Potential bad news for fansubs

Charagon

On Thursday, the Kyoto Prefectural Police's High-Tech Crime Task Force has added more charges to the two men accused of uploading anime videos without authorization onto the Winny file-sharing network in Japan. The two men are Shōji Sakai, a 39-year-old company employee from Sakai City in the central Japanese metropolitan area of Osaka, and Katsuhisa Ikema, a 35-year-old unemployed man from Amagasaki City in the nearby prefecture of Hyogo. The police say that Sakai violated Japan's Copyright Law by uploading around 5,700 episodes from about 230 titles from the fall of 2003 until this past January. The authorities further allege that Ikema uploaded around 3,500 episodes from about 170 titles in the same timeframe. For example, the two are accused of uploading the second episode of the Kimikiss pure rouge anime series on October 14 of last year. According to an affidavit, the two are said to have performed these alleged actions because they "wanted to be appreciated [by the users.]"

I hope these weren't the guys uploading One Piece. :sad:

Nuzzie

Wonder if either of those were Saiyaman.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

I'm fine with people who upload "One Piece", or any other anime I like for that matter, getting charged. Now that "One Piece" is in good hands I would have no problem if the fansubs started to go away; the only reason I depended on them was because I wasn't getting "One Piece" the way I wanted it. Now that 4Kids is out of the picture, there's no need for fansubs and I'd actually be happy if a group like Kaizoku-Fansubs were forced to stop doing what they're doing.

Lord Starfish

@firecrouch:

I'm fine with people who upload "One Piece", or any other anime I like for that matter, getting charged. Now that "One Piece" is in good hands I would have no problem if the fansubs started to go away; the only reason I depended on them was because I wasn't getting "One Piece" the way I wanted it. Now that 4Kids is out of the picture, there's no need for fansubs and I'd actually be happy if a group like Kaizoku-Fansubs were forced to stop doing what they're doing.

You kinda have a point, but consider this: It will propably take over 4 years before FUNi gets to Thriller Bark. Wouldn't 4 years of nothing but stuff we've seen before get really, freakin' boring in the long run?

Battle Franky

@Nuzzie:

Wonder if either of those were Saiyaman.

Saiyaman, among other RAW providers take those uploaded Winny files & torrent them for the west. So they're not implicated in this.

As with the Jump & Sunday upload arrests of last year which has pretty much killed off any real efforts to scan & upload entire chapters from the Japanese side of things, this could potentially have much the same effect.

Seeing as the risk they run is very high & is now very real, people seem to be going down all the time, you could see a down turn or a bail out by regular uploaders/encoders. I guess, if you weigh up spending the next 2-3 years being some hardcore Yakuza's prison bitch or uploading episodes of Yes! PreCure 5 to Winny for anon, then… the choice should be clear.

This is indeed bad news for the fansub industry. I thought that fansubs was considered kind of a free publicity for anime, but that doesn`t seem to be the case, or at least not anymore.

But ! Its kind of the same as Napster or Supernova… They were blamed, got down and its sad for the developpers, but from their ashes came out a lot more. I believe the same will happen to anime uploaders.

Its very sad to say that we humans only learn from our mistakes... not otherss mistakes... :getlost:

Charagon

@firecrouch:

I'm fine with people who upload "One Piece", or any other anime I like for that matter, getting charged. Now that "One Piece" is in good hands I would have no problem if the fansubs started to go away; the only reason I depended on them was because I wasn't getting "One Piece" the way I wanted it. Now that 4Kids is out of the picture, there's no need for fansubs and I'd actually be happy if a group like Kaizoku-Fansubs were forced to stop doing what they're doing.

I'm happy One Piece is in good hands, but they're YEARS away from catching up (of course with the rate Vegapunk has been going lately… I kid I kid). I have no desire to wait for them.

Crossword

People who claim that they wouldn't mind if the fansubs vanished are lying to themselves, really.

GaryPotter

People, I think you are overreaching. Fansubs are not going to go anywhere, and are in no danger of ever doing so. Even if by some chance the fansubs do get shut down, they'll just move to a harder to reach place. Trust me, they can never kill fansubs.

Seal of Legends

I'd be fine with it if only things like One Piece or Bleach didn't have any subbed versions and were only RAW's, since I don't need translations to enjoy and episode of either.

For other series in which I haven't read the manga, however, then that could become a problem.

Bounty1Berry

If nothing else, the fansub industry keeps the official licensees honest. They make it possible for many people to know– more or less-- how the rest of the world sees the series, and thus, if the official licensee is ripping you off.

Half the reason that everyone knew the 4kids dub was a fiasco was because a lot of English-speaking fans knew what was supposed to be there already. Of course, the other half of the reason was because they couldn't blend that much stupidity to a smooth appearance.

goty

Haha, i'm hearing this "OMG the end of fansubz" talk over the internets for God knows how many years now. That'd be like saying the mp3 scene died without Napster.
Anyway, most of the japanese uploaders are using Share these days, and if they go after Share another popular source would show up. Indeed, they can never kill fansubs.

Atheuz

@firecrouch:

I'm fine with people who upload "One Piece", or any other anime I like for that matter, getting charged. Now that "One Piece" is in good hands I would have no problem if the fansubs started to go away; the only reason I depended on them was because I wasn't getting "One Piece" the way I wanted it. Now that 4Kids is out of the picture, there's no need for fansubs and I'd actually be happy if a group like Kaizoku-Fansubs were forced to stop doing what they're doing.

I'm not - As all dubs are completely retarded, even if it is Funimation there is no way they can find voice actors of the same talent as Japanese ones. Just watch any scene with Luffy ending a fight - Lucci vs Luffy and Luffy vs Enel are both good examples of what I mean.

EDIT: But yeah, nothing will happen.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Atheuz:

I'm not - As all dubs are completely retarded, even if it is Funimation there is no way they can find voice actors of the same talent as Japanese ones. Just watch any scene with Luffy ending a fight - Lucci vs Luffy and Luffy vs Enel are both good examples of what I mean.

EDIT: But yeah, nothing will happen.

FUNimation will be releasing the Japanese version on their DVDs, so you have no reason to worry.

Brooke

well they cought parsons who had 5000 anime episodes on site, people who translate OP has few last episodes so i don't think they would have some problems whit around 10-20 episodes…

Lord Starfish

@Brooke:

well they cought parsons who had 5000 anime episodes on site, people who translate OP has few last episodes so i don't think they would have some problems whit around 10-20 episodes…

Well, where do you think the One Piece-fansubbers get the raws from? Those sites with 5000 episodes on them. So if all those sites got shut down, the fansubbers wouldn't have any episodes to translate from.

Atheuz

@firecrouch:

FUNimation will be releasing the Japanese version on their DVDs, so you have no reason to worry.

I'm not even American - Oh yeah I can't wait to watch those 200 episodes I missed because I instead wanted to watch some Dub/worse subs than fansubs, in 4 years.

Actually no thanks, I'll stick with fansubs.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Atheuz:

I'm not even American - Oh yeah I can't wait to watch those 200 episodes I missed because I instead wanted to watch some Dub/worse subs than fansubs, in 4 years.

Actually no thanks, I'll stick with fansubs.

Well then what country are you from, and how is "One Piece" released there?

NamiGivesMeNoseBleeds

@Atheuz:

I'm not even American - Oh yeah I can't wait to watch those 200 episodes I missed because I instead wanted to watch some Dub/worse subs than fansubs, in 4 years.

Actually no thanks, I'll stick with fansubs.

Dub/subs aren't all that bad bub, and there are dubs that do very well at imitating voices while staying true to the original. most bad dubs ended after the 90s (with the exception of 4kids.)

–------------------------------------

I think that companies are to critical with fansubs and should find a way to use them as a business strategy rather than getting rid of them completely.

Dr. Casey

@firecrouch:

Now that 4Kids is out of the picture, there's no need for fansubs and I'd actually be happy if a group like Kaizoku-Fansubs were forced to stop doing what they're doing.

You have some unbelievably terrible opinions, Firecrouch.

TakinawaTonfa

What with the shitty notion that fansubs are always going to be the "purest" or "truest" or always infinitely better than OMG AN ANIMAY CUMPANEEE?

Generic_Soda

@Dr.:

You have some unbelievably terrible opinions, Firecrouch.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Dr.:

You have some unbelievably terrible opinions, Firecrouch.

Why? What other crappy opinions have you heard from me that you didn't like besides this one?

Look, saying I'd be happy about Kaizoku-Fansubs going away was a bit harsh, after all the people running it are fans, there the best-known fansub group that does "One Piece" (and for good reasons), and there will always be people that won't have access to the official releases no matter what. But they're a minority, but more importantly I liked Kaizoku-Fansubs because without them I wouldn't have been able to watch the original "One Piece", but the only reason I went through them was because all there was was a shitty adaptation by 4Kids. If FUNimation or VIZ had it on Toonami from the beginning and made their usual good dub I would've just watched it on T.V. Not that FUNimation has "One Piece" I expected Kaizoku-Fansubs to stop, I mean that's why they kept doing it when 4Kids licensed it, because 4Kids didn't release the original version. But no, Kaizoku-Fansubs said something like "well we're in Japan so they can't do anything to us" or some bullshit like that, and again they just broke the unwritten code that fansubs cease when a series is licensed.

There's no need in my mind of fansubs for "One Piece" anymore, except perhaps that "One Piece" hasn't been re-released by FUNimation in Canada, England and Australia, but that'll happen eventually. That's why I wouldn't mind if Kaizoku-Fansubs, as good as it is, was just stopped.

Lord Starfish

@Atheuz:

worse subs than fansubs, in 4 years.

And why do you think the DVD-subs are worse than fansubs? If there's one thing FUNi does right, it's the fantastic translations. I've heard people say that FUNi's subs on Movie 8 were far better than any fansub.

JulieYBM

So wait, did somebody imply that Mr. Clyde 'Mato' Mandelin's subs are worse then unprofessional fansubs?

Lobster Pot-Sticker

Funi's Movie 8 sub basically was the SAME as Vega Punk's fansub. I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at the fansubs while they were translating to make their job easier >_>

Dr. Casey

@firecrouch:

Why? What other crappy opinions have you heard from me that you didn't like besides this one?

None at all, fire. None at all.

Look, saying I'd be happy about Kaizoku-Fansubs going away was a bit harsh, after all the people running it are fans, there the best-known fansub group that does "One Piece" (and for good reasons), and there will always be people that won't have access to the official releases no matter what. But they're a minority, but more importantly I liked Kaizoku-Fansubs because without them I wouldn't have been able to watch the original "One Piece", but the only reason I went through them was because all there was was a shitty adaptation by 4Kids. If FUNimation or VIZ had it on Toonami from the beginning and made their usual good dub I would've just watched it on T.V. Not that FUNimation has "One Piece" I expected Kaizoku-Fansubs to stop, I mean that's why they kept doing it when 4Kids licensed it, because 4Kids didn't release the original version. But no, Kaizoku-Fansubs said something like "well we're in Japan so they can't do anything to us" or some bullshit like that, and again they just broke the unwritten code that fansubs cease when a series is licensed.

There's no need in my mind of fansubs for "One Piece" anymore, except perhaps that "One Piece" hasn't been re-released by FUNimation in Canada, England and Australia, but that'll happen eventually. That's why I wouldn't mind if Kaizoku-Fansubs, as good as it is, was just stopped.

Now here's a post I can agree with. Wishing that they'd stop out of their own volition is fine and makes perfect sense, but I'd hate to see them shut down. I've always disliked unnecessary legal interference, whether it's Square shutting down that harmless Chrono Ressurection project or authors saying that no fanfiction can be produced of their work. Shutting down fansub projects that put no significant dent in Funimation's One Piece revenue would certainly fall under the same category.

King Kobra

I could care less about the Anime.

Besides some of the openings, the One Piece Anime never did it for me. It's not even the style the animated stuff is handled by Toei, nor the somehow crappy fillers (THERE ARE good fillers, tough), but…

How should I say it?

I just enjoy reading the scans way more for some reason, perhaps because in the scans the stuff goes all the way Oda wants, or maybe because the "animated" panels aren't that great of an improvement (at least in my oppinion) when compared to the actual manga drawings.

Oh, and I know most fansubs/Scanlating gorups do their best, buf if I ever found something annoying about them, that was the ridiculous abuse of cursing words. Geeze, it's not like actual people need that much cursing for a conversation to make sense.

NamiGivesMeNoseBleeds

@Lobster:

Funi's Movie 8 sub basically was the SAME as Vega Punk's fansub. I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at the fansubs while they were translating to make their job easier >_>

Boss, you gotta have some more faith than that, Funimation isn't a mediocre company anymore.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Lobster:

Funi's Movie 8 sub basically was the SAME as Vega Punk's fansub. I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at the fansubs while they were translating to make their job easier >_>

Why wouldn't it be similar? They're both translations of the same thing.

Lobster Pot-Sticker

guuuyyysss

I was saying that as a good thing. As in they weren't changing up the dialog for the subs. As in

dun dun dubtitles.. woooo

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Lobster:

guuuyyysss

I was saying that that was a good thing. As in they weren't changing up the dialog for the subs. As in

dun dun dubtitles.. woooo

Why would dubtitles even cross your mind? They're so rare and FUNimation doesn't use them.

Dr. Casey

@NamiGivesMeNoseBleeds:

Boss, you gotta have some more faith than that, Funimation isn't a mediocre company anymore.

Funimation was never mediocre. They jumped from terrible to good. I am proud of them.

RomanGod

Fan subs being shut down?

Huh, imagine that. doesn't care

Lobster Pot-Sticker

Dubtitles are still alive and well. Illumination still uses them, Firecrotch.

RomanGod

Yeah. And look what happened to them, Lobster.

Bounty1Berry

@TakinawaTonfa:

What with the shitty notion that fansubs are always going to be the "purest" or "truest" or always infinitely better than OMG AN ANIMAY CUMPANEEE?

It isn't necessarily even that fansubs are necessarily better, or even particularly good– it's that the presence of a second source prevents the main supplier from becoming a rip-off in quality and-or price.

Comparison: Look at how the presence of AMD in the market forces Intel to make better processors, even when a fair amount of people, they know, will never buy an AMD processor.

Geg

@firecrouch:

Why would dubtitles even cross your mind? They're so rare and FUNimation doesn't use them.

Didn't they use them for FMA? That's just what I've read.

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Geg:

Didn't they use them for FMA? That's just what I've read.

I doubt it. Maybe the subtitle track was very similar to the dub script if the the English dub followed the Japanese very closely, but if there were dubtitles we'd probably be hearing a lot of fan outcry long ago and the DVD sales wouldn't be as strong as they've been.

Charagon

I don't understand how this keeps coming up.

Funi uses BOTH proper subtitles and dubtitles. If you have a Funi DVD and your subs don't seem to match what's being said… PRESS THE BUTTON AGAIN!

My opinion is that we should respect the preferences of others…

Some people like fansubs because they can listen to the original voices, and most of the times the subs are accurate (which is probably the case now in DVD releases, but for older people, they experienced some work that made them reluctant to company releases for life, like myself). In some countries, the DVDs just cant be found, so people have to turn to fansubs (yop, Americans, Canadians, Australians and other industrialized countries arent the only ones speaking English and enjoying the fansubs).

Some others prefer manga. Respect that. But for those of you that do prefer manga, please respect that some of us prefer animated work, something that moves. If you don`t care about this fansubs, why do you bother telling us then...

Funi, 4kids and others are, again, American companies. If I don`t live in the USA, then those are not an option for me.

This might seem harsh, but its only because my English skills arent top notch, so I use the words I know:
Please stop thinking everything anime-related turns around your local area and start thinking globally, including that some other people just dont think as you do (I dont aim anyone personally).

firecrouch · Blog last updated 01/31/2013:

@Kamisama420:

My opinion is that we should respect the preferences of others…

Some people like fansubs because they can listen to the original voices, and most of the times the subs are accurate (which is probably the case now in DVD releases, but for older people, they experienced some work that made them reluctant to company releases for life, like myself). In some countries, the DVDs just cant be found, so people have to turn to fansubs (yop, Americans, Canadians, Australians and other industrialized countries arent the only ones speaking English and enjoying the fansubs).

Some others prefer manga. Respect that. But for those of you that do prefer manga, please respect that some of us prefer animated work, something that moves. If you don`t care about this fansubs, why do you bother telling us then...

Funi, 4kids and others are, again, American companies. If I don`t live in the USA, then those are not an option for me.

This might seem harsh, but its only because my English skills arent top notch, so I use the words I know:
Please stop thinking everything anime-related turns around your local area and start thinking globally, including that some other people just dont think as you do (I dont aim anyone personally).

Well what English-speaking countries don't have access to anime that have to go through fansubs as an only option?

Buuhan1

@Atheuz:

I'm not - As all dubs are completely retarded, even if it is Funimation there is no way they can find voice actors of the same talent as Japanese ones. Just watch any scene with Luffy ending a fight - Lucci vs Luffy and Luffy vs Enel are both good examples of what I mean.

lol .

Saloma

@Atheuz:

I'm not - As all dubs are completely retarded, even if it is Funimation there is no way they can find voice actors of the same talent as Japanese ones. Just watch any scene with Luffy ending a fight - Lucci vs Luffy and Luffy vs Enel are both good examples of what I mean.

Well what English-speaking countries don't have access to anime that have to go through fansubs as an only option?

Lets say I live in Canada. For some kind of reason that is not important, my family needs to move to lets say Congo. What do I do ? Unless you like brain pain, I`d vote for fansubs.

Well that's not entirely true. You could always order a copy online, ebay the official dvd, special order, etc.

There is always a way. But it depends on how much you're willing to look.

And how much you`re willing to spend. Seeing anime as a passion, I will not go bankrupt for official DVDs, paying incredible amounts just for shipping. And while I wait for paychecks, I miss a lot.

Brooke

here where i live there is no dvd or OP is not on tv, only way i can wach OP is like this…

Atheuz

@firecrouch:

Well then what country are you from, and how is "One Piece" released there?

I'm from Denmark, the anime isn't released here - At all. We get the translated manga, but that's it really.

@Saloma:

Colleen Clinkenbeard is really weak in her voice acting in comparison to Mayumi Tanaka, but she's still very good. I literally laughed at Sanji's voice, that was just horrible.

I'm just saying that I'd much rather watch the Japanese version instead of some lame Dub.

Lord Starfish

@Atheuz:

I'm from Denmark, the anime isn't released here - At all. We get the translated manga, but that's it really.

Same here, only we get even less anime, (You guys have DBZ and Naruto, we don't, though that doesn't matter, I'd propably just import the DVDs anyway.) the manga isn't caught up and the translation is undoubtably worse than the danish version. (Because the norwegian version is BASED on the danish one, thus making it a translation of a translation of a translation.)

So yeah, not everyone has access to FUNi's DVDs. I still buy them, but the prices are a pain, seeing how I'm not allowed to import them myself, thus forcing me to buy them from stores that have them, but the prices are ridicculously high.

PatTraverse

@Kamisama420:

And how much you`re willing to spend. Seeing anime as a passion, I will not go bankrupt for official DVDs, paying incredible amounts just for shipping. And while I wait for paychecks, I miss a lot.

What kind of lame excuse is that?Because you are passionate about something it gives you the right to steal?

Tons of people are passionate about something but they buy it just like everyone else.

Sorry but watching animes is not a right and if you really are passionate you buy it or else it's just an excuse not to pay.

You may have the money to buy them, and thats fine with me. Everyone can do what they like with their money. If you buy every anime that you like from funi and such, then good for you. But seeing that some fans do it for free, I dont see the harm from it.

It`s like using cheats from some games. Some people see it as being a disgrace for real gamers, as some see it to be a part of the game that can be used.

As I said before, respect that other people don`t think as you do.