Talk:Fansub/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Ban on nudity? 2 Translating from Chinese subs "inferior"? 3 Commercial versions "inferior"? 4 More good than harm? 5 Neutrality and citations 5.1 Extra sources to read and cite from 6 Newer version 7 Other considerations 8 Quick Questions 9 A few problems 10 What about a banned episode of Pokémon? 11 Recent legal action lacking sources, filled with mistakes 12 YouTube, etc. 13 Entry too long 14 Impact on Adult Swim and vice versa 15 Image 16 Article needs a lot of cleanup 17 Additional Reference 18 Youtube legality question 19 i'm not sure if its relevant but.... 20 How do you report them? 21 Death Note thing 22 Dattebayo Donates 23 Merging Fansubs with Fan translation 24 Shinsen 25 Source Material 25.1 Shinichi Watanabe "Nabeshin" 25.2 ANN 26 BPS? 27 Comcast adding fuel to the fire?!

Ban on nudity?

I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure there is no "official" ban on nudity by the FCC. That's part of the controversy in the "indecency" fines, as there is no "official" definition of what's indecent or objectionable. Unless someone can verify that I'm wrong, I'm going to reword that remark. --Feitclub 22:10, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

You gotta love how the size of the article went way up after an article about fansubbing was posted on Slashdot -- PseudonympH 20:19, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)

Translating from Chinese subs "inferior"?

"Although this inherently reduces the accuracy of the translation because of the fact it has gone through two translations."

Well, I'm not sure if I would say that. Some of the chinese subs are very accurate themselves as when translating, the meaning is kept intact, which is what I believe to be an important part of translation (You simply cannot translate a language word for word).

I believe that it would be unfair to say that the accuracy of the translation would be reduced if a team uses chinese subs. Snowstormz 14:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In some cases im sure that the chinese translations are fairly accurate but its still one more filter. Every time something gets translated it dosen't matter how good the translator is, you going to lose something, even if it something miniscule in the better translations. Same theory on computers, if you move a file from one computer to another, it will probalbly be fine, if you move it 3 times it will still problay be fine, but if you keep jumping it around, its gonna get messed up. Going from japanese to chinese to english is bound to create some errors, even its simply from the way the translators interpreted it. More filters give more errors. Cerevox 19:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Cerevox. It's the same with many things. It's essentially a game of Telephone. As you add more filters, the accuracy reduces. That's why, in image editing, for example, you shouldn't resize the photo more than once. Each stage you go through is a modification of a modification. In fansubbing, a translation of a translation. Each stage further deteriorates the quality. I'm sure Chinese subs are just as wild in quality as English subs, and in some cases there may be little or no overall deterioration, but the fact remains that, in general, a Japanese > Chinese > English translation will be of lesser quality than a Japanese > English translation. AsunaNegi 16:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

As one of the Chinese->English translators from Doremi, I think we aren't doing so bad as people think. We have Japanese checkers to check for mistakes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.81.140 (talk) 06:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Commercial versions "inferior"?

"When commercial versions of a video become available, they are often inferior in translation quality to fansubs, though there have been exceptions."

Many fansubs have abysmal quality compared to the commercial translation. Fansubbers rush to have a show out within days of the shows airing. The translators for fansubs are often students or somewhat bilingual individuals with questionable translation experience. Fansubs tend to provide linear notes, but whether or not that makes them superior or not is questionable. The video quality is certainly not inferior either so what is this referring to? The above line is far from NPOV or factual and will be removed. --Sketchee 13:00, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Fansubs are often discussed and corrected by the community. You have a point with regards to DIY subtitles for Hollywood blockbusters which are indeed rushed out by (apparently) schoolkids and often "abysmal" in the first days/weeks after the release. But everybody is free to edit them, so if people care enough to put some time into it (instead of just complaining) they get better with time. Having any in-synch subtitles available, even if they're machine-back-translated from Chinese, already saves you a lot of work, so I'm grateful for these (and they're funny too). Commercial subs are done by one person, who in spite of being a professional (whatever that means) often produces subtitles which are just as questionable, mistranslated, misheard, betray total lack of background knowledge etc. The difference is that commercial subs will never be corrected, and you cannot correct them without committing a copyright infringement.--84.188.207.3 18:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

"Fansubbers rush to have a show out within days of the shows airing." - This is generally not true - most fansubs are heavily audited. While I have seen a horrible mistranslation in a fansub, official translations are bad most of the time. As for graphical quality, current codecs are quite efficient and allow for DVD quality video in downloadable filesizes. And have you ever seen karaoke timing on official DVDs? So is the statement POV? No, it just states the facts. Shinobu 17:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, there is a technological limit. DVD's store their subtitle as 2bit bitmaps with only four colors available, one must be used for transparency, one is typically black and used for outlines, and the other two can be used as text colors. However it isn't uncommon to use two colors for outlines to add a certian level of antialiasing. Retail DVDs could have much nicer subtitles if they were hard encoded into the video but this would mean that they could not be turned off switched to different languages. Having the subtitles unable to be turned off during dub playback would alienate a certian percentage of buyers (Which is bad for buisness).

Fansubs also rarely have superior or even equal image quality to DVD rips. Fansubs are ripped from TV, compressed in Japan to some MPEG-4 based compression such as DivX or XviD or WMV, then fired across the internet to the fansubbers who will have to re-encode the video agian to get his subtitles in there. He will also probably be forced to filter the video to get it to something less looking like utter crap. You can often see the signs of filtering such as warpsharp and motion smoothing in the video, DVD's on the other hand are sourced from the anime's master copies or broadcast masters. Also, XviD at about 900kb can not compare to Mpeg-2 at anywhere from 6000-9000kbps, XviD was designed for low bandwidth and there are losses at that and DVD's use high bandwidth for compression. If you knew anything about digital video, you would know that 25mins of video compressed to 233mb in XviD would not compare to a DVD. New codecs are available now that can actually compete with DVD, this would be h.264 which can be as efficent for compression as DVD at one half the file size, though anime rips in h.264 are often at about one third the size. But this honestly doesn't mean much since HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will also feature h.264 video. At best, it's a tie there.

Fansubs are also often at lower resolution than their DVD counter parts. The typical resolution seen for a wide screen (16:9) fansub is 640x360 or so. DVD's that have wide screen video will use an anamorphic resolition and fit the entire video in at 720x480 with instructions to stretch the video out to what would be aproximatly 852x480. And no, the human mind doesn't easily pick up on losses of horozontal resolution. Do the math by comparing the total ammount of pixels from those resolitions. 640x360 is 2/3 the resolution of 720x480. There are some exceptions that are showing up but they are the minority, this includes true, stream ripped high definition animes at 720p, but the majority of fansubs are SD rips. Also, keep in mind that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray video formats are now being released and so the anime companies will have the same high definition distrobution options.

"the fansubbers who will have to re-encode the video agian to get his subtitles in there." This is mis-information. Most people apply the subtitles run-time using their player or VobSub. Even KiSS dvd-players can play .srt and .smi subtitles. JoaCHIP 21:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is meaningful to make the comparison. Video quality is just one mark of quality and resolution isn't even the whole story. Translation quality vary greatly between who translated it as both fansubs and commercial subs enjoy great and terrible translations. If you want to compare average trends, even when it comes to translation quality it's a subjective thing where professional and amatuer judgments clash. It's just a crappy, ignorant statement to make, let alone a poor perspective.--141.150.47.188 13:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, the above

A good deal of the fansubs groups sturggle with even having correct english in their subtitles, how is that for superior quality?

Usually the people claiming fansub translation is "often superior" are fans that prefer un-localized, "untranslated" fanboy subtitles to a real translation. Leaving words like "sempai", "oniichan" and whatnot in their original forms in the subtitle track does not constitue a superior translation just because the words don't have an exact equivalent in english.

In fact, if a translation constantly reminds that the text was originally written in a foreign language, like the vast majority of fansubs do in one way or the other, it should really be considered bad as a work of translation. Translation is not a process of who can give the most word-to-word literally "accurate" translation, but who can best convey the same idea in the target language in a form that is faithful to the original, but above all, NATRUAL in the target language.

I disagree. I am not English, and, as such, i don't need to feel the subtitles "Natural" in English. I just need to understand them, and place them in context. Sometimes the use of "san" instead of "kun" makes a whole lot of difference. And perhaps the viewer's language allows for such nuances, and one might appreciate them as part of their own language. In conclusion, it must be kept in mind that the target audience may not be native English people with no knowledge of other cultures, but instead, a whole sweep of people from various cultural and linquistical backgrounds. What good would there be in translating a proverb into the most adequate counterpart? Chances are the viewer doesn't know the original English proverb, and would need further explanations. It's about translating into a well-spread language, not making it available for a specific CULTURE.

 More to the point, I actually think DVD, original subtitles are better than fansubs. A true fan would love buying the original version, and fansubs will not and need not compete with that. But they certainly are good enough.

The "fansubs are usually superior to official translations" is a myth that seriously needs debunking. Sure there always pops up the ocassional badly handled official release, but in my personal experience, the work concistency and quality is mostly tilted in the other direction. Clear logic should already dictate that someone who has taken taked 2 semesters of Japanese in college or taught himself by watching too much anime will obviously not be on the same level of language understanding as someone who has a degree on it and does it as his job. Of course, given where the anime industry supposedly scours its translators at times, that's not always sadly the case...

Now, where fansubs truly shine over the official ones are usually when they're just that - fansubtitles. This mostly comes through when dealing with more complex franchises that have previous incarnations in other medias, and the translation is handled by a clear fan of that original. Since the translator has a clear vision of the whole as well as having an encompassing knowledge of what he's dealing with (and a compassion toward that work), you usually end up with a script adaption that possibly is more faithful in tone than what perhaps the official version could achive, since they seldom have the time or dedication to go dig super-deep into series backgrounds. Of course, it's a fringe example, but hey, they do exist. --80.186.94.247 14:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

While it is true many fansubbers do a poor job, it is also true many anime is worked on by several different encoders and fansubbers. Some fansubbers also no longer follow the 230 mb size limit anymore and try their best to value quality first then file size. For example, the group Kick Ass Anime keeps the DVD's anamorphic resolution in all their encodes. My point is mainly while most fansubbers do rush jobs or low quality jobs, there are some that put in the work needed to have the video to be near or at the same quality and resolution as DVD releases and have a larger staff working on the translations.

Commerical quality? Yeah, because they're the commerical versions to begin with.

KAA is not a fansub group - They never produce any own content, and the vast majority of what they put out is DVD-rips of licensed American R1 releases. It goes past the whole fansubbing issue and just moves straight into regular movie-piracy territory. Good job retorting there ;-P

And I'd like to emphasis that I've never claimed that fansubs could not be well-made high quality ones - But if you want to generlize and claim that is the norm, and more over that they by the norm are always/usually of higher quality than their commerical counterparts, as the wiki article pretty much indirectly states in its current form, you better start cracking up some numerous and solid evidence aside from some random fringe examples and unverified opinion-based "facts". --85.156.165.147 20:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Would a more appropriate advantage of fansub over commercial version be the fact that fansubs can be done by multiple groups? Once licensed for a company, the only commercial version released is by that company. On the other hand with fansubs, there can be multiple groups working on the same series independently of each other. While it is true that some of the encodes are pure crap, work by larger groups tend to be better and have features that licensed series cannot have such as karaoke and addition subtitles to explain certain cultural references (Yakitate Japan by Anime-Empire, will get a screen shot eventually). As for "retorting", I'm just trying to state something that hasn't been mentioned so far. I'm actually pretty neutral on the topic, just stating what I've seen. And as for KAA, they do tend to change the subtitles in places they see fit, most noticably when it refers to words like nii-san and such.

Ivvan Cain 00:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

While commercial subbings almost always take the cake in picture quality because its on dvd in the actual commercial subbing is often right at the average. They arn't trying to win any awards, but they are trying to put out something decent at least. The speed subbers often do a horrible job, but there are some groups that do an excellent job, like Lunar, although they did have some horrible subbes too. The commercial subbing has an assured quality, even if its not a great quality, while fansubbing has a very variable quality that can go from terrible to excellent. If you pick and choose carefully from the avalibe fansubs, it might seem like they are better. Its also heavily biased by whether you prefer you subs to say onii-san or sister and that sort of thing. Its is pretty much impossible to say one is better than the other since in almost all circumstances its a matter of opinion. Cerevox 19:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

More good than harm?

Including the issue of international copyrights, I believe that there is a question on the legality of fansubs, but even moreso, on whether they do more good than harm. Is it the creators, writers, of the anime and manga who are worried about their copywrited work, or is it the publishers, the company, who is worried about the loss in revenue.

There is talk that some of the creators do not mind fansubs because it allows distribution of their product and get the word out about their show. Most fansubbing groups stop both the subbing and the distribution of anime when it is officially announced that the show has been licensed. In addition, the companies have to know the websites that distribute the shows, and there is a chance that the websites give them invaluable marketing data that they would otherwise be unable to obtain. Many of the websites, their trackers have a column that is an important statistic, total number of downloads. Some shows have over 100,000 downloads, some have that many even within a week or two; which tells companies if their show has a chance, or a large chance, at success in the United States.

So then, if fansubs are against the law, do they do more harm than good or do they do more good than harm?

The answer, I believe, lies within the website or fansubbing group and the person who downloads the show(s).

"Most fansubbing groups stop both the subbing and the distribution of anime when it is officially announced that the show has been licensed." Well this statement is not really correct since we today seem to have more groups that do "licensed" either till they get asked to stop or don't stop at all. Sometimes we see a group that gets asked to stop comply with the company but as the next episode airs a new group is born that is releasing with the same basic layout or style as the previous group meaning that as the main warez scene fansubbers also go underground when threatened by the companies. Also note that i quoted licensed because it should note that its been licensed in the US. --Sakaki- 19:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Groups that sub licensed work are not considered mainstream subbers, however. Note that the primary torrent sites such as Animesuki or Scarywater do not list any show that is licensed. Also, associating "warez" (which relates to software piracy and the programming of malicious programs) with "fansubs" is incorrect and POV (unless I'm misreading you). The "warez scene" has nothing to do with fansubs. Xuanwu 19:20, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

"So then, if fansubs are against the law, do they do more harm than good or do they do more good than harm?" what you wrote was so completely biased. The way an anime studio gathers production money is dependant on how much money their investors think they can make. When they has a successful show, what this allows, is for them to be able to borrow larger sums(or collect) from investors who know that they can use the product developed to generate money. This means that the studio can then produce a better show, with more resources. Some sites do hold up their end of the deal, but that system is ripe for abuse.

Neutrality and citations

The lack of citations in the article is somewhat reasonable, as few credible media sources (to my knowledge) have published reports on any aspect of fansubbing. However, the "cult" nature of the phenomenon is not a free license to editorialize in the article. I'd be writing into next week if I were to exhaustively list the statements of questionable objectivity in the article; it should suffice to note little attempt has been made to support any of the statements in the Legal and ethical issues, Dynamics of fansubbing, Recent lawsuits, and Translation quality sections with evidence. In addition, several phrases reveal obvious editorial bias or assumption:

• "Not all fansubbers are guilty of hurting the anime industry."

  The wording implies that most are, when many other wording choices are available.

• "However, it is the norm among anime fans (thanks to polling data) that if a fansub is downloaded and the show enjoyed, a fan will buy the DVD release."

  This is an uncited assumption using broad and ambiguous terms.

That "poll" wouldn't be accurate, even if the most credible source garnered the votes. Any avid supporter of fansubs is going to say "Sure, I buy the DVDs after downloading and watching the series."

• "While there have been instances of negligent professional translations in the earlier days of anime's domestic release, stricter standards among the industry and extensive script checking by native Japanese speakers and formal review by original Japanese licensors have widely made such instances rare in recent times. Most fans agree that more recent domestic releases lack the translation issues that plagued earlier titles. However, the argument popped up again."

  Ignoring the nonsensical wording, a citation at least would be nice here, especially since the claim is dubious. (Even Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, a recent and high-profile feature film, received a very poor official sub.)

Also, banalities such as

• "In the end, there is no clear ethical resolution on the matter. Whether fansubs are now beginning to hurt the market cannot be judged for certain, though their past role as advertisement cannot be questioned."

should be excised. It is not the article's place to tell the reader, "You can't come to a conclusion or make a judgement in this matter." Some of the text in the aforementioned sections is information that should be retained with proper citations, but most is opinion and fluff.--Clownboat 05:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

One citation that would help the article: a recent Yale Economic Review research article found that individuals who download movies are no less likely to buy movies than those who don't, owing to the fact that those who download are also those who like movies enough to spend money. This has a direct bearing on some of the arguments made in the article, since it supports the argument that people who DL fansubs are just as likely to buy anime merchandse as those who don't. The article does need some serious trimming and reorganization. It references the MFI example several paragraphs before the example is explained, for example. And quite a lot of redudnancy. Xuanwu 22:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

That's pretty good. Where'd you find the article? I'll keep my eyes open for fansub related stuff elsewhere and try to cite some stuff in the article if I can. - Phorque (talk · contribs) 20:51, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Extra sources to read and cite from

I'll put some in if/when I have time:

• The Anime Biz - Talks about Naruto fansubs + fansubs in general
• The Other Side of BitTorrent - More fansub related content
• NY times bittorrent and anime article
• Talking Anime Business Blues
• Fansubbing a Good Thing?

-- Phorque (talk · contribs) 13:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm the author of that "fansubbing a good thing" essay listed above. My views are radically biased and should not be cited in this article. TheScott18 01:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Biased views are still relevant, and can be included in articles if used in a sensitive manner. What I mean is: if someone does cite your work, it should be made clear that it is an author's opinion and not in any way the truth or bottom line. You've got to look at bias in order to argue both sides of a coin, ya know? - Phorque 08:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree; however, if an author doesn't want a citation, I think it's reasonable to respect that wish, as long as the author isn't trying to cover up something he's embarrassed about, which isn't the case here. -Amatulic 18:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Newer version

I cleaned it up a bit. Still a lot more to do. Any suggestions? Xuanwu 21:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Other considerations

Why does this section exist? Most of the information here is either completely redundant or a faulty argument in defense of fansubs. How does dubbing detract the quality of a legitimate release if an accurately subtitled version is almost always provided on the DVD as well? In fact, apart from issues surrounding 4Kids specifically, this page should not need to make any reference to the quality of dubbing. It's a completely useless argument. Jbetteridge 00:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, despite being tagged, no substantial changes have been made to back up the arguments presented in this section, so I have removed it. With the SOLE exception of 4Kids properties, these can't possibly be seen as "detractors" on official releases. Similar information should also be edited out of the preceding sections, but I don't have the time to do it right now. Jbetteridge 20:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Quick Questions

Why does the word "dattebayo" redirect here? Dattebayo is a Japanese word with no direct translation, used in the anime/manga Naruto. Translated by Viz Media as "Believe it." Just wondering...

The Dattebayo fansubbing group doesn't bother translating it, and the subtitles don't suffer. Dattebayo roughly means "what I said" (it does have a translatable meaning, actually). Its usage is sort of like Foghorn Leghorn inserting "I say" into sentences before repeating a phrase, for example: "That's a joke... I say, that's a joke, son." Amatulic 17:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

DatteBayo [DB] is a popular fansubbing group on the internet here is their main site [1]--Inoesomestuff 00:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This article makes it sound like only one company has sued regarding the distrubution of their content. I know that Boxtorrent got a letter from from ADV and now have a list up of anime that cannot be shared on their site [2] im not too sure how to edit the article but maybe that could somehow be added in--Inoesomestuff 00:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Getting a letter from a lawyer isn't the same thing as being sued. Amatulic 17:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A few problems

I was just reading through the article and there were a few things that caught me:

• This has allowed fansubbing to transform from a slow and tedious task that generates a low quality preview of an attractive show to a cheap, easy, and quick way to create a high quality and high availability alternative to an only-slightly-better quality official DVD copy, although some groups release HD quality fansubs.

I can hardly pick sense in this sentence, which is the first problem, but it also makes an uneeded comparison of quality between fansubs and official releases and states that the fansub is an alternative which would mean one or the other, when it's said that that isn't the ideal.

• In the end, there is no clear ethical resolution on the matter.

The article sholdn't tell people that there's no resolution, it should be put up to the reader to determine whether it's ethical or not.

• Many in favor of fansubbing argue that it offers a different product than that provided by the company that licensed it, offering a different product in content and translation from that of the official localization. If that holds true, then these viewers would not have purchased the localized version anyway and thus are not a loss in sales.

It seems to me that these people only prefer fansubbing because it's "a different product" so if there was only one product why wouldn't they buy an official release? Wouldn't this still be a loss in sales? The first sentence also repeats itself and seems to be using "weasel words" in "Many argue...". Who argues? Also to me this reason doesn't really make sense, they are both "different products" when compared to one another so why choose fansubs specifically? I'm not sure this is really a valid argument.

I'm not sure if I'm right in pointing this out so if anyone could comment it would be appreciated. HeartOfGold 19:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep the information, lose the preaching, that's what I would say. Well spotted. Shinobu 11:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

What about a banned episode of Pokémon?

This is generally for my planned fandub, but I think it would fit in here. Is it legal? I know 4Kids distributed the season which should of contained it, so would it be legal to dub or sub them if they were never aired or put on American DVD or VHS?

I think by law, fansubs and fandubs are never legal. They just don't get prosecuted often. Ivvan Cain 01:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...4kids censors pokemon way to much....thats why the ratings are down...and also why pokemon is almost never subbed...with exception of dattebayo....

They don't get prosecuted much because if you analyze EVERYTHING the orginal company gets at least SOME money... Nasa0003 15:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent legal action lacking sources, filled with mistakes

The entire section "Recent_legal_action" is entirely unsourced and has multiple factual errors. It could even be argued that it lacks neutrality as it is written as if the company did something wrong and that all fansub supporters believe the company is at fault. The following factual errors could be found on a quick scan:

• " To date, this has been the only legal action taken by a Japanese anime company against the fansubbing community."

  This is factually incorrect. If a C&D is considered legal action, there have been groups that have gotten C&Ds from Japanese companies. Kyoto animation sent one regarding Munto.

• Claims that Kimi ga Nozomu Eien was licensed immediately after when it was not licensed until Feburary 2006.

• "MFI's other major projects, including School Rumble, Pugyuru, and Akane Maniax, were all overlooked by American distributors."

  It is a non-neutral opinion that they were overlooked, not fact. If it is fact, it needs a source.

• "This ended a two year drought of licenses for MFI. However, it remains the only license for MFI since their legal action against fansubbers, which is below the industry average for licenses secured by Japanese animation studios."

  This is incorrect. There have been numerous MFI titles licensed before School Rumble (August 06). Here is a short list off the top of my head: Origin (June 06) , Noein (May 06), Tokko (pre-licensed). Also, there is no evidence or source linking the "lack" of MFI licenses and the C&D. The last fragment is unsourced too and seems to be a guess. Note: Noein was fansubed by Shinsen Subs

• "However, it is the norm among anime fans (thanks to polling data and the previously mentioned scientific research by the Yale Economic Review) that if a fansub is downloaded and the show enjoyed, a fan will buy the DVD release, the same as a person who downloads a movie is as likely to buy the DVD as someone who does not."

  The so called polling data is unsourced and this runs contrary to industry claims. Again, is this really neutral?

Being picky, the term recent is outdated as this is two years ago and there have been multiple other forms of legal action taken before and after this. Sunrise has been sending removal notices to youtube. Bandai has told fansubbers hands off multiple times. There is no reason for this section to entirely focus on the MFI incident. (72.70.241.138 06:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC))

Additionally, the sentence "They also suggest that anime fans in Japan have reportedly begun to turn to English fansubs which often appear days after a show's release, affecting sales in their home market" seems almost pointless. One can assume that most (if not all) anime fans living in Japan would be able to understand Japanese, and therefore there'd be no reason for them to watch fansubs. Even if they download episodes off the internet, it's just as easy to get the raw unsubbed episodes (and usually easier, as they come out faster and usually have higher quality, and there's no worrying about slow subbing groups). There's no reason for the sentence in question to be in this entry, as there's no source for it either way. 70.118.112.83 20:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Although I don't have cited proof of the trend, the Japanese are indeed using fansubs in order to learn English. I was at a Japanese restaurant the other week with three Japanese women, all currently living in Japan. In our conversation, I brought up the subject of fansubs. In short, they want me to start sending them English-subbed Japanese live dramas as a way for them to learn conversational English. And I don't think they're alone on this; in general, the Japanese have always been interested in learning conversational English - especially young people. Regardless of the effectiveness of using fansubs to learn English, it is happening right now. With that, it is quite possible that fansubs may dip into the DVD market seeing rarely Japan-based companies are adding English subtitles to their DVDs. The opposite also has an effect on Japan DVD sales; English speakers wanting to learn to speak and read Japanese are resorting to fansubs. In the Internet world, along with region-free DVD players, people outside of Japan can also be considered consumers of region-2 DVD goods. Groink 22:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I cannot cite proof of Japanese downloading fansubs; however, I can tell you that it is very true. I ran a fansub distro site which offers direct downloads of anime. When I made the site, I wantted to be different than other sites, so I made the site in Japanese language along with other unique features. Over the span of approximately 5 months, Japanese traffic (visitor's reverse dns appears to end in .jp) rank 14th -- closely following Canada, France, and USA Educational (.edu) -- taking up about 5% of the total bandwidth consumption. On my records, Singapore and Malaysia appeared to be downloading the most, which occupies about 50% of the total bandwidth consumption. These information are generated for me via AwStats software analysising my apache's access.log file. 24.81.247.16 08:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Since I was the one who wrote a sizable chunk of that section, I'll reply:

• I didn't know about Munto. If you can get a source on that, please mention it. I'll remove the bit about MFI being first.

• The Kimi ga thing is just due to improper wording. That can be fixed to give the proper timeline.

• Feel free to update the article with that information. I add to the article with the knowledge I have. I'm certainly willing to admit I may miss a few facts now and then!

• I don't know who inserted the "polling data" thing. But the Yale Economic Review article is sourced and does support the statement that those who download tend to buy.

On last thing on Bandai: they recently thanked fansubbers for their role with popularizing Haruhi in the states. I've added this to the article with the source. Clearly, Bandai supports fansubbers of unlicensed material (they also clearly stated they don't like people who watch fansubs and don't buy, which is in line with normal fansubber ethics). Xuanwu 23:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

YouTube, etc.

Does anyone want to write about the profound impact video sharing has/will have on fansubs? I somewhat want to do it, but wiki formatting freaks me out. (And I somewhat want to watch various fansubs.) Jchoi29 23:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Erm...has there been in impact? I really don't like youtube resolution of 320 x 240 so I don't watch anime on there...
Ivvan Cain 01:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting enough, there was a poll on D-Addicts (live Asian TV drama fansubs forum), where 72-percent of its members would like for the fansub groups to have control over how people handle their fansubs, such as people posting on YouTube. Some of the fansubbers have already written to the uploaders, demanding that their fansubs be taken down. Quality of the video is definitely a huge issue. Also, the uploaders feel that uploading fansubs to YouTube will help promote fansubs, while others feel YouTube exposes these supposedly illegal fansubs to a much larger audience, which may down the road cause problems with various agencies. Until YouTube, fansubs have been considered semi-underground - especially live Asian TV dramas, and over-exposure has never been an issue. But now YouTube appears to be having an impact. So this YouTube issue it may be worth pursuing. Groink 03:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

yeah, youtube isn't a very good video hosting service...anyway, some fansubbing groups don't like their work posted on "youtube/other crappy flash site" Nasa0003 15:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Entry too long

This entry does seem to go on and on. Does it need to go into such minutia? --Navstar 01:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Although, at some points it seems to go off at a tangent; that is something that needs to be fixed. Shinobu 17:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Impact on Adult Swim and vice versa

I think somebody should note the impact fansubs indirectly have on Adult Swim and it's counterparts. Their official forum is a seriously-taken source of information on what fans want to see. The recent adoptions of Bleach and Trinity Blood are both due to forum members' interest in the fan-subs of those shows. The Adult Swim staff regularly checks the forum's activity and takes note of popular anime that they've seen in fan-subs, but would like licensed for airing in north america. Right now, fans are urging them to air Blood+. -Biokinetica 17:07, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

That is done as a courtesy. While they do want to know what their fans want, most of the most popular anime they've had, was before the forums. Something like bleach, which is popular, isn't a hard guess. They've also used shows that were previously released in america, and only had about two pages worth of interest.(on their on-demand service.

• I realize that it's done out of courtesy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen and is insignificant. Blood+ is no Bleach, being not nearly as popular, yet they're going to air it. Serial like Naruto and Bleach are rebidly popular in japan, so they're not tough guesses. This particular series that's going to be aired on Adult Swim never had that kind of star-power, so I don't think it can be considered being 'in the same boat' as something like Bleach. -Biokinetica 10:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Image

I think the School Rumble image is really stretching "fair use" here, since the article is not about School Rumble but rather the illegal distribution of said and other series (the choice of School Rumble in particular is bizarre since it is a Media Factory series and they're one of the few, if only, Japanese companies that actively protects their rights overseas, see [3]). Could someone throw together something with Wikipetan and some random phrase in coloured letters? Shiroi Hane 23:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That's an extremely good point/idea. Hmmm... I wouldn't know who to approach to do that. Showing karaoke subtitles similar to the School Rumble ones would give a better image of current fansubbing trends... but what would Wikipe-tan be singing? - Phorque 05:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Does it matter what she is singing? Personally, I think it should be silly, but related to wikipedia. "I wanted to tell you what was in my heart, but the page got nominated for deletion" (Animedude)

I like the School Rumble image because of the controversy over Media Factory's anti-fansub position. MFI's C&D letter specifically mentioned School Rumble, so the series is directly linked to the dynamics of fansubbing and therefore highly relevant to the article. Wikipetan has not been involved in fansubs at all and is therefore largely irrelevant to the article. If this was the article on School Rumble, then the image would be out of place. But since the article is about fansubs themselves, an image showing genuine fansubs is important to illustrate the subject matter. Xuanwu 23:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Article needs a lot of cleanup

This article is in dire need of cleanup. As is, it reads like an infodump based upon some fans' "experiences" with fansubs. The article needs to reference reliable sources for its information.

Also, the external links section could use a scrubbing. A lot of the links to "fansub community" sites are probably full of material that violates various copyright laws, which we shouldn't be linking to.

I echo the position taken above about the picture, and I'm going to tag it as replaceable fair use. Putting together some kind of picture with Wikipe-tan and some subtitles should be relatively trivial. --Slowking Man 18:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree it needs cleanup. The problem, I think, is that the history and issues surrounding fansubbing are "documented" primarily in the memories of those who lived through it all, and on discussion forums such as rec.arts.anime.misc, neither of which are citable. Sources of the kind Wikipedia recommends are sparse to nonexistent. =Axlq 18:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I did the best I could with citations: the Yale Economic Review article proving downloads don't hurt the movie industry (and, in turn, that fansubs don't hurt anime companies) and my recent addition of Bandai and Kadokawa's thanking of fansubbers help. There just hasn't been a lot of formal material on the subject, leaving primary sources. I could try to dig through some newspaper articles - there was a guy who wrote a lot of anime stuff and I think he may have touched on things relevant to this article. Xuanwu 22:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added a couple refs that a guy posted above: one from New York Times and another from Wired, both reliable sources. I've also removed some redundant lines. Redundancy is this article's biggest problem: it says the same thing over and over again. Sometime I'll just take the whole block and rearrange it into something more streamlined and organized. Xuanwu 23:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

RE citable sources: rec.arts.anime.misc is *certainly* citable as a primary source, if done properly. Certainly authoritative archives exist of Usenet newsgroups?

I cleaned up a little. Removed extraneous detials about video encoding, some of the redundancies (like mentioning the 177/250 filesize thing over and over and over), and whatnot. Still a lot of work to do. It still sounds like it was written jointly by some fansub groups who want to justify what they're doing, rather than being an objective article on the subject. "Ethics" section should probably be split up. Allkaiser 03:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Make it a "COMPLETE REWRITE" ---203.131.88.238 01:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional Reference

A recent Anime Insider article mentioned fansubs and YouTube. Someone with the issue should insert it where appropriate to help verify some of the statements made here. Xuanwu 06:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Youtube legality question

Is it technically illegal for someone to watch a fansub on youtube? Since it isn't technically downloading, it might be some sort of loophole. I'm just wondering. Also, is it illegal to watch raws on Youtube? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PKKnoHaseo-san (talk • contribs) 05:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

I don't know why you mentioned that the use of YouTube is not considered downloading. When data is entered into your computer and then cached onto your hard drive, or even just displayed on the computer screen in RAM, you are STILL downloading. Downloading is the process of moving or copying bits from one location to another. It doesn't matter what you do with the bits once it is received - it is still downloading. Regarding YouTube, the "end result" of a download is basically the same as if you had the downloaded content stored to disc or video tape. Therefore, the same laws concerning illegal recordings or archiving of copyrighted video also apply to a YouTube viewer. Even enjoying a copyright work without paying the licensee or copyright owner can be considered grounds for money collection. The ONLY difference is the burden of proof on the part of the plaintiff, assuming here that you're not retaining the copy of the YouTube download permanently. Groink 04:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

i'm not sure if its relevant but....

has anyone ever noticed that american studios can barely churn out the anime at the pace in which they were originally made even though they only have to change around the vocal track on the audio master (which i'm sure they have access to...) take this example:

naruto: Original run October 3, 2002 – February 8, 2007 No. of episodes 220

so we'll say about 1550 days (4 years + 90 days)

1550 days / 220 ep. = 7.045.. days/ep.

yielding a tiny bit more than 7 days between episode, so basically a week.. vary rarely do you see american studios exceeding that rate, or even keeping at pace with that (they have big breaks in their production cycles)

i guess what i'm saying is american culture or what i see of it is somewhat impatient (movies do better than books despite less details and looser stories, american shows rarely have "running mysteries" and rarely ever go out of our way to make anything "epic" [i.e. filming 3 movies at once so they can be released in a quick sequence - in the case of lord of the rings]) and even when ou do see an example of an american epic it still lacks that cliff-hanger-esque quality that anime has, so what i'm saying is: do the slow, unambitious production schedules of american studios result in reduced sales and interest (and people turning to fansubs to see 'what happens next') because people get impatient waiting around for something that is technically already been revealed or resolved...? i can imagine children especially (to whom i have limited contact with) must be particularly susceptible to this "waining of interest" principle

oh and a question for my own interest that someone in the fansub community would have to answer: is fansubber's only problem with fandubbers (re: fandub under amateur audio recordings) is because they aren't "in step with" the anime copyright holders or is it also territorial? -c 67.23.125.138 22:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

yeah, I've noticed that...

if naruto keeps airing 1 episode a week, shippuden might as well come in....2009 or 2010....hopefully CN will air at 2 ep a week soon....Nasa0003 15:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

All cultures are getting impatient nowadays. People would never wait for a dubbed version ( some even loathe it, as do I ), for a few years, when a fansubbed one is ready for download. So the only valid way to stop fansubbing would be for licensed, subbed, media to be published all over the world, at the same time as the originals. That would solve everyone's problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.136.155.218 (talk) 01:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you report them?

Who do you report fansubs to? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.160.239.46 (talk) 22:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Probably the correct place would be to the company who owns the English license for the series, or in the case of a Japan-only series the original producer, who would in turn have to decide if they cared enough to take legal action. Though they probably already know, since pretty much every anime series has fansubs now. (More to the point, why would you want to report them?) --tjstrf talk 23:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Death Note thing

In hopes of preempting an edit war, I'll start a discussion topic here. (Disputed content: [4])

I see no purpose to mentioning Death Note in that paragraph, as 2 of the 4 groups did cease distribution, no known legal action or other notable events surround Death Note's fansubbing, and it's generally not a useful example. It also seems a bit POV, given the whole parenthetical about Animanda trying to "confuse" people with "such reasonings". The second bullet was a non-sequiter, and I believe already discussed elsewhere in the article. --tjstrf talk 23:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Dattebayo Donates

I think this is of some significance when it comes to fansubs; Dattebayo, one of the largest (if not THE largest) fansub groups has donated several thousand dollars to Doctors Without Borders after a donation drive for new hardware for their tracker gave them about three times the money that they required. clicky --Ihmhi 15:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, and I really think we should start a separate article for Dattebayo, the fansubbing group. I've been checking on this for months, but no one has started on it. They are really popular especially for Naruto and Bleach fans. And it also looks like they're continually expanding on their production. As Ihmhi said, they are able to collect enough sum of money to cover upgrades to their server, and to donate some of them to Doctors Without Borders. Moonwalkerwiz 04:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There was one once, it was deleted, or to be more precise redirected to Naruto Uzumaki. You'll have trouble starting one, if for no other reason than that they are associated with the Homosexual Negroid Society of the States, which has a rather infamous history of vandalism and absurdly long deletion discussions on Wikipedia. --tjstrf talk 08:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Merging Fansubs with Fan translation

I think it is not good, since these are two different (yet similar) things. --88.212.18.166 09:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The article that was at Fan translation has been moved to Fan translation of computer and video games to make room for an article that covers the issues shared between Fansub, Scanlation and the aforementioned article. Editors, please come to Fan translation and build it up. --Javiskefka 08:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

About the merging... I don't think it should be done. Although they are indeed similar, they are different. This "Fansub" appears to be for videos-the Fan Translation of Video Games is Fan( normally oranizations, the one I notice most often would be DeJap)(s) creating translations of a game for a Rom or ISO, or another form related to these two (something that an emulator reads). --Strokend 23:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, the article at Fan translation ought to cover the topics that this article has in common with the others listed above. If you look at Fansub, Scanlation, and Fan translation of computer and video games, they have a lot of overlap.Javiskefka 00:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

PS: Fan Translations are made for emulated versions of the game, as far as I know. It's possible that there's an 'adapter' that connects to consoles in which the translation is inserted, but I've never heard of one. Fansubs are translations for videos, which can usually be viewed using programs that the computer has when it's first installed.

I think I do remember, however, seeing ROMs which were actually videos... The ZSNES Super Nintendo emulator has a 'program' in which you can record your game and play your recording. Although I might be partially wrong on that... --Strokend 23:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Some parts of the individual articles where there is a lot of overlap should probably be merged into Fan translation, but the consensus seems to be against a full merge (the AFD discussion for the original Fan Translation article also came to a similar conclusion), so I removed the merge tags Ironfrost

Shinsen

Everyone on rizon knows them, and older users will remember when they were shut down by Funimation. Shouldn't this be referenced? --iriseyes^talk 01:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Who? Gh5046 06:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Shinsen Subs Quite a name in the fansub community! LarryLaffer 18:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Source Material

Fresh news. KyuuA4 21:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Shinichi Watanabe "Nabeshin"

Comments from Shinichi Watanabe regarding fansubbing and piracy at Oni-Con this past weekend. Source posted here for review. KyuuA4 21:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

ANN

Japan Asks America to Stop Illegal Net Releases of Anime KyuuA4 21:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Editorial: An Open Letter to the Industry KyuuA4 (talk) 17:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

BPS?

In the page it states:
"In the promotional video announcing the American license of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kadokawa Pictures USA and Bandai Entertainment specifically thanked fansub watchers and asked them to purchase the official release. This is the first instance of a Japanese company admitting and accepting, but not necessarily supporting the well-intended piracy among fans."

But I would like to point out that at the end of the Anime Battle Programmer Shirase they thanked the fan-sub community. As such, Haruhi was NOT the first instance of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.66.15 (talk) 03:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Comcast adding fuel to the fire?!

This has surfaced on the AnimeSuki boards... Ranma9617 (talk) 02:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)