Possible new copyright laws
 

http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-5106684.html

Even though the law is aimed at stopping the release of movies on the various p2p serivces, it could effect fansubs since they could be thought of in the same light as pre-release movies depending on how the possible law is written. The positive thing it would make people who release dvd rips think twice.

Not a chance in hell that would ever make it into an actual law, probably just scare tactics.

Interesting article. I have to say, though, that the odds are good that the bill won't make it out of subcommittee without a lot of argument and debates. The EFF alone will do its best to rip the bill apart.

Quite possible that something more watered down and/or more stringently worded will eventually get passed. Politics is just like horse-trading. :)

I wouldn't be surprised if it gets passed in some form or another, especially the way things are going towards lately.

If this is passed... we might have to go underground... wha twould happen to animesuki? having fansubs then would be a violation of animesuki's rules... the anticrist has come in the form of the people who are tring to pass such a law... the trumpet has blown and the horsemen are riding forth... confusion turns to pain, pain turns to death, death turns to eternal suffering, suffering in a fansub-less hell.

*Ravenchild regains his senses and continues browseing the forum

well, you know ... don't share things after they get liscenced. The only people who have a basis to go after you before that point are the japanese companies. After the liscencing you shouldn't be sharing them anyways. This is a no biggie.

I think this is the first time I have agreed with something the MPAA has wanted to do. Although I doubt this will be a case of them finally getting their head on strait. Now if we can do something about their accounting practices...

Actually rules won't matter any more because Animesuki would be illegal no matter what. Even now it's standing on the edge between legal and illegal.

From the CNET article linked by method:

Emphasis mine.

I'm under the impression that copyright infringement is a civil offense, which means you don't get jail time. What I'm seeing here is that sharing your DVDs won't land you in jail, but sharing prerelease movies will. How silly. :rolleyes:

Note: Prerelease means it isn't in theaters or on DVD/VHS and IANAL (I am not a lawyer.)

Lefteris_D, I hate to break it to you, but under US copyrite law (which tends to set the standards everywhere) Animesuki is illegal to begin with. This just takes away the burden of proof. Also, as long as we don't distribute liscenced stuff here we don't have much to worry about. Until the liscencing the only companies that can go after you is the japanese companies, and you don't exactly extradite people over intelectual property theft. Remember only the copyrite holder can go after you for copyrite violation. That copyrite remains overseas until it is liscenced somewhere else.

I agree with Esperchld, it would be under US copyright laws. If you wanna be TECHINCAL then yes, unlicensed anime is STILL illegal to distribute, but I am pretty sure it depends on if the material was INTERNATIONALLY copyrighted. If a show was copyrighted only locally in japan, I wonder what the issue would be...I'm not 100% sure it HAS to be internationally copyrighted to be copyrighted at all, that would be a interesting subject to read about. Maybe someone knows some documents on this?

As admitted on the AnimeSuki front page link, Licensed Anime

These aren't new copyright laws. The article specifically states that no copyright infringement has to take place.

After reading the page listed on the bottom of this post on copyright I got out of it you copyright materials world wide bu you can sell portions (like anime companies do). But....I was wondering if it is even possible to buy a PARTIAL copyright in your own country of something not copyrighted before? Anyone know anything about that?

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

Would it be possible to resurrect ato's thread (from animesuki's last incarnation) on the legality of fansubs? Or perhaps we need a new thread (maybe even a sticky), on these issues. It may be the case that the information in ato's thread needs to be changed or changed later, as copyright and IP law seems to be going through a bit of a shakedown these days.

As far as I'm concerned, the new legislation really doesn't have much to do with fansubs. I mean, it talks about prerelease titles, and most of the fansubs are either off of a DVD or TV broadcast. The only exception I can think of is people who released raws/subs of the Shingetsutan Tsukihime prologue before the DVD came out. This was most likely some sort of leak since the raws were available about a few days earlier and maybe the reason why there's a copyright notice on all the episodes of Tsukihime that I've seen.

For movies, there's a bigger problem because there's a LOT of movies being released before the official opening date. There's a lot of leaks from critics being sent the DVD screeners. Same thing goes for video games. FF9 was available on the net 2 weeks before it was set to go on sale, probably leaked from a gaming store.

Well it's really the Screener's fault isn't it? Maybe they shouldn't be so stupid in the first place. They should only release screeners to well trusted media sources or after the movie is release.

outlaw55, I am not sure exactly what you mean by buying a partial liscence to an uncopyrighted work. All work is copyrighted from the get go (atleast under US law). You can make a public liscence that makes it so that anyone can use it. There is also something called fair-use that would be good to brush up on. Other than that I am not exactly sure how to answer your question. I think though that you are thinking of trademarks.

JAppi, the real answer to the problem would be to make each screener unique (which they won't do because they are too lazy). After that you know exactly where it was leaked from. If I remember right Id software does this to their software when they give it to another company to test equipment on. However, that doesn't change the fact that the distribution of said screener is still illegal and hurts their business.

Some shows will need the publicity before opening weekend so they can rack up as much money as possible. By the way, how do you define "trusted" media source? How is the studio supposed to know who to trust and who not to? There's always an exception. By the way, I think the MPAA is moving towards a no screener policy.

Esperchld: I ment if I made something, I was wondering if I could only copyright it in my own country but not in others. Kind of a stupid question but oh well :D

If your country is a member of the Berne convention, (or one of the follow up treaties) then if it's copyrighted there, all other berne convention countries are obligated to treat it just like it was copyrighted in their country.

So it's really difficult to make something copyrighted just some places and not others.

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-billy-