Attitude toward making money off of fansubs and scanlations

[bayoab]

Do fansubbers/scanlators no longer care about all the sites that are making money off of fansubs? There was a decent amount of uproar years ago but this seems to have died as the number of sites that act to make money off actually fansubs grow. More interesting are the subbers out there who seem to hate the industry for monetizing and yet don't care that the fans are doing the exact same thing.

Spoiler for Predicting the tl;dr of this thread:

More "ethical" groups care. Less "ethical" groups don't.

[cyth]

ANN has been doing this for years with their season preview guides, and they probably make more money writing those articles using fansubs than all the distro sites combined.

The import goods industry has been benefiting and undermining profits of licensed U.S. products for a good time now, an industry largely based on the presence of fansubs.

There are tons of interest groups benefiting from them, so yeah, stop fansubbing and the problem is solved.

[TheFluff]

Welcome to the internet, where people will take everything that isn't nailed down and try to make money off of it. If you don't want that, don't publish whatever it is (source code, works of fiction, addresses, videos, blogs, pictures, manuals, you name it) on the internet.

Are you upset at youtube making money off of illegal copies of literally everything as well as everyone's random home videos too? Or at facebook for making money off of your personal details?

This isn't something that is particular to fansubs, it's just a basic internet thing. Everything that can be represented in digital form that people are interested in watching/reading/listening to/searching in/using/posting on/communicating with/whatever can and will be used as a business opportunity, with or without permission. I think people have stopped caring because they realize that's just how the internet is. It would be a terrible waste not to use it for what it's designed for, after all: exchanging information.

edit:

More interesting are the subbers out there who seem to hate the industry for monetizing and yet don't care that the fans are doing the exact same thing.

I'm not sure if this is an intentional strawman or if you actually believe in it yourself, but most people who hate the industry seem to hate it because they think the industry is dumb in one or more ways (varying between business models, translation styles, dubs, karaoke, streaming, drm etc).

[Daiz]

Well, of course I'd rather not see people benefit from (illegal, but never the less) work of others without any consent, but most of the time there isn't much a group can do to stop it, which is probably why most groups don't feel like caring anymore.

Most of these kind of sites are streaming sites and online manga reading sites from what I've seen, and because of that I don't really support them either. But again, what're you gonna do? The best thing to do is wait for the sites to shoot themselves in the foot, like what quite a few online manga reading sites did back a while ago when they removed everything tagged "mature" in fear of getting banned from Google Adsense, and boy did that get rid of loads of stuff.

So long story short: Fansubbers/scanlators don't really care anymore because most of the time it's not just worth it to pursue the issue in any form.

[Kristen]

I don't like sites requiring payment or donation to watch a fansub. Something that is available for free should remain available for free. But I do support stuff like ads or optional donation buttons on the sites that duplicate this work, because that is for the service provided, not the content.

[Plorkyeran]

Complaining about people distributing your fansubs/scanlations in ways you don't approve of is pretty much peak hypocrisy.

[blakbunnie27]

Originally Posted by Plorkyeran

Complaining about people distributing your fansubs/scanlations in ways you don't approve of is pretty much peak hypocrisy.

THIS

Also:

Originally Posted by Kristen

Something that is available for free should remain available for free.

Anime isn't available for free (it never is). Fansubs are illegal. Should commercial softwares only be available for free because they're all illegally available for free?

[Kristen]

AFAIK, anime airs on public television. For free. And fansubs are distribute on torrents. With the exception of Animesupreme (Not going to get into this), for free.

An analogous situation isn't commercial software, but software that somebody made a patch for and made a torrent with that and the software. If they made their patch and it is available for free, it should remain that way. Somebody shouldn't profit off another person's work by grabbing it for free and redistributing it.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by bayoab

More interesting are the subbers out there who seem to hate the industry for monetizing and yet don't care that the fans are doing the exact same thing.

Hm?

I don't hate the industry for monetizing. Naturally, it has to. It's all a matter of HOW. I just think it's acting incredibly stupid, and I'm more than just a bit annoyed that it's fingering me as the merciless gravedigger of the anime industry, yet at the same time declares people like me who want hi-quality download-to-own non-DRMed content as too irrelevant to service. Just like it's retarded to say that offering this kind of content would be impossible since it would make things readily copyable when in reality you can get most newly released content faster via net than your friggen pre-ordered Bluray arrives _in Japan!!_

If you wonder why most fansubbers feel so much contempt for the industry, look in this direction.

So some sites are taking your works and using them to sell them to fools who are willing to pay for them? You won't see me crying if the FBI cracks down on them, but just as Fluffy wrote, this is the reality of the internet, no point in complaining about it. "Stop the thief, _I_ stole it first!!"

Personally, I prefer keeping anime and money strictly apart. We don't put donation ads on our website and don't tolerate nag messages on bots in our channel. If you can't offer a service without accepting money for it, don't offer it in the first place. But that's only my/our style and not about forcing this on others. Does that make me "ethical" now?

(I doubt that we should use loaded words like that)

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by Kristen

AFAIK, anime airs on public television. For free. And fansubs are distribute on torrents. With the exception of Animesupreme (Not going to get into this), for free.

This might be a valid argument if it didn't ignore all of the differences between a tv broadcast and a torrent and if more than two fansubbers refused to sub anything but tv rips from public broadcasts.

Also, (almost) no manga is free.

[jfs]

Originally Posted by Kristen

AFAIK, anime airs on public television. For free.

Along with sponsors' advertisements. You rarely see those in fansubs. (Not that foreign viewers would care much about advertisements for products only sold in Japan.)


The actual problem with pay-sites showing fansubs is that it might be hard to distinguish them from legitimate sites streaming licensed subs, and trick some people into thinking that because they're paying it must be legal.

[False Dawn]

I've often wondered why no legit source has gone down the ad-supported route (I suppose Crunchyroll does but it's all a bit half-assed because of the membership side of it). I can only assume it's because it doesn't generate enough revenue to support that kind of business model?

There's always been an uproar about charlatans taking fansubs and charging to view them - I remember when Crunchyroll was the most hated of these (oh how times have changed! Well, at least, the reasoning behind the hate has) but it's been sated slightly by the fact that the fansub community seems to be widespread enough now that only utter noobs get caught by the traps these sites set.

[blakbunnie27]

Originally Posted by Kristen

AFAIK, anime airs on public television. For free. And fansubs are distribute on torrents. With the exception of Animesupreme (Not going to get into this), for free.

An analogous situation isn't commercial software, but software that somebody made a patch for and made a torrent with that and the software. If they made their patch and it is available for free, it should remain that way. Somebody shouldn't profit off another person's work by grabbing it for free and redistributing it.

Plork always makes a good point. Though most anime is aired on public broadcasting channels, some are not (and those still get subbed). NHK, CS channels, BS channels, and I'd assume the AT-X, etc stuff are also paid channels, and shows that only air on those paid channels are also subbed. Also, those free public television channels in Japan are benefits for living in Japan (most leechers don't even meet the first requirement for those to be free).

In any case, an illegal act for free isn't more justified than an illegal act for profit. If someone's dumb enough to pay for a service that is available free, then there will always be people who will offer that service. They shouldn't need to take the blame or be called "morally unjust" or whatever some people call them.

Also, the moment you grab something (that is originally paid for) for free, you make a profit off whoever put in time to bring it to you. Because the cost is never less than or equal to zero.

[bayoab]

I was trying to be ambiguous originally but I should probably make it clear I'm talking about the streaming aggregation sites, the narutofans, the bootleggers, etc. The ones who just take stuff, throw it on some hosting service and cover the page in ads or charge 100x actual costs to download.

Originally Posted by TheFluff

Are you upset at youtube making money off of illegal copies of literally everything as well as everyone's random home videos too? Or at facebook for making money off of your personal details?

I'd make the argument that these are actually offering a service vs repackaging content and offloading the costs in an attempt to make money and are adding nothing.

I'm not sure if this is an intentional strawman or if you actually believe in it yourself,

No, this was commenting on those who make posts that basically say some variation of "Donate to fansubbers because the industry is trying to make money off of anime" or "Anime is meant to be free." I've encountered it on a few of the fly-by-night type fansubber sites. This isn't the anti-drm crowd or the anti-region locking crowd or whatever.

Originally Posted by Mentar

Does that make me "ethical" now?

(I doubt that we should use loaded words like that)

I used quotes for a reason. (I just pulled the oldest meaningless-yet-meaning-something word out because I couldn't think of a proper word to make the distinction.)

[Schneizel]

RE: "Anime is free" (lol) - OVA and DVD/BD-only episodes and movies and DVD/BD re-done episodes say hi. :V

[Quarkboy]

My opinion is:

If you're upset about people making money off all the work you are doing for free...

...stop working for free.

It worked for me!

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by bayoab

I was trying to be ambiguous originally but I should probably make it clear I'm talking about the streaming aggregation sites, the narutofans, the bootleggers, etc. The ones who just take stuff, throw it on some hosting service and cover the page in ads or charge 100x actual costs to download.

It was pretty obvious you were talking about those. I don't see how the degree to which their customers are getting ripped off is relevant.

Originally Posted by bayoab

No, this was commenting on those who make posts that basically say some variation of "Donate to fansubbers because the industry is trying to make money off of anime" or "Anime is meant to be free." I've encountered it on a few of the fly-by-night type fansubber sites. This isn't the anti-drm crowd or the anti-region locking crowd or whatever.

People seeking money will say whatever it is that they think will get them donations. Positioning the group as a group of righteous warriors opposing the evil big companies who need money to win the battle for freedom is a fairly effective way to get money.

[CryptWizard]

Fansubbers don't care because of:


And I think the general opinion is that if people are dumb enough to pay for that Narutofan or whatevershit, then they deserve it.

[DmonHiro]

My opinion: if someone is stupid enough to pay for fansubs, they deserve to be ripped off. I don't condone it in any way, but I'll hardly have a word of sympathy for the fools.

Then again, I sold fansubs a few years back, when only a few places had good internet connections. I was the primary source for fansubs in Bucharest. At first, I only charged the cost of the black disk, but I had to increase the price to double that, because, ironically, people though there was something wrong with them, because they were so cheap.

[blakbunnie27]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

My opinion is:

If you're upset about people making money off all the work you are doing for free...

...stop working for free.

Well said.