Japan cracking down on piracy now. Hopefully they don't plan more then crap like this...

This could suck....REALLY bad

Welcome to the 21st century.

Considering 'dubbing' is no more then making a text file, it pretty scary if they can confront in legally. Theres some major freedom of speech issues with that...

What is this?

This will stop nothing. Instead of having hardsubs perhaps softsubs will the be way to go. Download the RAW. Apply the .ass file, and you're good to go.

I make them.
I watch them.
I download them.

translated!

repoman184 said:
Considering 'dubbing' is no more then making a text file, it pretty scary if they can confront in legally. Theres some major freedom of speech issues with that...

You mean "subbing", but yeah you're right. :)

It's OK to record stuff off TV but to subtitle it is illegal? That's like if my Romanian friend recorded some Romanian TV for me and then just told me what they were saying. If they're going to ban subtitling, then logically they should ban RAWs and furthermore ban people from recording TV shows, since that's all that's happening here.

Certain people within the anime industry have even explained that they want fansubs to CONTINUE as it's basically free advertising for when their shows come out on DVD.

You can't win against the internet. Not even if you are Japan.

Japan said:
The first meeting is scheduled to be held in April.

April fools?

repoman184 said:
Considering 'dubbing' is no more then making a text file, it pretty scary if they can confront in legally. Theres some major freedom of speech issues with that...

Freedom of speech has nothing to do with illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

It's not the act of translation that is a crime, it is the distribution, and doubly so when you topple the original video with it.

Muey, if that was true they'd also be trying to ban RAWs. If I taped a show and lent it to my friends, that's OK. The recordings are of TV shows that were televised freely. Maybe they'd have a point if they were trying to ban DVD rips, since people would normally have to pay for that, but the TV shows are put out for free and make their money from advertising. Once the show is over, it doesn't matter if people in other countries watch that recording any more than it matters if I tape The Sopranos and show it to my brother.

As I've said, most people (if not all people) in the industry are actually FOR fansubs and putting them on sites like YouTube. It's actually the DVD distribution companies that are often against it - and they had nothing to do with creating the show or televising it (and, as I said, it's the TV rips that make up most fansubs).

No, Muey is right, and technically taped shows can't be distributed either. But I believe it's fair use to tape a show and show it to other people.

It becomes an issue when the distribution is very widespread and (perhaps more importantly) removed from the advertisements. This makes the advertising space around these shows less valuable.

The ground rule that most fansubbers stick by ("Don't distribute after the show has been licenced in the US") is one way to alleviate pressure on their copyright-infringing activities. Since the shows are not aired in the US, this means that their distribution of the shows doesn't hurt the Japanese market.

Apparently, it's not working.

(Unless this is a joke!)

Teclo said:
Muey, if that was true they'd also be trying to ban RAWs.

Newsflash, raws are just another form of illegal media piracy identical to rips of your favourite movies and TV shows, but I'm sure you already knew that. Fansubs are just an extension of this in that you distribute an illegal translation on top of something-already-illegal.
As for the notice, from the formulation you can say it's primarly aimed at foreigners and thus centered around fansubs - just because they don't happen to mention raws directly doesn't mean they wouldn't have any interest in them.

If I taped a show and lent it to my friends, that's OK.

Yes, because that falls under fair use. Fair use allows you to make limited copies for friends/relatives, as in people you actually know and are close to you.
It does not grant you right for mass distribution to unrelated and/or unfamiliar third parties - like say, allowing unlimited anyonymous download access to stuff on the internet :p.

TV shows are put out for free and make their money from advertising. Once the show is over, it doesn't matter if people in other countries watch that recording any more than it matters if I tape The Sopranos and show it to my brother.

Contarery to what one might expect, anime doesn't follow the pattern in how your usual dayfare shows and tv-networks here in the west work, but instead the studios actually _pay_ the networks to have their shows aired.
Similarly, the advertizement revenue goes to the TV network, not the producer of the show that's being aired. Studios cover their production costs with sponsorship deals and surprise, DVD/merchandise sales.

Also, try as you might, "does not matter" isn't a valid legal excuse in court. You can argue the morality or sensibilty or logic or whatever as much as you want, but that's not going to change reality much.

As I've said, most people (if not all people) in the industry are actually FOR fansubs and putting them on sites like YouTube. It's actually the DVD distribution companies that are often against it - and they had nothing to do with creating the show or televising it (and, as I said, it's the TV rips that make up most fansubs).

You're making some pretty bold claims there.

Why the source of a rip (TV-fansub or R1 DVD) wouldn't be totally indifferent is beyond me - the impact they have on the market (in form of potential revenue loss for the original creator) is exactly the same.

I kind of doubt many animation studios view fansubs with a very favorable eye, at least in this day and age. That's not to say they'd be against internet distribution (See: Gonzo and Blassreiter, for something upcoming), which is agreeably is probably something the american DVD shippers aren't that hot on since it will undermine their buisness by removing the need to employ them as a 'middleman' in order to sell a series to a north american audience.

Anyway, I was mearly pointing out the erronous thought process in the previous post, the intention wasn't really to start beating the bleeding fansub horse yet again, but here we are. Regardless, no more from me on this as Danbooru's not really the place for stuff like this.

surasshu said:
(Unless this is a joke!)

That would be a no - as I understand it, this notice was posted up at the Tokyo International Anime Fair.

I think the only reasonable solution to the Fansub distro issue is if fansubbers could somehow be convinced to join a mandated greyline organization which only plays episodes after being connected to a server and checking for licensing borders (Different media format with encryption). Of course, such a proprietary system relies too much on the good will of the fansubbing community, would require region blocks, and regulation of updates. Not to mention it becomes a Hawkeye situation.

Why the source of a rip (TV-fansub or R1 DVD) wouldn't be totally indifferent is beyond me - the impact they have on the market (in form of potential revenue loss for the original creator) is exactly the same.

It's free to watch TV. The DVDs aren't free. If everyone that watched a show taped it, they would all then lack a reason to buy the eventual DVD release just as much as if they'd downloaded a TV rip. That would still be legal though. The channels pay the studios for the shows, not the other way around (why on earth would studios make shows if all they did was pay a channel to televise them?) and the channel makes money off advertising revenue. However, it's obviously legal to ignore the adverts or to tape the show.

The studios themselves have gone on record as saying that they don't mind fansubs or internet distribution at all. If people like the show enough, they say, they will buy it. If all it took for people to be put off buying the DVD was for them to be able to view the show for free before buying, no one would even want to televise their show or put their movie on at the theatre. Yeah you can rewatch downloaded movies/TV episodes but you can also rewatch taped shows or movies.

Simply saying "It's illegal" doesn't mean it's right to condemn it. It used to be illegal to be gay, for women to vote and to say that god doesn't exist. Those laws made absolutely fuck all sense so they were removed. The law changes all the time and varies all over the world, but right and wrong do not change all the time.

Sadly, the tendency is for copyright laws to tighten, to the extent that it became totally ridiculous by now (lifetime + 75 years is completely nuts, doubly so the recent US tendency of treating copyright infringing as a *felony*, more serious than a murder). However, at least in the common European, as well as US legislation, distributing translations made without the original copyright holder's conscience *is* a breach of the current copyright law, and as such is illegal, regardless of whether we or anyone else consider it moral or not. And there have been actual raids on sub distributors, for instance the Polish site napisy.org has been raided by the police and shut down.

About the industry's views on the issue, your claims that most look favourable at it are rather unfounded. As far as I know, most Japanese companies refrain from taking a decided action against, rather than endorse them (not that I have any specific data to back up my claims, either). We can argue for fansubs helping the industry, but that doesn't change the fact that said industry doesn't like them and does have the legal arsenal it could use to fight them.

That said, I'm all for a complete redesign of copyright laws. I'd be *strongly* in favour of returning to the 14 + optional 14 more years copyright term, with complete abolition of the patent system (or at least very substantial limiting of it, with the patent duration limited to something like 5 years, with a number of areas completely and unambiguously excluded, most notably software and medicine). But please don't confuse your feelings with the current legal situations, they have nothing to do with each other.

Well, it's illegal to distribute software and movies and such, but it's still pretty easy to find. Even if they push a law through, it basically means nothing against the might of the internet.

The worst they could do is make it more difficult for raw episodes to come on the internet from japan, but given that it's near impossible to trace the source of an upload, it's not like any individual would be facing criminal action, so the raw providers would still be out in full force.

The "countermeasures council" will probably meet, talk a lot of big plans to roaring applause from some special interests, and then end up accomplishing about as much as the RIAA did for music piracy (before they started getting wise and worked with the technology instead of against it).

The major problem is the fact that no one is going to stick their head out to become a fan-subber if people are getting sued for making fan-subs. I mean fan-subbers are more legally liable and less anonymous than their "customers".

Also since Japan recently passed a law that lets (requires?) Japanese ISPs blacklist copyright offenders that use P2P services such as WinNY, raws might become more difficult to come by in the future.

It's sort of an unfortunate path that seems to be taken, especially since tons of good series will never legally make their way out of Japan.

Teclo said:
(why on earth would studios make shows if all they did was pay a channel to televise them?)

Quote Bandai Visual head guy in Piq magazine article:

"The Japanese anime business model is fundamentally different (than movie and tv shows). Anime appears to the public via TV broadcasting at first, but the sponsors of these programs are often either the anime producers themselves, or investors in the production committee's member companies. In short, the production companies are essentially paying Japanese TV stations to broadcast their product. They consider the whole 30-minute block as an advertisement for anime DVDs or other merchandise that'll help them cover production costs later on."

葉月 said:
Sadly, the tendency is for copyright laws to tighten, to the extent that it became totally ridiculous by now (lifetime + 75 years is completely nuts, doubly so the recent US tendency of treating copyright infringing as a *felony*, more serious than a murder).

I agree with this completely, but there are people (usually idiotic artists, granted, but still) who think that copyright should last forever. In my opinion, copyright should last either 20 years, or until the person who owns the copyright dies, whichever comes first. (This is not a popular opinion among my fellow composers for some reason)

Anyway that's beside the point... I don't know how fansubbers will react to this. A lot of times, this kind of thing makes people MORE gung-ho about sharing. But since they are sticking their necks out, they might become more covert, reverting back to just IRC channels and such...

Well, that's just speculation at this point, I guess.

This is why I had hoped nobody would post this image.

surasshu said:
I agree with this completely, but there are people (usually idiotic artists, granted, but still) who think that copyright should last forever. In my opinion, copyright should last either 20 years, or until the person who owns the copyright dies, whichever comes first. (This is not a popular opinion among my fellow composers for some reason)

A similar thing I experienced back in 1998 or so, when I got into linux and the whole free/open software thing. No-one would believe me there was really no catch, especially given that I'm a programmer by calling and occupation, so me advocating not paying for software was fishy at least.

I really hope that the widespread culture of internet sharing, illegal as of now, coupled with the mainstream-going of CC and similar movements will amount to a significant pressure on change in how copyright works. Hopefully some of the more stubborn and backwards labels will crumble as well, by sticking to their outdated business model. There's a threat that it'd legitimise their claims about how piracy is killing business, but IMHO the current situation where they still have the money and influences to push completely outrageous legislation (not to mention still being able to strangle artists and promote worthless crap) is much more dangerous in the long run. Forcibly making them realise that the era of big label monopolies is gone would be good.

葉月 said:
Forcibly making them realise that the era of big label monopolies is gone would be good.

That's pretty much what's going on right now. Widespread breaking of an antiquated law has led to things like EMI offering to sell their music without DRM. Now that the Internet's created irreversible changes in the filesharing landscape (the term didn't even exist twenty years ago), the laws will first resist, then end up shifting to match.

What I don't see happening is a catastrophic collapse of the copyright industry- copyright holders as a whole will probably continue to press for harsher laws for a while, then relent when a compatible profit-making system emerges. Meanwhile, they continue to serve as music filters for the general population, so they'll continue to make enough money to influence legislation. Rules will erode over time.

Armchair-lawyering aside, is it really necessary to put translation notes on an image that has the same text in English right next to it?

Muey said:
Quote Bandai Visual head guy in Piq magazine article:

"The Japanese anime business model is fundamentally different (than movie and tv shows). Anime appears to the public via TV broadcasting at first, but the sponsors of these programs are often either the anime producers themselves, or investors in the production committee's member companies. In short, the production companies are essentially paying Japanese TV stations to broadcast their product. They consider the whole 30-minute block as an advertisement for anime DVDs or other merchandise that'll help them cover production costs later on."

OK then - with that in mind, can you now see why the anime studios actually WANT people to fansub and distribute their shows over the internet? If they're willing to pay for TV channels to televise their product as a means to advertise the eventual DVD release, why would they be against FREE ADVERTISING?

To restate my previous point, I can understand why they're against DVD rips. DVDs are what they make their money from and that's the cause of them being willing to pay for their show to be televised. However, criminalising people for sharing recorded TV programs is like criminalising people for copying downloaded game demos. No one makes money off the game demos - they're just advertisement. The more people that play the demos (which are free, just like watching TV), the better. However, they DO make money off the full games sales - it makes sense to make copying full games illegal. That equivalent to letting people distribute the TV version (aka the "demo") but stopping them from distributing pirated versions of the DVD release (aka the "full game").

But it's blatantly obvious that they don't see it that way.

Teclo seems to be in the "i can do what i want, its not like its hurting anybody" anime-fan phase.

people who watch a full series by download, likely have no intention of actually purchasing the series legit. they are not contributing to the series/company/creators -financially.

its a two way thing. its costing more money to license a series these days and even more to buy the music that went with it, especially if the music is some upcoming star and not an actual song written for the show. having it on TV gets more people from mainstream, to buy it.
anime is a small market and the highest DVD count sale is in the 100 to 200k range.

you are calling fansub watchers "free advertisers"
back in the days before Youtube or any other Video network, i would say yes, it was free advertising. but anime fans these days are younger and spoiled. shows that air in Japan are not for anyone else but Japan! that is the idea. there are commercial breaks and product placement just like a live action television show.

a "game demo" is a terrible comparison. a game demo is just that. a Short NOT FULL GAME Demo. and people are even capable of copying full games.

the shows are made on a tight enough budget as is and you notice more anime is outsourced. and when some company in your country decides to buy it so it can be available they have a hard time making sales cause its likely people already watched it. or complain about companies being greedy...which is ironic.

i am still laughing at "Dattebayo" for copyrighting their fansubs. its not their show to begin with, never actually watched Naruto in Japanese, i am more of a manga person.

so yes they work hard, but it would make sense to me that they would get a job being official Translators and Subbers for an actual company.

This is one of the major problems the anime industry is having at the moment.

One way that fansubbing will stop on a major level is to limit the internet's download bandwidth. Some countries have this. But, who'd want to be limited?

The other solution is to release simultaneously for Japan and the rest of the world on DVD and TV. I know this is a big step, but it'll give the world a real look at what's being made. Not all anime is for Japan and Japan only(example: Big O season 2, no Japanese language track was ever made and it immediately was in English, but was made in Japan)

Honestly, I'm guilty of watching an entire anime by downloading or streaming it. In the end, I always try to buy it when it's available. Heck, I downloaded Read or Die TV in English, while I was waiting for my DVD copy to be delivered. But, I try to keep it to a minimum if possible and will eventually buy what I like, which is a lot.

The second problem is bootlegs. They are everywhere on Ebay and Amazon. Most anime series going for $20 or less for an entire show is most likely bootleg. But since they are usually far cheaper than the actual retail versions, they are purchased.

Here, I am guilty again. But, I didn't know when I bought it. I don't plan to buy any more bootlegs though. Retail/legit is the way to go.

unicogirl has a point though. Younger anime fans these days are spoiled. They will pay the least to get something, whether it is actually good quality or not. As an acquaintance of mine said, "Why pay for something that you can get for free?" I just wanted to punch him so hard for the comment.

After seeing Geneon leave the US market, I was thinking of why. After much thought into it, I came to the conclusion that they weren't making money anymore. Geneon had the most expensive anime DVD box sets in the US, which was most likely caused by over producing and over expecting sales. As costs went up more and more to compensate for their losses, the lower the sales were. But apparently, there was more to the whole Geneon pull out than what is explained here.

Trying to factor morality into economics is a horrible and unworkable idea. The most stable model is to assume that people will go for the best deal possible, restricted only by laws, and even then only to the point that they are believably enforceable. Mr(s). Average Consumer will download something for free any day rather than pay for it when they receive no tangible benefit from doing so.

Since I'm an immoral bastard, I download anime, games, music, movies, or whatever without any qualms (as I'm sure many others do as well), but my own actions are besides the point - companies should not appeal to potential customers' morality as an attempt to increase or maintain viability.

Rather, they should adopt proactive strategies to circumvent / adapt to this gap, and take advantage of the recent changes in the consumer end of the market (viz. broadband internet). Whether that means tightening laws governing the distribution of creative works, or whether it means radically changing the production/distribution channeling paradigm, is all dependent upon the relative costs.

Most companies today seem to believe that a combination of scare tactics (such as this image), pleas to the morality of their target audience, and lobbying for stricter regulation is their best bet. Somehow I don't think they're taking into account just how "free" the internet tends to be. It's almost impossible to stop someone from sharing a file.

Personally I think it would take a huge expenditure to stop piracy by legal channels, and it would be much easier to adopt alternative distribution methods / payment schemes (though a bit more groundbreaking), but hey, that's just me.

Of course, stopping physical media piracy such as bootlegs should be much easier, since law enforcement has had centuries of practice dealing with smugglers etc. etc. Also, since they turn a profit themselves, whereas digital-distributing fansubbers generally do not, there's more legal punch behind claims against them. Somehow I think that's where the primary "STOP PIRACY!!! OMG!!" focus should be directed.

They can try. However, this are waste of time and money. No one will ever see a pice o green paper because of this.

Chun said:
I think the only reasonable solution to the Fansub distro issue is if fansubbers could somehow be convinced to join a mandated greyline organization which only plays episodes after being connected to a server and checking for licensing borders (Different media format with encryption). Of course, such a proprietary system relies too much on the good will of the fansubbing community, would require region blocks, and regulation of updates. Not to mention it becomes a Hawkeye situation.

This will never happen and it's not because the fansubbers wont cooperate, though that would be a major obstacle.

In order of least problematic to greatest:

• Any and All DRM will be broken. Just in the recent past, brand new DRM schemes (HDDVD, Bluray, and Buray's BD+, for example,) have been broken within one week of someone deciding they wanted to be able to play the media on any platform they choose. The people behind those three DRM schemes estimated they would last a few years. And any method that talks to a server on the internet for approval will be packet sniffed so fast...

I saw this recently that sums this up neatly: "You can't protect information from the future with math."

• Very few fansubbers would agree to crippling the files like that, compared to the total agreement it would require. If only a few groups agreed, much of the audience would pick another group.

• It could be construed as a legitimization of fansubbing, something DVD distributors would likely avoid like the plague.

The challenge to the DVD distros, is to somehow compete with the fansub groups. They could go into the subbing business themselves. Charge a nominal fee for each episode and with some cooperation from the studios get the translated version out before the raws are posted on the torrents, then later go back and dub. When they have enough to fill a DVD, put that on Amazon and make discount codes for viewers that purchased episodes as they came out.

I encourage teh media companies to step up and adapt to the internet, and just remember that no DRM will last long enough to warrant designing it.

artanis00 said:
The challenge to the DVD distros, is to somehow compete with the fansub groups. They could go into the subbing business themselves. Charge a nominal fee for each episode and with some cooperation from the studios get the translated version out before the raws are posted on the torrents, then later go back and dub.

As earlier stated,

http://www.bosttv.com/gonzo/
http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-317861/The-Tower-of-DRUAGA-the-Aegis-of-URUK-The-Great-Tower-of-Druaga.html?hires=1

That is to say, at least in terms of Druaga this season, the ball is in the hands of those who've clamored for a legal fansub alternative - all that is left is to see just how many people are actually willing to shell out cash for real (and of course, there are always the shit quality CR/Youtube streams that are free).

Also, Blassreiter is going to be subjected for the same treatment. While not perhaps the best series, well, at least when it comes to my personal taste, I do hope this thing will do well enough so they can continue the experiment, and maybe hopefully later on drag more studios to implent similar models.

And yeah, discount codes for DVD purchase for people that already watched it online is a pretty nifty idea.

OK
Sell it cheap to all countries. Then I wont.

Also, I'm a fandubber so what? I dont even do whole series, only songs!

Maybe if they sub it themselves, and dont end up forcing us to either go to fansubs or even RETARDED fandubs who are well known for being gay, inaccurate, and highly edited

You can't get mad at someone for protecting their intellectual property and copyrights.

Piracy is not a right.

0xCCBA696 said:
translated!

Am I the only one who finds that ironic?

well so far it's only been about 2 years since this was posted,

since then i've still been watching hardsubs, and i still DL' em. (example: Black Rock Shooter OVA)
we've seem to be fine...for now, i won't hold my breath if they do have a counter-measure within the next year

Cyrus said:
You can't get mad at someone for protecting their intellectual property and copyrights.

Piracy is not a right.

Woah, woah. I can get mad at whoever I want. I'd just lack a legitimate, justifiable reason. XD

I'm sorry, Japan. This is one thing I don't agree with.

Uhhh, someone was getting all the butthurt