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Crackdown on fansubbers and the madeup "gray area"
- Thread starter shuri
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Phoenix
Member
It had never been legal. For years I tried to tell people that it wasn't legal and they would say 'if it weren't legal they'd stop us', despite what the laws (international copyright laws) said. If you ARE going to fansub someone elses copyrighted material, for goodness sakes don't try to sell it!
Who's selling? And as far as I'm concerned the subbing part of fansubbing can't be illegal, but the distribution of the programs outside of japan probably is, although it shouldn't be. 
And as the article said, I don't think they mind. It's just TV-rips and it helps boost international sales (most definately).
And as the article said, I don't think they mind. It's just TV-rips and it helps boost international sales (most definately).Drexon said:
Sure if you just write subtitles, nothing illegal about that!
but the distribution of the programs outside of japan probably is, although it shouldn't be.
Why "shouldn't" it be? Piracy is piracy. If someone translates Dragon Quest 8 and puts it online now should that be legal too? Come on now.
You're wrong again. Everyone who works in the anime industry in the US will tell you otherwise. They don't give a shit about fansubs and anything they have licensed they WILL mind if you continue distributing it. For the record TV-rips are illegal too. Way to go for perspective!
Phoenix
Member
Drexon said:Who's selling? And as far as I'm concerned the subbing part of fansubbing can't be illegal, but the distribution of the programs outside of japan probably is, although it shouldn't be.
Copyrighted material CANNOT for any reason be modified without the express consent of the copyright owner. Distribution is yet another crime. The arguments you present are the same ones I've talked to people about before. Just because you are helping them out doesn't mean its not illegal! Accept that its an illegal activity and understand that it has criminal penalties and move on, but stop saying its not illegal because it is.
Look up the Berne Convention.
Drexon said:Who's selling? And as far as I'm concerned the subbing part of fansubbing can't be illegal, but the distribution of the programs outside of japan probably is, although it shouldn't be.
i think the last comment about the lack of DVD sales growth is pretty true, especially with groups releasing fansubbed DVD rips. The quality gets better and for most people, the difference between the rip and the original DVD is negligable.
i've never tried to justify download fansubs, whether they were licensed here or not. i don't see how so many people convince themselves that because no one's getting sued, it must be okay to redistribute copyrighted material without the owners' consent.
JackFrost2012
Banned
Watch out! Here come GAF's own Legal Eagles!
Phoenix said:
Just for clarification, isn't ripping the content and modifying it for your own personal use legal? I thought as long as it wasn't reproduced or redistributed in any form, you could do whatever you wanted with it. So, for example, if I record a TV show and add subtitles of my own, but only watch it myself and don't distribute it or make copies of it, it's legal. I thought personal use was protected.
Shouldn't be, as in if Lost or whatever runs over there in the state I should be allowed to watch it here in Sweden, atleast if the series is running (one season late) here as well. It's just TV, you can't stop ppl from recording and distributing it anyway.
And I'm not saying it's not illegal, just supporiting the 'if it's so illegal it would've been stopped already' theory, 'cuz that's what the behaviour of the japanese animation studios is implying, that noone actually cares. So stop caring so much!
And some of you _have_ to admit that the easy access to anime these days have boosted anime production and distribution in the states and internationally. How many would even know about anime if it wasn't for the fansub scene? A lot less than you imply. And FYI, noone making money of the anime scene can take a positive stand to fansubbing, it's suicide. (sry, didn't read the whole post)
And fact is that DVD-rips aren't distributed as freely as fansubs. In fact, I'd say you have to know where to find 'em.
And I'm not saying it's not illegal, just supporiting the 'if it's so illegal it would've been stopped already' theory, 'cuz that's what the behaviour of the japanese animation studios is implying, that noone actually cares. So stop caring so much!
And some of you _have_ to admit that the easy access to anime these days have boosted anime production and distribution in the states and internationally. How many would even know about anime if it wasn't for the fansub scene? A lot less than you imply. And FYI, noone making money of the anime scene can take a positive stand to fansubbing, it's suicide. (sry, didn't read the whole post)
And fact is that DVD-rips aren't distributed as freely as fansubs. In fact, I'd say you have to know where to find 'em.
Drexon said:
But where do you draw the line? What if it's on Pay-per-view? Or if the show is on a cable or satellite network? What if it's an OVA or a movie? People don't differentiate it and just lump all of "anime fansubs" into one category like they're all on free to air TV. That's hardly the case.
And I'm not saying it's not illegal, just supporiting the 'if it's so illegal it would've been stopped already' theory, 'cuz that's what the behaviour of the japanese animation studios is implying, that noone actually cares. So stop caring so much!
Oh? So if they don't care, why did Media Factory recently send a letter to Animesuki asking for all torrents of their properties be taken down?
aoi tsuki said:
that last quote is absolutely heart wrenching. My tears will never stop at their pain.
People see their products ahead of time, and then don't buy anything but the must haves, and this is bad? Sounds to me like they're crying because they can't turn a buck flipping half-assed bullshit anime to the states because everyone here has seen it already and knows it's not worth owning.
I'm sorry if I don't feel all that bad about "pirating" these fansubs and not buying the crap that I don't like, but that's just fucking business. And what, I'm supposed to curl up into the fetal position and cry because poor anime artists aren't making a quick buck off North Americans because we know what's good before it gets here?
(edit) oh, and this post not necessarily directed at you, but in response to the bit you quoted.
the funny thing is if it wasnt for these "pirates" anime would not have come as far as it has so soon in the U.S...it would be cool if the anime producers could have a subbed anime channel on cable or satelite and maybe even with some japanese commercials , now that would be awesome.
, now that would be awesome.I didnt buy anime before I started watching fansubs. I wouldn't have ever started for that matter so they can be happy that all the thousands of dollars I've spent on it came expressly due to fansubs.. and yes, I only buy titles I've watched and that's all I'll continue to buy.
At least if you buy a movie blind, you're getting the entire thing and there's some closure to it. Anime is way too expensive to buy blind and until they can come up with a decent, comparable price structure to American TV series (45 bucks for the entire thing for instance), then that's just the way it will remain.
For instance, I've wanted to see Black Heaven for years and was stoked to see a box set on the shelves at Best Buy the other day... but Geneon wants $85 for it. Who are they kidding? This title is OLD and should be $40-50 at most (it's only 13 episodes to boot!) When you can get new, 24+ episode shows for that price, there's no excuse for asking for a title that old to be sold at that price.
At least if you buy a movie blind, you're getting the entire thing and there's some closure to it. Anime is way too expensive to buy blind and until they can come up with a decent, comparable price structure to American TV series (45 bucks for the entire thing for instance), then that's just the way it will remain.
For instance, I've wanted to see Black Heaven for years and was stoked to see a box set on the shelves at Best Buy the other day... but Geneon wants $85 for it. Who are they kidding? This title is OLD and should be $40-50 at most (it's only 13 episodes to boot!) When you can get new, 24+ episode shows for that price, there's no excuse for asking for a title that old to be sold at that price.
michael000
Banned
Let them shut down every single fansubbing and dvd-ripping group. I mean afterall i'll continue to drop $140-180 blindly for series i'm not even sure i like or not because i shit money and have a never ending supply of it lol. I've got a rack full of anime dvds (60+) and not a single one of them was bought until after i'd finished watching the series, no preview no buy.
Shouta
Member
I'm not a copyright lawyer, but it does say that derived works are protected under the Berne Convention which is what translated and timed scripts can qualify as I think. So it seems there's a legal standing, I think. We need some copyright lawyers around here. =b.
The actual putting of the script to video and then distributing it would be illegal, which has been established already.
At any rate, I'll continue fansubbing myself (have been for 3-5 years now) unless a Japanese company specifically asks me to stop so. I don't do English licensed material so never a real worry about that.
Oh and waning Anime DVD sales should be attributed to the ferver in which the companies themselves are licensing material. They'll license almost everything that isn't totally niche and fans are catching on that a lot of it is crap and not worth the cash to get. Some discretion would do them good.
Shouta said:
Alternately, some of us are waiting for the companies to go completely insane and start licensing the really, really niche stuff. Until then, fansubs of said niche material are morally awesome in my book, even if they're crazed law breakers at the same time.
FnordChan
Regardless of your stance on the issue, you can't deny the times are a-changin'. mp3s, movies, bittorrent, IRC, etc. Its all coming to a head and I think its going to have some MAJOR ramifications concerning copyrights and distribution in the near future. A lot of shit is changing and its going to change even more, but I don't consider this movement something wrong or evil or illegal. You can say piracy is piracy, but people have their reasons and its not always because they are cheap, greedy bastards. I don't really know how this issue is going to end up, but the internet has changed the way we get our entertainment and the way I see it, tech heads simply got a head start while all the big companies are trying to play catch-up, bitching and whining because they couldn't recognize a trend before it happened (which is what they have market analysts for ). I can see a little bit of the harm to the individuals involved in the creation of a product, but I'm not going to be crying crocodile tears for the corporations.
Either way, the business world was oddly late to jump on the bandwagon and now they're paying the price for it, literally. We've had a taste of freedom on the internet and its going to be hard, even impossible, for industry to reign it all in.
). I can see a little bit of the harm to the individuals involved in the creation of a product, but I'm not going to be crying crocodile tears for the corporations.Either way, the business world was oddly late to jump on the bandwagon and now they're paying the price for it, literally. We've had a taste of freedom on the internet and its going to be hard, even impossible, for industry to reign it all in.
The Faceless Master
Member
obviously illegal...
i dont care much for anime...
but hey, downloading stuff like alias, veronica mars and lost, is also illegal so...
and hey, what if say there was some japanese rpg that didnt come out elsewhere and they added translated the text... hey, it's a derivative work!!! oh wait.. nevermind... bad example
i dont care much for anime...
but hey, downloading stuff like alias, veronica mars and lost, is also illegal so...
and hey, what if say there was some japanese rpg that didnt come out elsewhere and they added translated the text... hey, it's a derivative work!!! oh wait.. nevermind... bad example
karasu
Member
I really wonder why people care so much. people preach about this shit like their personal honor and glory is at stake. Fuck justifying the downloading of fansubs, I do it because they're there. Nothing says that Beck will be shown over here, I'm not going to learn Japanese and move to Japan just to watch 26 episodes of a tv show, so I get the fansubs and watch it on my computer. Big whoop. It's just plain logical. If the law is against it, so the crap what.
The Faceless Master
Member
yeah, i wish people would spend more time talking about the legal gray area of jaywalking!
If things weren't so expensive, people would steal less. At least I would. If anime was priced reasonably, I'd buy more of it. As it stands, I have FMA 1-40, FLCL, Hellsing, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and all the Trigun eps, and I only paid for Evangelion. And I'm questioning the wisdom of that purchase, b/c the series honestly isn't worth the $100 or so I spent on everything (eps and two side movies). I could just as well have dloaded that and used that money for something good.
But I'm not gonna justify it, I do it b/c it's free...period. As Belfast said, lots of things are changing. Since I graduated hs and first hopped on a 10/100T connection, I've never looked back. A friend of mine got shut down by Geffen Records back in 1996 for sharing files off the school's ftp, and a number of other students were shut down that year. But that was just the beginning. Things went more underground after that, it didn't stop. And the industry was sleeping on it for too long. By the time the major P2P proggies started turning out en mass, it was way too late to stop it. This is ignoring IRC, which has been a haven for pirates since forever.
Sure, they may make it impossible for regular Joes to pirate. And they may rewrite privacy laws so ISPs are forced to divulge personal data. Or they might try making ISPs the main policing force. But until they get into the gray area of civil liberties, they won't be able to stop a damn thing. And the sharing programs will become more decentralized, and harder to snuff out. That and the beauty of international laws means there'll always be offshore servers hosting. Piracy >>>> *. There's simply no stopping it.
I feel for the artists who are getting dicked by their pubishers. I feel for the game devs who lose profits due to piracy. But the whole system's fucked, and I don't see these people shedding a tear for the consumer who's getting ass raped on pricing. The world's fucked up. Grab what you can, while you still can. PEACE.
But I'm not gonna justify it, I do it b/c it's free...period. As Belfast said, lots of things are changing. Since I graduated hs and first hopped on a 10/100T connection, I've never looked back. A friend of mine got shut down by Geffen Records back in 1996 for sharing files off the school's ftp, and a number of other students were shut down that year. But that was just the beginning. Things went more underground after that, it didn't stop. And the industry was sleeping on it for too long. By the time the major P2P proggies started turning out en mass, it was way too late to stop it. This is ignoring IRC, which has been a haven for pirates since forever.
Sure, they may make it impossible for regular Joes to pirate. And they may rewrite privacy laws so ISPs are forced to divulge personal data. Or they might try making ISPs the main policing force. But until they get into the gray area of civil liberties, they won't be able to stop a damn thing. And the sharing programs will become more decentralized, and harder to snuff out. That and the beauty of international laws means there'll always be offshore servers hosting. Piracy >>>> *. There's simply no stopping it.
I feel for the artists who are getting dicked by their pubishers. I feel for the game devs who lose profits due to piracy. But the whole system's fucked, and I don't see these people shedding a tear for the consumer who's getting ass raped on pricing. The world's fucked up. Grab what you can, while you still can. PEACE.
Uncle Dukey
Member
Of course I'd like R1 DVDs to be cheaper, but it's a whole lot cheaper than R2 (J) DVDs... I mean come on, it costs roughly 150$ to buy the 3 Read or Die OVAs on R2 (J) and you can get the R1 for 16$ after discounts.
Mario_Hugo
Lisa Edelstein's dad touched my private parts. True fact.
My two cents (on the periphery of the discussion at hand...):
The nature of information distribution is changing--broadband is merely our immediate insight into much wider evolutions around us. Post-post-modernism isn't about modernist heavy steel, or post-modernist feather alloys, it's about fiberoptics and our growing acceptance of an absoutely soft, intangible media. Consumers want accesibility, immediacy. Advertisement agencies are axing commercial divisions by the hundreds--people aren't watching TV anymore, and if they are, they certainly aren't paying attention to commercials. And if television is losing those advertising dollars, no harm, no foul (it has to do with more than bitorrent, folks). I don't even own a television anymore, and I don't much care to. Cut out the middleman, and consider alternative viral distibution methods. Bitorrent could potentially open doors for smaller studios, imo...
The nature of information distribution is changing--broadband is merely our immediate insight into much wider evolutions around us. Post-post-modernism isn't about modernist heavy steel, or post-modernist feather alloys, it's about fiberoptics and our growing acceptance of an absoutely soft, intangible media. Consumers want accesibility, immediacy. Advertisement agencies are axing commercial divisions by the hundreds--people aren't watching TV anymore, and if they are, they certainly aren't paying attention to commercials. And if television is losing those advertising dollars, no harm, no foul (it has to do with more than bitorrent, folks). I don't even own a television anymore, and I don't much care to. Cut out the middleman, and consider alternative viral distibution methods. Bitorrent could potentially open doors for smaller studios, imo...
Shouta said:
I really don't think that could be labeled a derived work... unless, are you referring specifically to JUST the subtitle file? I guess I see what you mean, although I'm still not sure.
There is a "gray area." It's not what is legal and illegal, though. That's pretty easy to define, and not really the issue. The key is, has the copyright holder suffered quantifiable harm and/or has the copyright infringer taken action which can be paralleled to a specific right of the holder (distribution and sales). Another issue is if the monetary harm suffered makes it worth it for the copyright holder to take legal action beyond a threatening letter.
A lot of fansubbers/fans point to old cases involving VHS and betamax. Those cases, as far as I know, never actually legitimatized the act of copying and sharing tapes of shows but rather only spoke to the legality of the machines themselves. - Funny sidenote, music rentals in the US are illegal due to the ease of copying music, yet movie rentals are perfectly fine despite being just as easy. Courts even once said that hooking up two VCRs was too complicated of an act to worry about consumers performing with regularity.
US Anime distributors (like the movie industry) need to be careful not to alienate consumers like the music industry has done. I hope their anti-piracy efforts are focused in this order:
- Illegal sales
- File Sharing of anime ripped from already released dvds
- File sharing of anime ripped from tv of material licensed outside of Japan
Beyond that, distributors also need to do a few things to help maintain interest in domestic sales:
- Stop releasing dvds with only stereo tracks
- Adopt a pricing system more in line with domestic movie and tv releases
- Stop releasing long ongoing shows at 3 or 4 episodes a disc. I feel like every anime release of an ongoing series should be ~ 2 hours of material.
levious said:
You have to understand something. When a company gets permission to release a title, they just can't do what they want with it all the time. The license dictates what can and cannot be done with their title. Dub tracks are getting more and more DD 5.1 treatments, however, the source material for the japanese track? Often stereo. Are they allowed to make a new one? Probably not. If they did, it would sound like shit.
Anime DVD prices have gone down, and go down even farther if you're buying online (and if you're THAT interested in anime in the first place, you are buying online for the best prices. Macross Boxsets for 30 bucks? YES PLEASE), there's only so far they can take it though. They not only need to recoup the costs involved with producing the show in english, and so forth, but also the costs of the license itself. Domestic movie and TV release do not have that problem considering they releasing their own shit that's made it's money for them time and time again.
I truly don't see any reason to complain about costs of anime releases, especially if you're buying on release day. LIke video games, prices plummet, and special prices and bundles are introduced. Check Right Stuf.com and their weekly and studio sales for god sakes. The prices you can get anime for if you want are incredible!
Phoenix
Member
Nerevar said:
That I don't know because its never come up in my classes
I actually dont know how that would actually end up in the courts, but I'm sure some judge would have to determine that. Personal use (which is sometimes extended to fair use) means that you can use it yourself, but doesn't really speak to your rights to alter that content.Phoenix said:That I don't know because its never come up in my classes
yeah, I guess the question is academic, because no one modifies content and keeps it for personal use without distributing it anymore
Shouta
Member
Scripts. The subtitling timing and a translation of what is shown but not the actual media itself is what I was talking about (and I pointed it out a few posts later when levious asked about what I meant). While you're right, in that copyrighted material can't be altered without expression permission, the actual work that makes a fansub a fansub (the subtitle timing and translation) isn't.
While the japanese studios didn't do anything the fansubs were ok because there is plenty of benefit for the studios in fansubbers using their time and their ISPs bandwidth to essentialy raise the profile of anime and provide free advertising. Since plenty of unknown artists encourage mp3 distribution for the same reason there was no reason to believe that the studios weren't thinking the same way when they didn't press legal action despite knowing of the activities. And I always admired the self enforced policy of not subbing and distrubuting anime that has been announced for North American release.
It was always within the rights of the studios to crack down however and now that Media Factory has, fansubbing of their shows has become piracy pure and simple.
I personally would like subbers to continue with non Media Factory stuff and shut down as more and more studios send letters.
It was always within the rights of the studios to crack down however and now that Media Factory has, fansubbing of their shows has become piracy pure and simple.
I personally would like subbers to continue with non Media Factory stuff and shut down as more and more studios send letters.
As far as my morals are concerned , if there is no feasable way in which to obtain copies of something in my language , I'm not hurting anyones wallet by downloading it.
With MP3's, I tend to download game soundtracks and anime soundtracks , the few legitamate songs I download are VERY few, like less then 5 songs .. ever. I never buy music , never will. I'm not a potential costumer in this case so I'm okay with it.
Import PC games, of certain innapropriate nature, especially if they retain thier original language are absolutly pointless to pay a cent on, espeically when said "games" are downloaded purely to laugh at.
Anime- Again, if it isn't liscenesed I'm not hurting anyone- technically you can buy the japanese dvd releases but do they have any english on them ? No, hong kong bootlegs do but buying them is benifiting no one, I may as well instead download fansubbed anime as it airs in japan just as europeans download american tV shows as they air. When and if the shows come out here, they will be purchased if they were in fact worth anything.
Something that I feel strongly about is the number of episodes placed on a DVD for most shows- someone mentioned black heaven, 13 episodes and yet it was stretched to 4 volumes instead of an entirely possible 3 volumes. Or how ADV typcially only puts 3 or 4 episdes of a 26 episode show on 1 disc for 30 bucks. Homey don't play that game. A show like Dragon ball or Naruto (if it was liscensed) should have 6 episodes for less then 20 dollars, I shouldn't be paying upwards of 300 dollars to collect 40 episodes of something that has over 100 shows.
With MP3's, I tend to download game soundtracks and anime soundtracks , the few legitamate songs I download are VERY few, like less then 5 songs .. ever. I never buy music , never will. I'm not a potential costumer in this case so I'm okay with it.
Import PC games, of certain innapropriate nature, especially if they retain thier original language are absolutly pointless to pay a cent on, espeically when said "games" are downloaded purely to laugh at.
Anime- Again, if it isn't liscenesed I'm not hurting anyone- technically you can buy the japanese dvd releases but do they have any english on them ? No, hong kong bootlegs do but buying them is benifiting no one, I may as well instead download fansubbed anime as it airs in japan just as europeans download american tV shows as they air. When and if the shows come out here, they will be purchased if they were in fact worth anything.
Something that I feel strongly about is the number of episodes placed on a DVD for most shows- someone mentioned black heaven, 13 episodes and yet it was stretched to 4 volumes instead of an entirely possible 3 volumes. Or how ADV typcially only puts 3 or 4 episdes of a 26 episode show on 1 disc for 30 bucks. Homey don't play that game. A show like Dragon ball or Naruto (if it was liscensed) should have 6 episodes for less then 20 dollars, I shouldn't be paying upwards of 300 dollars to collect 40 episodes of something that has over 100 shows.
The Faceless Master
Member
are you saying that translating a copyrighted work into another language makes the translated version legal?Shouta said:
:lol :lol :lol
The Faceless Master said:
Man, reading comprehension. Please. Did you completely miss the discussion he had with Phoenix?
He's saying the subtitling and the translation are derived works, and therefore legal. Not the actual movie itself. I would be interested to see if a format was developed whereby you could add the extra data to a disc at home by ripping a DVD and adding the subtitling or the translation to it and then re-burning it to use in a commercial DVD player. Then, only the audio / subtitle track would have to be distributed, and who knows if the work would be legal or not.
At least there are a whole lot more boxed sets now, which I've bought much.
If you were to talk about videogames gray areas here, the dude would get flamed. Same thing on anime forums as for fansubs! Same thing also if you want to talk about gray areas on DVD on DVD chatrooms! Music, ditto. Everywhere a place has got to respect the laws and ethics, it's core is strictly enforced, but as for other subjects, people are less "ethical" than the core subject. It happens all the time.
If you were to talk about videogames gray areas here, the dude would get flamed. Same thing on anime forums as for fansubs! Same thing also if you want to talk about gray areas on DVD on DVD chatrooms! Music, ditto. Everywhere a place has got to respect the laws and ethics, it's core is strictly enforced, but as for other subjects, people are less "ethical" than the core subject. It happens all the time.
border said:
Librarys aren't considered the same I guess, I was referring to commercial rentals. But I'm sure you knew that.
On the topic of script files, I wanna say that might be a copyright issue too, since the dialogue of the show is copyrighted just like the images and sound. Not real sure though.
The only thing I could think to compare it to is if someone translated a book without permission. You took a copyright class right? Wasn't there some principle about the parts being protected as much as the sum? My memory could be way off though.
- edit: I assume we're talking about making and distributing the tranlastion file (minus accompaning video) and not just translating it for your own amusment.
- edit: I assume we're talking about making and distributing the tranlastion file (minus accompaning video) and not just translating it for your own amusment.
so the question here is where does fair use come into respect...
It is very obviously illegal to fansub and distribute DVDs.. I don't think anyone would question that. But what about TV shows... and even more grey TV shows that aren't licensed for American viewing?
I don't think they "grey area" is made up. I think it is just that.. a VERY grey area, with some parts of it being definitely illegal and some parts being definitely NOT illegal, and a bunch of stuff in between whose legality could only be determined by trying it in court.
That is the entire point of a grey area. It isn't just outright legal (as some fan subbers would have you believe) and not outright illegal (as some of this thread's legal eagles would have you believe). Taping a show off of free OTA TV and letting a friend watch it is no different than capturing the show to digital video and posting it to the internet. And while fansubbing with hard subtitles is most definitely illegal, having the legal copy of the show as well as an independently available subtitle track would seem to not fall under modifying the work.
Though frankly it is sad if hard subtitles come to an end as many of these fansub groups do amazing jobs.. better than most of the actul domestic companies
anyway, I don't think it is at all a made up grey area.. I think it is the very definition of a grey area. Some legal and some illegal aspects. They really can't stop distribution of raw shows on the internet without going to court and testing fair use as it relates to the digital age. and if they really wanted to make a case against hard subtitles they would also have to go to court and create a precident that would stop soft subtitles as well.... just my thoughts.
edit - and on the subject of translation, I believe that only falls under copyright if someone has the translation/localization/distribution rights for a show, hence licensed anime.
edit edit - and same thing goes for domestic shows on the internet and if anyone chose to fansub those... I am not saying companies won't start going after this stuff, but they will have to test fair use to do so. What is the difference if I download scrubs from the internet vs Tivo'ing it? and what is the difference of me sending a video tape to my friend with scrubs on it vs. him video taping it? I am not at all refering to pay-tv or subscription TV here.. just free OTA TV.
It is very obviously illegal to fansub and distribute DVDs.. I don't think anyone would question that. But what about TV shows... and even more grey TV shows that aren't licensed for American viewing?
I don't think they "grey area" is made up. I think it is just that.. a VERY grey area, with some parts of it being definitely illegal and some parts being definitely NOT illegal, and a bunch of stuff in between whose legality could only be determined by trying it in court.
That is the entire point of a grey area. It isn't just outright legal (as some fan subbers would have you believe) and not outright illegal (as some of this thread's legal eagles would have you believe). Taping a show off of free OTA TV and letting a friend watch it is no different than capturing the show to digital video and posting it to the internet. And while fansubbing with hard subtitles is most definitely illegal, having the legal copy of the show as well as an independently available subtitle track would seem to not fall under modifying the work.
Though frankly it is sad if hard subtitles come to an end as many of these fansub groups do amazing jobs.. better than most of the actul domestic companies
anyway, I don't think it is at all a made up grey area.. I think it is the very definition of a grey area. Some legal and some illegal aspects. They really can't stop distribution of raw shows on the internet without going to court and testing fair use as it relates to the digital age. and if they really wanted to make a case against hard subtitles they would also have to go to court and create a precident that would stop soft subtitles as well.... just my thoughts.
edit - and on the subject of translation, I believe that only falls under copyright if someone has the translation/localization/distribution rights for a show, hence licensed anime.
edit edit - and same thing goes for domestic shows on the internet and if anyone chose to fansub those... I am not saying companies won't start going after this stuff, but they will have to test fair use to do so. What is the difference if I download scrubs from the internet vs Tivo'ing it? and what is the difference of me sending a video tape to my friend with scrubs on it vs. him video taping it? I am not at all refering to pay-tv or subscription TV here.. just free OTA TV.
Fair Use Test
aside from DVDs (which have to be purchased) or subscription based TV, how does OTA available raw shows (we won't get into the subbing part) break the four rule measure?
aside from DVDs (which have to be purchased) or subscription based TV, how does OTA available raw shows (we won't get into the subbing part) break the four rule measure?
- Status