Fansubs update.
In my previous post about fansubs I included very little information on the legality of it. Some of what I did include was mistaken. Some of the information I found didn’t take into account the improvement of fansubs thanks to advancing technology. In other words, some of it is out of date. It’s more suited to the days of VHS fansubs, days that are long past. I’ve looked into it a bit more from another point of view.
VHS fansubs were of a lower quality. They were really no competition to an officially licensed release. These days a fansub can be DVD quality. That means that distributors are competing with fansub groups. Many groups hold to the old school ethics to stop distribution when a show is licensed. That doesn’t mean that everyone does.
So far there haven’t been many law suites filed against fansub groups, though there have been a few. For anime fans we may be living in something similar to the pre-Napster days of the music industry. Publishers haven’t started suing long lists of fans the way the RIAA has, but it could. With huge companies like Disney getting into anime distribution it’s becoming more and more likely every day.
If you watch fansubs, I encourage you to think about it. You are breaking the law. The anime industry could target you at any time, the way the music industry targeted it’s fans. I hope that doesn’t happen. I’d hate to see the backlash from the fans. Music has suffered because of it. I don’t want anime to suffer the same way.
I found a very interesting article about fansubs, scanlations and copyright law. I’d suggest taking a look at it here.
fansubs, legal, technology, VHS, quality, licensed, DVD, ethics, RIAA, Disney, fans, scanlations, copyright
November 8th, 2007 at 5:32 am
[...] fansub groups have an advantage over companies like ADV and Viz that license anime. Time. A fansub group [...]