Fan-subs; the root of all evil?

H

harkins

Adventurer
So just how damaging are fansubs?

I ask this after reading about the situation with Geneon at the moment. A lot of people who have commented on the ANN forum have pointed a finger at the fansubbers and their viewers for contributing to Geneon’s (possible) demise.

Whilst I myself have no idea whether or not downloading is linked to Geneon’s problems, I personally think that fan subs are bad news as they must surely affect the sales of DVD’s. That must in turn surely have some long term effects on the industry in the west (and maybe even in Japan to some degree), as we are apparently seeing with this Geneon case.

I know anime DVD’s aren’t dirt cheap but effectively stealing anime is wrong no matter how it’s justified. All the excuses like ‘it hasn’t been licensed yet’ or ‘I’ll buy it when it is released’ just don’t carry water with me. If there were statistics to prove it I bet only a fraction of a percent of people who download a series later buy it. I mean after all, why would you want to pay for something you’ve already watched?

I definitely get the impression that not too many people care a great deal about the future of western anime licensers and that is to some small degree shown by the greater interest in the ‘three word story game’ thread and ‘smoking’ thread as there is in the thread about Geneon. I realise that many users on here are keen down-loaders and as a result I’ll probably get a battering for my anti fan-sub views. But at least I’ve got the moral high ground.
 
If you want to justify spending £20+ on something that you've never seen before with "the moral high ground" all the power to you, personally i don't see a problem with trying before you buy but hey thats just me, my conscience is clear so i don't care if people with differing views to mine judge me, im comfortable with my decision.

If it wasn't for the fansubbers we would have to wait 6 months plus for a release, maybe not one at all *cough FLCL cough*
Anime fans who use fansubs (sweeping generalisation incoming) use them because they cannot wait for a UK release, does that not show some level of commitment to the franchise? Moreover in my experience anime fans are the most "moral" of pirates, because of our love of the art we will shell out £££ for the special editions, the art boxes and the memorabilia.

It is true that fansubs affect DVD purchases but since everything under the sun is pirated that argument is pretty weak, you don't see Paramount or the music industry filing for bankruptcy. Yes they're feeling the strain but most people resort to pirating because of the extortionate prices rather than "i want it for free" in my experience.
I realise profit must be made but there is very little true artists left in the world who would rather have millions of people listen to their music/film rather than make millions of pounds and i find that very sad, The arts are there to entertain people rather than become a money farm.

So yeah...in the midst of my ramblings i suppose my point is that as with all things pirating can be used for both good and evil.If you find lining the pockets of the investors rather than the actual creators of the anime morally fulfilling then....well you're just as bad as a pirate!
 
It's a fairly old debate, but I think it's nice to keep on reminding people about it every so often :)
It's an interesting discussion for me, since I've been on both sides of the fence. It wasn't till a couple of years ago that I found fansub, and before then I was completely a "supporting the industry by buying DVD's" kinda person (well, didn't have much choice in the matter really, since how else was I going to watch anime? ;) ).
Getting involved with an anime society exposed me to fansub, and I'll openly admit I'm a fairly heavy end user of fansub now (well, OK, very heavy end, I stopped watching UK TV ages ago and all I watch is anime now :? )

So where do I stand on the argument now?

Well, before finding fansub I was getting very frustrated with buying anime DVD's, as I was very reliant on Newtype USA for gauging what an anime was like. I've bought a few series with hindsight I'd never have bought.
Now with fansub I get to watch a series first and see if I like it. If I like it, I buy it.
hmm, so is my fansub usage a negative effect on my buying DVD's. In my case, no, in fact its completely the opposite. In the 2 years I've gone from a fairly casual anime DVD buyer to a complete nutbar fan who spends upward of 500 quid a month on DVD's and anime related goods.

Unfortunately I'm not typical. I'm lucky, I have a well paid job (erm, and very little in the way of a social life), so I can contribute to the anime trade a lot.
The majority of the people who attend our society though aren't; they are aged between 16 and 22, normally students, and have very little cashflow. Buying anime DVD's isn't high on the list of their priorities, and I can easily understand this.
My biggest hope is that they get hooked on anime, so when they do go on to get jobs then they will start contributing to the trade. Its the same hope I have for most of the younger posters on this forum, and anyone who becomes a fan of anime from watching the likes of Anime Central and Anime Network.

Fansub used to have noble roots; it was die hard fans getting hold of stuff not available in the west and subbing it in VHS tapes so more people could enjoy anime in english. It was hard to do, hard to get hold of, and it was done for the love of anime.
Since the internet took off fansubs have now become easy to source, especially through the likes of Youtube. Since most of the people watching fansubs now are so removed from the subbing process there is a detached feeling of responsibility to them watching it, which in my eyes is the biggest problem.
Fansub is a double edged sword, it spreads anime fandom and allows greater choice, but it's the responsibility of the person watching fansub to still go out and buy DVD's of the series they like, when they are financially able.
Its the only way the two mediums can exist side by side, and both are equally dependent on each other. At the moment the pendulum is swinging too far into the fansub camp, and it's hurting the industry bad.
It's up to the fans to swing it back into balance.
 
Liquid Skin said:
It is true that fansubs affect DVD purchases but since everything under the sun is pirated that argument is pretty weak, you don't see Paramount or the music industry filing for bankruptcy. Yes they're feeling the strain but most people resort to pirating because of the extortionate prices rather than "i want it for free" in my experience.
I realise profit must be made but there is very little true artists left in the world who would rather have millions of people listen to their music/film rather than make millions of pounds and i find that very sad, The arts are there to entertain people rather than become a money farm.
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hmm, fairly true. Anime in Japan is definitely a money driven business, just like Hollywood or anything else. It's very heavily consumer driven.
It gets a little different when it gets to the west though, since most of the distro's over here are people who are in it for the love of anime rather than to make money. They work long hours, the pay isn't great, and there is a lot of job insecurity.
I almost feel its those guys we should be supporting :)
 
Liquid Skin said:
If you want to justify spending £20+ on something that you've never seen before with "the moral high ground" all the power to you, personally i don't see a problem with trying before you buy but hey thats just me, my conscience is clear so i don't care if people with differing views to mine judge me, im comfortable with my decision.
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Reviews and trailers normally suffice for me when it comes to deciding whether to buy a DVD (not just anime ones). You can’t ‘taste’ everything before you buy it. Life doesn’t work like that. And if it does go wrong, flog it on here or e-bay. Plus, the vast majority of anime DVD’s are available for much less than £20 nowadays.
If it wasn't for the fansubbers we would have to wait 6 months plus for a release, maybe not one at all *cough FLCL cough*
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A six month wait hasn't killed me. I'm waiting to see Denno Coil but there’s plenty of other anime to watch in the mean time. And I own FLCL on DVD. Fair enough I had to import it but I've got it none the less.
Anime fans who use fansubs (sweeping generalisation incoming) use them because they cannot wait for a UK release, does that not show some level of commitment to the franchise?
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No.
Moreover in my experience anime fans are the most "moral" of pirates, because of our love of the art we will shell out £££ for the special editions, the art boxes and the memorabilia.
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Maybe that's an area where some money could be spared for spending on more anime and less cardboard? And besides, if the licensers go to the wall who’s going to make the art boxes?
It is true that fansubs affect DVD purchases but since everything under the sun is pirated that argument is pretty weak, you don't see Paramount or the music industry filing for bankruptcy. Yes they're feeling the strain but most people resort to pirating because of the extortionate prices rather than "i want it for free" in my experience.
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The movie and music industries are far stronger than the western anime industry. There is little or no comparison to be made.
I realise profit must be made but there is very little true artists left in the world who would rather have millions of people listen to their music/film rather than make millions of pounds and i find that very sad, The arts are there to entertain people rather than become a money farm.
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I assume that at least some of the money spent on official releases goes to the 'artists'. How much money do they get from fansubbers? And I'm quite sure that if animators were asked to work for free, because it's art, there wouldn't be much anime to watch.


Call me foolish but I think that if we (western anime fans) really are so dedicated to anime, we should perhaps show a slightly greater loyalty to it and help protect it. We spent long enough wishing there was more of it and now that we are getting our wish, let’s not go and shoot ourselves in the foot.

(That was quite a long post. I think I'll go an' have a lie down for a bit)
 
For the "pirates," it's probably just because they are run by greed, which everyone has a little of. I download episodes because I want a teaser before I buy a series worth of DVDs. I'm currently collecting Haruhi, and I've watched a bit on it already on fan-subs, but I've not gone and spoilt the ending. Another plus to fan-sub/buying is to find out if the English dub is good or not. As long as you know the Japanese dub is good, you can then decide to watch it all in Japanese, or try the English out.

Anyways, the whole issue is we want it, so we find a way of getting it. Licenced or not, people have a certain view on whether to get it or not, and then it comes to the moral choice of "is it acceptable or not?" Most of the d/loaders you call pirates are getting what they can and forget to even ask the moral question. But I bet there is a significant number that do ask that question, and even if they do get it (immorally), they'll buy the products to make themselves feel justified. Especially if it's something they like.

It's a very grey area. It's like business, in that you can have good/bad moral choices, but you also have to think of the "is it worth it?" risk. Most business choices are good morally and business-wise. But I guess most of the issues with fan-subs are it's good for the d/loaders financially, but it may breach the moral code. They are still willing to risk it.
Call me foolish but I think that if we (western anime fans) really are so dedicated to anime, we should perhaps show a slightly greater loyalty to it and help protect it. We spent long enough wishing there was more of it and now that we are getting our wish, let’s not go and shoot ourselves in the foot.
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It's not foolish, but as mentioned above, it's still a moral thing. You are describing what most of us probably don't either realise or care much for, and don't see the consequences in the late future. Unfortunately, being a proclaimed Otaku (I aint harcore though), I don't have the money to fund for everything. I have to make the choices to get this or that, until I can get it. Sometimes that may be too late.

As for Ebay, I trust that with a 5m pole. I'd use it in dire needs, but that's like 1 in 10 000 purchases.
 
I will admit to using fansubs, but I don't agree with them at all. I think Westerners should have to wait until the series airs on US TV, or is released on DVD. It's scandalous that some people who call themselves "anime fans" have never actually bought a DVD before in their life (believe me, it does happen).

No one is entitled to free anime - no one. Illegal fansubbing definately does damage anime and the sooner it's gone, the better!
 
If it's lisenced buy if it's unlisenced whats the problem?

As soon as anime comes down in price some what or cuts some of the extra cardboard or the metal tins or whatever fine.
 
talking about licenced and unlicenced may be fine, but what about series like Naruto and Bleach

if you go the normal route of 4eps a disk at £14.99 for the first series of naruto alone it would cost you around £800, granted that Naruto normually comes around 14.99 for 13 eps but that will still come out around £230, where as a normal 6 vol series of 26 eps will cost around £90, u can see why many people turn to fansubs for the longer series
 
MTW said:
If it's lisenced buy if it's unlisenced whats the problem?
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If it's unlicensed, then I suppose it's okay (though I wouldn't mind seeing the end of fansubbing there, either) but when it's been licensed, it really shouldn't be allowed.
 
I do watch fansubs, but i don't see it to be 100% wrong, yes it is for the fact that it can mean that people will just download everything they ever watch and never purchase the DVD's, but thats all down to the person. When it comes down to series i've watched, if i'm in the middle of a series which is currently airing in Japan and it gets a US license, i do tend to stop and wait for the DVD's to get released and buy them, though for some series its not the case, like Code Geass(mind you 24+25 did come out a couple days after the license was picked up). Even still, if its a series i enjoyed i will pick up the DVD's regardless of whether or not i actually watched them online/downloaded, for the fact that i think the series is well worth the money.
 
CitizenGeek said:
MTW said:
If it's lisenced buy if it's unlisenced whats the problem?
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If it's unlicensed, then I suppose it's okay (though I wouldn't mind seeing the end of fansubbing there, either) but when it's been licensed, it really shouldn't be allowed.
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Exactly.
Fansubbers will usually put "if this is released in NA please stop disturbuiting this".
But greedy people would rather download.

Fansubbers just want to give people who wouldn't usually see this a chance to see some good animation.(unfortunately a lot of stuff doesn't get lisenced outside of japan).

It's like the saying "money is the root of all evil" people are the root of all evil they abuse it.
 
Its a vicious circle, the manufacturers need to be shown that theres an audience to lower their prices and yet the prospective audience wont buy their product and show their support with such ludicrious prices as Ryo Chan pointed out.

The internet has changed everyone and everything - for better or worse and your belief that you can "stop" pirating from happening is indeed a foolish hope.
They say prostitution is the oldest profession but i'd say pirating takes a jolly good hack at it. It will never go away just as violence and drugs will never leave human history. All that you can hope to do is persuade and hope that the current and next generation have enough moral fibre to buy all of the DVDs they have watched when they get a high enough income. Or then again you could just censor the internet, you'd be more than welcome in China!
Sitting on your high horse passing judgement just makes pirates hate the system all the more, (especially me! :D ) Show some tolerance and educate people as to the reasons behind moral piracy (good oxymoron there) and you would make greater progress than saying "fansubs are mad m'kay?" It will just become a forbidden fruit.

I have resolved to buy each and every one of the series i've watched and i am in the slow process of doing it right now. Admittedly there are people who misuse the licensing agreements but name me one area of anything in existence which hasn't been misused at some point.

A six month wait hasn't killed me. I'm waiting to see Denno Coil but there’s plenty of other anime to watch in the mean time. And I own FLCL on DVD. Fair enough I had to import it but I've got it none the less.
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And what about the anime that never leaves Japan? If it wasn't for the fansubbers we would never experience some anime, you've at least got to give them some credit for that. Moreover when japan-only anime is leaked to the internet some moral pirates then kick up a fuss, they email the company and ask for a release over here and what do you know? When they get enough emails they do in fact release it and everyone wins, they make more money from another region and the fans get a professionally done sub/dub of an anime that might not have seen the light of a US or UK day.

Anime fans who use fansubs (sweeping generalisation incoming) use them because they cannot wait for a UK release, does that not show some level of commitment to the franchise?

No.
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Oh silly me, people wanting to watch something must mean they hate the product. I really havent got my head screwed on today have i?

Reviews and trailers normally suffice for me when it comes to deciding whether to buy a DVD
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Trailers are the very definition of false advertising - the amount of times i've watched a trailer and thought "wow that looks really cool" parted with my cash at the cinema and then watched something which bears little to no resemblance of the trailer......well its sickening how many times thats happened. If the producers were straight with the audience from the start you wouldnt have so many disheartened patrons resorting to illegal means to check that the film you are watching is genuine to the trailer. When the industry gives honest trailers i will honestly buy those dvds with faith in one hand and cash in the other. Lets see who folds first shall we?

And I'm quite sure that if animators were asked to work for free, because it's art, there wouldn't be much anime to watch.
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Thats not the point i was making, the artists themselves usually get a tiny percentage compared to the company which produces it. I'd be happy to know that a good 50% of the money i spend on anime goes to the artists who created it but thats never gonna happen.

I completely agree with MTW's statement - the system isn't broken, its the people using it. Why else would fansubbers refuse to release a bootleg copy of some anime (to use the new Eva film as an example) these people are commited to giving their audience the very best copy they can get, it would be naive to say that they arent aware of people downloading illegally but fansubbers have a hellofalot more respect for the product they are providing than the hollywood films bootlegged.
 
I can't really justify fansubs. I have resorted to them, however I try to balance this out by buying them later. Legally and morally it is wrong I suppose since its taking something for nothing.

Its hard to say how much it damages the industry, on the one hand many will see a series once and then that will be it, they won't bother buying it. On the other hand, much buzz about good series' is generated from fansubs. Shows like Naruto and such wouldn't have been as highly anticipated if thousands hadn't been watching initially.

Strangely I probably wouldn't have become an anime fan if it weren't for fansubs. I first saw Hellsing this way (and bought it later). :?
 
If a series doesn't get released here, I watch the fansubs. If a series does get released here, I watch the fan subs AND buy the official release. However, this is determined whether I liked the series or not.

I'd happily buy DVD releases of anime as long as they have good subtitles, and allow you to listen to Japanese dialogue instead of English dialogue. Sorry, whenever I hear dubs and compare it to the original, it makes me cringe 99% of the time.
 
Bah, I'm too damn lazy to read through all of the above.

I wouldn't have got into anime in the first place if not for fansubs, just like many other people. Fansubs are the reason people care about anime, over in countries like rip-off Britain in particular, no-one would give a damn about over-priced anime if not for fansubs.

There will always be people who abuse fansubs; people who simply burn stuff to DVD's with no intention of buying, but this is countered by fansub watchers who buy the shows that they enjoyed watching. Fansubs have done more good than bad to the anime industry by giving birth to the number of anime fans fansubs have.
 
I've come in pretty late to the discussion, but I'll still put my two pennies worth in.

I believe that fansubs don't affect the industry to such an extent that people make out they do. People are either that way inclined to buy anime related products, or not. It's a scapegoat for poor business decisions by companies.

If you think of it this way: It makes no difference if someone decides not to buy an anime after downloading it. If anything, fansubs help the industry, because their presence on the internet lets more and more people find out exactly what anime is, and a proportion of these people will be that way inclined to buy the discs. It's up to the distributors to market anime in such a way that people know the dvd's are out there to buy, in adverts and such. Many people I know don't even know that anime is available on dvd...

This post won't make as much sense as I'd like it to, because I'm exhausted, but I think the general jist of what I mean comes across.

Thinking of it another way. Take non anime related products, i.e. mainstream Hollywood films. Now, either someone is going to buy the dvd of something they really like, or not.

As a general statement, people don't buy dvd's because either they don't have the money to do so - or they aren't passionate enough about anime to be bothered to buy it; those people wouldn't buy dvd's even if fansubs didn't exist. The hundreds of thousands of people who download Naruto and Bleach from Dattebayo each week don't care about anime enough to buy the series, they're only downloading it because it's available - which, if anything, promotes anime as a whole - letting more people know about it. That's why you don't see certain people who post their reams and reams of anime viewings in the "recently watched thread", because they just don't care about anime enough to care what is happening to companies. Of course, anime will still be there for them to download, so why should they care?

This discussion is so complex it's hard to write everything in one, so feel free to pick holes in my opinions and I can explain better that way.

EDIT: Yeah, and just reading the above post (I'll try and read the entire thread soon), fansubs are a good way for people to find out about anime. I think I got into anime through of course Pokemon and Digimon to begin with (as did most people, and without knowing what anime was), then I watched Spirited Away at a cinema back in the day and started buying dvds after that - without even knowing about fansubs, or anything about the series I was buying. I can't be bothered to make a point out of that because my brain isn't working properly at the moment. But basically, now I know about fansubs, they've been my insight into what anime series there are, and of course how they are presented on Japanese television, which in my opinion is a much better way to watch anime (I used to watch dubbed versions on ADV discs, it feels a lot more special watching in Japanese - off topic). But anyway, if fansubs didn't exist, I'd not have the knowledge I do now about it all, because many websites and forums that are in existence, wouldn't exist if it weren't for fansubs.

Again, sorry for the messed up post.
 
Sorry dont have time to read all of the above.
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People do illegally download anime but if they are doing this the majority of the time its because they cannot afford to buy it anyways, there’s nothing anyone can do to solve this problem.

Without fan subs I just don’t see how the word of anime will spread outside of Japan, no one is willing spend so much money on such an unknown title (well I’m not).

I have watched a lot of fan subs in the past and its what got me hooked, without it I would probably not know of the anime genre.

Until companies over here start distributing subbed anime of current airing shows I wont be losing any sleep at night when I download fan subs not licensed yet.
 
GreenTango said:
Until companies over here start distributing subbed anime of current airing shows I wont be losing any sleep at night when I download fan subs not licensed yet.
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Then comes the whole "paying to download issue". Many people won't want to pay for it, or can't. I know I wouldn't want to. I'd only pay for physical items.

Distributors really do need to work with fansubbers rather than against them, as impossible as it sounds, if things do start to go downhill in a big way they'll wish they had worked with fansubbers. And besides, it would cut their costs of having to sub a series and encode it, and distribute it - because all the work has already been done (and if done by the right people - to an incredible high standard (much better than a company could do as well)). Hell, distributors could even make a deal with fansubbers to put adverts on their sites where to buy their products, or make their own adverts for fansubs.
Something's got to change eventually
 
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