Fansubs 2: the empires strike back
producers crack down on fansubbing
Comapnies like Media Factory Inc., ADV, and Bandai attempt to crack down on fansubbing. But was this the right tactic?
Click here for Part 1)
By 2001, fansubbing had become more sophisticated. CD-ROM had replaced the venerable VHS tape, and high-speed internet distribution sites had replaced "slow mail." Quality control was improving, to the point that some fansubs were rivaling official releases. The development of Bit-Torrent technology also meant that fansubs could be distributed online, bypassing the usual controls. The issue for anime producers was obvious: why would anime fans buy an official product when they could get a decent fansub for free?
This wasn't an isolated case. Both the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Movie Production Association of America (MPAA) were wrestling with similar issues. The development of mp3 and streaming technology meant that people could enjoy music and movies on their computer and pass them around to their friends, bypassing the usual controls. From a copyright perspective, this was theft, pure and simple.
Reaction was widespread. The RIAA initiated lawsuits against file-sharing sites like Napster and their users, claiming that music sharing was costing the music industry $4.2 billion per year. The MPAA pushed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law in 1998, and placed ads in movie theatres equating file-sharing with "stealing a candy bar."
San Francisco metal band Metallica also declared war on file-sharing site Napster when the group discovered that a demo version of their then-latest single, "I Disappear," had been made available on the server. To publicize their case, drummer Lars Ulrich entered Napster's offices with several boxloads of printouts showing how many times Napster users had downloaded Metallica songs.
Such anti-downloading efforts didn't come without cost. Metallica's anti-Napster stance damaged both the band's credibility and fanbase, with flash animators Camp Chaos mocking "Lar$ UlRICH" in the online cartoon Napster Bad.
The RIAA's many legal blunders, such as suing children, computer illiterates and the deceased for file-sharing, didn't help their cause either.
The situation for anime producers was even more complicated. Most fansubbers follow a relativistic code of ethics: they only charge enough to cover their expenses, and many fansubs contain subtitle text that reads "free fansub: not for sale or rent" to discourage bootleggers.
GHDpro, creator and webmaster of AnimeSuki, goes even farther. "Just like with fansubs themselves, (my) site is non-profit," he says. "If possible, I would not have any (advertising) banners on it at all. In fact some of the mirror sites don't have any ads on them." This, for fansubbers, is an implicit acknowledgement that what they're doing is illegal under international copyright law.
Also, most fansubbers avoid titles that are already licensed for their country of distribution. The only exception is for distributors who heavily edit animes, without releasing an uncut version.
There's fairly strong evidence that anime producers will watch which shows are heavily fansubbed, as an indication that they will do well in a foreign market. According to Willi Hart, creator of Animeph.com, "Official English distributors, who license, translate and sell anime," says Hart, "often choose their shows by the success they had in the fansub community."
"We're doing them a favor," GHDpro says. "Fansubs create a fanbase in the U.S. (etc), which creates demand, which means it's more likely a U.S. anime company wants to license it."
Not only that, ADV's David Williams admitted to Anime-Source that "we have actually hired quite a few fansubbers to work for ADV. A lot of our timers started out as fansubbers and a lot of our translators did translations for fansubs in the beginning."
A classic example of an anime getting that extra push from fansubs is Sailor Moon. Proponents argue that its runaway success in North America was directly due to fansubbers' efforts. If the title hadn't been fansubbed, they claim, Sailor Moon might have never been released in North America, much less make as much money as it did.
Williams disagrees. In the Anime-Source interview, he pointed out that "we had a show that was fansubbed very heavily for the first part of the show but the last part wasn't. When that show was released in stores, the sales on the first part of that show were really low, and the sales on the part that wasn't fansubbed, were really high. That's backwards from the way a normal sale works out. It normally starts out really high and then gets lower on the later volumes . . . a lot of people that have seen the fansubs didn't buy the first part of it but went out and bought the last part of it because it hasn't been fansubbed."
However, Williams' comment misses a crucial point. If earlier portions of that show hadn't been fansubbed to begin with, would anyone have bought those later episodes in stores? That's the question anime producers have to ask themselves.
In December of 2004, lawyers for Media Factory Inc. sent several letters to fansub distribution sites like AnimeSuki. According GHDpro, MFI demanded that the site "stop uploading 'works' (anime series) of MFI to our website and/or stop 'inducing' our visitors to websites where their 'works' can be downloaded."
Reaction was mixed. Most fansub distribution sites dutifully removed all MFI content, but anime fans turned against the company. It's interesting to note that, after they sent out their cease-and-desist letters, MFI didn't license another anime product for foreign distribution for nearly two years, even though titles like School Rumble were extremely popular in Japan. Some have claimed that this was directly due to the C&D letters: since no one was fansubbing MFI titles, no one outside of Japan heard about them.
ADV tried a different strategy to discourage fansubbers. It used their unwillingness to fansub already-licensed product against them by immediately licensing various titles for immediate distribution in North America. However, this is an imprecise strategy, since there's no formula for figuring out which anime will do well overseas.
In the summer of 2006, Bandai also put pressure on fansub distributors to not disseminate their product. Unlike MFI, Bandai was more diplomatic. According to GHDpro, the company "asked us to remove a few anime shows which were sequels (follow-up seasons) to shows they had already licensed. Complying with that request therefore only seemed logical."
GHDpro says that, unlike MFI's dealings, "the communication was in a friendly manner: no (cease & desist letter), just an email from one of (Bandai's) producers at that time: Jerry Chu."
Next time: does fansubbing cut into profits? The answer might surprise you.
