Comments on: are fansubbers pirates?

By: J Greely

J Greely — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:38:22 +0000

I think the potential impact of scanlations on manga sales is at least partially masked by the number of people who just stand in the aisles at a bookstore and read without buying. Essentially, that market already had a known percentage of free riders, and whether they do it online or in the store doesn’t make a big difference. I do think there’s a visible quality difference between the scanlations I’ve seen and the printed manga, even in the smaller sizes, and that may explain some of the difference. Or maybe it’s just that more people still think that comic books are something you buy. Or maybe they like to read in the bathroom.

More significantly, the manga boom has already had at least one minor bust. ADV dropped out, lots of others went from monthly releases to bi-monthly or quarterly, etc. A sudden impact like that will dwarf any gradual, long-term loss to scanlations. I gather the demise of Suncoast hit the anime companies pretty hard.

-j

By: fledgling otaku

fledgling otaku — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:00:41 +0000

madmike, I don’t have much argument. When I download a fansub, I am obviously in a very straightforward sense acquiring something I didn’t pay for. Thats the literal definition of stealing.

However, I don’t accept the equivalence to your Ferrari example either. My options are simple: stop enjoying anime entirely, or buy every single title I might want to watch. (Even downloading a fansub just for purposes of a demo to see if you like it enough to buy is still, literally, stealing).

All things considered, the fansubs are out there, and I like less than 1 in 3 anime I watch, so I plan to continue. That’s the reality. And as Author mentioned, there are other industries that flourish despite the existence of a back channel. If the anime industry were serious about catering to the market, they’d drop region coding. If they dont want to play on a level market field, then I don’t see why I should either.

Yes, maybe just an excuse, but the bottom line is that if anime goes under as an industry, there will be blame to go around. But one wonders why its only the Japanese industry that has this problem? Its not like you cant find copies of every single Hollywood, Bollywood, and television show on every major network out there on the torrents, either. And somehow those industries stay solvent. What makes anime different?

By: Author

Author — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:41:49 +0000

All J said so far fails to explain why scanlated manga does not seem to make a dent in manga market.

By: madmike

madmike — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:21:44 +0000

I don’t see “I can’t afford to buy DVD’s” as a valid excuse for downloading fansubs. And the theory that it’s OK to “stick it to the man” for pricing it out of my reach” is just as bad. I’ve always wanted a Porsche 911 (since I first saw one at a race track when I was 11 years old). By the above theory, I should chastise Porsche for their elitist pricing policies and because I don’t make enough to buy one, should just wander down to the dealership at night and steal one.

I know everyone has to draw a line at what they find acceptable/unacceptable. I guess it’s that modern day sense of entitlement some folks have (i.e. “music wants to be free”) that I really find abhorrent. If I download a fansub and find it to be something of value to me, rather than burn the downloads to DVD, I feel it’s my duty to fork out some cash to the folks who created it (so that hopefully they’ll keep it up!).

By: J Greely

J Greely — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:57:31 +0000

I think the key difference is that the business of creating music can adapt much more easily. See the success of Jonathan Coulton, for instance, and contrast with Deborah Gibson, who’s been trying to make it as an independent for years, and remains mired in the distributing-shiny-objects business model, largely due to the quality of her technical advisors. She doesn’t even have her stuff in the iTunes store.

Setting aside the depressing finances and grunt work involved, I think the other key difference between music and anime is that people actively seek out singles as well as albums. In many cases, they’ve been hating the album model for years, with the music industry charging for one good song and nine crappy ones.

There are times when you just want a single episode of a tv show or anime series, but it’s much more common that people want a complete story. Downloaders hate it when a series is dropped, or the early episodes stop being seeded, and then there’s that whole “got licensed” thing. Jonathan Coulton built up his catalog song by song, and wasn’t trying to make a living off of the online sales at the same time; an anime studio can’t do the same thing.

-j

By: fledgling otaku

fledgling otaku — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:01:53 +0000

J, isnt everything you said true about the pre-iTunes era as well? you are right, iTunes is just the legitimate face of the poison killing the industry. Or rather, forcing it to adapt. I guess the same will happen in anime.

By: J Greely

J Greely — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:51:36 +0000

Yes, we’re all part of a small minority. Last quarter, one of my teachers was asked how a student should find real Japanese to listen to, and she said, “does everyone know about crunchyroll.com?”.

Very few fansub downloaders and stream-watchers think of themselves as thieves, and the ones who do think of it as a badge of honor (the “sticking it to the man” crowd). Browse the forums for a while, and I think you’ll conclude that they don’t think of downloading as an alternative to buying. They aren’t downloading because they can’t afford anime, they’re downloading because that’s how you get anime.

These days, I think you’ll find most downloaders would rather spend their money on an external hard drive than on even the cheapest thinpack. Because the hard drive will hold more anime.

The one thing they had right about the original Napster was that digital downloads will kill industries that rely on physical distribution of easily-digitized media. It just doesn’t happen overnight. The business of distributing shiny objects filled with music and video is going to go the way of the buggy-whip, and without a proven way to make money, less people will be interested in making the content. A lot of them won’t be missed, of course.

The business of distributing flat objects filled with printed words is doing pretty well, by comparison, and the reason is that the intangibles are more obvious to people. Fonts on screen aren’t as clear as offset print on paper, electronic readers aren’t as portable, convenient, or cheap as a paperback or magazine, etc. Equally doomed in the long run, but not threatened by network bandwidth or storage capacity.

-j

By: fledgling otaku

fledgling otaku — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:31:51 +0000

I confess to being largely ignorant of the dynamics of the industry. But it seems to me that much the same arguments were made in the Napster era about music, prior to iTunes’ arrival. I dont think people download fansubs with thievery in mind, they simply want access to the content and the legitimate channel is simply too onerous and expensive. Thats evidence of a bad business model at the industry’s end, not a universal moral failure among the people who simply want to be fans (and the subbers clearly do this out of love, not greed).

madmike, someday i will be where you are, but it was a major investment for me to buy my copies of sugar and haibane. I’ll admit freely I wont likely buy most of the anime I have downloaded. I understand I am on the wrong side of the fence here, but if I could buy anime for 10 bucks I would gladly do it. Thats only slightly more than a latte and coffeecake at starbucks, and id enjoy it a lot longer. I’m not alone in this.

By: Steven Den Beste

Steven Den Beste — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:40:43 +0000

MadMike, you’re not the only one. But we’re in a minority.

By: madmike

madmike — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:47:19 +0000

OK… I may be new to anime, I’m still learning what I like and don’t like. I’ve been downloading fansubs for the last season of 2007 and this current season and have already begun purchasing DVD’s of 5 different series just based on the fansubs I watched. And I know which of the current season’s offerings I’ll be buying if and when they’re released here in the US. I like to own hard copies of things, and I like the artwork on the packaging. So naturally DVD’s hold a big draw for me. I know that when I download a fansub, I’m basicly stealing content, but I do it with the full intent of purchasing those which I truly enjoy. Those that I don’t enjoy, get deleted. I can’t be the only person in the world like this, can I?