Piracy™. Please. That'd be naive of them to believe that. They're doing this to protect their property as best they can. There's only so much they can control. And they feel they can control this much, so they're going to try.

Also, just because some may think "it won't work" doesn't mean measures shouldn't taken. I sympathize a little with some fans' and their frustrations that stiffer actions haven't been taken on a more consistent basis. The only problem with that is that company-wide legal action of any kind takes time and money. Even then, companies have to research how they can enforce their rights, as the technology that's often used to infringe upon them them grows more and more complex everyday. One misstep on the 'legal ladder' and any possible case they build could be thrown out.

something

08-22-2006, 10:17 PM

[ QUOTE ]
lheiskell said:
This is something people are going to have to get used to.

[/ QUOTE ]
There's nothing here to really "get used to", Lance. It's just empty PR. They won't stop the fansubbers, and even if they somehow magically did, people would just rip the DVDs and release those. Whoop-dee-doo, back to square one. People can rave and rant all they want about fansubbing either way, and it won't change anything.

I long ago stopped caring about sweeping generalizations on the issue, and I only care about it on the level of the individual choices the individual makes, and how responsible they are. To hell with anything else, especially silly, empty "warnings" like this that won't be backed up with anything, and even if they were, wouldn't be effective at all.

Puppet Master

08-22-2006, 10:28 PM

Really don't give a damn either way never have.

JeffDM

08-22-2006, 10:30 PM

They type that might download will probably be able to record it off of TV if anything, with higher ratings possibly bringing in more money, Bandai could benefit if they do manage to make it scarce.

I do wonder how much an illegit free version affects sales, because I doubt that the average person is cleanly in either the legal purchase or the p2p-only camps. I think that there has to be a lot of people that would buy more if there wasn't a free-yet-shady alternative.

In principle, I think they are right to enforce their rights, but I do wonder how well it will work.

kaiyouske

08-22-2006, 10:58 PM

I would like to watch my anime before I buy them just to see if they're worth owning. I still have my GitS Season 1 and 2 Region 1 CEs still unwatched.... -_-

Suzaku Seikun

08-22-2006, 11:09 PM

I'm not a Ghost in the Shell fan, so this doesn't make me want to buy or not buy the show more. But I really don't think this warning will help or harm sales too much, since I think the people who are willing to buy the show are going to buy the show regardless of the whether or not the show is fansubbed or not. I don't think those people are going to boycott buying the show just because people are not allowed to fansub the show.

bayoab

08-22-2006, 11:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
lheiskell said:
This is something people are going to have to get used to.

[/ QUOTE ]
There's nothing here to really "get used to", Lance. It's just empty PR. They won't stop the fansubbers, and even if they somehow magically did, people would just rip the DVDs and release those. Whoop-dee-doo, back to square one. People can rave and rant all they want about fansubbing either way, and it won't change anything.

[/ QUOTE ]It's exactly as you say. If the companies just sit there and look mean about it and don't take care of all the other forms of the problems too, this is just going to be worthless. Also, this is seen by some people as a "oh, there is no way in hell they can sue me, i'm going to spite them". If they don't enforce this, this whole press release will be seen as a joke and as them just trying to scare people.

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
Being a known SAC-fan here, I'm very interested on these dvd-numbers since I'm confused as to why BEI would suddenly declare open war on the subbers with SSS as the forefront title, considering GITS is a well-known strong title-brand in R1, despite of and regardless of it being subbed or not in the past. There's gotta be something dramatic in the official sales-numbers that could've triggered this war declaration.

[/ QUOTE ]
You say exactly why they sent this out (the bold part). As I said in my analysis, I think this has nothing to do with sales. Bandai is saying "GITS sells, there is no reason to fansub this that isn't blatent piracy, hands off". It is very unlikely that someone with no previous GITS exposure is going to buy/watch something like SSS. This is why it makes no sense for this has anything to do with sales.

Lego

08-22-2006, 11:38 PM

Gee that sounds familiar...

Anyway, thats basically it. People who usually download anime for free(including DVD rips) will glance over the headline, shrug about it, then go back to doing what they're doing. I'd rather Bandai use its might to go after bootleggers and DVD rippers though. The sad thing is from ANN to 4chan, so many "fans" are coming out with the argument that "zomg I want anime for free". It's a sad state of affairs when certain "fans" want to watch a show, yet they won't support it.

I'd love to see what would happen if the R1 companies said "ok, no more cofunding, no more licensing" and just moved onto other things. A large swath of anime wouldn't get made or produced. The fact of the matter is Joe Downloader isn't going to pay 20 bucks for a DVD of one show with three episodes when he can click and download episodes from all 30 shows that aired during the current season.

Leon_Belmont

08-23-2006, 12:12 AM

I'm fairly ambivalent. After all, even with the RIAA suing toddlers, themselves, people who don't even use their computers, etc., there's a lot of music filesharing going on. Fansubbers actually go through the process of subbing something an R1 company is in the process of doing. I'd say they lost it for putting in all that effort already.

But if Bandai mass produces Gundams in an effort to retaliate against the fansub movement, I'm all for it.

Kellory

08-23-2006, 01:56 AM

The bottom line on this is that either your part of the problem or part of the solution.

There is no justification for downloading or fansubbing these days. None. Zero. Nada. Any attempt at justification is simply another way of attempting to avoid the responsibility of breaking the law. And frankly, it doesnt matter whether others will follow the law/rules or not. It doesnt matter if some offshore group will fansub and/or host it. It only matters what each one of us here can and will do.

No one can control anothers action. However, that is no excuse for not taking control of one's own actions and acting accordingly. That is why we have our zero tolerance policy here on fansubbing. We cant control what happens outside of AoD. All we can do is do our best to educate and promote Anime here and hope it spreads. Maybe its an uphill battle. Perhaps its even unwinnable. But if you dont try, you cant win. And not trying simply because it is difficult or it doesnt seem possible is just another way of saying you give up.

ayareiko

08-23-2006, 03:12 AM

I see this as a pretext for BEI to take a more aggressive stance against certain subbers and distros. After making that statement, BEI pretty much has to something whenever as needed. Otherwise, doing too little (or nothing) makes BEI look like they're nothing more than a bunch of harmless windbags, and it'll make all future statements like this meaningless.

treatment

08-23-2006, 03:25 AM

I didn't quote the whole blurb, but this is part of it from http://www.animenewsservice.com/

[ QUOTE ]
8-23-06 (3:04AM EDT)---- Reasons For Bandai Fansub Warning?

News of Bandai Entertainment's warning to fansubbers regarding Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex has gone worldwide since the intial press release this afternoon. The topic has promoted much discussion online. Many have questioned "why now" and "why this title" regarding the move. There are some interesting things about SSS that set apart from other anime works. Although it's being called a full length feature film at 105 minutes with theatrical quality animation, there are no plans on the table for a traditional movie theater release in Japan or abroad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if the ANS-blurb is from official Bandai/BEI stance or just another interesting opinion on the whole thing.

Suwako Moriya

08-23-2006, 03:34 AM

[ QUOTE ]
jecca-neko said:
Where's my "meh, I don't care about GitS anything" option? /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I want that option as well. Either way reading this thread, it feels like well I've already read this thread a dozen times. Either way my view is more inbetween. I'm not of the "Fight the man, steal everything and support very bad industries." mentality, but I'm also not of the "Fansubs, Let's burn them at the stake" mentality. Watch as both sides say I was too harsh or not hard enough....

In any case if I actually cared about the series, I would not be worried anyway. The series is licensed. Thus a release is just a matter of time. Also giving the auto-popularity of the series. A TV broadcast is bound to happen. It's all a matter of time and patience. Of course since I wasn't going to watch it anyway, it's not like it matters. I'll be spending my "evil" time on other series and my attempt to support the industry on more important anime. Well more important to me anyway.

stfram

08-23-2006, 03:44 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Aya Reiko said:
I see this as a pretext for BEI to take a more aggressive stance against certain subbers and distros. After making that statement, BEI pretty much has to something whenever as needed. Otherwise, doing too little (or nothing) makes BEI look like they're nothing more than a bunch of harmless windbags, and it'll make all future statements like this meaningless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to see Bandai go after the bootleggers, as they are the ones SELLING Bandai's licensed shows. Fansubbers? They aren't a real problem here.

Saw three copies of GITS "Complete Series" boots on EBay, and this was just a half-assed search. Bandai needs to shut these jokers down first.

They won't, though. Fansubbers are just easier to go after.

something

08-23-2006, 04:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
[ QUOTE ]
8-23-06 (3:04AM EDT)---- Reasons For Bandai Fansub Warning?
Although it's being called a full length feature film at 105 minutes with theatrical quality animation, there are no plans on the table for a traditional movie theater release in Japan or abroad.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm confused: why do people think that has anything to do with... anything? /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif Anyway, as others have said, this whole "issue" is in reality nothing new. It's the same old same old that's happened hundreds of times before, and nothing has ever changed, and it never will. Yawn and such.

hikaru004

08-23-2006, 04:41 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Anime News Service said:
8-23-06 (3:04AM EDT)---- Reasons For Bandai Fansub Warning?
News of Bandai Entertainment's warning to fansubbers regarding Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex has gone worldwide since the intial press release this afternoon. The topic has promoted much discussion online. Many have questioned "why now" and "why this title" regarding the move. There are some interesting things about SSS that set apart from other anime works. Although it's being called a full length feature film at 105 minutes with theatrical quality animation, there are no plans on the table for a traditional movie theater release in Japan or abroad. The sole avenues of release in Japan are PPV TV followed by DVD. At an unprecedented 360 million Yen (or 3.20 million dollars) the work cost almost as much to make as the 4 million dollar original Ghost In The Shell did in 1995. Without a boxoffice run for such an expensive and high quality work (most traditional movies make the bulk of their money in theaters), the dependance on revenue generated through the above mentioned channels is obviously crucial. Also, compared to traditional movies the nature of the form of distribution being used here also clearly makes it more succeptable to being copied in high quality and then distributed widely illegally.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think that they stand a chance to loose their shirts on this one if raws get out and it is fansubbed? 3.2 million dollars seems like alot of money to me for an OVA production.

If so, then why not show it on Bandai Channel which has heavy DRM?

It seems to me like they set themselves up for having to prosecute people now to maintain credibility.

vtr9kvictor

08-23-2006, 05:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
stfram said:
[ QUOTE ]
Aya Reiko said:
I see this as a pretext for BEI to take a more aggressive stance against certain subbers and distros. After making that statement, BEI pretty much has to something whenever as needed. Otherwise, doing too little (or nothing) makes BEI look like they're nothing more than a bunch of harmless windbags, and it'll make all future statements like this meaningless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to see Bandai go after the bootleggers, as they are the ones SELLING Bandai's licensed shows. Fansubbers? They aren't a real problem here.

Saw three copies of GITS "Complete Series" boots on EBay, and this was just a half-assed search. Bandai needs to shut these jokers down first.

They won't, though. Fansubbers are just easier to go after.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you. Fansubbers aren't making any money off this. I think they should go after the bootleggers first. Of course, they cover that by saying fansubbers ARE bootleggers, but it is not the same. A guy selling boots on EBay is making money off my (hypothetical) product, I would go after him first. Then after I had put a stop to that, then I'd consider whether it was worth my time to go after someone merely distributing my work.

On a related note the SciFi channel actually did a study a few months ago on whether or not bittorrents affected the sales of products in a negative manner. Taking the show Battlestar Galactica as their subject, SciFi channel says they found that sales of the DVD releases and viewership of the broadcast episodes actually INCREASED after the show started appearing on bittorrent websites. To me it implies sufficient doubt that the entertainment industry as a whole should more comprehensively study this matter in an objective, scientific way.

Plus, no matter whether you are being hurt or not, charging a 10 year-old 6 million dollars in fines for having over 2000 MP3's on her harddrive is just bad publicity. I mean, COME ON. /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif The RIAA did just that as one of its first big prosecutions when it started all this.

Also, it seems to me that this warning as others in the past merely serves as a challenge to the people who do this, and will encourage people to fansub it, simply to be in defiance of Bandai's wishes. Its like tellinga hacker: "You'll NEVER be able to crack this site!" All you do is pump them up and make them want to do it even more.

vtr9kvictor

08-23-2006, 05:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
http://www.animeondvd.com/news/pr.php?pr_view=759

[ QUOTE ]
BANDAI ENTERTAINMENT WARNS FANSUBBERS AGAINST ILLEGAL FANSUBS OF GHOST IN THE SHELL: SOLID STATE SOCIETY

August 22, 2006 (Cypress, CA) Bandai Entertainment Inc. sent out a general notice to the fan community today stating it would be carefully monitoring the market for the creation and/or distribution of illegal fansubs or other pirated copies of all Bandai Entertainment Inc. titles, including the yet to be released title, Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, BEI/Mangle has thrown down the gauntlet.

Will this make Gits-SAC SSS more successful or not?

Frankly, I rather have BEI/Mangle fix their damn R1-glitches first before they sell us crap stuff again than have them focus on the fansubbers. Returning defective stuff is a PITA experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow!!! The results of the poll sure are telling aren't they.

vtr9kvictor

08-23-2006, 05:11 AM

[ QUOTE ]
dasboot said:
Whilst I might have opinions on certain issues which I shall leave unsaid for fear of moderator reprisal..as far as licensed anime goes, there is no excuse whatsoever for anyone to even think about subbing GiTS:SSS now that Bandai has made this public statement.

Bandai has taken action in the past with great effect and they will do so again. You take on Bandai at your peril.

Is there any hope of seeing a crack down on DVD rippers soon ?. Whilst the fam community gets all the spotlight DVD rippers are still carrying on in the background and it makes me sad when I see certain places who are gleefully ripping R1's. That needs to be stopped right now.

I just recently dropped Lance a line telling him of a couple of places Funi's legal department would be interested in :c

-dasboot

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh the DVD rippers piss me off to no end. Which is odd to me considering my stance on the rest of the issue. but ripping a DVD, just seems so WRONG to me.

sir_integra

08-23-2006, 05:11 AM

[ QUOTE ]
stfram said:
.....Fansubbers? They aren't a real problem here.
...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not so sure that's true but I will agree about bootleggers. Not only do the companies not get sales but my investment in their product is cheapened.

Go after the fansubbers, that's fine but until companies go after the bootlegs, especially those sold online, the actions seem gutless. I would have preferred to see some action against ecommerce. Those ebay lawyers must be pretty fierce.

Gersen

08-23-2006, 07:00 AM

I selected the third choice.

While companies have perfectly the rights to protect their properties, it would be realy nice is they started to care a little about peoples who actually do buy they shows /images/graemlins/relief1.gif .

GiTS SaC being a high budget show of a popular franchise you would have expected "flawless" high quality DVD. But it wasn't the case it was even far from it what we had instead was buggy DVD with so-so video quality full of edge enhancement. (Edge enhancement on a full digital show created on HD /images/graemlins/anger100.gif )

That's the reason why I didn't buy any GiTS DVD yet.

And it's a good thing that Mr Heiskell is lurking in this thread because Funi is definitly targeted by this comment too. Basilisk and Negima are not worthy to be called a "2006 DVD".
If a small company like MB is able to find perfectly competent encoders, why is a big company like Funi completly unable to ?

Lot's of companies like to whine about how many sales they lose with fansubs but strangely they don't seem to worry about the sales they lose because of incompetent QC and/or encoding.

Another productive thing that companies should do is to offer a "real" legit alternative. By real I mean one that doesn't take it's customers for complete idiots unlike Bandai "wonderful" Animevilage offer. A single episode loaded with DRM crap for roughly the same price than the DVD one but with a lower quality... come on seriously that's pretty insulting .

Gersen

kamillebidan

08-23-2006, 07:01 AM

Well, good for them. It is their absolute right to enforce their ownership of this title. I'd like to see more R1 companies cracking down like this, it might discourage fansubbing and pirate releases as a whole.

Problems some people might have with past releases of theirs is pretty much a non-issue and has nothing to do with the topic at hand, as far as I'm concerned.

Daniel_Perales

08-23-2006, 07:42 AM

BANDAI is only saying to the fansubbers not to bother subbing and/or distribute any of their titles, since they have already have the exclusive rights to distribute these titles in the USA.

If fansubbers decide to do it, anyway, then they are no longer doing it to promote the show. All they will be doing is promoting piracy, instead.

BANDAI is only warning them that they WILL use their legal right to stop it.

Why is this so damn hard for people to understand?

Danny

Vallen Valiant

08-23-2006, 08:12 AM

What don't I understand?

I don't understand Bandai executive's lack of knowledge in the way fansub function, and exactly what would or wouldn't work as a threat.

Sure, I agree that they have the right to protect their own property, but nothing annoys me more than useless and ineffective plans. This "warning" serves no purpose whatsoever, unless the executives lives in a parallel bizzaro universe. A simple and peaceful "This show is licensed" will be just as effective.

Did those people who issued this statement even once watched Gits SAC? Do they know what "The Laughing Man" is about? Because the people who wrote the scripts for GITSAC most certainly would not have bothered to send such pointless warnings across the Internet.

We will discuss this for a few weeks, and it will then die down. Nothing will be changed, because those at Bandai don't understand the Internet; Ironic, consider the merchandise involved.

MrDisco

08-23-2006, 08:15 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
BANDAI is only warning them that they WILL use their legal right to stop it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh. Isn't this standard practice anyway? releasing a memo just gets people worked up and/or can make some groups that much more determined to sub it. i suppose you consider this free advertising for the show as the hype machine gets built up.

personally let the subbers go nuts. anyone who was going to buy the show will do it regardless. perhaps a small percentage of people will copy a show w/o buying the r1, but i have to believe that if a company puts out a solid product (i.e. no glitches, r2 quality video, proper translations...gee shouldn't that be expected now?) then it will sell.

this 'war' on subbers is humourous. the gaming industry has been around longer than the dvd (or anime dvd for that matter) business. have they made much of an impact on pirated games? no not really. subbers can work in the underground, lock up their channels, get rid of their official BT sites and all it will take is one person to u/l it on piratebay and its all over.

LupusUmbrus

08-23-2006, 08:40 AM

Well, whatever the reasons, I hope it works out for them (Bandai.) I'll be purchasing the DVD regardless.

mike.motaku

08-23-2006, 08:59 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
What don't I understand?

I don't understand Bandai executive's lack of knowledge in the way fansub function, and exactly what would or wouldn't work as a threat.

Sure, I agree that they have the right to protect their own property, but nothing annoys me more than useless and ineffective plans. This "warning" serves no purpose whatsoever, unless the executives lives in a parallel bizzaro universe. A simple and peaceful "This show is licensed" will be just as effective.

Did those people who issued this statement even once watched Gits SAC? Do they know what "The Laughing Man" is about? Because the people who wrote the scripts for GITSAC most certainly would not have bothered to send such pointless warnings across the Internet.

We will discuss this for a few weeks, and it will then die down. Nothing will be changed, because those at Bandai don't understand the Internet; Ironic, consider the merchandise involved.

[/ QUOTE ]

"A simple and peaceful "This show is licensed" will be just as effective."

Yeah, that's worked so well in the past. /images/graemlins/icon_rolleyes.gif And fansubs used to function "allegedly" as a means to introduce fans to things they might not otherwise have exposure to. Still illegal as hell, but y'all do try to dress it up in noble-sounding terms. I'm not sure how an education system that covers so many other topics failed to cover the definition of the word "illegal", but it does seem to have slipped by us.

Where do the fansubbers and rippers get the idea that all creators of anime are some kind of radical bohemians whose only purpose in life is to put art out into the universe for the free enjoyment of like-minded fans? Talk about living in a bizarro universe.

Real world logic dictates that the fastest way to get someone to stop doing something is to remove any and all benefits they might accrue from doing whatever it is they do. In a money-based economy that means if they can't sell it, they won't make it. If the "evil" corporations don't make enough money to keep paying the writers, directors, and animators... it all stops. If the end result of fansubbing is entire generations that refuse to pay for anime in any way, shape, or form, where's the financial benefit to keep producing it? How hard is that to grasp?

And this "free in Japan" thing? I wasn't aware that people in Japan were given lifetime free electricity, free tvs, free computers, free cable, free satellite hook-ups, and a free place to put it all at birth. I'm sure that would have made the news sometime. Heck, if that's true the only thing wrong with Japan is that they insist on speaking Japanese. /images/graemlins/stunned0.gif /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

The paradigm is shifting with free sample episodes (iTunes, streams, whatev) to whet your appetites for the official releases, but throwing a couple dozen or so otaku in jail and taking away their computers and charging them $250,000 US per episode just might be what it takes to teach y'all about "illegal". Y'all act like the world owes you something by the sheer fact of your existence. Newsflash: It doesn't.

Chris Beveridge

08-23-2006, 09:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
lheiskell said:
This is something people are going to have to get used to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Until someone gets their ass sued off publicly without settling out of court, I don't think it's going to change anything. I know a lot of these guys are out there saying that they're on IRC and untouchable, but if they really believe that then they really don't understand how things work and that they can and will be found.

While around here, you will find most people glad to see such notices sent and potentially some action to be taken because the bulk of people around here are buyers of legit material, the community at large will mostly roll their eyes and go on business as usual until someone is finally dragged into court and put to the law. This is one of those issues where everyone and their cat knows its illegal but until it's actually prosecuted to the full extent in an actual case and not just hyopetheticals or Chinese pirates, it won't have any affect on the mindset of people.

Vallen Valiant

08-23-2006, 09:25 AM

Hey, keep dreaming; I would like bootlegging to stop, but you don't see that happening either.

I have no problem with the INTENT of the warning, but I have every complaint about the effectiveness of it.

I seriously doubt Bandai had investigated feasibility of this matter concerning the warning with their lawyers. You shouldn't make threats just because you believe you have the right to; you should make threats of these kind when you believe it is to your benefit.

There is no way Bandai can mass-persucute fansubbers across the globe, at least right now. And until the international laws are changed so that they CAN, this is just empty threats that damage their credibility as a smart company.

They can and will be found? Brave words. Hollow, but brave. You have too much faith in an antiquitated legal system that functions dismally in an international setting.
Sometimes it is not just about right or wrong, but what is actually achievable.

And funny that you mentioned Chinese pirates. As far as I can tell, they are the people who are untouchable.
(At least, they are more touchable than fansubbers, but they seemed to get away with it. Mathmatically that means it is even more likely to get away with it legally as a fansubber than as a Chinese Pirate.)

EDIT: Just to make my position clear, I want people to know that moral rights don't always equal legal rights. This isn't about the "rights", or lack of it, of fansubs, but the legal capacity of Bandai to do anything about it in a meaningful way. Last I checked, there hasn't been any new laws added in the last few months that empowered Bandai to do what they say they will do. Nothing has changed; its the same old arguments from both sides, and the same old laws.

lordwu

08-23-2006, 10:00 AM

Please tell me you didn't come up with the wishlist in your sig based on fansubs. If you didn't, all the power to you. If you did, you are as guilty as the ones that create/download licensed fansubs. I hope you don't think downloading anime that's not licensed in R1 is legal.

Bibulb

08-23-2006, 10:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Kamille Bidan said:
Problems some people might have with past releases of theirs is pretty much a non-issue and has nothing to do with the topic at hand, as far as I'm concerned.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm thinkin' the same thing - whether or not you buy a product because of production flaws is unrelated to legal protection of intellectual property. I might not buy a release because it's screwed up, but whoever owns the property is more than well within their rights to defend that property.

Personally, I'm giving a big "yay" to BEI - the days of The Ranma Project and Kodacha Fansubs are LONG gone. Yeah, I'd like to see more attention paid to actual bootleggers/counterfeiters, but actual raids on criminal activity we don't hear as much about except through press releases - the fansubbers themselves are the ones we usually hear from first when it comes to a C&D order. BEI releasing this statement just puts 'em all on warning.

Now get me my geritol.

mike.motaku

08-23-2006, 10:53 AM

[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
Please tell me you didn't come up with the wishlist in your sig based on fansubs. If you didn't, all the power to you. If you did, you are as guilty as the ones that create/download licensed fansubs. I hope you don't think downloading anime that's not licensed in R1 is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. Never downloaded. Never will. I do what I always do when choosing a new show: check blogs (and some of y'all are really detailed), read reviews online and in mags, watch trailers, visit show sites, look at mangas where applicable to get an idea of the storyline, watch rentals when available. Occasionally, I've been burned (L/R, Noir, I'm looking at you) but it's mostly worked for me and I've been doing it for about 10 years collection-wise.

And your understanding of law may be faulty, at best. Did the person watching the fansub have anything directly to do with its creation? Did he or she solicit funds to aid in its creation? Are they distributing copies of the fansub? Do they have copies in their virtual possession if its on their hard drive or physical copies as burned dvds? Interesting questions and luckily I have a friend who specializes in copyright and intellectual property law. As you state it, it sounds like the equivalent of trying to convict someone of murder on the basis that they know someone who died.

Skywise

08-23-2006, 11:22 AM

Third movie?

Sheena

08-23-2006, 11:32 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Kellory said:
However, that is no excuse for not taking control of one's own actions and acting accordingly. That is why we have our zero tolerance policy here on fansubbing. We cant control what happens outside of AoD.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't it slightly hypocritical to promote this hardline stance when in reality, not that much is done against fansubs here? I mean, this very forum hosts hundreds of threads on currently airing shows (regardless of license status). Many of the posters on those threads are watching and commenting on those from fansubs. I don't see bannings or even moderation for comments based on fansub versions. That activity makes the board more lively and possibly also generates additional traffic for the site and thus brings correlated benefits from that.

In short, the zero-tolerance stance seems a bit more tolerant than that to me in practice.

I'm not disagreeing with the stance actually. Just pointing out the discrepancy between tough talk and relatively mild enforcement. And it seems ironic in that it's almost a mirror image of what happens with the industry itself.

It seems to relish the buzz that fansubs sometimes bring around series that they didn't deem profitable enough to license but take a tough stance on fansubs when dealing with their popular series. Seems like a double standard to me. That's all.

As far as the present warning from Bandai, I think it's a good thing. As unstructured as it is, the fansub community still has many groups policing themselves from this type of warnings. Being specific and to the point about fansubs for a specific show also sends the message that licenses and hopefully R1 releases are following soon to the fans. Why bother with low quality illegal fansubs if a good quality, superior dubbed R1 DVD release is coming shortly then? (here emphasis is also on good quality releases, bad quality ones just narrow the gap between them and a fansub which helps the community justify using the latter)

Skywise

08-23-2006, 11:36 AM

[ QUOTE ]
vtr9kvictor said:
On a related note the SciFi channel actually did a study a few months ago on whether or not bittorrents affected the sales of products in a negative manner. Taking the show Battlestar Galactica as their subject, SciFi channel says they found that sales of the DVD releases and viewership of the broadcast episodes actually INCREASED after the show started appearing on bittorrent websites. To me it implies sufficient doubt that the entertainment industry as a whole should more comprehensively study this matter in an objective, scientific way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Different market. Sci-fi is dependent on viewers watching the show on TV for ad revenue, while R1 anime studios are fully dependent on video sales. In other words downloads aren't really directly competing with the main sales of the show itself, unlike anime. Having a show like BSG on bittorrent is also an advantage because it allows people who miss an episode, or not being able to get into it at the beginning for some reason a way to catch up.

wicks

08-23-2006, 11:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
While around here, you will find most people glad to see such notices sent and potentially some action to be taken because the bulk of people around here are buyers of legit material, the community at large will mostly roll their eyes and go on business as usual until someone is finally dragged into court and put to the law. This is one of those issues where everyone and their cat knows its illegal but until it's actually prosecuted to the full extent in an actual case and not just hyopetheticals or Chinese pirates, it won't have any affect on the mindset of people.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's the virtual equivalent of sticking a big neon sign on your front yard saying "please don't walk on my grass or you'll be sorry". Nobody's been made an example of and hence the threats are sadly empty and groundless.

From what I understand of the situation, the American companies don't have the financial clout to afford the legal muscle to really go after offenders. And they need the green light from the Japanese, who seem far too content to let their material be freely distributed once they've collected their domestic television and merchandise revenue.

I'd like to see an increase in pre-licensing, enforcement and especially simultaneous release of properties. The latter would kill old school and new school digisubbers and would leave legal resources free to focus entirely on rippers. However, the Japanese would fear reverse importation of affordable R1 titles and the industry seems far too content not to divert from the status quo.

Yay for more post-release licensing bidding wars. /images/graemlins/sad.gif

Skywise

08-23-2006, 12:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]
wicks said:
And they need the green light from the Japanese, who seem far too content to let their material be freely distributed once they've collected their domestic television and merchandise revenue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Err.. whatever gave you that idea? Once a US studio has licensed a property they're free to go after anyone who tries to distribute illegal copies of it within their licensing area (US & Canada usually - sometimes also other areas). They don't need a "green light" or anything else like that, and the Japanese companies aren't exactly happy about the fansub situation either.

lordwu

08-23-2006, 12:21 PM

Good for you.

And I know you are going to pick me on technicality. Ok, maybe viewing fansubs isn't illegal in certain context, but it's not helping the industry either. Supply and demand. If nobody is viewing/downloading fansubs, none will be created. Same thing with the bootlegs. You can't totally deny there's no connection between the creation and the consumption. With P2P as the main distribution channel for fansubs these days, I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

Sheena

08-23-2006, 12:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Once a US studio has licensed a property they're free to go after anyone who tries to distribute illegal copies of it within their licensing area (US & Canada usually - sometimes also other areas). They don't need a "green light" or anything else like that, and the Japanese companies aren't exactly happy about the fansub situation either.

[/ QUOTE ]

But they usually don't go after bootleggers, rippers, or fansubbers, at least not via publicized suits as far as experience shows.

I wonder why. It's pretty easy to find ISPs, shut down sites and find real addresses to send CoD or ITS notices. And for most, it'd be a slam dunk to prove tort based on ISP logs and other evidence.

So are statutory damages too low when it's hard to provide evidence for actual damages? That doesn't seem to stop the RIAA. Would it be bad PR not worth it for a niche market like anime?

By doing minimal enforcement, the R1 companies wouldn't stop the chinese bootleggers probably but they'd possibly scare off a bunch of joe rippers finding themselves in way over their heads. Why is legal action not taken more often? It'd set precedents and not leave the illegal activities in practice virtually tolerated.

The Pirate Queen

08-23-2006, 12:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

Gersen

08-23-2006, 12:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well there are countries where downloading is perfectly legal as long as you don't upload anything.

Gersen

ic14

08-23-2006, 12:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
treatment said:
Well, BEI/Mangle has thrown down the gauntlet.

[/ QUOTE ]
MANGA FFS.

I dont care if they made mistakes in the past (and have made one with COC) but please sue there real name. This stupid nickname is frigging irritating.

The Pirate Queen

08-23-2006, 12:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Gersen said:
[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well there are countries where downloading is perfectly legal as long as you don't upload anything.

Gersen

[/ QUOTE ]

Not many of them, and the justifications in many of those countries are still shakey. Unauthorized use of someone's copyrighted material is illegal in every country that has signed on to the Berne Convention, and quite a few others as well.

And whoever uploaded them in the first place still performed an illegal act, regardless.

Skywise

08-23-2006, 12:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Gersen said:
[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well there are countries where downloading is perfectly legal as long as you don't upload anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering that fansubs are mostly distributed over bittorrent where you pretty much have to upload in order to download anything, they'd be screwed anyway /images/graemlins/happy.gif.

bayoab

08-23-2006, 01:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ] I am going to call a technicality and say 99.99999999% are illegal. There have been legal fansubs where the group has contacted the Japanese company and asked for permission to sub something that was freely available on the internet. These subs are completely legal as they are created and distributed with the creator's permission. (I have only heard of 2 cases of this in 5 years of being involved in anime.)

The Pirate Queen

08-23-2006, 01:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
bayoab said:
[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ] I am going to call a technicality and say 99.99999999% are illegal. There have been legal fansubs where the group has contacted the Japanese company and asked for permission to sub something that was freely available on the internet. These subs are completely legal as they are created and distributed with the creator's permission. (I have only heard of 2 cases of this in 5 years of being involved in anime.)

[/ QUOTE ]

That point I'll grant you. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif Although an overwhelming majority of the time, when someone is discussing fansubs, you're talking about something that the original creator has not given permission to distribute.

Njr Scrawl

08-23-2006, 01:21 PM

Same old. Remember JAIL? No? Didn't work for long. And that was before the digital/online days.

Gambatte /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

mike.motaku

08-23-2006, 01:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not too sure you could get a conviction on "viewing". Say the fansubber/host at a party is showing off his fansub collection to party guests and the police bust in. Guests had nothing to do with the crime other than as passive observers. Would they all go to jail for the same crime as the fansubber/host? Would they even be charged?

The Pirate Queen

08-23-2006, 01:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
mike.motaku said:
[ QUOTE ]
Dani said:
[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

Erm, how about 100%, since fansubs are illegal? There are no contexts where downloading/creating/viewing a fansub is legal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not too sure you could get a conviction on "viewing". Say the fansubber/host at a party is showing off his fansub collection to party guests and the police bust in. Guests had nothing to do with the crime other than as passive observers. Would they all go to jail for the same crime as the fansubber/host? Would they even be charged?

[/ QUOTE ]

Just because people don't get convicted for it doesn't mean it's legal. Aiding and abetting is just one way this could happen. Note that I haven't said anything about the likelyhood of conviction, just that it's still an illegal act.

hikaru004

08-23-2006, 01:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
[ QUOTE ]
lheiskell said:
This is something people are going to have to get used to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Until someone gets their ass sued off publicly without settling out of court, I don't think it's going to change anything. I know a lot of these guys are out there saying that they're on IRC and untouchable, but if they really believe that then they really don't understand how things work and that they can and will be found.

While around here, you will find most people glad to see such notices sent and potentially some action to be taken because the bulk of people around here are buyers of legit material, the community at large will mostly roll their eyes and go on business as usual until someone is finally dragged into court and put to the law. This is one of those issues where everyone and their cat knows its illegal but until it's actually prosecuted to the full extent in an actual case and not just hyopetheticals or Chinese pirates, it won't have any affect on the mindset of people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, there was an out of court MPAA settlement in my area that made the local newspapers. I tell my friends about cases all the time. It had virtually no affect within the younger population of my friends. It's the "not going to happen to me" syndrome.

I still think airing this on the Bandai Channel as streaming content would have lessened some of their problems.

Does anyone know how much money Akane Maniax lost due to the fansub and raw release? You'd think that there were numbers somewhere for this, since this situation parallels that release.

mike.motaku

08-23-2006, 01:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
lordwu said:
Good for you.

And I know you are going to pick me on technicality. Ok, maybe viewing fansubs isn't illegal in certain context, but it's not helping the industry either. Supply and demand. If nobody is viewing/downloading fansubs, none will be created. Same thing with the bootlegs. You can't totally deny there's no connection between the creation and the consumption. With P2P as the main distribution channel for fansubs these days, I would guess 90% of the fansub community are breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Basic economics apply. And there is a paradigm shift occurring where studios are putting out material online to test the waters with fans. As Chris and others have said, the problem lies with property owners defending their legal rights in court. Laws exist to protect their rights. Are they going to start nailing people to the wall? Or hope that empty words will scare anyone off? I think a few high-profile convictions might rain on all but the most hardcore "I'm a rebel and TEH MAN don't own me!" types. And there are always those kinds of people.

golthin

08-23-2006, 02:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
[ QUOTE ]
wicks said:
And they need the green light from the Japanese, who seem far too content to let their material be freely distributed once they've collected their domestic television and merchandise revenue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Err.. whatever gave you that idea? Once a US studio has licensed a property they're free to go after anyone who tries to distribute illegal copies of it within their licensing area ( US & Canada usually - sometimes also other areas). They don't need a "green light" or anything else like that, and the Japanese companies aren't exactly happy about the fansub situation either.

[/ QUOTE ]
that is that big problem, If you place your files in a server that is not in the USA like most people that distribute licensed fansubs do, you are basically home free.
There are more and More servers offshore everyday.

GetterBeam

08-23-2006, 02:13 PM

Like I said on ANN, I really do wish we'd get to a point where the blanket statements and bandwagon riding come to an end...on all sides. "No justification(reason?) for downloading or fansubbing these days"---time have not changed that much in absolute terms from the "old days". There are still folk out there that want to work on under the radar/old/obscure/legal hell residing stuff, do so, and throw a freaking party if stuff actually gets picked up for R1...despite the whole enterprise being illegal up until the present time and probably so into the future. I swear people get such a case of tunnel vision in these naruto/inuyasha/Gundam SEED days that it baffles me. And just like the "old days" rippers/real bootleggers are still SHIT...if that had changed then the sky ACTUALLY would be falling in terms of the industry and such.

Bandai did a perfectly fine thing with this announcement. Whether it works the way they hope to or not is a roll of the dice.

However, Deities of R1 Anime in the Sky help them if word gets out that they did shit for QC on this via disc reviews, people don't buy it like "they should have", and fansubbers get all the blame while rippers continue to bask in anonymity. If that happens, then this becomes somthing far worse than the, at worst, Paper Tiger it is now.

golthin

08-23-2006, 02:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
[ QUOTE ]
vtr9kvictor said:
On a related note the SciFi channel actually did a study a few months ago on whether or not bittorrents affected the sales of products in a negative manner. Taking the show Battlestar Galactica as their subject, SciFi channel says they found that sales of the DVD releases and viewership of the broadcast episodes actually INCREASED after the show started appearing on bittorrent websites. To me it implies sufficient doubt that the entertainment industry as a whole should more comprehensively study this matter in an objective, scientific way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Different market. Sci-fi is dependent on viewers watching the show on TV for ad revenue, while R1 anime studios are fully dependent on video sales. In other words downloads aren't really directly competing with the main sales of the show itself, unlike anime. Having a show like BSG on bittorrent is also an advantage because it allows people who miss an episode, or not being able to get into it at the beginning for some reason a way to catch up.

[/ QUOTE ]
He was talking also about the BSG DVD sales, which also increased when the show was made available in BT. MOST of the people that download fansubs won't buy the DVD regardless of whether the show is available on fansubs or not. Some of the people will buy the DVd after they see the shows on fansubs or Rented.

something

08-23-2006, 02:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
BANDAI is only warning them that they WILL use their legal right to stop it. Why is this so damn hard for people to understand?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because you're probably wrong? Sure it's what Bandai wants us to think (we all understand that, thank you very much for stating the obvious), but it's unlikely they'll make any more than a token gesture, which won't stop it (and certainly won't stop DVD rips), if they even do THAT.

Legion

08-23-2006, 02:46 PM

Good for them. Titles that are licensed for R1 before being released in Japan should never be fansubbed. If I'm not mistaken, the SAC TV series shouldn't have been fansubbed at all either.

Fencedude

08-23-2006, 03:37 PM

(I am not really specifically responding to disarm, I'm responding to an unspecific multiple viewpoint expressed in this thread, and just chose this post almost at random)

Ok, disclaimer out of the way!

Bandai's statement will stop some groups from subbing SSS, though most likely those groups would not have subbed it anyway. The people who are/will sub it will just see this as a challenge.

Now, many, many groups will stop subbing if sent a cease and decist order, and several of the big name torrent sites will take torrents down if they recieve one of these. Now, thats not to say the subs will stop, but they will be driven even further underground, and its amazing how mcuh that can actuall cut distribution. Personally I can find almost any sub if I want to, but a surprising number of people on the internet are not that resourceful.

But really, how much of a necesity is this really for SSS? SAC was surprisingly not a really HOT property among the fansub community, yes it got subbed, but it wasn't one of those shows tahts subbed within a week of each episode airing.

Anyway, while I applaud Bandai TRYING to do something about this, I don't think it will work. It didn't work when they told people not to sub Destiny, and it won't work this time either.

BluWacky

08-23-2006, 03:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
But really, how much of a necesity is this really for SSS? SAC was surprisingly not a really HOT property among the fansub community, yes it got subbed, but it wasn't one of those shows tahts subbed within a week of each episode airing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not because of lack of popularity, as far as I understand it, but because it's very, very difficult to translate.

SSS is just a figurehead because it's a very well known property amongst normal buyers that also has plenty of exposure on the Internet. If Bandai had pulled this with Fantastic Children when they pre-licensed that in 2004 people would have laughed, but because people know and care about SSS it makes people sit up and notice.

I agree that it's not going to make a blind bit of difference (look at ADV's efforts), but they are theoretically trying.

something

08-23-2006, 03:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Fencedude said:
But really, how much of a necesity is this really for SSS? SAC was surprisingly not a really HOT property among the fansub community, yes it got subbed, but it wasn't one of those shows tahts subbed within a week of each episode airing.

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed, for all I've been brushing this off, I certainly don't think SSS should be subbed. In fact, I don't think any licensed show should be subbed, though again it's usage rather than existence that actually matters for fansubs.

So while I think it's pointless on Bandai's part to posture like this, it doesn't mean I support SSS being fansubbed either.

tangent

08-23-2006, 04:02 PM

Companies need to stop theoretically trying, and start suing people's asses. Only then will people take the anime companies' threats seriously.

shukusatsu

08-23-2006, 04:20 PM

I wish that they would go after bootleggers and rippers rather than fansubbers of licensed material. Granted, both need to go, but it just seems easier to target certain online auction sites and well-known ripping websites than a thousand different fansub groups and the people that download them.

demonanya

08-23-2006, 04:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Tangent said:
Companies need to stop theoretically trying, and start suing people's asses. Only then will people take the anime companies' threats seriously.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the same way that music/movie downloaders are taking the RIAA/MPAA seriously? As Fencedude has rightly pointed out, if the R1 companies start taking this stance, fansubbing will just go underground. For the normal Internet user looking for subbed anime it will be harder to find as it won't be available at the "usual" places, but if you know what your doing then it shouldn't be to much of an issue.

It's the bootleggers that need to be targetted, those are the one's costing the R1 companies to lose money, not the fansubbers. Just one look at Ebay will show you how bad the situation is.

Lego

08-23-2006, 04:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
shukusatsu said:
I wish that they would go after bootleggers and rippers rather than fansubbers of licensed material. Granted, both need to go, but it just seems easier to target certain online auction sites and well-known ripping websites than a thousand different fansub groups and the people that download them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen.

08-23-2006, 04:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Kellory said:
There is no justification for downloading or fansubbing these days. None. Zero. Nada. Any attempt at justification is simply another way of attempting to avoid the responsibility of breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]
There was never justification for it. It's not just illegal these days, it was always illegal. But not every show will be licensed, and since fansubs are the only way I'm likely to see a translated version of most of what's good out of Japan these days, not to mention the evil that is 4Kids... well, I don't see a problem with fansubs. I'm actually quite glad they exist. Of course, if someone would like to give us Maria-sama, Strawberry Panic, Aria, and unedited PreCure, I'm all for it, and I'll happily retire my fansubs in favor of legit, glitch free dvds.

Not that I think fansubbing licensed shows that are getting unedited releases is a good thing. Bandai has every right to stop people from subbing shows they license. It'd also be nice if they'd sell a product that isn't glitched so fansubs aren't the better alternative. Will the threats matter in the long run? No. People were already buying Gits even with fansubs floating around, and apparently in high numbers. People who weren't buying aren't going to start, regardless of a lack of fansubs. They'll watch it on tv just like they already were, or they'll download the rips of the glitched dvds. Yes, I think this release will be glitched. I'd bet money on it.

Texhnolyze

08-23-2006, 04:34 PM

tstidm1

08-23-2006, 04:41 PM

I want to see this warning and I want to see Bandai use this in a court of law to get a site shut down. We would see a lot less fansubbing if a major group was shutdown by a court. It would actually put teeth into the copyright laws of our country.

hikaru004

08-23-2006, 04:57 PM

Well that would just push us back to the bad old days. People would either pay a site for a CD that contains anime episodes or pay the bootleggers for a series. Either way the distributor would lose that income.

Or the downloaders would have to look harder for their anime.

quenelf

08-23-2006, 05:07 PM

This one's really a no-brainer. It's been licensed - nobody should be subbing it. If Bandai want to enforce it, that's cool by me, they should go right ahead.

As for the poll though, the correct option wasn't really there (I picked the third) - it won't make any difference to sales either way. Even if nobody subs it, the freeloaders will just wait for a DVD rip once it's out.

[ QUOTE ]
Anony_mous said:
Yeah, people forgot that even after the whole debacle of Media Factory, groups like <name removed> still kept on subbing School Rumble. Ironically only stopping when it got licensed by Funi.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good for <name removed>, and I don't see that as ironic at all. Excellent behaviour on their part.

Shows which don't get licensed (such as the vast majority of Media Factory shows) should be subbed in my opinion. Despite many who break the rules, I think a very significant proportion of the anime fansub community (subbers and downloaders) is actually pretty impressive in the way it follows the 'licensed? stop it' rule. But fansubbing is still piracy and companies don't control it. If they try to stop 'ethical' fansubbers, they'll only drive 'ethical' fansubbers into becoming 'unethical' fansubbers, which doesn't exactly help their situation.

That doesn't apply to the show in this warning which is definitely licensed for US release. Nobody should sub it and I wish Bandai luck in stopping whoever tries. If they're really lucky, maybe they'll defer piracy until the DVD is actually released when it will certainly be subject to it (same as every other film).

--quen

PS Wonder why they're concentrating on this particular release? Is it going to really suck or something? /images/graemlins/happy.gif

cheezisgoooood

08-23-2006, 05:09 PM

The only thing that will hurt or help the sales of this DVD is whether or not the content is good. This time, the majority of fansubbing GitS fans will have to wait until DVD release as the reviews come out to see if this will be good enough to pay money for.

golthin

08-23-2006, 05:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
LexiJ said:
[ QUOTE ]
Kellory said:
There is no justification for downloading or fansubbing these days. None. Zero. Nada. Any attempt at justification is simply another way of attempting to avoid the responsibility of breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]
There was never justification for it. It's not just illegal these days, it was always illegal. But not every show will be licensed, and since fansubs are the only way I'm likely to see a translated version of most of what's good out of Japan these days, not to mention the evil that is 4Kids... well, I don't see a problem with fansubs. I'm actually quite glad they exist. Of course, if someone would like to give us Maria-sama, Strawberry Panic, Aria, and unedited PreCure, I'm all for it, and I'll happily retire my fansubs in favor of legit, glitch free dvds.

Not that I think fansubbing licensed shows that are getting unedited releases is a good thing. Bandai has every right to stop people from subbing shows they license. It'd also be nice if they'd sell a product that isn't glitched so fansubs aren't the better alternative. Will the threats matter in the long run? No. People were already buying Gits even with fansubs floating around, and apparently in high numbers. People who weren't buying aren't going to start, regardless of a lack of fansubs. They'll watch it on tv just like they already were, or they'll download the rips of the glitched dvds. Yes, I think this release will be glitched. I'd bet money on it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, if Manga has any involvement in the DVD production, chances of "mangled" releases are very good.

golthin

08-23-2006, 05:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
BluWacky said:
Not because of lack of popularity, as far as I understand it, but because it's very, very difficult to translate.

[/ QUOTE ]I can believe that, SAC has too much technical and hightech language that I bet even the Japanese watching the show could get lost. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

Skywise

08-23-2006, 05:49 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
Well, if Manga has any involvement in the DVD production, chances of "mangled" releases are very good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually Bandai managed to mangle the Gits SAC releases pretty much on their own without Manga's help /images/graemlins/happy.gif.

cheezisgoooood

08-23-2006, 06:11 PM

Wait wait wait...what's this about mangled DVDs?

I just bought some GitS SAC 1 DVDs off the Right Stuf sale...what was the problem with the early releases? Has it been fixed?

something

08-23-2006, 06:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
People would either pay a site for a CD that contains anime episodes

[/ QUOTE ]I believe it's called eBay! XD Damn eBay...

hikaru004

08-23-2006, 06:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
People would either pay a site for a CD that contains anime episodes

[/ QUOTE ]I believe it's called eBay! XD Damn eBay...

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, there are sites other than eBay that do this.

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
PS Wonder why they're concentrating on this particular release? Is it going to really suck or something?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's "Snakes on a Plane" time again! /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Legion

08-23-2006, 06:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
BluWacky said:
Not because of lack of popularity, as far as I understand it, but because it's very, very difficult to translate.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Mass naked Child event." /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Daniel_Perales

08-23-2006, 07:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
BANDAI is only warning them that they WILL use their legal right to stop it. Why is this so damn hard for people to understand?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because you're probably wrong? Sure it's what Bandai wants us to think (we all understand that, thank you very much for stating the obvious), but it's unlikely they'll make any more than a token gesture, which won't stop it (and certainly won't stop DVD rips), if they even do THAT.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm wrong, but I'm stating the obvious? Talk about contradictions. Explain to me why am I wrong. Just saying that I'm wrong just won't cut it with me.

In fact, Quen said the same thing, but in simpler terms, and no one is telling him that he's wrong.

Danny

something

08-23-2006, 08:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
Actually, there are sites other than eBay that do this.

[/ QUOTE ]
I know, it was a joke.

golthin

08-23-2006, 08:20 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
BANDAI is only warning them that they WILL use their legal right to stop it. Why is this so damn hard for people to understand?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because you're probably wrong? Sure it's what Bandai wants us to think (we all understand that, thank you very much for stating the obvious), but it's unlikely they'll make any more than a token gesture, which won't stop it (and certainly won't stop DVD rips), if they even do THAT.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm wrong, but I'm stating the obvious? Talk about contradictions. Explain to me why am I wrong. Just saying that I'm wrong just won't cut it with me.

In fact, Quen said the same thing, but in simpler terms, and no one is telling him that he's wrong.

Danny

[/ QUOTE ]
Not putting words on disarm's mouth, but probably because they have done the same thing before. what I find amuzing is that they posted this message on AOD, a site that frowns upon fansubbing and bootlegs. I wonder if they bothered sending an email or a letter to each of the hundreds of fansubs group that exist, but that probably be too much of a bother. Maybe they couldn't make the post in other forums because it wouldn't be posted.

something

08-23-2006, 08:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
I'm wrong, but I'm stating the obvious? Talk about contradictions. Explain to me why am I wrong. Just saying that I'm wrong just won't cut it with me.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're probably wrong in your claim that they definitely "will" do anything about it. You're stating the obvious in saying that they want us to think that they will.

All of which I said in my initial reply (you even quoted it!)

shukusatsu

08-23-2006, 08:36 PM

I am wondering why so many people are caught up on the word illegal. I do illegal things everyday (not related to fansubs or the internet) and I really don't care. Some people raving about illegal have admitted in other posts about doing not so legal things. I'm not upset at people because the act is illegal, im upset because they could potentially ruin something I truly enjoy by not supporting it financially (i.e. lazy bastards).

I think the world you are looking for is immoral/guilt. Most people don't feel bad about watching unlicensed shows. Most people think that bootleggers and DVD burners need to be shot in the face. Talking about the legality of this is beyond pointless. Welcome to the 21st century, the world illegal has no meaning in the vast and infinite net.

PS: This is not a direct response to Dani, so don't take it that way, it's just a general reply based on several uses of illegal.

cheezisgoooood

08-23-2006, 08:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
Wait wait wait...what's this about mangled DVDs?

I just bought some GitS SAC 1 DVDs off the Right Stuf sale...what was the problem with the early releases? Has it been fixed?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is someone gonna answer my question? /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif

something

08-23-2006, 09:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
Wait wait wait...what's this about mangled DVDs?

I just bought some GitS SAC 1 DVDs off the Right Stuf sale...what was the problem with the early releases? Has it been fixed?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is someone gonna answer my question? /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Do a search in Glitch disc or something. As far as I know there was some issue with the DTS track in the early SE discs.

I watched my seven SAC discs and didn't notice anything wrong, but I also didn't get the DTS (and couldn't use that track even if I did), so... The only problem I noticed was weird shaking in the video when they did a slow to moderate speed pan across a scene. I tried to frame step and get an example of the issue, but oddly it never showed in any one frame, and the show was too good for me to care all that much so I sort of forgot about it.

Daniel_Perales

08-24-2006, 04:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
I'm wrong, but I'm stating the obvious? Talk about contradictions. Explain to me why am I wrong. Just saying that I'm wrong just won't cut it with me.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're probably wrong in your claim that they definitely "will" do anything about it. You're stating the obvious in saying that they want us to think that they will.

All of which I said in my initial reply (you even quoted it!)

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok. I stand corrected.

Danny

Skywise

08-24-2006, 07:09 AM

http://www.animeondvd.com/glitch/G.php

In addition there's a problem with the english DTS audio on volume 3 that never got fixed.

cheezisgoooood

08-24-2006, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
http://www.animeondvd.com/glitch/G.php

In addition there's a problem with the english DTS audio on volume 3 that never got fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, good, that stuff's nothin'. I wouldn't care about any of that, it's mostly with LE's and soundtracks and crap which I don't have. None of the volumes I'm getting are in there.

jlazar

08-24-2006, 03:00 PM

[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
http://www.animeondvd.com/glitch/G.php

In addition there's a problem with the english DTS audio on volume 3 that never got fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, good, that stuff's nothin'. I wouldn't care about any of that, it's mostly with LE's and soundtracks and crap which I don't have. None of the volumes I'm getting are in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I ended up only getting the standard versions after vol 1 since it seemed like the SE DTS and extras were slipping through Bandai's limited QC.

Same reason I passed on buying My Hime... they appear to get authoring the discs on the cheap with little QC, so why should I take the chance with my money.

golthin

08-24-2006, 03:49 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Jim Lazar said:
[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
http://www.animeondvd.com/glitch/G.php

In addition there's a problem with the english DTS audio on volume 3 that never got fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, good, that stuff's nothin'. I wouldn't care about any of that, it's mostly with LE's and soundtracks and crap which I don't have. None of the volumes I'm getting are in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I ended up only getting the standard versions after vol 1 since it seemed like the SE DTS and extras were slipping through Bandai's limited QC.

Same reason I passed on buying My Hime... they appear to get authoring the discs on the cheap with little QC, so why should I take the chance with my money.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am glad I passed on myhime too. I really wanted to have the show on DVD, but somehow I decided to wait and got lucky. Bandai better get their act together, there is not reason to mess up the authoring of DVD when even a novice can make DVD now days. Just pay more than the minimum wage for the people doing the authoring. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

treatment

08-24-2006, 05:03 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
Jim Lazar said:
[ QUOTE ]
cheezisgoooood said:
[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
http://www.animeondvd.com/glitch/G.php

In addition there's a problem with the english DTS audio on volume 3 that never got fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, good, that stuff's nothin'. I wouldn't care about any of that, it's mostly with LE's and soundtracks and crap which I don't have. None of the volumes I'm getting are in there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I ended up only getting the standard versions after vol 1 since it seemed like the SE DTS and extras were slipping through Bandai's limited QC.

Same reason I passed on buying My Hime... they appear to get authoring the discs on the cheap with little QC, so why should I take the chance with my money.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am glad I passed on myhime too. I really wanted to have the show on DVD, but somehow I decided to wait and got lucky. Bandai better get their act together, there is not reason to mess up the authoring of DVD when even a novice can make DVD now days. Just pay more than the minimum wage for the people doing the authoring. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

My-Hime's discs are fine compared to the SAC-SE discs.

The SAC-SE discs should be flawless since it's a %diety%damn special-edition.

SE != Sucky Edition, BEI/Mangle.

Sheena

08-24-2006, 09:44 PM

Mai-Hime's box was also a major bad point for this release. It's about the worst box I've got from BEI ever. That didn't help the general impression.

Gersen

08-25-2006, 02:21 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Sheena said:
Mai-Hime's box was also a major bad point for this release. It's about the worst box I've got from BEI ever. That didn't help the general impression.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose you never saw the Infinite Ryvius box then /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

The main box illustration look like some stretched low-res screenshot. If they used a digipack instead of a chipboard you could have thought it was a bootleg.

Gersen

ayareiko

08-25-2006, 02:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Demonanya said:
[ QUOTE ]
Tangent said:
Companies need to stop theoretically trying, and start suing people's asses. Only then will people take the anime companies' threats seriously.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the same way that music/movie downloaders are taking the RIAA/MPAA seriously? As Fencedude has rightly pointed out, if the R1 companies start taking this stance, fansubbing will just go underground. For the normal Internet user looking for subbed anime it will be harder to find as it won't be available at the "usual" places, but if you know what your doing then it shouldn't be to much of an issue.

It's the bootleggers that need to be targetted, those are the one's costing the R1 companies to lose money, not the fansubbers. Just one look at Ebay will show you how bad the situation is.

[/ QUOTE ]
However, bootleggers are difficult if not impossible to deal with. Mainly because they usually operate in areas when the Berne Convention is either poorly or never enforced (i.e. Hong Kong).

Vallen Valiant

08-25-2006, 03:26 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Aya Reiko said:
[ QUOTE ]
Demonanya said:
[ QUOTE ]
Tangent said:
Companies need to stop theoretically trying, and start suing people's asses. Only then will people take the anime companies' threats seriously.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the same way that music/movie downloaders are taking the RIAA/MPAA seriously? As Fencedude has rightly pointed out, if the R1 companies start taking this stance, fansubbing will just go underground. For the normal Internet user looking for subbed anime it will be harder to find as it won't be available at the "usual" places, but if you know what your doing then it shouldn't be to much of an issue.

It's the bootleggers that need to be targetted, those are the one's costing the R1 companies to lose money, not the fansubbers. Just one look at Ebay will show you how bad the situation is.

[/ QUOTE ]
However, bootleggers are difficult if not impossible to deal with. Mainly because they usually operate in areas when the Berne Convention is either poorly or never enforced (i.e. Hong Kong).

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if the licensed companies think it is too hard to deal with bootleggers, what makes them think it is better to go after fansubbers instead? If they think going after faceless and factory-less fansubbers is easier than bootleggers, they are deluding themselves.

hikaru004

08-25-2006, 04:19 AM

Well, it's probably cheaper and safer to go after fansubbers. How many groups really have lawyers? Besides, alot of bootleggers are linked to organized crime. Do you think that they really want to deal with crime syndicates?

Texhnolyze

08-25-2006, 05:00 AM

Daniel_Perales

08-25-2006, 05:40 AM

Skywise

08-25-2006, 09:17 AM

Gersen

08-25-2006, 09:54 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
I recall watching some bootlegg DVDs (that others own, I don't own any, BTW), with subtitles that says, "Not for sale or rent", and "Subbed by fans, for fans", along with the fansubbing group's name on them.

[/ QUOTE ]

From what I know it seems to be pretty random. The majority sill seem to have the good old "learn japanese in 21 days (and english in only 5 more days)" kind of translation.

They are some others that use fansubs translations or are direct "fansubs to DVD" conversion, and also others that use R1 subs and dub (and even menus) with the J-R2 or K-R3 Video.

Gersen

Vallen Valiant

08-25-2006, 10:44 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
Well, it's probably cheaper and safer to go after fansubbers. How many groups really have lawyers? Besides, alot of bootleggers are linked to organized crime. Do you think that they really want to deal with crime syndicates?

[/ QUOTE ]
Here's something that no one has asked yet, or I just missed it in this long thread:

Isn't most of the bootleggs that are being sold are nothing more than "digi-subs" that were converted to DVDs? Or, the subs on the bootleggs are mostly direct copies of the fansubber's scripts?

I recall watching some bootlegg DVDs (that others own, I don't own any, BTW), with subtitles that says, "Not for sale or rent", and "Subbed by fans, for fans", along with the fansubbing group's name on them.

Danny

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, but those types of bootlegs used the fansub scripts without cooperation from the fansubbers themselves. This isn't common only because most bootlegs use chinese fansubs instead of English fansubs as their source. (Chinese fansubs appear days, even weeks, quicker than English fansubs.)

No, you can't stop bootlegs by stopping fansubs, because Bootleggers use fansubs only out of convenience and nothing more; it's not required.

The amusing part, is the argument that licensed companies should not go after Bootleggers because it is too difficut; Because doesn't it mean fansubbers can avoid persecution too, as long as they make themselves difficult to catch?

A no tolerance policy only works when there is no tolerance. Any less is just a bad joke.

Isuzu Inugami

08-25-2006, 11:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
This one's really a no-brainer. It's been licensed - nobody should be subbing it. If Bandai want to enforce it, that's cool by me, they should go right ahead.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, yes, but I think the furor is over the fact that Bandai seems to be warning fansubbers off of any of their properties (as is their right), licensed or unlicensed. Citing GITS only seems to muddy the waters on this point. (And personally, I don't think fansubbers had any business touching any GITS in the first place--it was always a no-brainer that it'd be licensed, and quickly at that.)

[ QUOTE ]

Shows which don't get licensed (such as the vast majority of Media Factory shows) should be subbed in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm inclined to agree, (except there's no legal justification for it); it appears Bandai does not.

Quiddity

08-25-2006, 06:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
Well, it's probably cheaper and safer to go after fansubbers. How many groups really have lawyers? Besides, alot of bootleggers are linked to organized crime. Do you think that they really want to deal with crime syndicates?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but whats the payoff for going after fansubbers instead of bootleggers? Does it really benefit them all that much in comparison to going after the real problem, the bootleggers?

With bootleggers the audience is much larger and the potential for lost revenue is much larger. Yes, bootleggers probably have more 'connections', and would be tougher to take down. But the fact is any lost revenue for a company like Bandai is much, much, much more due to bootleggers than fansubbers. Remember, anyone downloading a fansub knows what they're getting into. Often (its happened to me!) fans buy a series or product online under the impression that they're purchasing the official version only to find when it arrives at their house that its a bootleg. Its not just ebay, I've bought japanese video game soundtracks online before from a legitimate online store only for it to end up being a bootleg when it arrived at my house. Even though it was unintentional, in cases like these the company loses revenue due to the bootleg.

Fansubbers are easier to threaten and shut down, but at the same time the potential lost revenue from the fansubs isn't anywhere close to the level of the bootlegs. What makes more sense, to spend more effort going after the main problem, bootlegs from China, with a much higher payoff in the end, or to spend all this time going after fansubs, which a much less payoff?

I have no problem with fansubs of unlicensed anime, particularly anime like Space Runaway Ideon that is 99.99999% likely to never be licensed for release in the US ever. People who fansub licensed anime, like all the crap that went down with Gundam Seed are scum. That said, except for established franchises like Gundam or shows from established well known creators, I do feel that up to the point where the show gets licensed, fansubs serve a valuable purpose to help the show get more well known; just like say an airing on Cartoon Network. But anyone who fansubs the show after the point that it gets licensed is scum, and I wish Bandai all the luck in the world going after them. That said, going after bootleggers makes a lot more sense to me if the company is trying to recoup potential lost revenue.

In the end, Bandai can go after fansubbers all they want, the fact is if they're gonna continue to release mediocre/defective products like the Zeta Gundam box set (dubtitles, cutout opening & ending music) and continue to fail to go after the main problem, bootlegs, their revenue is not gonna go up. The industry has much bigger problems than fansubs.

kaiyouske

08-25-2006, 06:54 PM

I might be one of the few people who think this, but I'm actually glad that I saw the Gundam SEED fansubs. I really liked the first one, and ended up buying the box with all the DVDs, but Destiny started sucking for me about half way and I just quit watching the series. Because of this, I saved myself money knowing that I did not and will not watch Destiny. Had I not watched it, I would have ended up buying the series halfway and selling them all on ebay. However, I did buy some of the Destiny plastic models, so it's not like Bandi didn't get any money from me on the franchaise.....

FigNewton

08-25-2006, 08:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:

Well, yes, but I think the furor is over the fact that Bandai seems to be warning fansubbers off of any of their properties (as is their right), licensed or unlicensed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ermm... any of their properties, licensed or unlicensed? If it's unlicensed, it's not their property...

edit: fixed formatting

Skywise

08-25-2006, 09:19 PM

Actually at this point I'm thinking they're losing more money off of fansubs than bootlegs. It's simply easier to get hold of fansubs these days. Digital distribution and availability has exploded to a degree that even bootlegs can't compete. When it takes me 30 seconds to search up a working download link to pretty much anything ever released, that's a very good indication that things have progressed beyond recovery. For the digital consumer it's like having the video rental store next door, with a lifetime free membership card.

Daniel_Perales

08-25-2006, 09:49 PM

Gersen

08-26-2006, 05:25 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Actually at this point I'm thinking they're losing more money off of fansubs than bootlegs. It's simply easier to get hold of fansubs these days. Digital distribution and availability has exploded to a degree that even bootlegs can't compete. When it takes me 30 seconds to search up a working download link to pretty much anything ever released, that's a very good indication that things have progressed beyond recovery. For the digital consumer it's like having the video rental store next door, with a lifetime free membership card.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well except that fansubs don't have a dub, and if we believe what anime company say 90%, of anime watcher are dub watcher.

Also fansubs can only be watched on a computer, unless you have a Divx friendly player, that you manage to convert to the correct version of Divx compatible with your player (which is easier said than done with today format like Matroska) and even if you watch it on your computer you have to make sure to have to correct codec installed.

And finally even if they are relatively easy to find, you have to know how to use to torrent client and where to look for torrents files.

So for most average joe mainstream buyer, fansubs are just not a viable alternative to begin with.

Gersen

golthin

08-26-2006, 05:59 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Actually at this point I'm thinking they're losing more money off of fansubs than bootlegs. It's simply easier to get hold of fansubs these days. Digital distribution and availability has exploded to a degree that even bootlegs can't compete. When it takes me 30 seconds to search up a working download link to pretty much anything ever released, that's a very good indication that things have progressed beyond recovery. For the digital consumer it's like having the video rental store next door, with a lifetime free membership card.

[/ QUOTE ]
Those people were never going to buy anime on dvd in the first place , so it is not a real loss. People that think that if there weren't Fansubs online, people would buy more anime on DVD are living in a fantasy world. I buy much less anime now days, but it is not because of Fansubs, I rent stuff now and If I like the show I buy it. The only show that I have rented and bought recently was Shrine of the morning mist. I watched the first 4 episodes on fansub a long time ago but after I watched it again on rental, I purchased the DVDs. I am planning to buy Kiminozo once it is released even though I own the R2 and I also watched the Fansubs for that. So people that buy DVD will keep buying them regardless of fansubs, but people that are happy with fansubs, most of them won't spend money on DVD.

golthin

08-26-2006, 06:02 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Gersen said:
[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Actually at this point I'm thinking they're losing more money off of fansubs than bootlegs. It's simply easier to get hold of fansubs these days. Digital distribution and availability has exploded to a degree that even bootlegs can't compete. When it takes me 30 seconds to search up a working download link to pretty much anything ever released, that's a very good indication that things have progressed beyond recovery. For the digital consumer it's like having the video rental store next door, with a lifetime free membership card.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well except that fansubs don't have a dub, and if we believe what anime company say 90%, of anime watcher are dub watcher.

[/ QUOTE ]That 10% that is happy with fansubs must really be hurting them /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

08-26-2006, 06:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
That 10% that is happy with fansubs must really be hurting them /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Which company was it that started complaining that hardcore fans were not buying enough b and c-grade titles, like they should be as hardcore fans?

Skywise

08-26-2006, 06:40 AM

Oh please. The companies have seen quite big loss of sales in their core demographic - the college age market. Saying that these people would never buy anime DVDs is just ridiculous. Instead what happens is that they only buy a few select titles because they really liked them, while sales of the other titles suffer because they've already seen them on fansub/rip. I know a lot of people who are like that. Ordinarily they would have bought those other titles as well just to watch them once, but with the internet they don't have to anymore, and so they don't.

There's a few people out there who still buy everything they watch on fansub once it's licensed, but the rest pretty much only get things they really like. Merely "okay" or "good" titles get the boot as a result.

Skywise

08-26-2006, 06:52 AM

I'll grant you the dub comment with one limitation - I don't think it's anywhere close to 90%. If that was the case then a dubbed edition would sell 9 times as much as a sub-only edition, and we know that's not happening.

On the other hand the rest really isn't much of an issue as joe mainstream buyer of anime is usually computer savvy enough to download stuff. The main demographic of anime buyers is in their teens/early twenties and pretty much grown up with computers enough that it shouldn't be an issue. Those people also have friends that can help them get set up. It's not 40 year old soccer moms (no offense to any reading this /images/graemlins/wink.gif).

Gersen

08-26-2006, 07:11 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Oh please. The companies have seen quite big loss of sales in their core demographic - the college age market. Saying that these people would never buy anime DVDs is just ridiculous. Instead what happens is that they only buy a few select titles because they really liked them, while sales of the other titles suffer because they've already seen them on fansub/rip. I know a lot of people who are like that. Ordinarily they would have bought those other titles as well just to watch them once, but with the internet they don't have to anymore, and so they don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem to have completly forgoten a little something called "money" /images/graemlins/wink.gif

A little something that doesn't grow on trees and that most peoples don't have in unlimited suply, especialy not college age peoples. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

So fans are peoples are getting more selective and companies are losing money because of that ? Yes I 100% agree with you on that. But saying that's it's mostly because of fansubs is IMHO a big oversimplification.

For me it's mostly market evolution. When you have 10 new titles released you can expect fans to buy 9 of them, but when you have 100 new titles releassed you can hardly expect the same fans to buy 90 of them, they probably only have the money to buy 10 or 20 of them.

So yes they will concentrate on the 10-20 titles they realy like and forget about the rest. Yes fansubs probably help them making this decision, so does blog describing the serie, so does online reviews or even other fans opinions. (Hey they are a good numbers of shows I didn't bought because of something I read on AoD shows like Kodocha, Gundam Z,Evangelion, heck and even maybe Basilisk if Funi didn't get their act together for the next volumes.)

And if fansubs magicaly disapeared tomorow ?

Yes peoples would probably watch less show for free but will they sundely start buying everything under the sun ?

Of course not.

They will just rely on other sources to determine shows they are most likely to like on still only concentrate on such shows.

Gersen

Skywise

08-26-2006, 08:07 AM

Golthin was claiming that fansubs didn't affect sales at all, which is what my post tried to address.

As for my response, it's not just that people are more selective - they're buying less anime than before. Money that in earlier days would go towards DVDs is now going to other things - clothes, vacations, booze, books etc. There's a change in the market and fansubs is one of the big factors in that change. The only real reason that anime hasn't totally crashed and burned is that there's been a growth in the total number of fans out there, which offsets part of the loss.

Your earlier comment about the difficulty of obtaining fansubs would have been correct in 2002 when you had to jump through a lot of hoops by basically trading episodes and the like, but bittorrent and tracker anonymity has just made it too easy to get. Ask a 16 year old what bittorrent is and they'll know the answer.

Gersen

08-26-2006, 10:04 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
As for my response, it's not just that people are more selective - they're buying less anime than before. Money that in earlier days would go towards DVDs is now going to other things - clothes, vacations, booze, books etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I don't see what's is wrong or weird with that ?

Yes there is a change in the market... it's maturing.

Some years ago anime was something "special", having a new title licensed was a big event, not matter if the show was an ultra-popular one or a barelly known one.

But today it's definetly no longer the case, anime as just become a standard product, of course they are still some shows that are not licensed, and some that are not even fansubbed, but they are more the exception than the rule.

While it's basicaly a good thing it also had a evil side effect, it mean that a lot more "average" or "look alike" shows are brought other here. As a result, wne you allready have 4 harem shows in your collection, do you realy need a fith new one ?

There are a lot of shows that I would have bought 3 years ago that I will no longer buy today (Heck back then I even bought Nanako and MD Geist /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif), but the funny thing is that it's actually exactly the same thing with fansubs, there are a lot of shows that I would have watched three years ago that I no longer even watch a single episode of today.

It's nothing new and it happens before for other market, look what happen for video games, 10+ years ago , adventure games were the big thing, every big video games names were creating adventure games and making lot's of money with them... then the genre was no longer making as much money as it use too and the market just jump to the next big thing : FPS and so on.

The market is mutating from a "Hardcore collectionor" type to a more mainstream one, a market where peoples no longer feel the need to buy everything that's released, because well, if you don't buy this serie today you can always buy the 2 others similar series that will be released tomorrow or like you mention use this money for other things.

Add to that the "novelty factor" of DVD that's finishing to wear off, the new HD formats at the doorstep, the shows that are broadcasted on TV, and all thoses who wait for cheap collection, it's no longer a surprise if the market is regressing, even without needing the help of fansubs.

Gersen

something

08-26-2006, 10:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
As for my response, it's not just that people are more selective - they're buying less anime than before.

[/ QUOTE ]
We really don't have that sort of information, and what little we do doesn't indicate a slowdown in overall sales. The worst I've heard is that there was a slowdown in growth, but still growth (even during the "plateau" stage). After the crazy expansion of the market a few years ago, it's only natural.

Gothlin claims fansubs don't hurt it, you claim they do, but neither of you have anything to go on really. It's always pretty much impossible to make claims about "potential lost sales", and even if you appeal to common sense, you quickly find that there is no one single concept of "common sense" on this issue (or many others). All of which is, again, why I find the "fansubs are good/fansubs are bad" debate to be pointless, and why I think addressing it in a broad way is simply a waste of time at best. I see why it's done, because it's much easier to think of it that way, but it's still meaningless when we know there will never be an end to "alternative channels of distro", in whatever form.

Skywise

08-26-2006, 10:53 AM

What's wrong with it is that anime as an industry is still a niche market and so large scale piracy hurts it even more than say Hollywood. People are saying "go after bootlegs, leave fansubs alone" when fansubs now have a much larger effect than bootlegs ever had. Heck, it's gotten to the point that legit anime is competing directly with bootleg anime on price - not to mention that the quality is better.

Bootleg DVDs isn't really the problem anymore - fansubs are.

something

08-26-2006, 11:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Heck, it's gotten to the point that legit anime is competing directly with bootleg anime on price

[/ QUOTE ]
That's still a large exaggeration. Yes, some thinpaks and other sets, released potentially years after the bootlegs, are able to match the price of some bootlegs.

But that is simply not the case at all with the vast majority of releases, and pretty much all new releases. You can still get a full series bootleg for equal to or less than the msrp of a single new disc. Add to that the mainstream casual fan perception that all discs are still $25-30, caused by their ignorance of online shopping and/or the horrible prices charged by B&M stores, and it's very much a stretch to imply that the average consumer views legit and bootleg prices as even remotely close. And well, it's because they really just aren't.

An example: Buying GitS:SAC 2nd GiG with a 46% discount and free shipping (and it's only $25 msrp to boot, being such a popular series) still cost me $94. Pretty much the best price I could find online without going used or finding a highly irregular sale like the current DDD b1g1f thing, was almost a hundred dollars. That isn't at all competition for bootlegs. Should two SAC season sets (SAC/2nd Gig) be released in a year or three for $30 each, then they would be "competing" with bootlegs... Long after bootlegs had already won that game and moved on to the next show.

Skywise

08-26-2006, 11:14 AM

I may not have direct sales distribution figures, but what I do have is anecdotal evidence from seeing what people are saying, both industry reps, fans and friends. Fansubs do have a direct impact on sales - to claim something else is ludicrous. They've always done that. Early on in fandom they've supported the industry and have been pretty much free advertising. It helped more than it hurt. Right now however people's download habits have gotten to the point that the opposite is true. There's just no need to fansub a show for it to sell well or be licensed anymore.

As for changing it, I don't think that much can be done, except that in the long term debates like this very one may have an effect on people attitudes and knowledge. Just look at how some people in this thread have tried to either justify it, or claim that it's not illegal etc. That's precisely why I hope Bandai does take proper legal action, and not just send out cease and desist letters. Anime fans need a wakeup call to understand precisely what they're doing.

Njr Scrawl

08-26-2006, 11:18 AM

I'd rather they were called digisubs, since calling the online downloadable work "fansubs" is a slur on the pioneering translation on VHS tape made by fans in few numbers for club circulation & swaps over a decade ago. A bygone time which helped encourage the licensing, release of uncut anime & founding of the R1 companies. The latter whose founders were sometimes fansubbers before!

Digisubs are often done to see which group can complete a series or keep up with broadcasts fastest. Sometimes genuine fans of the genre are involved I expect, but not in the traditional sense.

something

08-26-2006, 11:19 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Fansubs do have a direct impact on sales - to claim something else is ludicrous.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course they do, but saying you know what that effect is, is equally ludicrous. That's always been my point.

Edit: Here's the clearest and most succinct way I can state my view on this whole debate -- Telling me "fansubs are bad" means about as much to me as saying "guns are bad" or "junk/fast food is bad". That is, pretty much nothing because I don't believe it's a black/white issue (legally yes, practically, economically, morally, absolutely not, and those are what matter to me). I judge the user, not the tool. And yes, I vastly disapprove of the way many weild this particular tool, and I vastly diapprove of the way some of the manufactures of this tool "do business" but that doesn't mean I'm going to boycott the tool entirely.

Skywise

08-26-2006, 11:22 AM

And yet 1st Gig is $17 MSRP. A lot has happened with both availability and price in the last couple of years. Availability in particular has been a problem, and the easiest way to spot a boot - simply pick out titles that don't have a US release. Bootleg sales really aren't the same problem that they once were.

something

08-26-2006, 11:24 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
And yet 1st Gig is $17 MSRP.

[/ QUOTE ]
And at the $64 that cost me, it still doesn't compete with boots. AND it's among the cheapest new R1 series in singles ever. If THAT can't compete, it just reinforces my point.

Gersen

08-26-2006, 11:26 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
What's wrong with it is that anime as an industry is still a niche market and so large scale piracy hurts it even more than say Hollywood. People are saying "go after bootlegs, leave fansubs alone" when fansubs now have a much larger effect than bootlegs ever had. Heck, it's gotten to the point that legit anime is competing directly with bootleg anime on price - not to mention that the quality is better.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's was not the point of my post at all actually. My point is that Anime market was doomed to regress/stagnate at some time, fansubs or not.

That fansubs have an impact on it, yes. But they are just a parameters among others. Making fansubs the sole responsible for the actual anime market "morosity" is just jumping on an easy scapegoat but it won't make the real problems go away in the long terms.

And about legit releases competing with bootlegs prices,well in europe (France) yes, in US not yet.

Gersen

bayoab

08-26-2006, 11:37 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
Actually at this point I'm thinking they're losing more money off of fansubs than bootlegs. It's simply easier to get hold of fansubs these days. Digital distribution and availability has exploded to a degree that even bootlegs can't compete. When it takes me 30 seconds to search up a working download link to pretty much anything ever released, that's a very good indication that things have progressed beyond recovery. For the digital consumer it's like having the video rental store next door, with a lifetime free membership card.

[/ QUOTE ]It's not that I am argue that fansubs are not lost sales, but the argument is that bootlegs are very directly hurting sales. I have seen bootlegged copies of R1 discs around that are almost too good to be able to tell the difference. I would hazard a guess that the good majority of people who buy bootlegs are often searching for legitimate DVDs. I know some people buy bootlegs as a substitute because they are cheaper, but when many people use amazon and see:
[ QUOTE ]
Price: $89.99
32 used & new available from $44.09
With comments like:
BRAND NEW IMPORTED 2 DVD Boxed Set of Complete Series.

[/ QUOTE ]
there is a problem. Joe Smith on the street doesn't know the difference and is likely looking for a real copy considering they are using amazon.

Those sites that offer copies of stuff that is out and DVD rippers should be dealt with too but Joe Smith is more likely to find a bootleg first when searching for the real stuff.

Edit: Yes, many of the largest demographic, college students, search to download media in this age.

GetterBeam

08-26-2006, 11:42 AM

Fansubs are still useful, relevant, and important. There's still about 3/4'ish DECADES and counting of anime that are a LOOONG way from being well represented in R1.

Fansubbing started out as something working on "obscure" stuff...namely anime at the time. Fast forward, and there are STILL tons of "obscure" stuff being worked on just as it was in the old days...that hasn't changed. We still haven't even come close to catching up on shows that were in their prime when fansubbing was just starting AND when there was the digisub boom in full swing along with the licensing explosions that saturated the R1 market.

It is all these damn blanket statements and bandwagon riding that grinds my gears on this whole thing. Yeah, there's lots that could be handled better in a perfect/ more reasonable world...maybe even a majority. But anime/R1 pickups/etc is NOT a democracy. Decry the specific or specific blocks that are acting up if ya must, but screaming down the hate towards either the R1 companies or "fansubs" on the whole is just childish. Only bootleggers or rippers are flat out wrong by virtue of the whole gist of it all.

There are "good" subbers out there...irony is that there are about as many of these as there are relevant R1 companies. Each sides have their 4Kids/Gundam SEED subber types acting up. Would it be so terrible to focus on praising the good in general or particular and specifically shouting down the really bad?...wouldn't that lead to a BIT less diatribes and vitriol that only serve to anger up the pot?

Until we are well and truly caught up on anime, and if we somehow start to get everything to come in fine form as well...only then will fansubs cease to have a point. Odds of that happening are astronomical on numerous fronts for a host of reasons. Praise the good, attack the SERIOUSLY bad...and things will likely work out about as well as anybody can reasonably hope for.

something

08-26-2006, 11:42 AM

[ QUOTE ]
bayoab said:
Those sites that offer copies of stuff that is out and DVD rippers should be dealt with too but Joe Smith is more likely to find a bootleg first when searching for the real stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]
Indeed. I make no secret of my loathing for bootlegs, and there are even bootlegs in my house -- my little brother has bought a few, because he doesn't know any better. I tell him I'll screen what he's buying before he does because I can spot boots, but he'll forget to ask me and my parents can't tell either so, bam, Kenshin boot. .hack//twilight boot. .hack//sign boot. All shows he fully intended and wanted to purchase the DVDs for, all lost sales to boots (he's 14, so he can't afford and isn't inclined to to eat the loss and rebuy legit discs). It's very frustrating.

dasboot

08-26-2006, 11:44 AM

I will agree wholeheartedly with what's been said here.

Series which stand a high chance of being licensed eg your Basilisks / FMA's / Speed Graphers of this world, fansubs will hurt sales when they do get licensed and make their way to the region 1 DVD market. It's plainly obvious.

What I'd be interested to know though is can anyone provide a quantification of how fansubs is hurting the sales of series that will NEVER get licensed or stand a VERY small chance of a licensor taking a risk eg nobody ever thought Yawara would get licensed.

By this I mean shows that are ONLY available on NON SUBTITLED Japanese Region 2's and which have been left unlicensed for a period of greater than 5 years since the shows original broadcast.

For example, I posted a thread about the possibility of licensing World Masterpiece theatre series and the general consensus of the posters here was "yeah it'd be nice if it happened but never in a million years".

There are 3 demographics that we need to consider here -
1) The Japanese market. How many Japanese fans would actually know English well enough to find the fansubs in the first place / hasn't already bought it years ago / doesnt have a VHS tape rental store nearby where they can rent it and actually has enough of an interest to download it and havent already acquired it through Japanese Peer 2 peer ?
2) People who understand Japanese - How many people understand Japanese well enough to want to import R2's ?
3) People who don't understand Japanese but will buy it anyhow and watch it raw ?. How many people can you honestly say will go out and buy a DVD of an anime that is a) in a language they can't understand b) cost 2 - 3X as much as a regular anime DVD and for which they need a region free DVD player ?.

I'm not saying there is *no* effect but the effect of fansubbing older shows must obviously not be as dramatic / large as the fansubbing of the new stuff coming out of Japan in 2006.

It's these shows that fansubbing used to be for trying to raise their awareness in the west so that a licensor might actually take the risk and license them but sadly as I have discussed earlier the "old school" fansubber is a dying breed.

Like I discussed earlier, it's the old school vs new school fansubber argument. It's the new school fansubbers who stick up 2 fingers to the Region 1 companies and sub shows that are licensed / scream of license that are the main cause of all the problems with lost revenue within the Region 1 industry in 2006.

And bootleggers ARE a problem. Just look on ebay. For example try searching for Sailor Moon DVD. The amount of bootleg DVD's outweights the legitimate ones. People are still being conned in to buying the bootleg DVD's and hence companies are losing out. I will say bootlegging is not a problem when you can only find legal products on ebay not before.

Let me ask you this question - take for example Sailor Stars, this will NEVER get licensed and there will be no legitimate Region 1 dvd's made available for purchase ever. For the Region 1 fan who DOES NOT UNDERSTAND JAPANESE (so wouldnt want to buy the non subbed R2's) which is morally better - bootleg Sailor Stars DVD sets off ebay or fansubs of Sailor Stars ?. (yes both are still illegal, I'm just talking on moral/ethical grounds)

And dont forget DVD rippers. Fansubbing might be illegal but DVD ripping of Region 1's is "more wrong" than fansubbing but R1 companies don't seem to care / want to chase em down.

-dasboot

hikaru004

08-26-2006, 01:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
The amusing part, is the argument that licensed companies should not go after Bootleggers because it is too difficut; Because doesn't it mean fansubbers can avoid persecution too, as long as they make themselves difficult to catch?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but as the incidents with Samurai 7 and other FUNimation titles proved, previously "untouchable" groups can be found. FUNimation chose to stop short with the C&D letter.

These groups aren't professional money launderers. They probably have a nice paper trail for the distributors to follow if they had the proper incentive (GitS: SSS). And, some of the groups announced that they were doing it giving the distributors time to follow the paper trail and get ready for them.

Downloaders don't exactly have a free ride with this either. Some clients allow you to see other downloaders' info including which port they are using. I bet those investigators have similar programs too.

sir_integra

08-26-2006, 01:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
I might be one of the few people who think this, but I'm actually glad that I saw the Gundam SEED fansubs. I really liked the first one, and ended up buying the box with all the DVDs, but Destiny started sucking for me about half way and I just quit watching the series. Because of this, I saved myself money knowing that I did not and will not watch Destiny. Had I not watched it, I would have ended up buying the series halfway and selling them all on ebay. However, I did buy some of the Destiny plastic models, so it's not like Bandi didn't get any money from me on the franchaise.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, they didn't get the money for the Destiny episodes that you did watch. The point is that you did watch it, not necessarily that you liked it.

However, and this is where I have big problems with companies not going after bootlegers, is that when you try to sell your volumes of Destiny, you end up competing with full sets of Destiny bootlegs at a much lower price, making it difficult to get any reasonable return on a resale. Why should anybody buy your Destiny dvds when they can get a full series for so much less?

jeditictac

08-26-2006, 02:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
[ QUOTE ]
shukusatsu said:
I wish that they would go after bootleggers and rippers rather than fansubbers of licensed material. Granted, both need to go, but it just seems easier to target certain online auction sites and well-known ripping websites than a thousand different fansub groups and the people that download them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen.

[/ QUOTE ]

agreed. ^-^ i'm much more annoyed with bootlegers and rippers than fansubs. it seems like i can't search amazon without finding more crap than legit releases.

haven't read the whole thread... but i'm guessing i may be in the minority. i actually do watch fansubs and for me at least i buy more anime because of it. many times i watch a show as it's being aired, it gets licensed most of the way through, and i have to wait until r1 catches up before i finish the show - but i do purchase it if i liked it and i stop watching what i don't like.for maybe 1% or some such low figure, i end up watching the whole thing only to have the ending ruin the series for me (as in never buy or only buy dirt cheap on sale), but most stuff i buy (typically on sale, sometimes wait for boxsets, etc etc). granted, i know there are some that watch and don't buy and i don't really know the ratios on how much does it hurt/help sales. but i know for myself at least, if fansubbing ever ceases i will buy less anime. (and i'm talking fansubbign of unlicensed shows btw)

with that said, i'm not really annoyed by the announcement. owners of the show should protect their show... but i do think before they start going after people who don't necessarily make profit from it (ie free fansubbers) they should go after people who do make profit from it (bootlegers, rippers, etc). after they clean up that problem they may find that the fansubbing of their licensed material has stopped/deminished (or they may not-in which case then it would be time to go after them). i just don't get why they'd go after people not making money from distributing the show when there are plenty of individuals out there who happily profit from selling bootleg/ripped versions of a show. seems kinda backwards to me.

Suwako Moriya

08-26-2006, 03:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
There's a few people out there who still buy everything they watch on fansub once it's licensed, but the rest pretty much only get things they really like. Merely "okay" or "good" titles get the boot as a result.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is also another factor to consider. It's not that hard for a person to download more series then he can afford to buy. Thus the person will end up choosing between series even if he wants to buy all of them. Okay granted there is always the ideal of buy some series later. However as more series get licensed, the person will continue to adjust his plans. Thus some series may stay on the back burner for a long time...

Of course obviously this does not apply to everyone. Since the amount of series a person can afford in a given period vs the amount of series the person downloads does vary. Ie there is a huge difference between downloading only 7 series and being able to afford 25 vs downloading 25 and only being able to afford 7.

Although I'm not sure which series suffer more from fansubs. Longer series or shorter series? I'd be tempted to say longer because with shorter you have the mentality of "It's only 2 DVDS so I'll be fine". Where as with say a longer series a person may be like "17 DVDs? That's an insane amount". Still I could be wrong and it may turn out that shorter series suffer the most. That Joe may decided to skip four series with 26 episodes for the sake of one series with 104 episodes.

kaiyouske

08-26-2006, 03:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
sir_integra said:

Well, they didn't get the money for the Destiny episodes that you did watch. The point is that you did watch it, not necessarily that you liked it.

However, and this is where I have big problems with companies not going after bootlegers, is that when you try to sell your volumes of Destiny, you end up competing with full sets of Destiny bootlegs at a much lower price, making it difficult to get any reasonable return on a resale. Why should anybody buy your Destiny dvds when they can get a full series for so much less?

[/ QUOTE ]

How about then, that the videos come with commercials? Then wouldn't it be like watching it off a TV recording? I don't have a problem with that. To me, selling consumers a crappy product is just as bad as pirating. What doesn't make sense to me is that it's ok for people to watch raws but not fansubs? What's the logic in that? How about the company concentrated on making flawless quality products instead of putting out discs that look worse than bootleg copies?

As for the money for the first half of Destiny, I feel that I have paid my dues to them by buying the Destiny merchandise from Japan including the numerous Destiny Plastic kits and PVC figures.

Suwako Moriya

08-26-2006, 03:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
What doesn't make sense to me is that it's ok for people to watch raws but not fansubs?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm quite sure that those who feel fansubs are "evil" probably feel the same way about raws. At least I'd hope so since in the case of some series "raw" is your only option. There is a reason why I sometimes say "Some series need to be licensed so they'll be translated before I die!" or something along those lines. It's because you can have 7 series ignored by even fansubbers while another series gets subbed by 7 different groups. To make it even better it's a licensed series...

relentlessflame

08-26-2006, 04:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
GetterBeam said:
It is all these damn blanket statements and bandwagon riding that grinds my gears on this whole thing. Yeah, there's lots that could be handled better in a perfect/ more reasonable world...maybe even a majority. But anime/R1 pickups/etc is NOT a democracy. Decry the specific or specific blocks that are acting up if ya must, but screaming down the hate towards either the R1 companies or "fansubs" on the whole is just childish.

[/ QUOTE ]
For what it's worth, this is indeed what's most frustrating about so many internet debates; the always-present shades of grey get simplified into quasi-moral "good vs. evil" crusades on both sides. The legal question is, of course, black and white, but the impact and consequences of breaking the law aren't as clearcut. I've personally spent thousands and thousands of dollars on anime merchandise in the last year alone (some 25%+ of my take-home pay is spent on anime and related merchandise); if I watch something on fansubs, I buy it either in R1 or R2. If there are 99 people who don't buy anything for every one person like me and you decry all 100, what is to be done with me? Is my purchasing less an acceptable price to pay to get rid of the 99 who may or may not buy anyway (and if they did buy, how much would they spend?)? Life isn't simple enough to allow for such black-and-white points of view.

That being said, I'm a bit surprised this particular debate has been allowed to go on for so long. I highly doubt anyone is questioning Bandai's right to make the statement they did. What is more doubtful is whether or not they'll follow through, and I don't think anyone would blame them if they did either (in fact, my personal opinion is that they shouldn't make threats if they're not going to back them up - as with raising children, consistency and followthrough are the only ways to build discipline). Fansubbing is an illegal privilege that no one should expect or depend on, and it shouldn't be surprising that the hammer will eventually fall. What more can be said?

golthin

08-26-2006, 04:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Wrath of the Njr said:
I'd rather they were called digisubs, since calling the online downloadable work "fansubs" is a slur on the pioneering translation on VHS tape made by fans in few numbers for club circulation & swaps over a decade ago. A bygone time which helped encourage the licensing, release of uncut anime & founding of the R1 companies. The latter whose founders were sometimes fansubbers before!

Digisubs are often done to see which group can complete a series or keep up with broadcasts fastest. Sometimes genuine fans of the genre are involved I expect, but not in the traditional sense.

[/ QUOTE ]
they are still fansubs, digisub is just a subgere based on the method used for subbing the anime or show. People don't fansub anymore using the old method.

FigNewton

08-26-2006, 04:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
I may not have direct sales distribution figures, but what I do have is anecdotal evidence from seeing what people are saying, both industry reps, fans and friends. Fansubs do have a direct impact on sales - to claim something else is ludicrous. They've always done that. Early on in fandom they've supported the industry and have been pretty much free advertising. It helped more than it hurt. Right now however people's download habits have gotten to the point that the opposite is true. There's just no need to fansub a show for it to sell well or be licensed anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I have anecdotal evidence that the people who DL and don't buy DVDs wouldn't have bought them in the first place. The people who I know that strictly download fansubs rarely if ever bought anime DVDs before. Several actually buy more often now, after seeing a show they liked on fansub...whereas before they would never have bought blind. Before, these people would borrow from me a little, or just not watch at all. They weren't spending money on it before, they aren't spending money on it now.

This is why anecdotal evidence isn't really any good in a debate.

Texhnolyze

08-26-2006, 05:16 PM

A lot of people I know that watched Naruto would never have bought the DVD's.

They were just watching it because it was "that cool chinese cartoon you can watch for free on the internet".

FigNewton

08-26-2006, 05:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Texhnolyze said:
A lot of people I know that watched Naruto would never have bought the DVD's.

They were just watching it because it was "that cool chinese cartoon you can watch for free on the internet".

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely. Take away the fansubs and would those people actually buy it?

No, they'd say, "I have to pay how much to watch 12 episodes? Oh fuck that." Then either not watch it at all, or get DVD rips from lan parties and intrauniversity trading networks, depending on the types of people in play.

jlazar

08-26-2006, 06:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
FigNewton said:
No, they'd say, "I have to pay how much to watch 12 episodes? Oh fuck that." Then either not watch it at all, or get DVD rips from lan parties and intrauniversity trading networks, depending on the types of people in play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or watch is on CN... which is another way DVD sales can go down. Of course, they can act as an advertisment for the DVD release as well.

I know I'm only watching it on CN (despite the edits there), because it's just not that good of a show to buy on DVD and even the free broadcast isn't doing too good of a job of keeping me entertained.

golthin

08-26-2006, 06:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
FigNewton said:
[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
I may not have direct sales distribution figures, but what I do have is anecdotal evidence from seeing what people are saying, both industry reps, fans and friends. Fansubs do have a direct impact on sales - to claim something else is ludicrous. They've always done that. Early on in fandom they've supported the industry and have been pretty much free advertising. It helped more than it hurt. Right now however people's download habits have gotten to the point that the opposite is true. There's just no need to fansub a show for it to sell well or be licensed anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I have anecdotal evidence that the people who DL and don't buy DVDs wouldn't have bought them in the first place . The people who I know that strictly download fansubs rarely if ever bought anime DVDs before. Several actually buy more often now, after seeing a show they liked on fansub...whereas before they would never have bought blind. Before, these people would borrow from me a little, or just not watch at all. They weren't spending money on it before, they aren't spending money on it now.

This is why anecdotal evidence isn't really any good in a debate .

[/ QUOTE ]
I have the same anecdotal evidence, but I never present it for that reason. things are different from place to place. I live in the USA where such anedoctal evidence has more weight than some one that live in England or France. Sales in the USA affect the R1 industry and that is the place that I care about. I wouldn't care what happen in Europe or other Regions.

How come that sales of TV anime on DVD in Japan are still strong when the Japanese has TVO or other Digital means of recording broadcast anime. That is the best example of people that will buy anime on DVD regardless if they can get it free.

something

08-26-2006, 09:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Anri Misugi said:
[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
What doesn't make sense to me is that it's ok for people to watch raws but not fansubs?

[/ QUOTE ] I'm quite sure that those who feel fansubs are "evil" probably feel the same way about raws.

[/ QUOTE ]
I really hope so. If anyone, anyone around here who slams fansubs themselves watches raws, that would be some massive hypocrisy.

Vallen Valiant

08-26-2006, 10:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
hikaru004 said:
[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
The amusing part, is the argument that licensed companies should not go after Bootleggers because it is too difficut; Because doesn't it mean fansubbers can avoid persecution too, as long as they make themselves difficult to catch?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but as the incidents with Samurai 7 and other FUNimation titles proved, previously "untouchable" groups can be found. FUNimation chose to stop short with the C&D letter.

These groups aren't professional money launderers. They probably have a nice paper trail for the distributors to follow if they had the proper incentive (GitS: SSS). And, some of the groups announced that they were doing it giving the distributors time to follow the paper trail and get ready for them.

Downloaders don't exactly have a free ride with this either. Some clients allow you to see other downloaders' info including which port they are using. I bet those investigators have similar programs too.

[/ QUOTE ]
My point still stands.
If Companies only go after what is easy to get, rather than what is a bigger problem, then it is no longer about improved sales or even law/morality. It would be about convenience. It is a fact that large numbers of people who want to willingly pay money in order to obtain anime DVDs, obtain bootlegs instead, purely because they don't know any better.

But bootleggers, illegal as they are, can exist because the anime companies are too lazy to do the hard work necessary to combat it, if only because it involves international politics.

Fansubbers then, in the same logic, has nothing to fear from anime companies; just make themselves difficult to trace, be in another country, and the companies will just give up. After all, catching a fansubber won't improve sales of anime in a way that will be worth the expense, just like the bootleggers.

dunno001

08-26-2006, 10:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
If Companies only go after what is easy to get, rather than what is a bigger problem, then it is no longer about improved sales or even law/morality. It would be about convenience. It is a fact that large numbers of people who want to willingly pay money in order to obtain anime DVDs, obtain bootlegs instead, purely because they don't know any better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to disagree with part of this post. Companies NEED to go after what's easiest, because that's also the easiest way for someone else to find it. And in these days, fansubs are easier to find than paid bootlegs. (Not that either of them are really hard.) By removing the easiest to find source, you make people either have to look harder, or make your product easier to find in comparison. Get rid of fansubbers (or at least push them back underground to IRC), and yes, the bootleggers will be next. Since fansubbers are easier to target, they should start there. Most of them can't afford the lawyers, anyway...

something

08-26-2006, 10:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]
dunno001 said:
And in these days, fansubs are easier to find than paid bootlegs.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know if I'd call eBay and Amazon harder to get to than bittorrent tracker sites.

golthin

08-26-2006, 11:19 PM

hikaru004

08-26-2006, 11:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
dunno001 said:
[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
If Companies only go after what is easy to get, rather than what is a bigger problem, then it is no longer about improved sales or even law/morality. It would be about convenience. It is a fact that large numbers of people who want to willingly pay money in order to obtain anime DVDs, obtain bootlegs instead, purely because they don't know any better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to disagree with part of this post. Companies NEED to go after what's easiest, because that's also the easiest way for someone else to find it. And in these days, fansubs are easier to find than paid bootlegs. (Not that either of them are really hard.) By removing the easiest to find source, you make people either have to look harder, or make your product easier to find in comparison. Get rid of fansubbers (or at least push them back underground to IRC), and yes, the bootleggers will be next. Since fansubbers are easier to target, they should start there. Most of them can't afford the lawyers, anyway...

[/ QUOTE ]
Lawyers? Have you heard of groups creating a new group under other weird name and placing their fansubs in an offshore server?

Well know group AAAA gets threatened by an anime company, they create a new group with the same people, they place their fansubs in an offshore server, they don't put an email or channel in the fansubs, that is it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's always easiest to pick off the weak ones (fansubbers in this case) first.

Everything has a paper trail. That server gets paid by check, money order or credit card. You have to fork over some legitimate contact info to these guys probably. Not too many businesses are acting like a certain website in a certain location. Given the right amount of pressure, I bet they would cave in and give the distributors any info they want to save their hides just like Supranova did.

The torrent has an address that you can see online and if you have the proper client, you can access the IPs of the seeds in the torrent and the rest of the downloaders.

IRC won't protect you either because in some cases you have to register. So you've given up your non-Yahoo email account to them.

Fansubbers have a limited income. That means they can't afford a legal fight. So, if the distributors really get nasty, the fansubbers have to settle out of court.(Admit guilt. Get plastered all over the internet and newspapers. Pay a settlement fee. I hear the MPAA offers payment plans.)

Also, making a fansub group as an example of their legal wrath gives them more publicity than taking out someone on eBay. The public eats that kind of stuff up.

Basically, it's a win-win situation to take out a fansub group.

AUSTIN316

08-27-2006, 06:50 AM

Interesting thread. I can honestly say I am not a person who watches fansubs. In the past, I have downloaded 1 or 2 episodes of maybe 4 series just to see what it's like before the R1 DVDs came out or of an older show I have wanted to see for years but know will never get licensed (Ryu Knight for eg, I now own the R2 boxes). The only show I ever downloaded in bulk was Creamy Mami (but never watched it)knowing it would never be licensed and knowing it would be a while before I could get the R2 sets.

I have been living in Japan this year while on university exchange and I haven't even watched a single show on TV. I started buying series like Bleach, Blood+, Fate/stay night, Tsuki Hime and numerous older mech shows etc. Another foreign student here at my university (American) keeps telling me "you should just download the show instead of buying all those expensive DVDs". I try and explain that I LIKE paying for DVDs and collecting them but they dont understand. Yet another foreign student friend I have (again, American) is a big fan of anime but I dont think he has ever bought a DVD in his life. He wanted to buy the newest DVD released Naruto movie here in Japan but balked when he saw the L.E version used for 3200yen and said "oh stuff it, I can download it instead". I will never understand these mentalities.

I am Australian so I have been paying TWICE as much if not more for my anime my whole anime buying life (which is now about 12 years). Back in the old VHS days I was paying $44.95-$54.95 for old UK mangle dubs and some other obscure UK companies subs and dubs. When the shop I used to buy all my stuff from in Sydney finally started getting US NTSC tapes back in 1996, I was paying $37.95-59.95 per subtitled tape with 2 eps on each. I am someone who always WAS willing to watch a show in a language I couldn't understand if it was the only way I could see it. I used to buy JP LDs from Anime Jungle for incredible amounts of money, even though I didn't know Japanese. At the time it was worth it to me to see shows like Macross, Macross: DYRL, Macross 7, Tekkaman Blade, Gaogaigar, Sailor Moon, Laputa, Nausicaa, Mononoke Hime and many others. So REAL fans like myself and many others on this site DO pay money for JP releases if they want to see them badly enough so for me, that excuse of "people dont want to pay $XXX for a show they can't understand" doesn't fly with me. I personally always knew I would learn Japanese one day anyway so I knew those investments would be worth it in the end.

One thing that seriously pisses me off about "fansubbers" who "only do it so fans can see a show that wont be licensed" is that they wont support people who go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a R2 set or series after seeing a few fansub episodes. They claim they only do it to increase exposure to a show yet they will never release those scripts to people who go and purchase the real thing so they can watch those DVDs with subs. I am not saying they HAVE to do that, they translated it, they can do what they please with them. BUT I dont see what harm it can do if they let people who buy the DVDs have the scripts instead of having to download shows to watch them subbed, even if they have been purchased. I hear them claim it's so bootleggers can rip their scripts, which is crap cause they can do it manually off a AVI anyway.

I personally hate that people think they have the right to only download anime and not purchase it cause it makes the market stall and not grow to what it could be. It's like people who whinge about the US visual novel market, the only companies that exist release nothing but trash with the exception of Hirameki. Why is this? Because the same people that think they should be able to watch anime for free think they shouldn't have to pay for those games as well which means the companies dont make money which in turn means they can never afford the "big" name games people claim they want (which I am sure they would just download anyway). Look at something like Ever 17, it is a classic game with a fantastic storyline and something people should have been buying in droves yet it has barely sold anything because people just downloaded it which means Hirameki made no return which means they wont be paying the money for a good game like Ever 17 again.

I personally wish I worked for an anime company cause I would be all over ebay and amazon getting those pirate selling pricks. It has always pissed me off that ebay knows about the pirate stuff on their site yet they do nothing about it. I have reported 100's of sellers for selling bootleg shit yet they are never taken down and never banned. All they say is "we need to be contacted by someone who owns the copyright in the US" yet if you try and sell a game system with a modchip and legal import games, you get banned off ebay. They are so fucked up. If it isn't releated to some US company, they dont give a fuck about it.

Anyway, enough ranting. You go Bandai, you are the best R1 company out there and I hope you kick the ass of anyone who dares sub your property. Now if you would just go after the bootleggers I would be even happier!

Vallen Valiant

08-27-2006, 07:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]
dunno001 said:
[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
If Companies only go after what is easy to get, rather than what is a bigger problem, then it is no longer about improved sales or even law/morality. It would be about convenience. It is a fact that large numbers of people who want to willingly pay money in order to obtain anime DVDs, obtain bootlegs instead, purely because they don't know any better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to disagree with part of this post. Companies NEED to go after what's easiest, because that's also the easiest way for someone else to find it. And in these days, fansubs are easier to find than paid bootlegs. (Not that either of them are really hard.) By removing the easiest to find source, you make people either have to look harder, or make your product easier to find in comparison. Get rid of fansubbers (or at least push them back underground to IRC), and yes, the bootleggers will be next. Since fansubbers are easier to target, they should start there. Most of them can't afford the lawyers, anyway...

[/ QUOTE ]

I fail to see how Bootleggers are somehow difficult to target. In fact, I am CERTAIN it is easier to buy bootlegs than getting fansubs. You can get bootlegs in any Chinatown shop, or ebay and other dozen online sources. But fansubs require people to figure out the p2p system and to get numerous programs for their computer to even watch them.

Companies are simply turning a blind eye to bootlegs. Why leaving bootlegs "next"? What, they are afraid? If you want to protect your profits, you go after the money. And the Bootleggers are the people who takes the money.

At the very least, fight the bootlegs together with the fansubs. The promise to "shut down every bootleg company that we find" in the public announcement that started this thread would be enough to satisfy me. But no, it's all fansubs. Bootlegs don't exist to them. In fact, I will be laughing when the SSS bootlegs appear in my local stores.

Come to think of it, if Fansubs are so devastating to anime dvd sales, why do you think bootleg dvds sell so well?

(You know what? Let's stop the fight against heroin! We should concentrate out efforts on excessive drinking of alcohol first, because it is easier! We can go back to fighting Heroin later, right?)

dasboot

08-27-2006, 08:24 AM

The R1 licensors getting together to form an RIAA for the anime industry. A single one stop shop funded by all the R1 companies whose mission it is to protect the industry. All the R1 licensors combined would make for a force to be reckoned with and with the legal clout too!.

A good place to start would be to serve legal notice on ebay to remove all bootlegs and going after high profile bootleg sites. A Sailor Moon bootleg DVD is significantly easier to get than a fansub. I can't remember the number of times when I've seen people being tricked in to buying Sailor Moon DVD bootlegs but ebay has been left for way too long. The state of play these days is if you search for "sailor moon dvd" on ebay you're more likely to see a bootleg than a genuine product.

Geneon is losing real customers because people using ebay don't know any better and are keeping the bootleggers in business.

Your average American anime fan doesnt have the skill / where with all to go and do research to find out which the legitimate product is and so 95% of the time, the CHEAPER bootleggers are getting the business because the purchaser doesnt know any better and just wants a cheap DVD. Same goes for China town bootleg stores.

Requirements for obtaining a bootleg - ability to search ebay + paypal account/postal order OR walk to local China town.

Requirements for obtaining a fansub - ability to learn/understand bittorrent/IRC + ability to install correct video codec

By definition bootlegs are significantly easier to obtain/cope with. People who buy bootlegs are obviously willing to part with their hard earned $$$ so I'd say shutting down bootleggers is EASIER way of increasing profitability as the people with the $$ will then buy legit instead. This is comparably easier than trying to coax the "anime is free" crowd in to handing over their cash.

Regards

-dasboot

AUSTIN316

08-27-2006, 09:53 AM

I dont agree with the bootleggers VS fansubs thing. Maybe the average fan would have bought boots in the past (well the ones that WANTED them) but I am sure those people would now download them instead cause it is free and they get better subs than the babelfish garble that most HK boots have. I DO think bootleggers are worse than fansubbers but dont believe that every single new show should be fansubbed as it is shown on TV. I just hope that all the fansubbing doesn't hurt the anime market eventually, maybe Japanese companies wont even want to license stuff in the future because of it.

something

08-27-2006, 10:34 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Stone Cold said:
Maybe the average fan would have bought boots in the past (well the ones that WANTED them) but I am sure those people would now download them instead cause it is free and they get better subs than the babelfish garble that most HK boots have.

[/ QUOTE ]
And while someone who doesn't ever buy DVDs shouldn't be getting fansubs OR boots, I infinitely prefer they use fansubs over boots if they're definitely going to do either one or the other. Neither is good compared to buying the discs, but at least money isn't being exchanged that way. If anything, it's costing the fansubbers in terms of site/bot bandwidth fees.

Skywise

08-27-2006, 11:40 AM

I'm in the fortunate position that I get to see what's happening both in the local market here in Norway, and what people are doing in the US. If anything my views are more US centric than anything else.

hikaru004

08-27-2006, 11:41 AM

Hey guys, look at what was posted on Anime News Service.

[ QUOTE ]
Anime News Service said:
8-26-06 (7:33AM EDT)---- Solid State Society Hits Theaters
After screening intitially on PPV via Perfect Choice 160 SKYPerfecTV, the first theatrical screening for Production I.G.'s Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society has been announced for September 9 at the Shinjuku Theater. Same-day purchase tickets are 2,500 Yen. The announcement comes as something of a surprise for Japanese fans as plans were to have a TV broadcast followed by DVD release on November 24th. Doors open at 23:30, the show starts at 24:00. Other rules include a max of 2 tickets can be purchased by 1 person and those 18 and under cannot be admitted due to the late night screening. because screening at all nights. The film to be shown uses the HD master version accompanied by a 5.1 channel soundtrack. In addition, a number if S.A.C. related interviews will be screened featuring those involved such as OST composer Yoko Kanno. 6 episodes from the 1st and second SAC TV series will also screen. In addition, the talk show that invites the guest is held, too. On top of all this a talk event where staff such as Takayuki Goto and Director Kenji Kamiyama will also be held in the theater.

[/ QUOTE ]

Daniel_Perales

08-27-2006, 12:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Stone Cold said:
I dont agree with the bootleggers VS fansubs thing. Maybe the average fan would have bought boots in the past (well the ones that WANTED them) but I am sure those people would now download them instead cause it is free and they get better subs than the babelfish garble that most HK boots have.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, you just brought up something that seems to escape some people.

To add a bit more detail, getting bootlegs was about the most convenient thing to do for a lot of anime fans back then. Fansubs was just only available to a selective few, when it was only available on VHS tapes (I never seen any fansubs on Beta tapes). You had to know someone who knew someone who can get access to these fansubs, and then make copies for others who wants them. Eventually, some if not most of these copies winds up for sale in small comic shops and small video sale/rental places.

As time went on, anime started to appear on American tv, again. Computers became faster and more powerful, and the internet became much more user friendly and affordable to subscribed to for regular home use (thanks to the AOL explosion of subscribers around the mid 1990s). Now people were using the internet to discover that there was a lot more anime out there than what was shown on American tv and videotape and they can get in touch with the fansubbers and their distributors directly, now.

But still, the distribution of fansubs was still very limited, since most of them and their distributors actually only send x amount of tapes per request per month. So, to some, buying bootleggs was still their best option.

Then came the birth of "Digi-subs".

As always, computers became cheaper and yet more powerful, and blank CD cost much less than a blank VHS tape. Fansubbers started to do their subs, put it on the video, then encode them on their computers and save them as a video file that a computer with the right software can play. Then, they take that copy of the file and burn it on a blank CD. Fansubs are now quicker and cheaper to copy and distribute. Even though the numbers of copies went up, distribution was still limited. Until......

Affordable Broadband became a reality.

In the begining, getting broadband was very expensive. That is why only businesses, colleges and universities had them. But now, there are some broadband services that cost about equal, if not cheaper than dial-up. And since these "digi-subs" are nothing more than large data file to a computer, it will not take you forever to download them like the way it did with a regular dial-up modem. But suppose that there are too many people downloading a particular anime, which in turn slows down the server dramatically?

That's when these P2P programs comes to play. No need to explain what they are since everyone knows.

Either way, there's no need to go to the store and buy bootleg anime videos anymore, now that I can download them right to my home computer, and you can be very sure that there's a million other people out there that are thinking the same.

[ QUOTE ]

I just hope that all the fansubbing doesn't hurt the anime market eventually, maybe Japanese companies wont even want to license stuff in the future because of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not that the Japanese are not going to license stuff, it's the companies outside of Japan who will not even bother to get the licenses, because it's not going to be a worthwhile investment for them.

Danny

Vallen Valiant

08-27-2006, 02:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Either way, there's no need to go to the store and buy bootleg anime videos anymore, now that I can download them right to my home computer, and you can be very sure that there's a million other people out there that are thinking the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose then, that the bootleg companies are going bankrupt right now?

They are earning millions. They are not losing money to the fansubs.
If you want to believe fansubs are taking more business than bootlegs, you are deluding yourself. Bootlegs takes away PAYING customers.

Most importantly, they are selling, because they are still being made. And people DO buy them instead of downloading. Shops don't stock what they can't sell.

Try going to China Town once in a while. Have a real look at what is going on.
[ QUOTE ]
It's not that the Japanese are not going to license stuff, it's the companies outside of Japan who will not even bother to get the licenses, because it's not going to be a worthwhile investment for them.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's good. The reason so much bad anime was made recently was because US companies licensed too many of them regardless of quality in the past.
Now that insane licensing slows down, Japanese companies might stop mass producing generic shows; most of those shows would not have been made if not out of greed for Western money.

Chris Beveridge

08-27-2006, 03:04 PM

It's not like it's an either/or situation. Companies can and should be going after both.

And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

But both should be dealt with. And the argument about people having to learn p2p... c'mon, what do you guys think college kids are doing before they get into college? They're doing p2p before then. And they're going to do it over buying bootlegs because it's quicker and cheaper. Why even wait for the packge when it can be torrented down in a couple of hours if not faster. Bootleggers are still making lots of money though because they're getting it onto the street and it's heavy in Asia, which is something the Japanese and other governments really need to and are working on in general.

Bootlegs would go down for US consumer purchase and use though if bootleggers are denied the "quality" fansubs that are out there. If the translations are as craptacular as they used to be back in the late 90's, there would be few and far between bought by US customers. But as long as they have the option of these translations...

The basic point that cannot be denied, even though some continue to try and change reality to fit their view of it, is that fansubs are illegal period. The old ethics are still in place by some of the players in the field but they represent a minority of what's really out there. They really have little to worry about and should just do what they do. But the rest should simply be taken down by all means. It's past a point of no return and now it's just a matter of minimalizing the damage. ALL sides waited too long.

christianlf

08-27-2006, 03:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means something when those trackers are moved offshore to countries (like say, Sweden or Spain, among others) where torrent trackers are legal.

Vallen Valiant

08-27-2006, 03:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Bootlegs would go down for US consumer purchase and use though if bootleggers are denied the "quality" fansubs that are out there. If the translations are as craptacular as they used to be back in the late 90's, there would be few and far between bought by US customers. But as long as they have the option of these translations...

[/ QUOTE ]

Last I checked, there was no way for a bootleg buyer from knowing what is or isn't a "quality fansub bootleg"

And also last I checked, most translations of bootlegs are still double-translated garbage with bad masters.
But that matters not. People don't buy them because they are good quality, but because they don't know any better. There is no "now with improved fansub translations!!" on the DVD cover. If anything, fansub scripts is done out of laziness for bootleggers.

And just on record, can you tell me, honestly, any number of bootleg buyers will buy legals instead, if there is no fansubs?

Can you honestly say that, without making yourselve very drunk frist? You, someone who is suppose to know this sort of thing?

golthin

08-27-2006, 03:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means something when those trackers are moved offshore to countries (like say, Sweden or Spain, among others) where torrent trackers are legal.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is not the legality of trakers, because torrent trackers are also legal in the USA. It is the ability of a company taking a tracker down for copyright infrigement.

christianlf

08-27-2006, 03:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means something when those trackers are moved offshore to countries (like say, Sweden or Spain, among others) where torrent trackers are legal.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is not the legality of trakers, because torrent trackers are also legal in the USA. It is the ability of a company taking a tracker down for copyright infrigement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose I should have worded that more clearly. In those countries, trackers that have torrents of copyrighted material are still legal. I *believe* the rationale is that they are not hosting the material, rather that they are hosting torrent files. There is one very famous example I could give, but it'd be against forum rules.

golthin

08-27-2006, 03:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means something when those trackers are moved offshore to countries (like say, Sweden or Spain, among others) where torrent trackers are legal.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is not the legality of trakers, because torrent trackers are also legal in the USA. It is the ability of a company taking a tracker down for copyright infrigement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose I should have worded that more clearly. In those countries, trackers that have torrents of copyrighted material are still legal. I *believe* the rationale is that they are not hosting the material, rather that they are hosting torrent files. There is one very famous example I could give, but it'd be against forum rules.

[/ QUOTE ]I knew what you meant, I was just adding to your comment. I was one of the people that also mentioned how easy it is for a group to continue distributing their fansubs by just hosting them in an "Offshore" tracker where the Anime company could hardly do anything to stop them. Even Russians are doing anime now days.

christianlf

08-27-2006, 03:47 PM

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
[ QUOTE ]
Christian said:
[ QUOTE ]
Chris Beveridge said:
And since most companies, not all, gain international distribution rights to titles, "offshore" doesn't mean jack anymore. When you have companies like Geneon and ADV getting Worldwide outside of Asia rights, then offshore doesn't factor into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It means something when those trackers are moved offshore to countries (like say, Sweden or Spain, among others) where torrent trackers are legal.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is not the legality of trakers, because torrent trackers are also legal in the USA. It is the ability of a company taking a tracker down for copyright infrigement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose I should have worded that more clearly. In those countries, trackers that have torrents of copyrighted material are still legal. I *believe* the rationale is that they are not hosting the material, rather that they are hosting torrent files. There is one very famous example I could give, but it'd be against forum rules.

[/ QUOTE ]I knew what you meant, I was just adding to your comment. I was one of the people that also mentioned how easy it is for a group to continue distributing their fansubs by just hosting them in an "Offshore" tracker where the Anime company could hardly do anything to stop them. Even Russians are doing anime now days.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gotcha. I wasn't sure, so I figured I'd expound on my (admittedly poorly worded) post. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Daniel_Perales

08-27-2006, 03:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
[ QUOTE ]
Either way, there's no need to go to the store and buy bootleg anime videos anymore, now that I can download them right to my home computer, and you can be very sure that there's a million other people out there that are thinking the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose then, that the bootleg companies are going bankrupt right now?

They are earning millions. They are not losing money to the fansubs.
If you want to believe fansubs are taking more business than bootlegs, you are deluding yourself. Bootlegs takes away PAYING customers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who's deluding who? Let's get straight to the point: Bootlegger's can NOT compete with free fansub downloads. But who cares? Bootleggers will just find another thing that they can sell.

[ QUOTE ]

Most importantly, they are selling, because they are still being made. And people DO buy them instead of downloading.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably selling to people who still don't have broadband.

[ QUOTE ]

Shops don't stock what they can't sell.

[/ QUOTE ]

True enough, which might be the reason why a lot of stores are carrying less and less legitimate anime because people are buying less of them.

[ QUOTE ]

Try going to China Town once in a while. Have a real look at what is going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do,(and why does it has to be China Town, anyway?), but I'm not there to buy bootlegs and grey market goods.

[ QUOTE ]

It's not that the Japanese are not going to license stuff, it's the companies outside of Japan who will not even bother to get the licenses, because it's not going to be a worthwhile investment for them.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's good. The reason so much bad anime was made recently was because US companies licensed too many of them regardless of quality in the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

When it comes to quality, that's just a personal opinion. But even so, if you think that the quality of anime is sub-par, then explain to me why is it that buying bootlegs/downloads of anime has risen from these past few years?

I remember a time when the fans were shouting at the US companies that they weren't licensing enough anime. Now you're saying that they've licensed too much.

[ QUOTE ]

Now that insane licensing slows down, Japanese companies might stop mass producing generic shows; most of those shows would not have been made if not out of greed for Western money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or, they could just stop producing shows, period. Since NOBODY is going to work for free.

Danny

kaiyouske

08-27-2006, 06:46 PM

Ok, question. Would it be 'legal' to watch an upload of a Japanese TIVO'd episode of anime that was not subbed, with all commercials intact?

cheezisgoooood

08-27-2006, 06:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
Ok, question. Would it be 'legal' to watch an upload of a Japanese TIVO'd episode of anime that was not subbed, with all commercials intact?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you didn't pay for the cable provider that hosted the channel which broadcast the episode, I'm pretty sure it's still illegal.

FigNewton

08-27-2006, 07:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:

Probably selling to people who still don't have broadband.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or perhaps detest the idea of watching on a computer? I mean, you and I know that you can output from a computer to a TV, and yeah there are ways to burn fansubs to DVD to play them, but for the vast majority of people, that's all way too much hassle, or too foreign of an idea. They don't wanna sit at their desks, they wanna sit on their couches and watch on their TV.

I know one individual who actually stopped DLing anime after he discovered bootlegs. He was buying so much in bootleg DVD that they took up as much viewing time that he had, and preferred it by far to watching on his computer.

But again, that's just an anecdote. I'm just illustrating the draw that boots have for some over fansubs.

[ QUOTE ]

I remember a time when the fans were shouting at the US companies that they weren't licensing enough anime. Now you're saying that they've licensed too much.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't EVER remember that being a problem. At least, not any time in recent memory. Maybe 10 years ago or so. It's been a long time since that was the case. Perhaps the complaints were that companies weren't licensing the right anime, but you will ALWAYS have fans begging for certain shows that have not been licensed yet (and for the antis in the audience, they aren't begging for them just based off of pretty pictures in magazines).

But yeah, I can't remember fans saying, "The US industry isn't licensing enough anime, they aren't producing enough for me to buy." Most fans who DO buy anime DVDs pretty much buy what they can as it is. I've heard plenty say they were licensing too much in an inflated economy though...

kaiyouske

08-27-2006, 07:25 PM

So if it's non-cable, it's perfectly 'legal' then right?

Daniel_Perales

08-27-2006, 07:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
Ok, question. Would it be 'legal' to watch an upload of a Japanese TIVO'd episode of anime that was not subbed, with all commercials intact?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would think not, because that would be considered a "rebroadcast", and you can't do that without the permision of the rights-holder of the program.

TIVO, like other home video recording devices, are only alowed to be viewed for home only, not to take it and redistribute to others.

Danny

kaiyouske

08-27-2006, 07:33 PM

What if you borrow the show from like a friend or something. Just people that you know?

Daniel_Perales

08-27-2006, 07:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
kaiyouske said:
So if it's non-cable, it's perfectly 'legal' then right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if you recorded it at the time of broadcast, and then view it in your own home.

Danny

kaiyouske

08-27-2006, 07:50 PM

Ok, that means 90% of the people around my neighborhood and workplace are criminals.... /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

something

08-27-2006, 08:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
I remember a time when the fans were shouting at the US companies that they weren't licensing enough anime. Now you're saying that they've licensed too much.

[/ QUOTE ]
Economically, they are licensing too much. Maybe not so much now as a little while ago, but it's still a lot of shows all competing with each other and not selling enough.

That doesn't mean I want to see less licenses though. There are still soooo many unlicensed shows I want. So it's a balance between me wanting pretty much everything licensed, and rhe economic realities that say "hello, oversaturation!"

Vallen Valiant

08-27-2006, 09:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Who's deluding who? Let's get straight to the point: Bootlegger's can NOT compete with free fansub downloads. But who cares? Bootleggers will just find another thing that they can sell.

[/ QUOTE ]
Seriously, you are just making things up now.

It's ironic, actually; in order to prove fansub is hurting legit anime dvd sales, you need to deny bootleg dvd sales even EXISTS. After all, they both cost money, and should not compete well against free products.

Bootleg DVDs sell like hotcakes, taking away money of honest fans who wanted to buy licensed series. And yet this facet of lost revenue is considered minor, purely because admitting the existence of a rampant bootleg market would mean giving up the idea that ALL DVD sales are suffering because of fansubs.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Daniel_Perales

08-28-2006, 02:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Vallen Chaos Valiant said:
[ QUOTE ]
Who's deluding who? Let's get straight to the point: Bootlegger's can NOT compete with free fansub downloads. But who cares? Bootleggers will just find another thing that they can sell.

[/ QUOTE ]
Seriously, you are just making things up now.

It's ironic, actually; in order to prove fansub is hurting legit anime dvd sales, you need to deny bootleg dvd sales even EXISTS. After all, they both cost money, and should not compete well against free products.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never denied the existence of bootlegs sale, so stop putting words in my mouth.

[ QUOTE ]

Bootleg DVDs sell like hotcakes, taking away money of honest fans who wanted to buy licensed series.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honest fans? There are a lot of fans out there that knows very well that they're buying bootlegs, just for the sole reason that it's cheaper, and/or it's more convenient than downloading.

[ QUOTE ]

And yet this facet of lost revenue is considered minor, purely because admitting the existence of a rampant bootleg market would mean giving up the idea that ALL DVD sales are suffering because of fansubs.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got news for you: Fansubs is another form of bootlegs, only the method of distribution is what sets them, apart.

Like I've said before, companies used to let fansubs slide because their distribution were very limited (probably only by the hundreds at most), so it didn't really hurt their bottom line. Now you have these fansubs that are available to tens of millions of people to download. That got to hurt.

[ QUOTE ]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[/ QUOTE ]

You and me, both. /images/graemlins/icon_rolleyes.gif

Danny

something

08-28-2006, 03:34 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
Honest fans? There are a lot of fans out there that knows very well that they're buying bootlegs, just for the sole reason that it's cheaper, and/or it's more convenient than downloading.

[/ QUOTE ]
How does that invalidate his point? Or did you just not see what he was getting at? He's saying that someone who DOES want to put the money out can get fooled by a boot, thus making it very much a lost sale in the most concrete sense of the term. A sense that can't apply so clearly to fansubs.

Daniel_Perales

08-28-2006, 05:35 AM

[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
Honest fans? There are a lot of fans out there that knows very well that they're buying bootlegs, just for the sole reason that it's cheaper, and/or it's more convenient than downloading.

[/ QUOTE ]
How does that invalidate his point? Or did you just not see what he was getting at? He's saying that someone who DOES want to put the money out can get fooled by a boot, thus making it very much a lost sale in the most concrete sense of the term.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I'm making a point that not everyone is as naive as that. Of course, people can buy bootlegs by accident, but explain why some of the same people keep doing it, after the fact?

[ QUOTE ]

A sense that can't apply so clearly to fansubs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course. People are doing that, deliberately. People don't download fansubs by accident. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

Danny

Vallen Valiant

08-28-2006, 07:16 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
[ QUOTE ]
disarm said:
[ QUOTE ]
Daniel Perales said:
Honest fans? There are a lot of fans out there that knows very well that they're buying bootlegs, just for the sole reason that it's cheaper, and/or it's more convenient than downloading.

[/ QUOTE ]
How does that invalidate his point? Or did you just not see what he was getting at? He's saying that someone who DOES want to put the money out can get fooled by a boot, thus making it very much a lost sale in the most concrete sense of the term.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I'm making a point that not everyone is as naive as that. Of course, people can buy bootlegs by accident, but explain why some of the same people keep doing it, after the fact?

[/ QUOTE ]

How about, they never realised that what they have is bootleg? You seem to know next to nothing about the bread-and-butter casual anime audience, who don't go on forums and discuss the latest and best things daily.

As far as they are concerned, they spent money on cheaper imports. Especially if they wanted to buy SSS when it comes out, and to their joy and surprise located a shop that had the "DVD" in stock 1 month after the show aired in Japan.

The "DVD" might have fansub translations, but more likely it will be in crappy Engrish and character names translated from Japanese to Chinese to English. The video quality will be crap, and the sound is jumpy.

But hey, if it's on the shelf, it must be legal, right? They were sure that if these things are illegal, the legit companies should be having crackdowns by now. These DVDs are not even hidden in the back room, but are proudly displayed.

The customer gave twenty bucks to the cashier and walked out with the SSS DVD. And he will return to that shop again and again, with no intent to break any laws.