The future of fansubs (5 years from now): Same as today? Less? Significantly less?

[seven|x_x]

lol, i try to dumb down my post to get my point across, and end up looking like an idiot. whatever. xD

Originally Posted by alamarco

No one here is creating and advancing technology, so I doubt anyone can accurately predict what's in store in the future.

while i assume none of us work on drm, there are a few subbers in the thread atm; idk that anyone can say more about the future of fansubbing than those that are involved with it now.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by alamarco

I agree that DRM is weak right now, I'm not arguing about that. What I'm saying is that it can improve. You are all pointing out weakness of the current DRM, whose to say that cannot be improved upon? No one here is creating and advancing technology, so I doubt anyone can accurately predict what's in store in the future. Even if DRM has to change it's basic premise, it's possible that it can improve in a way that makes it much more difficult to crack. How? Hell if I know, I don't get paid to think of algorithms that can be used.

You still haven't understood basic cryptography.

Originally Posted by alamarco

I do want to comment on SSL. SSL, although secure in itself, is not secure in implementation. One can easily bypass SSL through a man-in-the-middle attack (MITM). With browsers also slacking on warning users it's very easy to use programs such as sslstrip and perform MITM attacks. Security not only depends on the algorithm being used, but also how it is being implemented.

SSL has always had measures in place to securely (assuming a trusted CA) identify both sides of the connection, which prevents MITM attacks. The fact that the user can force the computer to skip that part of the security is not a weakness of the technology, it's a human weakness. A MITM attack against SSL is a social engineering attack, and can be likened to getting a DRM developer drunk and tricking him into giving you the secret keys you need.

[karice67]

Originally Posted by alamarco

I agree that DRM is weak right now, I'm not arguing about that. What I'm saying is that it can improve. You are all pointing out weakness of the current DRM, whose to say that cannot be improved upon? No one here is creating and advancing technology, so I doubt anyone can accurately predict what's in store in the future. Even if DRM has to change it's basic premise, it's possible that it can improve in a way that makes it much more difficult to crack. How? Hell if I know, I don't get paid to think of algorithms that can be used.

Even if it's more difficult to crack, even if they manage to eradicate all inconvenience to legitimate customers, the nature of the content means that one cracked copy is enough.

And no one thinks that they can eradicate ALL inconvenience - the more they try, the more likely it is that they will affect someone, ultimately turning what was once an honest user into a pirate...until the copyright law changes once again. Seriously, try reading the article (speech) by Cory Doctorow.

[drobertbaker]

Fansubbing was invented to fulfill a need that was not being met. As long as this situation exists, fansubbing will continue.

The basic issue is that creators (and owners) of the anime product still do not (with few exceptions) sell it (make it available) to foreign markets that want it.

Apparently they do not appreciate this potential market. Some enterprising foreigners have attempted to fill this gap on a commercial basis. This is an extremely difficult process, largely because the owners are not set up to handle it and the entrepreneurs have to fill in all the gaps (translation, dubbing, production, distribution) themselves.

The result is a product hopelessly inferior, outdated, and priced out of the (sane) market.

Domestically, the process is:

• Sell broadcast rights.
• The broadcaster distributes product for free (roughly) to immediate consumers. The broadcaster makes money through subscription, advertising, etc.
• Sell program related merchandise (or rights to same).
• Follow up with tangible copies for collectors, often with extra incentives (mugs, panties, extra episodes, etc).

This same process would work in a global market as well, but it has to an intrinsic part of the business model.

Now, being a digital product, and with increasing global awareness and demand, this process would be easier and more profitable than ever before.

But they still don't do it. So fansubbers do. What I've never understood is why. The fansubbers do everything right that the companies do wrong (except make money). Maybe that's why they're often so cranky.

Between the two groups, they have the complete business model, but they fight each other instead of getting together.

If I ran an anime company, I would put a big sign up on my internet site:

"Anyone who wants to copy and distribute my show, adding subtitles or voices or anything else is welcome to do so. Here's the deal:
1. You must charge $1 for every download.
2. You must send me $0.50 for every download"

I have instantly achieved worldwide distribution of my product to anybody who's interested in it, in his own language, and I don't have to do any work or spend any money whatsoever, except a little accounting. Basically just counting all my new free money. No production, no packaging, no marketing, no translation, no new actors, nothing.

I am no longer fighting pirates. I've just co-opted the whole lot of them. I've vastly increased my revenues, saved the industry, made my fans happy around the world, and even put some money in the pockets of those poor dedicated sods who work so hard just out of love of my product. And their moms are actually proud of them now!

Would everyone play fair? No. But enough people would that still everyone would be much better off. It's free money!

The simple perception by Apple that people would be willing to pay a buck for a song that they could get for free has made them the #1 music retailer. That same model would work here.

[karice67]

Originally Posted by drobertbaker

Domestically, the process is:

• Sell broadcast rights.
• The broadcaster distributes product for free (roughly) to immediate consumers. The broadcaster makes money through subscription, advertising, etc.

Hang on. SELL broadcast rights?? Most anime are broadcast by brokered programming, i.e. the anime producers PAY the station to broadcast their show.

What you've proposed is an idealistic plan that I'm sure people have considered. One major problem with this comparison is that Apple is one company (it obtains rights to distribute the music it sells). It is the middle man. Individual anime production committees won't have the resources to coordinate and manage something like that, so first, the industry has to find the middle man willing to do that. Perhaps this will happen sometime in the future, but I don't think they're quite ready for it yet...

[Vexx]

Um, yeah, drobertbaker's process description has a fundamental error in the first bullet, making the rest problematic. That's a description of the US process (commercial not public broadcasting), not the Japanese process.

[drobertbaker]

Brokered programming? You're kidding! So the shows are just paid ads? For what? Just merchandise and DVDs? No wonder they can't make any money. How come the shows have commercials and after the OP they list the show's sponsors?

What if a middleman just started doing this unilaterally? What if I did the distribution and just started sending checks to the producers and the fansubbers? Do you think either or both would hire lawyers to force me to stop sending them free money? Even if I avoided licensed products?

[karice67]

The model worked better when there weren't quite as many titles to choose from. (Try reading the wiki article for a quick overview.)

We should probably remember that most anime that are popular in the West aren't actually the most popular titles in Japan. The equivalent of the Simpsons would be something like Sazae-san or Chibi Maruko-chan. (Heard of them? Thought not...) Although everyone should know the next most popular - One Piece. (see ratings here). The shows that we tend to go crazy about do well if they garner ratings of 1-3%, but what matters most is how much merchandise they sell for their sponsors.

I'm trying to check how dramas and variety shows (which are the mainstays of primetime TV here) are funded, but haven't quite figured out where to look yet. Nevertheless, I'm getting the feeling that a lot of stations sponsor the dramas that they broadcast (e.g. Fuji TV), which means that they're also partially responsible for making sure they're good enough to make back the investment.

But if we had the system in most Western countries, where broadcasters pay for the rights to screen a show in order to get more advertising revenue, a lot of the shows we like probably wouldn't ever have been made!

------

Erm...you might want to find out more about Japanese culture and Japanese businesses before you try anything like that, because they're most probably not going to like anyone not following the system

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by drobertbaker

Brokered programming? You're kidding! So the shows are just paid ads? For what? Just merchandise and DVDs? No wonder they can't make any money. How come the shows have commercials and after the OP they list the show's sponsors?

You're forgetting the important aspect of advertising for the manga. From my limited understanding of the modern anime industry, it was largely created by the big publishing houses as a method to build audiences for the manga series being animated. In the minds of some directors like Iso Mitsuo, this whole approach limits the possibilities for the development of original animated works.

What if a middleman just started doing this unilaterally? What if I did the distribution and just started sending checks to the producers and the fansubbers? Do you think either or both would hire lawyers to force me to stop sending them free money? Even if I avoided licensed products?

Ultimately you'd get sued, if not by the anime producers, then by the musical rights holders (e.g., Sony). I wouldn't want to do anything like this on servers based in the US or Japan, and all the money would need to be collected off-shore and laundered before it showed up in an American bank account. Worst case, the FBI comes knocking and arrests you for criminal copyright infringement.

Personally I wouldn't do it, but let us know how it works out for you if you try!

[bhl88]

As long as anime takes a month or so to be translated and in DVD, fansubs will exist. (lots of it)

BRS Episode 1 will be streamed live... and someone will get a hold of it (and I'll bet that fansubbers will get it before it is licensed....)

[bigsocce]

Originally Posted by bhl88

As long as anime takes a month or so to be translated and in DVD, fansubs will exist. (lots of it)

True but..

What if 95% of all new anime are legally available for free to watch on the internet within 1 hour of its Japanese broadcast for many parts of the world? (think crunchyroll, hulu but with 95% of all the current anime instead of just a fraction and in many more territories). Also, 4 years from now, the streaming quality will be much improved compare to today. Though hulu 480p and CR 720p are pretty damn good right now. Though I will admit it is not as good as the fansub 720 MKV and it's a download so you can 'keep' it.

For example, you own the rights to the anime Cross Game. You know that it won't get a DVD license in North America and many other territory. Hulu offers you a 70% share of the ad revenue. Hulu gets about 9 cents per viewer per an half hour show. Assume (no idea what the actual figure would be), that there will be on average 100,000 viewers. So for each episode, you get $6300 (100,000 x $0.063). With 50 episodes, you will get $315,000.

Do you turn it down?

[drobertbaker]

The future is cloud computing in general and streaming in particular. The Lala model (streaming, 10 cents a play) looks like it will supercede Itunes (download 99 cents). This could then be mixed with the advertising based approach you discuss.

I remember when I first heard of Crunchyroll (Shangri-la). I said "That's it then. Somebody finally figured it out and put it together. My download days are over." But that hasn't quite worked out. I do stream what I can and this will steadily increase. Currently Arakawa, Tatami Galaxy, even Slayers Evolution, although none of these from Crunchyroll.

I don't even know where I'm streaming them from, where they get them, or how they are financed. I'm not watching ads. Supply is timely, quality is adequate for me, and I don't pay anything.

What will really slow the process down is the structure on the Japanese end. Listening to this guy is very informative with respect to how messed up the Japanese anime industry structure is. It seems hopelessly incapable of dealing with modern global commercial realities. It sounds like they will just happily fade away rather than change their ways. Eventually though, the money should bring somebody around.

$315,000? I saw a list of all time biggest overseas Japanese grossing movies. I remember that #10 GROSSED $3300 overseas.

[Vexx]

You should probably talk to people who actually *do* "cloud computing" implementation before swallowing the marketeer soundbites.

You might also want to talk to the ISPs and telecomm corps before getting too excited over streaming as well (at least in the US). There's a strong gap between the arm-waving and whats actually happening in the conduits.

The reality is a lot more smoke blowing and I'm thinking there's a lot of flag waving behind the mirrors.

I'd like the whole process of watching anime to be legal and convenient as a viewer.... but sparkling ponies and magic rainbows are being claimed when the next few years are going to continue to be old sawhorses and shades of beige.

[bayoab]

Not to mention that whole HTML5 vs Flash vs ??? thing that is going on. One of the major issues that needs to be worked on is the whole "It just works." thing. (Which is also a problem fansubs are equally bad about for all the "DRM free DTO file" crowd bitching.)

[drobertbaker]

Worried that the IPhones are taking all the bandwidth? The last I heard, 80% of bandwidth is still taken by spam! Sure, American infrastructure of all sorts is teetering on the brink of collapse. But then the world economy could come crashing down any day anyway.

The future is the future and someone will inherit it. The Koreans have all sorts of bandwidth. If they don't get nuked by their lunatic brethren, they can carry the ball. And after the Neo-Dark Ages, we can pick up where we left off.

Just kidding! You got to be optimistic, man!

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by bigsocce

Also, 4 years from now, the streaming quality will be much improved compare to today.

It might be "improved" but 99% likely it will not surpass the quality offered by softsubbed MKVs. See my post here.

And streaming technology is certainly not the only thing that can move forward. In four years, we'll be most likely dealing with Matroska 2.0 and all the jazz that comes with it.

[bigsocce]

Some fansub groups are no longer fansubbing anime that are legally stream licensed. For example, Bleach.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by bigsocce

Some fansub groups are no longer fansubbing anime that are legally stream licensed. For example, Bleach.

That's because a large number of fansub groups have two principles:
1) They exist to *promote* series they love and share the fun. Once the series is licensed, they've done their part.
2) A friendly but formal C&D lets them know its time to move on.

Streamed series *can* be captured for archiving (requires a bit of work) just as broadcast tv *can* be saved to tape -- until the broadcasters offer DVDs or some form of 'ownable' medium (e.g. the American PBS DVD library of series) there is still an unsatisfied market of collectors.

[bigsocce]

With the rise of legal anime streaming (crunchyroll, hulu, funimation etc...) has there been a decrease in fansubbing? (i.e. less fansub groups now than before?)

A decrease in the number of fansub downloads? (i.e. some people who used to rely on fansubs are now using legal streaming instead?)


This thread was created on January 18, 2009. This is almost 2 years later. I wonder what it will be in 3 years time as denote by the thread title The future of fansubs (5 years from now): Same as today? Less? Significantly less?


Will there be significant changes?

p.s. Hulu revenue by year

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1AA4DMzCm


2008: $25 mil
2009: $108 mil
2010: $240 mil
2011: ????

Hulu now has a $7.99 subscription service titled Hulu Plus.

The future of anime distribution worldwide is look likely to be done through Digital Streaming (free with ads and premium service with more selection and no/few ads). It will get there eventually.

[Triple_R]

Pertinent Wiki write-up here.

Two points:

1. Hulu does a lot more than anime alone, as is abundantly clear from that Wiki write-up. So I'd be very cautious about reading anything into the future of anime from the profitability of Hulu.

2. Hulu currently only streams video in the US. So that makes it (currently) useless to much of the foreign anime fandom, including myself.


I'd be much more interested in seeing Crunchy Roll's 2010 revenue, and profit margins, personally. Does anybody here know what that is?