Bootlegs: worse than fan-subs?

Which is worst?

  • Fan-subs

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Bootlegs

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
H

harkins

Adventurer
The old fansubs are good/bad for anime debate crops up very often, especially in the current climate. But I was wondering about the effect of bootlegs.

It strikes me that most people on this forum don’t touch them. But when you search for any anime on e-bay almost all hits are bootlegs; the typical 26 episodes on 2/3 discs with English and simplified Chinese subs. So it’s safe to assume that there are a lot of people who do buy them.

So whereas many people argue that fan-subs act as adverts and trailers and lead to purchasing legitimate DVD’s, the same cannot be said for bootlegs. It’s hard to imagine people paying around £20 for a whole series and then still bothering to collect the official discs because they liked it.

So do bootlegs have a greater negative impact on the industry than fan-subs? And if so, why is it that we hardly ever seem to mention them?
 
I'd say bootlegs are worse because if we take the fansub acts as a try before you buy scheme then at least if the person likes the anime they'll go and buy the offical products. However with bootleg the money they are handing over is going straight to the seller's pocket, and not to the anime's creators and distrubitors.
 
Well, I think the era of the bootleg has to be dying. With the rise of the Internet, and the fansub you've got the traditional market for a bootlegger dying out.

1. People who bought it because it was cheap....well fansubs are free and broadband is widespread.

2. People who bought it because they were "tricked", the Internet is going to make people more well informed.

3. People who had no other option. Now that every new show under the sun is licenced before you can say a medium difficulty tongue twister (The Sixth Sheik's sixth sheep's sick, for instance) there's a lot of room.

Add in the fact that people like Play are making anime cheaper than ever before, and that anime fans, being collectors by nature, want a "premium" product a lot of the time and, well....it's trouble for bootleggers. I'd arguably say that fansubbing is the larger threat here.
 
MrChom said:
2. People who bought it because they were "tricked", the Internet is going to make people more well informed.
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Aye, the only reason i have bootleg is because i thought i was buying originals. At least with fansubs if the viewer likes what they see they'll most likely go out and buy the dvd and the money is going back in to the industry.
 
the only reason i have bootleg is because i thought i was buying originals
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No offense to you, but that's just ignorance. You should always shop at trusted retailers, unless of course you're 100% certain it's a legitimate product, in which case you could probably get away with an ebay purchase every so often (which people like Aion never seemed to shut up about).

Like many of the people here, I'm aware what anime has been licensed and/or released. Bootlegs isn't a problem for me; I know what I'm buying and know that, whether it be R1s or R2s, my money is going to the right people.

Bootlegs aren't the real issue. Bootlegs can easily be taken down, it would just take someone to write to, say, ebay and complain that illigitimate DVDs are being sold there. If they don't want to risk getting into trouble, they'll crack down on the matter. (There was some news story a few weeks ago about illegal tickets or vouchers being sold on ebay...I believe they were requested to put an end to it).

At present, fansubs are probably impossible to stop. It's something you just have to accept.
 
Bootlegs are the worst for me. With bootlegs the money goes into criminal activity. I accidently bought one of those 3 discs region 0 sets without realising it was fake (Last Exile). I actually found out it was a fake on the internet forums and then I bought the official one :)
 
ryuzaki said:
the only reason i have bootleg is because i thought i was buying originals
Click to expand...

No offense to you, but that's just ignorance. You should always shop at trusted retailers, unless of course you're 100% certain it's a legitimate product, in which case you could probably get away with an ebay purchase every so often (which people like Aion never seemed to shut up about).

Like many of the people here, I'm aware what anime has been licensed and/or released. Bootlegs isn't a problem for me; I know what I'm buying and know that, whether it be R1s or R2s, my money is going to the right people.

Bootlegs aren't the real issue. Bootlegs can easily be taken down, it would just take someone to write to, say, ebay and complain that illigitimate DVDs are being sold there. If they don't want to risk getting into trouble, they'll crack down on the matter. (There was some news story a few weeks ago about illegal tickets or vouchers being sold on ebay...I believe they were requested to put an end to it).

At present, fansubs are probably impossible to stop. It's something you just have to accept.
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No offense taken, but it wasn't ignorance that's completely the wrong word. Maybe naivety, of thinking i could get real dvd's that cheap and since my friend had bought one too and the quality was amazing who was i to think it wasn't real. Baring in mind this was about 3-4 years ago and i'd never bought off of ebay before. Back in the day i would have had no idea what was licensed or not. Upon finding out i wasn't that bothered to be honest because the quality was so good and the price so cheap, yet i haven't bought bootleg since.
 
I guess it is hard when you're young.

Hypothetical situation: Kid asks for series, mum looks on various sites but finds it super cheap on ebay, mum buys series. Both completely oblivious that it's a bootleg.

The only way to stop those kind of things happening is to take off the unscrupulous items off places like ebay. It is possible.
 
I'm in a similar situation to Lukas, I bought a whole bunch of bootlegs when I was first getting into anime, a few years back. At that time, I didn't even know what a bootleg was, I just assumed that anime naturally came like that. After all, ebay was supposed to be a place to get bargains, right?
Still, now I know better.

MrChom said:
2. People who bought it because they were "tricked", the Internet is going to make people more well informed.
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Hmm, think I'm gonna have to contest this point somewhat. True, theoretically people can find out that whether something is legit or not easier with the amount of information available online, but the fact of the matter is a large proportion of people simply don't. Bootlegs still get sold every day to people who are none the wiser - or, perhaps worse, to people who do know better but simply don't care, but that's a different issue.
While it's true that I only found out I was buying bootlegs due to people telling me about them online, I never would have been able to buy them in the first palce had not buying them been made so much easier by the internet anyway.

Out of the two, I definitely think bootlegs are worse. If you're willing to shell out cash, why not give it to the companies and get the real thing? And, more likely the better thing? Every bootleg sold is a direct blow against the retailers. As aversed to fansubs, where a proportion of watchers either buy the stuff after watching it, or would never buy any at all.

A friend of mine buys bootlegs now and again.
"Why don't you buy the real thing?"
"Anime DVDs are too expensive."
"Why not get fansubs then?"
"They take too long to download."
"Why don't you... be patient?"
"..." (buys more bootlegs)
 
To be fair I used to buy bootlegs. I couldn't watch downloaded anime on my TV, the codecs were all over the place, the whole fansub scene was once a nightmare (and sometimes still is thanks to those people who for some reason think MKV is a useful and fun file format)...but I stopped when I got my modded XBox and then 360 which handilly stream all my media onto the telly for me.

I got burned several times by bootleggers.....the Excel Saga boxset was a thing of beauty. Some episodes had the subs running 2 minutes in front of the action and also this:

dearyme2.jpg


And, yes, that's a real subtitle. Nothing compared to the dodgy GitS one with "Mass naked child events", but still funny.
 
Definately Bootleg. It doe NOT support anime in any way, only the distributer. Hell, the bootlegs are fansubs (at times) which are put onto cheap DVDs and there ya go.

They guys that do this have just stole money from ya, just for an incomplete and probably poor quality goods. I just regret having the 2 bootlegs I have on me, after being got-at by it.
 
I've never encountered a bootleg anime disc (though I get offered Hollywood ones all the time on the streets), and hopefully never will. I can't really defend them in anyway, even if fansubs are immoral at least no money is made from them. Bootlegs make money for lazy people who only have to press the button on a DVD burner. Money which should be going to the creators who slaved over the production.
 
ERROR! I clicked on fan-subs when I totally ment Bootlegs. I consider fan-subs as a preview to a potential series I would be owning when it's realeased over here however a bootleg is simple thievery and also more often than not, visually crap.
 
Bootlegs have to be worse. Fansubs are non-profit (well, in most cases) while bootlegs, like any other pirated DVD are used to fund all kinds of things. Surely, stealing and making money off of the product is worse than stealing and passing it on for free.
 
Gemma1412 said:
Bootlegs have to be worse. Fansubs are non-profit (well, in most cases) while bootlegs, like any other pirated DVD are used to fund all kinds of things. Surely, stealing and making money off of the product is worse than stealing and passing it on for free.
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An d that's Robin Hood for you, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor... =P
 
chaos said:
Gemma1412 said:
Bootlegs have to be worse. Fansubs are non-profit (well, in most cases) while bootlegs, like any other pirated DVD are used to fund all kinds of things. Surely, stealing and making money off of the product is worse than stealing and passing it on for free.
Click to expand...
An d that's Robin Hood for you, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor... =P
Click to expand...

Hee~ =) Good ol' Robin Hood
 
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