Forum - View topicNEWS: ADV Head Says UK Issues May Be Due to Illegal Releases
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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In general (responding to general thread currents, not specifically the quoted poster), as a 'value-neutral' question, isn't subtitle preferences tertiary to 'fast and free' when it comes to fansubs? Or in other words, if R1 releases had 'fansub' style subtitles, and fansubs had 'official release' style subtitles, would anyone argue that people would suddenly fall away in droves from fansubs? I understand how different subtitling styles are a plus for some people, but I think arguing that subtitling style is the major motivator/legitimizing force for fansubs is 'putting the horse before the cart' in regards to 'fast and free' being the drawing power for the vast majority. Going back to my earlier point above about the significant 'social community' aspect of fansubs, being that subtitles are really the only thing fansubbers 'create' in respect to anime (and how they compete/differentiate against each other), I imagine the importance of the issue gets overstated to a large degree out of ego/pride. Last edited by Goodpenguin on Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dante80
 Posts: 218 Location: Athens Greece |
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@Goodpenguin, yes that is true. To be precise, for most people fansubs must be free, fast and "kinky" <--(typesetting, fonts, effects, karaoke, notes)...
But still, there are issues concerning the translation//subtitling preference. At least, thats what I see when I compare my R1s with some fansubs... Also, not all fansub groups are the same. Some go for speed, some go for quality. |
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Fallout2man
Posts: 274 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Ever think that things might take a different avenue? Imagine if professional recording studios, CDs, and tours didn't exist. There are a lot of people who do play just to play or do it as a side job. I'd imagine amateur music would try to rise and fill the gap. You'd see more smaller local bands playing on a small scale and developing more unique regional sounds. The point? Music and bands would still exist without copyright, not in the same way they do now, but it'd be a survivable existence.
I've heard of fingerprinting databases, the problem with those is several things. First it relies on the copyright holders to submit all of their entire catalogue for fingerprinting, second, it requires constant online connection to the database to work (you'd never be able to do it offline), third you could avoid the fingerprinting by making minor Accoustical or AV changes, and finally it doesn't account for encrypted traffic or transmission at all. For it to be effective you'd have to ban all encrypted communication over the internet and then ban any program not hooked up to the fingerprinting database, ban unencrypted media so that someone couldn't rip their DVD to an mpeg or avi and then alter it or conversely require explicit licensing and have a unique fingerprint imbedded within every single audio or video editing program in existence, which would also mean banning all open source A/V editors. It wouldn't work.
Taxes are literally taking from the rich and giving to the poor. You may get national defense, highways and schools but you also pay for a number of services you will never use. Welfare, programs for single mothers, children's health insurance, work release programs for convicts, funding to parks you'll never visit, etc. The rich see no real benefit in taxation to themselves, the benefit is to society on a whole, but they'll never see it, the poor, who also pay hardly any taxes, see lots of benefits though. After all, why should we rob those hard working professionals of what rightly belongs to them? See, the argument can work both ways here. The point is you have to accept that sacrifices and compromises for the greater good of society at times are inevitable. They should never be done recklessly, but at times they must be made. In this case, going back to the article, until the law is normalized, history has shown us that people will continue to ignore, flaunt and evade it, no matter how hard you try to come down on them.
I'd especially like to hear what you think about the article that I linked. Specifically the part about the evolution of American property law in relation to copyright. |
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Skyhawk
 Posts: 50 |
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I think most people are missing the point here. There are some big legal differences. Fansubs and those that download and distribute them fall under "Copywrite Infringement" DVD rips on bittorrent also fall under this. Its not illegal, this is a Civil matter and NOT Criminal thus can not be charged criminally. They can be sued in civil court though. Bootlegs fall under "Piracy". This is illegal and is criminal and a person can go to jail for it along with restitution to the copywrite holder. The big key here is, if they are making money distributing copywriten works then its criminal. In the case of unlicensed fansubs, the original copywrite holder in Japan has to bring the civil case in the US. DVD rip cases can be brought by the US distributor (i.e. ADV) but also have to include the original copywrite holders from Japan or thier legal representatives (i.e. NOT ADV). Last edited by Skyhawk on Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tygerchickchibi
 Posts: 1465 |
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xD Whaa, it's illegal to have it in Europe? That really sucks. >.>; It's not like you're not buying. I find it a bit interesting, though. Thanks for answering. ^^; |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Importing R1 discs isn't illegal in Europe as a whole. It may be illegal where Dante80 comes from (Greece) for all I know but it certainly isn't across most of Europe. The law here in Britain, for example, is that it is perfectly OK to import DVDs for your personal use (provided they don't qualify as obscene materials) but, since they haven't been age-rated by the BBFC, it is illegal to sell them on to someone else in Britain once you have them in your posession. Some other European nations don't appear to have any restrictions at all on imported DVDs. |
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Sam-I-Am
Posts: 121 Location: Midwest US |
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Amateur and professional musicians both existed before copyright laws did, and some were very successful. However, there was a constant battle against piracy then, too. One of the reasons Gilbert and Sullivan wrote an operetta entitled "The Pirates of Penzance" was that they were referring to the competing productions of their previous offering, "HMS Pinafore". "Pinafore" was a hit for G&S, and it was quickly copied to other stages, but not with permission or payment. The money going to the box offices of the other theaters, and not to theirs, was viewed as direct theft by G&S, and rightly so, as people who had seen the show elsewhere were less likely to see the D'Oyly Carte production, not to mention the other producers pocketing the profits from G&S's creation. Episodes like this was part of the movement to create modern copyright laws.
There certainly are programs like welfare that seem like taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but as long as the recipients are generally productive people who are going through a rough patch, I'm not upset. Reagan-era 'welfare queens' are another matter. I've been at times the funder and beneficiary of such programs, and they do have their place, though perhaps not so large a place as the Democratic Party usually desires. Not having as many homeless people wandering about as we might otherwise have is a benefit. As for tax equality, I think a discussion of the merits of a national flat rate or sales tax vs. the current sliding-scale progressive income tax is outside the scope of this forum, certainly of this thread. As for anime being an art form like music or theater or any other humanities, it certainly is an art form, just like any other branch of Storytelling. It is also a business. I've sat through a number of discussions, arguments, and musings about the Quality Known As Art in the 25 years I've been in theater, and the upshot among pragmatists seems to be that it works best if you view art as something to you add to the product. It's all very well and good to try to create art for art's sake, but if you want to make a living, you need to view it as a commodity to be produced, refined, and sold to the appropriate market. The art is what you do to the product to make it better than it needs to be, or at least better than the competition's work. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Look, you've either totally missed my point or you're putting tons of words in my mouth. Um, wow. Have I got a news flash for you: It costs money to make anime. 1) Obviously. 2) I didn't say otherwise. You're going to be seeing those two fellas quite a bit in the rest of this post so I hope they're to your liking. While it may make people feel all warm and squishy to say that designers, creators, and artists make anime for the love of their art and the medium... People may say that, I didn't. who are actually in the business of trying to make a profit on their investment. Obviously. It's still a business, even if you don't want to think of it as such. Didn't say that. And all the artistic folk would love to be paid for their work as well. Again...obviously. Family Guy costs money to make too, by the way. See Above. Even though you think you might be getting it for "free"... Didn't say that you're still paying for it through your cable service and through having advertisements played at you at regular intervals throughout the broadcast. Gimme an O! Gimme a B! Gimme a V! Gimme a...well, you see where I'm going with this right? I'm sorry you don't feel anime is worth paying for. I've consulted with my numerous anime DVD's and can say with certainty, I definitely didn't say that. Let me try and rephrase my point. Just because you like anime doesn't mean you should therefore be willing to pay to buy it in DVD form. You could argue that if you're unwilling to buy you should do without. I won't go into that debate. However, my point is that I don't see any reason why if you say you like anime that must mean you are willing to purchase anime through the current system. Again, I'll go back to my example about TV shows. Plenty of people enjoy watching shows but only a fraction would be willing to if they had to buy them on DVD. If you want something to have any kind of relatively mainstream audience, you can't expect that audience to be willing to purchase it via DVD. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I hear that customs expect you to pay duty and VAT unless the value of the DVD is less than £18. If you wanted to import a box set you'd probably have to pay through the nose. |
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shadowblack
Posts: 37 |
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Let’s forget for a moment that we’re talking about anime.
When I buy something I do so because that ‘something’ meets MY demands and satisfies MY desires. Mine. Not someone else’s, not what the seller says my desires and demands should be. And if the shop doesn’t have what I want I can: not buy it at all, go to another shop, or wait for it to be available at that particular shop. I rarely choose to wait, no matter what it is I want. And if people can’t satisfy my demands (no matter what the reason) they shouldn’t expect to get MY money. That's the way it is, and anime is no exception. Of course it’s not possible to satisfy everyone’s demands: some people have unreasonable desires, other people have conflicting demands, and so on. Fortunately there’s no need to satisfy everyone. Now about ADV UK: Were they providing what their customers wanted? Judging by how people would rather import DVDs from the US instead of waiting for the UK release I’d say ‘no, they were not’. Many people want to watch the newest anime as soon as possible. They don’t want to wait for months to watch it, and they don’t want to buy it on DVD because they are going to watch it only once and then forget about it. If they really like it then they might buy it on DVD, but there are many people like me that are satisfied with watching a title only once. Why would I want to buy a DVD? Also what’s with:
“Perhaps if the laws were different so that we could license and release titles faster…” “Perhaps if we had expanded our catalog more quickly…” “Perhaps if Internet did not exist…” “Perhaps if we were willing to take risks and license shows before they started airing…” Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! “Perhaps” doesn’t help anyone and doesn’t tell anything helpful. Guessing what might have happened if something else had been different doesn’t change what has happened. And what does “Perhaps if so many fans…” mean, eactly? How many fans are we talking about here? And how many of them are lost sales? Were there any numbers mentioned? Some of the people downloading fansubs simply have no other way of getting the anime they want. Such people would not buy DVDs even if fansubs did not exist – instead they would not watch anime at all. So they are not lost sales because they were never potential sales to begin with. Other people don’t want DVDs – they just want to watch the anime without waiting for months. Usually people don’t pay for something they don’t want, so such people are also not lost sales. There are people who don’t buy the DVDs because they watched fansubs. Now THEY are lost sales, and it’s due to fansubs. And then there are people that don’t buy DVDs because they are not happy with the product they are offered. It may be due to too high price, too long to release the DVDs, unsatisfactory quality (video/audio/translation/whatever), or something else. Whatever the reason they are lost sales, but it’s not the fansubbers’ fault. Now can anyone give me numbers about each group? Does anyone know how many sales are really lost due to fansubs alone, and how many are lost due to other reasons? Blaming fansubs without providing proof seems like looking for a scapegoat or an excuse for someone else’s mistakes. If you want fansubs to disappear there is a theoretical way to do it: Have all the new animes air around the world at the same time SUBBED. If people can watch the newest animes at nearly the same time as the Japanese, then fansubs would be limited to older titles only because there would be no need to fansub the new ones. Sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. First of all, the quality of TV is not the same everywhere. The average HD raw available on the internet is of higher quality than anything I can watch on TV in our country. Second, even if we ignore the horrible* dubs thyat exist in some places (that’s why I said it should be subbed – not because of the time and money dubbing takes), there’s still the issue with translations. I just don’t have any faith in our so called “professional” translations**. And third, not all people have access to the same channels. So for some people fansubs would be the only way to watch certain shows. So right now getting rid of fansubs remains just a dream (or a delusion). Another idea that might help is licensing a show before it even airs in Japan, and releasing it as it airs. But that requires taking a serious risk, and many people seem to be reluctant to do so – even though any successful business requires taking risks. In short – in a very short time I got tired of the argument whether or not fansubs are the cause for the industry’s problem. They are part of the problem (no one can deny that), but they are not the only – or the main – problem (no one can deny that either). * - if you want my definition of “horrible dub” – just ask. But believe me – you don’t want to know ** - if anyone cares for the reasons - just ask. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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You're right in theory but in practice HM Customs don't bother inspecting most parcels unless they're quite a size so most stuff gets through without duty being charged. You certainly run the risk though. Incidentally, you run the same risk when buying online from HMV (or any other UK retailer operating out of the Channel Islands since they're British but not part of the European Union). The main problem with importing R1s isn't the cost it's the NTSC video format which has lower picture quality, especially when played through European PAL format equipment. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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Not really enough bulk but lets begin with this. Where in these series, where in the specific episodes, is the fansub better than the official release. Show me, preferably line for line but anything will do, where the translation by the fansubs and where the official subs differs to such a large degree with each other and then show me why the fansub translation is superior. Bear in mind that liner notes, text popping up telling us what XYZ means IS NOT a better translation. It is a flaw in DVD's not in translation, the DVD cannot readily accept the added text that a digisub file can and thus even if the official translators wanted to include it they couldn't. The notes anyway are a stylistic thing not a translation thing. I appreciate you actually replying with some examples, now someone needs to prove to me that your examples are indeed proof that fansubs can do better than the official subs. Someone will then have to explain away any official release reasoning behind any differences in translation. For example DBZ edits and translation decisions were taken as the aim, and indeed the licence from the Japanese, was that DBZ had to get aired on TV. |
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Tofusensei
Posts: 365 |
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There are a handful of fansub translators in those groups who are literally more experienced and just as talented as professional translators. These include people who work for some of those groups (runpsicat, strato, Tellu54 (or what his nick of the week is), Sylf, Dragosmore, Jasconius (retired), dicetomato (retired), crustol (retired), loae666 (retired)... and others I'm very knowledgeable on fansub translations and they consistently produce scripts that rival anything a professional can do. Afforded the same resources, there is literally nothing separating them from the pros. I can give you some examples I recall from recent anime I've watched that should highlight some of these points... In Escaflowne episode 20, the translator actually uses the term "Los Vegas Wedding" to refer to what some of us may call a "Shotgun Wedding". Why on Earth would you take a show that is based in a fantasy world and the main characters are teenagers in Japan, who'd have no idea what a "Los Vegas Wedding" is, and use that term? It completely distracts from the experience and kills the suspension of disbelief. In an earlier episode of Escaflowne (I cannot recall which one)... There is a passage between Hitomi and Princess Millerna which was translated completely wrong. (I remember one of the lines was something to the nature of ... 「アレンさんの思いが届きます」 I could have translated the passage much better myself and I'm a fansub translator. In the "Platinum Version" of Evangelion, there is a line that was left in by mistake in episode 1. It is timed to nothing and should have been removed in QC (it's pretty obvious it was a line that gets reworded and appears right after it). In episode 2 they actually use the spelling "suprise". They had multiple times to redo the subs (the Platinum version was supposed to the the last one) and yet these errors were never caught. Even fansubbers often release shows without anything spelled wrong in them. I encourage you to compare my translation of the Piano no Mori movie to the one floating around the film circuit. Or the recent work I did on Tokyo Marble Chocolate. Do tell me if you think a pro would have done a vastly superior translation, I'd be curious. The bottom line is... There are some damn good fansub translators out there who can compete on a professional level and that has become a problem because it removes some of the value the R1s had. Of course most fansubs are made hastily by amateurs and do not fall into the categories. Nevertheless, the original poster has a good point. -Tofu |
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MokonaModoki
 Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Maybe in the UK (I don't know), but not in the US. I'll assume that you are in the UK since that is where the article is about, so that what I'm posting can just be assumed to be a correction for US readers. See US CODE TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 506 "CRIMINAL OFFENSES" for details. Note that I am not taking a position by posting this information. I'm not responsible for what the law says.
US CODE TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 506 (a)(1)(B) suggests otherwise for the US. If the activity includes copying or distributing over $1000 worth of material within a 180 day period, it's a criminal offense. This covers the situation where the copyrighted material has been released for sale to the general public. The scarier US CODE TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 506 (a)(1)(C) covers the situation where copyrighted material distributed "by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public" has NOT been released for sale to the general public. If a title hasn't been released on home video but there is a reasonable assumption that it will be in the future, then it is criminal. Downloading new episodes of Naruto and Bleach via bittorrent is a criminal offense in the US, not a civil offense (because they aren't out on DVD yet, but everyone knows they will be).
Here this is just US CODE TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 506 (a)(1)(A) "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." It is not differentiated from other copyright infringement in any way, including by the use of the terms 'bootleg' or 'piracy'. That's a lay distinction, not a legal one.
US CODE TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > § 501(b) says otherwise. That's how wacky Singapore law appears to work, but not in the US. |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Well.. looking at this poll, I think we see part of the problem.
animenewsnetwork.com/survey/147/result A good chunk of 'fans' think "Fansubs are always okay".
I don't think fansub snobs are gonna admit to it. Hell, a friend of mine complains about official translations all the time. Yet somehow he keeps downloading some really crappy speed subs and all kinds of wonky fansubs. I've come very close to outright calling him a hypocrite. Plus he also brags about downloading better than DVD quality video files, but the subs often suck. Let's be honest people. If fansubs weren't free and easy, the majority of people would not get them. Period. I'd venture that a good number of them would not even be anime fans.
So.. how much money do the original creators get paid from someone's viewing of your oh soooo far superior fansub translation? Oh.. none. The real bottom line, buddy, your fansubs pays nothing to the people who made the show. Therefore it will never be superior to R1. That's the real value of R1 and official releases. Time to pull your head out of your butt.
Yes, but if you look at the consequences of piracy and fansubs, the result is the same. People can simply not pay for the official release on both accounts. Both fansubs and bootlegs allow people to never pay the original creator. The only difference is that fansubs are free to the consumer. Sure you stop actual bootleggers, but you're still cutting off payment to the source of the anime. |
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