Yes, defence. It’s British spelling, okay? Deal with it.
It seems like Bandai has been getting a lot of, to misuse tj han’s term, “negative energy” recently for the whole Solid State Society fiasco. Some people see my latest rant on the Long Tail phenomenon as an indirect attack on Bandai.
The truth is, as hypocrite as this may sound considering my rant on the Wind incident, I support Bandai in its business decision to protect its profits. Bandai exists not to spread the love for anime but to make money. Popularizing anime is one of the ways through which Bandai can make money but the difference between an end and a mean to an end must be made clear.
It does not serve Bandai’s purpose as a company responsible to its investors to continue to turn a blind eye on fansubbers, especially for its most popular franchises.
It’s illegal. GASP!
First thing first, fansubs are illegal. There is no possible defence. Most of the world belongs to the Berne Convention that establishes the shared international laws of copyright. All rights of all works of any value, monetary or otherwise, belong to their creators unless the creator explicitly releases it to public domain or a set time period has elapsed since the creator’s death.
These rights include the right to translate the work, the right to distribute the work and the right to make derivative works based on it. Fair Use is a clause to grants very limited rights to people to use very limited portions of a copyrighted material for special purposes such as education. You can quote a line from a novel in your school essay without seeking permission from the author. You can watch a DVD with your friends without buying a copy for every one of them. If you translate a movie for your friends and families, then it can probably be considered Fair Use. But once you start distributing the translation online in great numbers, good luck trying to convince the judge/jury (depending on your country).
Fansubbing has nothing to do with Fair Use. Fansubbing is illegal in all countries except certain African states and Pacific islands that you are most likely not living in if you are reading this entry. There is no “grey” area with regards to copyright laws and fansubbing.
That said…
However, fansubbing does have (or did have, if you ask certain experts on the subject) a very special difference from bootlegging and piracy in general.
Fansubs are created for people who fall outside the target audience. As mentioned in my arguments on Wind, fansubs serve to create new markets where there were none. This should always be the main purpose of fansubbing: to induce more fans into the hobby.
The purpose of fansubbing was never to let you “try before you buy” or get things for free if you don’t think they deserve your money. When you think that way, you are basically admitting the fact that those things are available in your local market and they are being sold with you as the target audience. That means that fansubbing, by that stage, has already lost its original meaning: to give us access to shows that have excluded us from their target audience. Because now we ARE the target audience and yet we choose to download pirated copies citing the same reasons that I have heard a million times before in the warez scene long before digital fansubbing took off in the Love Hina era.
It’s more convenient for us to download a fansub than to buy a physical DVD, I agree. That is a limitation of traditional distribution that has to be re-examined by the industry soon. But that does not grant us the god-given right to download and watch fansubs faster than the companies can bring them over to the English-speaking world.
The state of fansubbing
The truth is that fansubbing in America today plays a terribly minute role in promoting new anime series. It probably does a better job at promoting piracy.
Unlike the underground anime fandom of the last century and the ren’ai game community of now, anime has already achieved the amount of success needed to guarantee its continued survival and growth in North America. Fansubbing will occasionally create success stories of an obscure anime title being brought to fame by the internet, but that’s simply insignificant when you compare it to the market that Bandai, ADV and Geneon are enjoying right now. They don’t NEED fansubs.
Pulling statistics out of my ass (actually I think I read this somewhere before), only a very tiny portion of American fans was introduced to anime by fansubs. The anime on TV, the HUUUUUUUUGE variety of anime DVDs and manga you get in stores and the various major anime conventions held in America, those things do a LOT MORE to help promote anime than fansubs are doing now. Clearly, fansubs, at least for the anime market, are losing their original purpose of promoting anime. Without that purpose, fansubs are no different from bootlegs of Hollywood movies.
And indeed, Ghost in the Shell, along with most of Bandai’s portfolio, DO NOT need fansubs. Bandai is well-established in North America and Ghost in the Shell is already very popular there due to the previous titles in the franchise. The very same titles that you can just waltz into a store and purchase, i.e. they are marketed at you! GASP!
Bandai doesn’t need fansubs!
What can Bandai hope to ever gain if it allows fansubs for a series that was created with the obvious intention of being brought over to North America? NOTHING! So what if it appeased a few “fans” who absolutely must watch the series within two days of its Japanese release? There’s no guarantee that the fansubs will reach a bigger North American audience than what the series is already reaching. The only guarantee is that there is now a free and easily-available bootleg copy of the series before it has even been released in the North American market.
If you want to “try before you buy”? Go watch it on cable TV! I bet it’ll be there. You Americans have it all so good but yet you demand for more. There are anime that were created with YOU in mind. Just look for those sponsored by Geneon.
“I want my anime now!” Well it’s not YOURS, it’s BANDAI’S. Shut the fuck up and wait for it.
If you plan to download Solid State Society like I will be doing, please at least admit that you are a pirate. I download pirated games and movies all the time too. But it just sounds terribly silly if you start calling foul when the company tells you to stop pirating. :) Stop pretending to be fighting the good fight, it’s not the 1990s any more.
Repeat after me:
We are just selfish bastards who want to watch anime for free and we have no right to whine if Bandai chooses to do something about it.
We are just selfish bastards who want to watch anime for free and we have no right to whine if Bandai chooses to do something about it.
We are just selfish bastards who want to watch anime for free and we have no right to whine if Bandai chooses to do something about it.
In conclusion
There is a huge difference between fansubbing an obscure eroge-based anime that would never have had a 1/100000 chance of being released for the North American market and fansubbing a series that is pre-licensed and obviously made with the North American market in mind.
Doing the former produces the occasional success stories like KimiNozo (aka Rumbling Hearts).
Doing the latter pisses off the hand that feeds you.
Just some thoughts from a disillusioned ex-fansubber.
Hi, your first statement was in British English but the rest were all spelled American. Hurray for consistency!
Other than that, well done on a good article. Just look at Eureka seveN for a good example. After it showed on Adult Swim, the demand for the torrents shot up immensely. It wasn’t that popular before the American TV Showing.
But still, one area is the non-American market. Some dudes do not get to buy original even if they wanted to.
Well I’m not sure what you mean by American spelling unless you refer to the typos. Americans must spell worse than I thought then. D:
DO WHAT YOU WANT ‘COS A PIRATE IS FREE. YOU ARE A PIRATE.
YA HAR FIDDLE DEE DEE. BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT TO BE. DO WHAT YOU WANT ‘COS A PIRATE IS FREE. YOU ARE A PIRATE.
Yeah I’m a pirate. But there’s a certain amount of money I can spend. You have to really impress me to make me buy your original R2s. Let’s see, the only original R2s I’ve bought are… First Press FF7:AC(J), Normal Edition FF7:AC(J), LE version FF7:AC(ENG), normal version FF7:ac(ENG), First press FF7:AC UMD(J+ENG). VCDs are next. I even collect the pirated versions, the bootleg versions and the download versions.
Otherwise, I’ll settle with manga and figurines. Wish I was in Japan. I’d just digitize all the shows. Don’t even need downloading.
So, from what I understand, fansubs are like advertisements on TV, newspapers, and other forms of media, expect without profit and no obligation?
Therefore, I state this publicly:
I am a pirate.
Nothing more, nothing less. That’s all about it. No need to justify.
I’m sure someone will release Solid State Society (even as a Hi-Q RAW) and I’m damn sure I’ll d/l it.
Yay. xD
I’m just saying that as pirates we have no right to whine about Bandai’s decision. That is all. I’m not trying to judge since I am one myself.
I’m a big big big pirate …
Even as much as I want … its so damn hard to find DVDs that are only subbed minus the dub …. cause I dun wanna spend 60 bucks on 2 episodes that has stupid shitty dubs that I dun even wanna listen to … (referernce to ADV *cough*cough*)
As much as odex is concerned … if they released DVD instead of lousy VCDs and in a much faster pace … I would definately buy them
I wont pay a cent for DVDs but I’ll blow money on figures. Am I a pirate?
Actually, it’s defense. Defence is the noun.
Eleutheria, you are thinking practice and practise.
Defense is not a word in British English.
Defence is a variation of Defense, or vice versa, yes.
Only bone I have to pick with the poignant essay is its internal inconsistency. Not just in the spelling of things, mind you, but a little bit of topical consistency like, wth is fansub useful for? It’s still useful right? And While I totally agree that Bandai and others don’t need fansubs, it’s still useful.
Well perhaps I didn’t make my points distinctive enough because I was just writing out my sleep-deprived messy train of thought.
Basically, if a series was made with a foreign audience in mind, then fansubbing it would be no different from piracy. And as pirates, we shouldn’t be the ones whining when the shit hits the fan, i.e. a company tells us to stop.
That is the gist of it I guess.
You made some very good points especially the lessened influence of fansubs over time. Every issue of Newtype USA now comes with 2-3 sample episodes per issue. DVD reviews are readily available from many websites like AnimeOnDVD.com so if someone sees an ad for an anime and doesn’t really know what it’s about, they can do a little research themselves without having to download fansubs.
omo: There was an article in the NY Times a few weeks ago about people in China subtitling American TV shows that have no chance of being seen on Chinese television stations. These fans of shows like “Desperate Housewives” takethe English raw and slap on Chinese subtitles and I would call those fansubs just as I would call English-language (or any other language) subtitles put on top on Japanese TV raws.
Fansubs are still useful to allow people in territories where they may not be able to see relatively obscure series to experience them. However, if it is readily available in your particular territory, you should try to purchase the discs.
Finally, I will admit that I do download TV shows and my half-assed justification is this: if I’m already getting the over-the-air signal from NBC/CBS/FOX for free, I should be able to download a copy of an episode I missed because of scheduling conflicts or forgetting to record it. I am not going to wait for the entire season to come out five months later on DVD just to see a couple missed episodes. Basic cable and HBO/Showtime are different because those are paid services and downloading shows airing on those channels would constitute piracy. I still do it for 1-2 shows, though, because cable is costly and I view American television as a disposal medium much like radio.
This sucks.. I live in South Africa, and while I can import stuff from America it costs a fortune!
Nevermind the insane internet prices and slow speeds – I’m screwed both ways!
Most of my anime are fansubs, but I do have a few series on region 1 DVD, imported as mentioned.. from the US of A.
Bleg.
When I can get recent episodes of the shows I like online for a reasonable price or on television (sorry, Eureka 7, you don’t count) I’ll buy them or watch them with the advertisements. I got a pirated copy of each of the first season Battlestar Galactica episodes that I missed. When the second season came around, anything I missed was available online for a reasonable price (USD0.99 for an hour-long episode), and I bought anything I needed to catch up on.
Disney-ABC’s television branch has found that making shows available free online (with advertising built in) is a successful model for fans to get their content and the company to make its revenue. Right now Bandai doesn’t need fansubbers, but they could benefit from legitimate digital distribution.
>>Actually, it’s defense. Defence is the noun.
I’m American, and thus don’t know when or whether to use “defence” or “defense” in British English, but when used in “In Defence of Bandai,” “defence” *is* a noun.
That said, I’m technically a pirate, I’ll admit. I’ve got several series of fansubs on my computer that have been licensed (see, American) for NA release. That said, I fully intend to purchase the DVDs for all those series when available (if they aren’t already), with the exception of Samurai Champloo, which is just too damn expensive right now. (I’ll be waiting for the Thinpak boxset of that one) I also have a number of series that have not been licensed yet but probably will (ie: SHnY), which I also plan on buying when they arrive, and some that likely never will be licensed (Ouran Host Club, for example) that I like, but probably not enough to buy DVDs for.
For titles that will be or are domestically licensed, I look at it as, if it’s not worth me spending money on, it’s not worth me spending the time to download or watch. The licensors spend good money on these titles, and whether or not someone likes, for instance, the English dub, someone at Bandai, or Geneon, or FUNi, or even ADV, worked hard to get it out to the public in a language it didn’t originally come in (and which you don’t have to listen to if you don’t like it), or to make the DVD menus, or to design the packaging, so they ought to get paid back, if you’re going to watch the show.
As for GitS:SSS, I fully intend to watch it on [adult swim] whenever it comes on (probably very shortly after its Japanese broadcast end, as things look), and burn it to my hard drive for my own use using my TV tuner card. (Ghost in the Shell DVDs are too expensive, too) I can wait, and either spoil myself beforehand reading the blogs that will be covering the RAWs, or exercise some restraint and avoid the reviews, and hopefully be as pleasantly surprised and entertained by SSS as I was by 2nd Gig and SAC.
I think you underestimate the usefulness of fansubs.
In my case without fansubs I would not buy DVDs, of which I have a couple hundred now.
Anime is not nearly as available in Canada as it is stateside. Its not like we don’t have ANY anime, but it seems like we only have a small portion of what you get in the states. On the last couple of trips I made into the states I noticed stores generally carried anywhere between 2 and 10x or more what I could purchase here. I honestly have a better selection of DVDs at home than my local shops do.
Its the same way on TV, only a couple stations show it (YTV and Teletoon) and they aim it squarely at children. No Adult Swim type shows here.
If not for fansubs I probably would only have seen a handful of Anime movies, if that. Instead I have watched hundreds of shows, and bought hundreds of DVDs over the years, and will continue to do so.
As I said, fansub has its uses, but Ghost in the Shell doesn’t need them.
Fansubbers seem to be getting the wrong idea that companies NEED them to help popularize a series.
Some companies keep quiet because their shows don’t stand a chance of being licensed otherwise and that is why they tolerate fansubbing.
But Bandai doesn’t need us for GitS. Potential harm outweighs potential benefit.
It’s like if you watered my garden without my permission and expect to get something out of it. Thanks for the help, but get the fuck out of my property. It might sound ungrateful, but we are the ones who fansubbed on our own accord. The companies owe us nothing. (Well they do, but for other things)
actually, Singapore has a lot of anime, quite reasonably priced, because I believe the licensing is regional, or country-specific. There’s like this whole collection every time I walk into Comics Connection or TS. I’ve never bought one of those, though, because I’m really not sure about the quality of the translation. Having bought locally-translated (and fully legal) manga from Chuang Yi makes me very leery of local production standards.
Does anyone have any opinion on the quality of such anime?
Well, I understand that. That’s why I don’t whine about Bandai.
But I must confess that when reding that announcement, a chill ran down my spine, and it said “Maybe no fansubbers wil do it! >
However, one must consider the likely results of Bandai’s actions – people will still pirate the show, and now they have weakened their image in the eyes of some of their hard-core supporters. It doesen’t even matter if said supporters do not pirate the show; their announcement aligns them with the likes of the RIAA and MPAA, and this will help push the collective mental image of Bandai from “content creator” towards “money grabber.”
Weakening the image of your company in the eyes of your most fervent fans is a bad idea IMO, as even if you argue that the people who would take notice aren’t the mass-market, this hard-core group is precisely the group that influences mass-market opinion though blogs and word of mouth.
In the end, I think they would have done better to use the normal tactics of adding tangible extras to the physical DVD package to encourage legal purchase (even after an illegal download, perhaps), rather than going down the “enforcement” route.
Fansubs are useful to expose certain shows (example: Simoun, H&C) which would never ever see the light of day over here. Haruhi may never have seen exposure here if not for the efforts of various fansubbers, given the material (let’s play with anime cliches), and without that, it may not have had the overseas splash it did… especially since the Japanese response to it was decidedly mixed, IIRC.
Personally, I hope that Bandai releases GITS:SAC – Solid State Society QUICKLY, and does a good job in the process. I’ve been waiting for the Official Log Volume 2 for about a year and a bit now, and they have yet to release that, even though it was promised… ages ago. :P
I have to disagree that Bandai is a money grabber, the aim of the firm is to make profits and money. They are just safeguarding their interests in this case, I have to agree that fansubs would help to expose shows but it’s not the only way to do it. There are animes that are known in America such as Cowboy Bebop and such without much assistance of fansubs to start with. We may like to portray fansubs as the only or one of the best means to propagate animes to certain markets (North America) but it’s not the only one or it’s the only good one.
Not to sound contradictory but in my opinion, fansubbing dont cut in that much into profits of the studios. Since there’s a difference between wanting to buy and able to buy. If you want to buy but yet dont possess the ability to, the studios should produce price-sensitive goods to capture this market or wait till this group of potential buyers has the power to buy it. Likewise if you want to buy, possess the ability to but choose not to because of a free alternative such as fansubbing that provide them an alternative to bypass the studios and that’s probably why Bandai have to clamp down on fansubbing so as to force their hand into buying it and regaining effective demand.
The majority of the folks out here though, are often too poor to buy the DVDs, either they are staying too far from the targeted market to have those sold in their region and there’s no local distributor to sell it at retail price and they have to opt for online shops that cost more or they are just broke.
Fansubbing is the best recourse for them, but this very avenue is used by people who are willing to buy, able to buy but choose to use this free alternative out of sheer petty greed. In the eyes of the studios, this is going against their mantra, which is to make money. Fansubbing is no longer the only method to branch out into markets anymore and the scene in America is well developed enough to progress on with or without fansubbing although whether is this a good thing, I am not sure.
Anime is different from other mediums where piracy is rampant such as music because in animes, the audience are highly communal. The communities is one of the huge driving forces in anime, different communities themselves propagates, reviews and evaluates animes and filter them out to suit their own tastes. I am referring to forums/blogs that different individuals use to disseminate their own views/preferences such as this blog. Such communities help to spread the word on animes, popularise it. Fansubbing was not and won’t be the only means of advertisment.
Yet we are all too broke to be part of the targeted consumers of the studios and we want our animes :\ This is where fansubbing comes to save us but as I said, it has lost its cloak of ambiguity and it’s nothing but piracy yet we still need it. This wave of reaction against Bandai is nothing but a knee-jerk one which seems terribly petty compared to the efforts put in by the studios who made this and rely on this on a living.
Paper, you need to put in an edit function. Too many grammar errors on my post :\
I am just a just a selfish Colombian bastard who wants to watch anime he will quite possibly never watch in his entire lifetime unless Cartagena’s temperature goes below 35ºF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartagena%2C_Colombia).
Yeah, I might just agree that you are mostly right with everything you said above, but:
– Maybe you already have an established market there on the States, but in countries like mine, there is none of that, and the possibilities of it evolving here in… let’s say, 10 years, are slim to none. Fansubs are the way to go for people like me who want to stay in touch with the new animation jewels. And I DO buy anime, say hello to my batch of R2 DVDs (just bought Elfen Lied, btw. If it weren’t because of fansubs, I still wouldn’t know about series like this one).
– If fansubs never existed, the anime blogosphere wouldn’t exist as we know it. Maybe it even wouldn’t have existed at all. If fansubbing dies, this blogosphere will wither and die. Even the whole internet fandom revolving around anime would have never been like we know it, sites like 4chan wouldn’t have existed, we would still be on mediocre internet forums talking about .
The way I see it, whatever the anime industry loses because of fansubbing, they get it back as an even wider market. If anime didn’t sell overseas, it wouldn’t be as profitable as it is right now, and maybe Japan wouldn’t be producing the sheer quantity of series that are made every year.
Errr it seems one of my points was wrongly parsed by the system. I’ll rephrase it:
“…”
Even the whole internet fandom revolving around anime would have never been like we know it, sites like 4chan wouldn’t have existed, we would still be on mediocre internet forums talking about “insert random series at least 8yo already distributed on the states”
I have a similar take on the subject. (Note: Temporary link on a beta-testing site. The permanent link will shift to here in a few days.)
Needless to say, I agree.
Crest, you’ve missed my point: I said “[Bandai’s actions will] push the collective mental image of Bandai from ‘content creator’ towards ‘money grabber.'” I’m not saying that they are money grabbing in any way, rather that public opinion will be negatively affected by their announcement. Furthermore, they have little to gain from their announcement as piracy will nevertheless occur.
As a firm, Bandai has always been milking out money :3 Just imagine all the merchandise and games that they have been making or through Banpresto. I note your point, but I dont think that public opinion of them can be any more adversely affected but that annoucement is necessary although it is futile which I agree with you.
Fervent fans are just as likely to buy their stuff irregardless of how badly they smudge their PR as long they do the games right :3. My opinion though
Stuff I mean not just games… *wants an edit function* T_T
Once again I have to stress that just like what I mentioned in my Wind article, I do not deny that fansubs helped to create the entire community and brought anime to where it is today. But it’s just not doing the same thing anymore, at least not for North America. Fansubbing has been perverted by ego.
Bandai goes after fansubbers = pirates are unhappy.
Pirates download the show anyway.
Bandai goes after fansubbers = fans rejoice
Fans buy the DVD like they would’ve done anyway.
I don’t see any reason why any group of people should be complaining. Pirates like me will still download the show. Fans will still buy the DVD. We should all be happy right?
OH WAIT! I see why people are pissed now! Now they can’t PRETEND to be doing Bandai a huge favour by downloading fansubs! There’s nothing to stop them from pirating the show anyway, but now they have lost the illusion of doing it for the good of the community and WORLD PEACE and whatever not! OH NOZ!
It’s just fansubber hypocrisy. We are supposedly doing good for Bandai by spreading the love for GitS, but Bandai itself has decided that they do not need what we are doing. Instead of respecting Bandai’s decision like the real “hardcore” fans they claim to be, self-proclaimed “fansubbers” turn against Bandai and act like they are on the side of God himself.
It pisses me off that this is what fansubbing means now. If this keeps up, we might as well just call it the anime pirating community. It is on the verge of losing that TINY bit of difference from piracy we used to have.
Nice one. Now edit that blurp into your post >D
i am a POOR selfish bastards who want to watch anime for free and I have no right to whine if Bandai chooses to do something about it and I dont care DAMM about Bandai.
I am IMMUNE from law proesecution!!!!!
Hail Internet!!!!!
Hail globalisation!!!!
hahaha
As for the person who indicated DVDs aren’t as available in Canada… I have to agree, albeit reluctantly.
Fansubs of non-licensed shows do serve an important purpose for me – they let me check something out the way a Japanese buyer of the DVDs would have; for low cost/free, and then decide if I want to buy the product. One MAJOR difference, which I’ve yet to see anyone here post about, between ourselves and the Japanese market is this: JAPANESE VIEWERS CAN SEE THEIR ANIME ON TELEVISION, THEN DECIDE WHAT THEY WANT TO BUY. We don’t get that except for licensed materials, and even then only on cable – Japanese viewers can get these on-air, so they can see Mai-Otome, the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, or weirder shows like Muteki Kanbane Musume at nights or record them on their DVRs and then figure out if they like the show enough to buy it. The North American and European markets, for the most part, don’t have that luxury.
In that situation, fansubs have their place – to let us see the thing and then decide if we want to get it. I know I’d probably never have seen Azumanga Daioh or .hack//SIGN without fansubs – and without seeing them that way, I’d never have bought the boxed sets. However, the Bandai situation is different here; GiTS:SAC Solid State Society is meant to be a Pay-Per-View event ONLY from its inception. Unlike GITS:SAC (pre-licensing) or most of the other shows I’ve named, it was never freely available on the airwaves; you had to get it PPV, and Bandai intended to sell it that way from the very start. In this case, Bandai’s definitely milking this cash cow for all she’s worth… and thus the announcement they’re going after fansubbers who take it on, because the show itself was being sold from the very beginning, with no legitimate avenue for ‘free distribution’ (which at least encoding from a TV broadcast gives you, in theory).
That being said, I may not be buying the next GITS:SAC series – I’ll probably end up renting the DVDs when they come out, and then make my decision at that point. With fansubs, at least I could pretend I was like my Japanese anime-viewing counterparts, being able to see the shows aired without being forced to buy the disk first before deciding I liked it.
Well, I had a nice long post here about fansubs, but the site ate it.
Short form = viewers in Japan get a choice to see the shows (without piracy) before they buy them, without having to rent DVDs or subscribe to cable. After all, they’re showed on the air on broadcast TV. Viewers outside Japan don’t get that choice.
Bandai is selling Solid State Society, unlike their other shows, by making it a Pay-Per-View event. Therefore, there’s no ‘free period’ for anyone trying to watch this show, unlike most other shows where the RAW encode came from over-the-air broadcasts. Therefore, they’re milking it for all their worth.
That being said, I’ll probably not be buying the next GITS:SAC show, after Solid State Society. If anything, I’ll be renting it first, since I won’t be able to see it to see if it’s any good before I plunk down any money for it.. so will try to plunk down as little money as possible and just watch the first two volumes and see if anyone cares to blog the DVDs or something.
You forgot one point: GITS:SAC and the other shows before and after it, with the exception of Solid State Society, were aired on broadcast TV. This is a Pay-Per-View, which means that they intended to sell it from the very beginning, and if you don’t pay… you don’t see.
You forgot one point: GITS:SAC and the other shows before and after it, with the exception of Solid State Society, were aired on broadcast TV. This is a Pay-Per-View, which means that they intended to sell it from the very beginning, and if you don’t pay… you don’t see. That’s the main reason they’re targeting fansubs of Solid State Society – they’re selling the product, which means that it’s more in line with fansubbing a DVD rip than doing a broadcast TV encode. Aka ‘blatant piracy’.
One advantage Japanese viewers usually have on non-Japanese anime viewers is that they can USUALLY see these shows on-air, for free, before deciding to buy them. Most of us dont’ get that opportunity… which is why either you have cable, rent whatever DVDs they have of licensed shows… or go the fansub route.
In this situation, it’s pretty cut and dried though – if they’re selling the product right away and you fansub it, it’s pretty blatantly theft. That being said, I’ll probably be buying the DVD when it hits, but I may not watch the next SAC series right away, since it probably wont’ be available for about… oh, two, maybe three years before all the DVDs are out. :D
Anyone else getting their comments killed by SpamKarma? Remember one thing – this is a Pay-Per-View, which means Bandai never aired it for ‘free’ anywhere… so it’s more like a DVD-rip (blatant piracy) than anything.
Now to edit all that junk into one long post. Spam, spam, spam. :D
I read “blahblahblah.” Yeah, we know bandai is just defending their property. We don’t need a useless essay on it by some random guy who thinks he’s an expert in the field.
What a brave, brave man you are, hiding behind the ‘Anonymous’ tag, Anon. :D
Now this, boys and girls, is called ‘trolling’ – DM’s next blog entry, however, is called ranting. Slight difference.
I’m not hiding, really…
I just don’t see a point to posting with the normal nick I use, other than making it seem like “LOL, LOOK AT ME I AM A KNOWN FANSUBBER AND THUS MY WORDS HAVE MORE IMPORTANCE. LOOK AT MY E-PENIS… IT’S BIG, ISN’T IT!? :P~~~~~”
Besides, I’ve been hanging out at too many anonymous sites, so I’m just used to it. Hell, I’ve used random/no nicknames on about 5 of the last 8 or so fansub projects I’ve worked on. And I was anonymous for every manga I’ve ever translated. Since I’m doing it for fun/because I’m a fan, I don’t really see a need for credit. It just makes it more likely that my original intent will get diluted.
I think that Bandai has made a huge mistake in not providing quality subs on the GITS:SAC DVDs. I shouldn’t use it as an excuse I understand that, but I really did lose inerest in and then stop buying the DVDs after I saw the first few and realized the quality of the subs was not up to the standard of the fansubs. I think that if they were to hire some of the better fansub creators and begin distributing via itunes or some similar service they would expand their market greatly.
I agree with you in the most part, but since not all anime will be licensed the fansubs are sometimes the only way we would be able to watch a show, in my case, most of the Leiji Matsumoto old school shows, GE999, Captain Harlock, etc, none of the american anime companies would touch those shows with a ten foot stick, because they are old, very long and I’m sure quite expensive to license, so fansubs becomes my only chance to watch them in their original languange ;_;
btw, I just got here, and it rocks ! \m/>.
Well, I’m not saying that fansubbing serves no purpose, but it just that it’s up to the copyright holders to decide if that purpose still exists and if it is significant enough. The companies don’t owe fansubbers.
Hi, i’m french and here anime DVDs are very expensive, too expensive: a Stand Alone Complex DVD contains only 4 episodes, few bonuses (trailers aren’t bonuses, they’re ads) and cost about 20€ (about 26 US$). Often french anime DVD only offers the french voices (with ugly dub) ands no subs. When you find a DVD with japanese AND french voices you can pay twice the price of a single track edition. That’s not a problem for me cos’ i prefer the original voices with subs.
About subs: some fansubs team do a great work: try to download a Zeu$ team fansubbed episode of ‘Saint Seya Hades sanctuary episodes’ and you will see a great sub-art: karaoke songs sub, animated subs on the attacks scenes, a color and typo per character. When you taste luxury, it’s hard to get (when it’s edited : the Hades episodes are still not edited in france, but they are licensied for a while) a poor white pixelized sub.
So i’m pirate cos i download and watch animed series witch are licensied, but not edited in my country. I agree, i can buy DVD, but i do so only when a season don’t cost 140€ as stand alone complex (7DVD 20€ each)
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I agree that they don’t need fansubs, but they still are useful for things like Solid State Society that aren’t in proper English yet. I’ll download the movie, but as soon as it comes out, I’m buying the English DVD because Solid State society is such a good movie. =D
Well, if not for fansubs, i wouldn’t have spent money on gundam models and anime goods as much. Call it advertisement. Its supposed to be free on TV but cost a bomb on DVD. i’ll pay for anime goods but not the episodes, its just too costly.
I am a pirate V