An opportunity to solve the argument once and for all on fansubs?

[felix]

What are you a talking about.
I never said dub anywhere in there. ^^

[raikage]

Brain fart. Sorry -- let me try to give you a real reply this time.

Originally Posted by Cats

Let me ask this,
If the purpose of Fansubs is to spread anime as merchandise, then why aren't all anime subbed?
And why are others consciously over-subbed? =)

Because fansubbing is not one giant tool, where all the groups meet up and assign who will do what show.

If no group wants to sub a series, then no one can force them to (unless you're prepared to pay for everyone's time and effort to sub a show they don't really want to sub -- at which point they move from fans into professionals, opening up a whole new can of legal worms).

The same holds true for oversubbing. Each one of the groups wants to, and won't be shoved out simply because some other group wants to do it as well.

Why aren't some series subbed? Not every single series that comes out of Japan is gold -- among every form of entertainment in every country in the world, there are some stinkers, and I refuse to believe that Japanese cartoons are the sole exception to this.

Do fansubs work in spreading awareness of series? I say yes -- certainly, American companies wouldn't have taken risks on shows like Hikaru no Go and Azumanga Daioh had there not been as much fan-love..but certainly, some shows that you know WILL get licensed and distributed (Bleach, Naruto, likely Buso Renkin, any new Gundam series, Initial D: 3rd/4th stage) the need for fansubs to create buzz is significantly lower.

[Crovax]

Originally Posted by Cats

[...]
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One other question, are people in Singapore all english illiterets, can they really not watch subs from english-sub groups?
(which should not be effected by this)

Ehm, isn't English like their official language? (Though I realize many other languages are spoken there from Malay and Tamil to Cantonese and Mandarin.) It's an irrelevant point you're trying to make though, since if I understand correctly, the focus of a hypothetical crackdown would not focus on just the subbers, but on the downloaders as well.

What I don't understand Vallen, is why you seem to be saying that the sales information you want/need can't be obtained afterwards. Surely this data isn't simply thrown onto a bonfire once a month, it makes sense for companies to be archiving/keeping this information regardless.

Real question is, would they cooperate? Something which I do not think very many people on these forums could answer. =/

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Crovax

Surely this data isn't simply thrown onto a bonfire once a month, it makes sense for companies to be archiving/keeping this information regardless.

Real question is, would they cooperate? Something which I do not think very many people on these forums could answer. =/

In the case of American anime distributors, it's simply a business secret. Many private companies keep their data secret and that goes for private anime distribution companies as well. You could probably obtain this data from companies that are being publically traded with because most of their information about profits/losses is made public, but you can't expect private companies to just give out all the intel. At best, you could probably buy the information from them for a nice sum of money. Nothing unethical about that, it's simple business logic.
In any case, whatever information they're keeping for themselves, it's nothing out of the ordinary for them to not share it with the rest of the market, competition and consumers alike. I think the reason for not sharing has got more to do with competition than consumers though.

[Js2756]

It's not even a business secret because North American distributors couldn't tell you how much it it has materially impacted them. They can easily throw out some ballpark figures, but those figures would have huge assumptions calculated into them, meaning that in the big picture, they don't hold water*.

Look at what the RIAA and MPAA are doing. They won't ever tell you exactly how much they are "losing" due to piracy. They would like you to believe that it's a huge number (ie. the RIAA suing a website for over a trillion dollars, I kid you not). But they can't quantify any numbers with any certainty. Even if you knew how many people are downloading, how many of those people would buy if that avenue was no longer available? How many of those people would have bought anything if they didn't have the option of previewing via fansubs? How are show sales affected by being shown on television? You can't get definitive numbers for these types of questions, because for one, nobody has bothered taking a sampling of the target population, and two, polls aren't necessarily accurate anyways (although properly conducted ones can give decent ballpark numbers).

*This is because most of those assumptions are usually skewed to make fansubbing look bad.

[wingdarkness]

Kinda surprised no one even took a nibble at this point...

Could anyone give me some feedback on this idea?

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

(Just brain-storming, but) I think what could possibly or potentially change the playing field in a monumental way, is when a distributer or anime company decides to actively start poaching or buying off the best fansub groups and employing them to push there product on some serious level...I mean buying off full staffs of the best encoders, editors, font, and karaoke translators, etc. (Based on the quality and overall statistical success of it's leech fanbase) and giving them the DVD-quality landscape to give R1 DVD's that special flavor, flair and creative integrity that make many people want to keep their fansubs over a generic DVD presentation//adaptation...Maybe I'm insane but for some reason that seems to have tangent possibilities to me...What group would pass on an opportunity to be fully employed in an experimental test to see if fans of actual popular and quality groups would bring there leechers with them to some valid level in buying DVD's? I don't know maybe I'm reaching, am I?

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

http://anime.tedfox.com/2007/others/...ime-downloads/

...Just something from a blogger. Only time will tell if this is a sign of things to come, or just a short term, temperary response that will die off.

What I don't understand Vallen, is why you seem to be saying that the sales information you want/need can't be obtained afterwards. Surely this data isn't simply thrown onto a bonfire once a month, it makes sense for companies to be archiving/keeping this information regardless.

Well, it is true the data will exist regardless in some form or another, but synchronising information from before and after the ban, as well as synchronising with other nations, is much harder when the data were not collected for the same specific purpose. Data collected by different organisations for their private purposes can have many different parameters from one another, so comparing them will mean weaker correlations could be made.

Technically this research could be done by purchasing data from private companies after the fact, but independent investigations and direct data gathering will create results that will have less chance of being dismissed as unusable.