Re: Fansub Code of Ethics

Doug Jacobs wrote:
You aren't the only the one to have this view, so please don't feel I'm picking on you personally.

Not a problem.

This is where the "try before you buy" argument starts to run into problems...

I'm not trying before I buy, any more than watching any television show is "trying before I buy".

TV is a separate issue. Shows on TV have been paid for, both through licensing fees paid by the broadcaster, and by advertisers. Whether or not you liked the show well enough to buy it is inconsequential.

But it's not, that's the thing. TV shows have been paid for no matter where they first aired. Commercial television is paid for by advertisers who want to get their products in front of the viewing audience. It doesn't matter if those advertisers are in the United States, Canada, Japan or Zimbabwe. DVDs, particularly TV series DVDs, are a secondary market, a keepsake for people who really enjoyed the show and want to be able to watch it again and again. Just because someone went out and spent money to license a show doesn't obligate me, as the consumer, to pay them for it, especially if they do a bad job at putting out the product.

However, if you watched the whole show via fansubs, and then that show got licensed...well, then what? Do you buy the show as a way of retroactively paying for having watched the fansubs? Some make it an absolute and say they always have to. But by saying it has to be a good product, it leaves way too much wiggle room for you to back out one way or another.

No because the fansubs weren't "paid" for in the first place, any more than watching something on TV is "paid" for. They put it over the airwaves (or the cable system or whatever) for all to see. It's a slightly different case for pay-channels, but a similar argument can be made. I have no legal, moral or ethical requirement to pay them because I sat down and watched something that they sent my way without strings attached. By the same token, if they showed it in Japan and I downloaded it here, I still have no obligation to a third-party licencer simply because they threw money at the Japanese producers.

Part of the problem is that we're arguably talking about 2 separate products here. The fansubs are based on the Japanese version, which isn't always the version that ends up in the US. The first attempt at One Piece is a good example of how you can end up with 2 different versions of the same program. So what happens there? The version you WANT to buy - the original Japanese version with English subtitles - doesn't exist. And it doesn't make sense to be forced into buying whatever ends up in America simply because it's now in English. So..do you buy the original Japanese version instead? Personally that doesn't quite work either even though Japanese anime DVDs tend to look much better than their American counterparts...but then again they also cost 2-3x as much as well.

Then it doesn't exist, so what? As a consumer, I am the sole arbiter of what I want to buy at a price I want to pay. I don't have to "settle" for something just because nothing better is available.

Unfortunately, it's also way too easy to just say "well, I wouldn't have bought this show anyways but since I already downloaded it, I might as well watch/keep it..."

There are lots of things on American television that I watch that there's no way in hell I'd ever buy. Do you have a point?

No, I don't have a good answer here. I really wish that American companies wouldn't butcher anime series, or at least release an uneditted version alongside the the butchered version. This is what we got with Cardcaptors/Card Captor Sakura, even though the CCS is only available with subs and no dub whatsoever. Of course this only splits up an already small market into even smaller segments, making it even harder to make a profit or even break even on that release.

Since I'm a sub-only guy, I really don't want dubs on my DVDs. That's how they did it on Go Lion, that's why I bought the whole set. Had they put dubs on it, or the Voltron soundtrack or whatever, it's entirely possible they would have lost the sale.

This argument only works if you don't buy the products in question, but then also don't download or watch the fansubs. At all. As soon as you download the fansubs, from the company's point of view, you become a sale lost to piracy - regardless of your personal reasons for not buying the US licensed product. It also helps to actually write a letter (physical letter) explaining to the company why you will not be buying their product. Anyone can send email, but it takes a bit of extra effort, and the cash for the stamp, to send a letter. Be polite, use proper grammar and spelling.

Sorry, but *** the company's point of view. I owe nothing to the company, no matter how much they might wish I did. They can only legitimately consider it a lost sale if they can prove they ever had the sale to begin with and they simply cannot do so. My refusal to buy the crappy One Piece DVDs is no more a lost sale than the fact that I didn't buy Twilight on DVD. It's not a lost sale, it's an unearned one.

The problem is that most of these companies are using a business model that stopped working back in the 70s and 80s. The world has moved on, there are greater requirements for success today and that includes embracing new technologies. It means that if you want to beat the fansubbers, you can't wait a couple of years to put out DVDs, you need to beat them at their own game, getting episodes online, subtitled, within a week of their Japanese airing. Can't do it, don't whine to me. Amazingly enough, when they do it, IT MAKES MONEY!
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