Torrent listing policy for unofficial remuxes?

[Zalis]

Recently, various groups or individuals have started doing third-party re-releases or remuxes, taking subtitles from fansubbed TV-rips and applying them to DVD or Blu-Ray raw encodes. I run one such operation, and you can find links to others on the blog. I'd like to submit my releases here, if they were allowed. As far as I can tell, two of the torrent listing criteria might come into play.

* Fansubs only
AnimeSuki will only list fansubs where some effort went into the translation. So-called fansubs whose subtitles were ripped or modified from a legally-translated source (such as DVD, no matter which region) will not be listed. Fansubs for shows where legal subtitles exist must be proven as real fansubs (not subtitle rips) before they will be added to the site.

These re-releases are usually ripped from fansubs, either extracted from softsubbed .mkvs, or OCRed/transcribed from hardsubbed files. As we know, fansubs are illegal, so these remuxes don't fall under the "ripped from a legally-translated source" exclusion. Some re-releases do use CR or R1-based subs, so it's understandable that they wouldn't be allowed. But most are fansub-based.

As for "effort," all the re-releasers out there are different. But in addition to doing all-new karaoke and re-doing all the text typesetting, I check through the scripts to correct issues with translation, spelling, grammar, and phrasing from the original subs. Here's an example of the changes I made to yesy's subs for Strawberry 100% ep 01. And with Touka Gettan, you might barely recognize Serin's subs once I'm through with them.

* No re-encodes
AnimeSuki will only list alternative versions of a fansub if they are made by the same group that produced the original version. Re-encodes made by groups or individuals not affiliated with the group that produced the original translation will not be listed. ]

This variety of re-release doesn't qualify as re-encoding, since they use completely different raws. In any case, they're not produced by taking the TV-rip files and running them through an encoding program.

So what's the verdict? Are re-releases like these admissible? Although they are "unofficial" vis-a-vis the original fansubbers, most of them are properly indexed on AniDB.

[xris]

In general we do not include such remuxes as those you describe.

If the source of the translation was from another group's release then we would not list it on AnimeSuki. The purpose of the "No re-encodes" entry is more concerned with the translation than the actual video source.

[GHDpro]

Originally Posted by Zalis

most of them are properly indexed on AniDB.

AniDB even lists CR rips, so that's not much of an argument.

The problem with subrips is that we don't want to list anything based on legal subs (mainly CR rips these days) or subrips from fansub groups that don't like their work being used without their permission. That may seem a bit hypocrite because fansubbing involves copyright infringement in the first place, but we would like to keep a good relation with fansub groups - certainly those that do the "real" work.

There is also a practical issue - the amount of re-encodes vastly outnumbers the number of real fansubs. And I don't see a point in listing zillions of versions of the same episode for each series.