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Mostly we think of this as it relates to English-speaking fansubbers working on Japanese anime, but here's a tale of the reverse: a guy in Japan who fansubbed an American movie and released it via BitTorrent. 33-year-old Kazushi Hirata fansubbed the Angelina Jolie flick Wanted, released it prior to its Japanese theatrical release, and was arrested in September.
He plead guilty in November and was sentenced yesterday: he'll spend two years in prison and be suspended for three years after that (I'm guessing that's like parole?). And it could have been worse: he could have gotten as many as 10 years in prison with a $95,000 fine.
Now, American movies reach a much wider audience in Japan than anime reaches in the US-- which means the US (and Japanese) anime industry depends even more on each and every individual sale than American movie companies. Just food for thought.
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j/k j/k its not fansubbed :)
However, what about shows that are not only unlicensed, but are likely to never be licensed period - as an example, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Not including the films and the Gaiden series, it's over 100 episodes long, and is certainly an older series, which (if Answerman is correct) is likely to never, ever be licensed, both due to the age and the length of the series. Now, the DVDs are available in Japan, but do not necessarily have English subtitles, and they are region coded for Japan. Now, if a Blu-Ray release comes out, then we may be in business - Japan and the US share a Blu-Ray region code. However, as far as DVDs are concerned, one would either need to...
However there is a compelling fair use argument, so it can be correctly described as "legally grey." Japanese copyright law is, after all, not the same as America's (or any other country).
As for the rest...I'll quote Dark Horse's Carl Horn here, as I so often have: it's not the downloading, it's the downloading and not buying.
So if a fan wants to watch a fansub of a series that is more or less unlicens-able for one reason or another, and they want to do so ethically, I'd say download the episodes but also import the DVDs. The problem is that very few fans will do this; DVDs are extremely expensive in Japan and tend to come with few episodes. Kaiba, for example, is a rare case of 4 episodes (two discs) per release. But each release is hideously expensive-- the first disc is about $65 with an Amazon discount ($81 MSRP), and the subsequent two releases are about $100 each on Amazon / $117 MSRP. So that's $281 to $315 for a single 12-episode series.
...You have to be pretty devoted to be willing to do that.
Actually, what really caused me to think about this is the Captain Harlock series - I have every harlock series that was relased on DVD stateside (which numbers about 3, not including peripheral series and spinoffs like Cosmo Warrior or *shudder* Gun Frontier) In theory, there's a prospective market for, say, Harlock SSX, which is a direct sequel to Arcadia of My Youth (and the only instance of continuity in the franchise). It'd even fit in with AnimEigo's catalog. Is it going to happen? Highly unlikely (in fact, the Hey Answerman column I linked to was referencing Harlock series).
(Oh, and why I didn't do it as a blog - by the time I'd finished I'd figured it would probably work better as a blog - but I wasn't sure if there was some way to connect it to this article without posting a comment here as a link, which seemed kind of pathetic - even if it was an internal link, instead of a link to my external blog, or even to Bureau42.com.)
(Now, they can get our money for the Fire Bomber albums, if you import them, which gives you one way to support the show, if you like the music - and really, if you don't like the music, why are you watching the show?)
Now I do buy as much Anime and Manga as I can. But there is only so much I can spend. My only other way of viewing anime then is to watch the tv (which IS going to cost me and is limited) or go through the troubel of what Count_Zero said.
We are a devoted few that want so much. We want anime that the majorty of the Japanies people have playing on the unknown chanle in the unforgive houres of the night. And even if we are big enough groupe to be a pain to some, the US anime markent is simply just not big enought. So we (the anime markent) must grow for more companies be instreted to do the work to get paid. But in the meen time one of the ways to get people into anime is to keep them up to date with new and great show (and we all know one of the best ways to do that).
This is only part of what I think and would like to talk about it more if you have made anthoner blog or forum Gia or Count_Zero I be glad to talk about it more, but for now I won't take anymore NEWS comment space.
Part of sales is advertising and in my wild past I probably learned more about Anime through these surreptitious means than I ever would have through normal, commercial means, especially living where I lived.
It may be scary for people to realize, but illegal doesn't always mean wrong, even if you wind up going to jail for it. You can break the law but be doing something that will later be acceptable and legal. This is where test cases come from.
Come to think of it, that sentence seems a bit harsh.
Fan-written literature based on other works is also illegal in most cases, although not for copyright: it's trademark violation. The characters, the worlds, they're protected under trademark law. That said, the vast majority of fan-art and fan-fiction (and even in some cases fan-subs) are tolerated because they generally assist the copyright/trademark holders in promoting the materials for free, and it's hard to want to go through the PR nightmare of suing your fans. In Japan they also tolerate doujinshi because doujinshi-creators are one of the pools of talents that manga publishers draw from-- but as soon as they start crossing the line into creating violating materials that can be consumed as an alternative to official materials (like a particular Doraemon doujinshi, just in recent memory) you'll find copyright/trademark holders can and often will jump on it.
Now, I want to note that my personal stance is not necessarily in complete and utter opposition to fansubs, and certainly not against fanart or fanfics or anything...but I think it's very important that the creators of these materials be aware that what they are doing is a technical violation of the creators' rights, even if they're doing it with the best of intentions, and even if the creator doesn't mind.
I think the general thing is that cartoons like anime aren't seen in the same calibur as high-budget movies, especially if it's a TV show. If someone pirates the Dark Knight, they'd be shitting themselves every time they get a phone call. If someone pirates an anime though, they assume the original creators have no authority over them, especially when it's unlicensed. Besides, the insane price of an anime series for even the most obscure show is more than you would charge for the same number of episodes of a multi-million dollar per episode show. The stupid prices they're asking for this stuff and the lack of any attempt to prosicute illegal distributers is basically the same as declairing open season for anyone who wants to pirate the stuff.