[xris]

Originally Posted by Sephi

And i don't think fansubs are protected by copyrights or anything. But i could be wrong. Is the subs they produce actually there property? In like no one else is allowed to use them but them self? I can assume it to be a unwritten rule that you don't rip other fansubs. But is it actually against the law for producers to use fansubs without there permission?

You are totally wrong on this.

If you produce a translation of an existing work (for your own personal use), then that's fine (as long as you own a legal copy of the original work). If you then distribute it in any way then it becomes an illegal translation. In other words, (the distribution of) fansubs are illegal to begin with.

Producing a translation of someone else's work without their permission is against the law, so the fact that someone produces a fansub with translated subtitles is already illegal. Therefore the concept of the unofficial translation having any sort of copyright is incorrect to begin with.

Originally Posted by innominate

I would guess that fansubs could be classified as online intellectual property, or a work of authorship. But I'm really not sure about anything either.

Again, totally off-base. It has nothing to do with intellectual property rights since the distribution of such a translation is already illegal. Have a read of the Fansubs violate copyrights comment on our main site as a starter and have a read of the myriad of closed threads you will find in the forum about the subject.

This whole topic is rather inappropriate for a thread which is for Silly Questions, if this topic continues the way it usually does then except further posts to be deleted.