Forum - View topicCan you be prosecuted for downloading fansubs?
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Nerv1
 Posts: 601 |
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After just going on Yahoo and reading about this:
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/amplifier/148/minnesota-mom-hit-with-15-million-fine-for-downloading-24-songs/ I started to wonder if this applies to fansubs as well(for both licensed and unlicensed anime). While I do support the anime industry in the US and thus have a somewhat decent amount of anime on disc based media, I also admit to the fact that I download fansubs to watch anime simply because I do not want spend hundreds of dollars on shows that I'll probably watch once if I get bored or have nothing to do. But I was wondering just how severe is the punishment if someone is caught downloading fansubs? Does this only apply to licensed shows here in the US by companies such as Bandai or does it also apply to unlicensed shows such as Macross Frontier or even Legend of the Galactic Heroes as well? *I may be wrong about this, but I heard somewhere that it is harder to get in trouble with the law from downloading anime since or if you're not living in Japan due to the fact that it is a foreign show and not domestically produced one. I also heard somewhere that downloading fansubs can only be considered legal if you in fact own the licensed and legit release of the show, but only downloaded the fansub as a digital copy. Is this true? |
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Mister V
 Posts: 1000 |
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Anything translated and distributed without the permission of the author constitutes an infringement, basically. The question is, do they want to spend time pursuing you in court? The RIAA obviously does. Anime studios don't seem to give a damn. And they would most likely be pursuing original distributors anyway.
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Scormio
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Yes, but you never will be.
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Nerv1
Posts: 601 |
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So basically you're saying that you can really only be screwed over if you're the original uploader ( ie the fansubber) for instance? |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Legally yes you can be brought up on charges if the patent holder chooses to exercise their copyright and make an example of you. You can even be charaged with copyright infringement for the unauthorized use of images such as all of our avatars. Statistically, you are more likely to be prosecuted by domestic license holders rather than foreign Japanese companies which leads a lot of people to steer clear of works licensed in their region and only download unlicensed series.
Does it happen very often? No, nobody cares about enforcing it unless you're arrested and they search your PC for some reason and find hundreds of gigs of the stuff lying around, because that takes companies with a lot of money and the anime industry is not a rich one. Besides if they started going after anime downloaders they'd probably alienate a lot of their customers/fans and they don't need the bad press because it's difficult enough to sell a niche product as it is. Downloading is becoming less and less necessary nowadays though anyway with the fact that most things are being streamed legally for free out there. Personally, I'd love to reach the point where every show I want to see is picked up and simulcasted so I don't have to download anything but we still aren't there yet. Last edited by Kruszer on Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:06 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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larinon
 Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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I think the more significant component to that judgment is that she not only downloaded the songs but then shared them as well. If you're using Kazaa (still?) or Bit Torrent or similar, then as you're downloading files you're uploading the completed parts that you have to other people as well. The uploading is what people have been brought charges against for in these cases. Unlike music, I don't think anime in the US is quite to that point yet, though as we've read there have been arrests made in Japan.
/irc ftw |
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wanderlustking
 Posts: 449 Location: Bozeman, Montana |
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Those who payed attention to The Pirate Bay trials might be familiar with the company Web Sheriff. Basically, media companies pay companies like Web Sheriff to track down copyright violators, so they don't have to.
A few years ago, an American company not unlike Web Sheriff attempted, and failed to drag my ass in front of a judge. My alleged crimes included owning illegal digital copies of several Miyazaki films, Darker Than Black, Beauty and the Beast, and The Matrix; all of which I also owned legally. The funny thing was, when they sent their first couple of letters, they were expecting me to be a dorky kid with very little disposable income; someone who would quickly settle out of court. As soon as it became apparent to them just who they were dealing with (a Gunnery Sergeant of Marines, and a very competent attorney) they dropped the matter, and I haven't been bothered again. Interestingly, the Company was acting on behalf of Disney, ADV, Genion, and WB. I'm pretty sure they only targeted me because of my uploading, as I am a very generous seeder. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15596 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I seem to remember that useing torrents can get you in trouble, it technicly counts as sharing and thus aidin piracy and you can be pretty easy to track. As for me, I try to steer clear of downloading and stick only to streaming. But yes technicly you are breaking the law.
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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Technically yes, you can be prosecuted for fan subs, or illegal copies, or torrents, or anything else like that. But at the end of the day these anime companies don't have the time, money, or resources to track us down and press charges. It's really just smarter to let it be for the time being and hope that people are smart enough to trying buying dvds from time to time.
I feel really bad for the companies in these cases. On the one hand it's in their best interest to stop the fansubs and keep control over their product. Though on the other hand the anime fanbase is a small community and word gets around fast, if they shut down groups and start prosecuting fans then they look like the "big bad evil company". In the end I think they just take the simpler way out. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Theoretically speaking, you could be prosecuted or more likely sued for downloading fansubs.
In reality though, you won't be. Music is at least a little different. The RIAA are a bunch of giant glistening cocks. They'll hunt down a few random people and completely fu.ck them over by suing them for a fortune for downloading a couple songs which is apparently allowed in our ass backwards court system. It's basically just a scare tactic. One person in a million is actually caught but there is at least a tiny outside chance it might be you. With anime though, I don't think there's even anyone trying to get people for that. The thing is, the government largely turns a blind eye to piracy and if they do do anything, it's going to be focused on shutting down the people putting the stuff out there initially and it's going to be big US products like Hollywood movies and music. So that really only leaves it to the companies themselves to try and sue people which they really do not have the time or money to do. It's probably not even worth it and they know it. So no. I'm fairly sure the chances of being sued for pirating anime are literally zero. There might be the odd exception but otherwise it just doesn't happen. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5187 |
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@Nerv1:
Two thoughts:
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poilk92
 Posts: 433 Location: Long Beach California |
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Like most people say technically yes. But the music industry is really the only one that bothers hunting people down. They basically pick a random IP and fine the insane amounts of money to scare people. There has never been a big fansub crack down and I seriously doubt there will be. That being said some of the distributors out there are getting smart, they cannot afford to take everyone to court so they send everyone a threatening letter and saying pay $500 dollars or we will take you to court for 5 million (and of course everyone pays the 500, not wanting to be the one schmuck who gets taken to court). Something like this would be more likely to happen than something like a 15 million dollar fine, and even this is very unlikely.
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Nerv1
Posts: 601 |
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I that was lucky of you I guess. But I heard that when prosecutors find out that the people they are trying to prosecute are in the military in some way, they completely drop it for some reason. |
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poilk92
Posts: 433 Location: Long Beach California |
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@Nerv1
Haha thats certainly not true, I come from a military family and they certainly do love to prosecute vets. Wanderlustking's assessment is probably the best, no one really wants to take the trouble of taking you to court, most likely you will get threats of legal action with no follow through |
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TatsuGero23
 Posts: 1277 Location: Sniper Island, USA (It's in your heart!) |
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Hmm... can't really say that's true or not since wanderlustking is the first time I heard that happening. And it's entirely possible that on top of other things, king being in the military may be a factor. But I think it's more of the fact king posed the possibility of actually fighting it out in court is why no future actions were taken on him over what seems like a small number of files. Now if wanderlustking was in charge of a ripping site or group or had a large library of movies that he ripped and seeds, they might have kept going. Timing could be an issue too. If this happened recently, then yeah, you could say it was because of his military or law background. If it happened a while back, it might be more of the case of young digital rights laws or the lack of them. But like others have pointed out, odds are, it's just to serve as a warning in hopes of you either stopping or at least not escalating your illegal actions. A "Hey! We saw that. Do something worse and we'll probably see that too." type of warning. But like others have already pointed out, music is really the only one to go after individuals rather then originators or known groups who pirate on a normal bases. In defense of that, music is pretty easy to get now on a legal bases and its hard to argue against the legal structure it has now so it feels a bit pointless to pirate music. In terms of local music that is. Although getting music from international origins is still a pain so torrenting of that stuff will probably still continue. But as of now, music pirating is definitely on the downturn and mostly underground or for niche things. So at this point the music industry feels it can flout itself as it does on occassion to make extreme examples of people. Movies and anime on the other hand don't have the same argument or as strong as one on the legal side to squash down on the illegal copies like music can. While the movie and anime industry could go after individuals, if they can't provide a method of distribution that makes illegal uploading and viewing obsolete, they'll be fighting forever and wasting money. As of now, establishing a service or method to make the illegal stuff obsolete seems to be their focus; outside of persuing the more notorious of pirates like known groups or those who cross the line in what the industries will tolerate or if rippers fall into other legal territories where companies can more effectively prosecute them. |
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