fansubs=illegal
 

Saiko Fansubs remove Munto by request of Japanese


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Following an e-mail request they received from Japan, Saikou-Fansubs has halted distribution of Munto. This is not the first time a fasubbing group has received a similar request from a Japanese company, however the act is rather uncommon as the Japanese companies generally prefer to have a North American associate make the requests on their behalf, even if that associate has not yet officially licensed the title.

In December of 2002 Production I.G publicly requested that anime fans not download fansubs of GiTS: Stand Alone Complex, but they are not believed to have directly contacted any fansub groups. At the time Stand Along Complex had already been licensed by Bandai Entertainment (As a Bandai Entertainment co-production it was licensed prior to its Japanese TV release).

In January 1999 SPE Visual Works (Sony) of Japan contacted [2] North American fansubbers and requested, under clear threat of legal action, that the distribution of Rurouni Kenshin be halted.

The e-mail Saiko Fansubs received is as follows:


SUBJECT: The owner of MUNTO.

BODY:
To the webmaster of Saikou-fansubs.com.

We are the owner of intellectual property rights of “MUNTO”.
We in good faith believe that the movie file you are showing on your website is not authorized by us, our agent, or the law, and therefore infringe our rights.
So please act expeditiously to remove the following file: Munto OVA .


President Hideaki Hatta
Kyoto Animation Co.,Ltd.



Thank you to Thappy for this item.

Well, I hope Saikou complies with their request.

PS: If people question the validity of the e-mail...Then they've never seen an e-mail reply from Jerry Chu (jekichu).

I don't see why they wouldn't; Saikou has dropped all projects and stopped distro when they have gotten licensed; I assume they'd do the same now.

According to ANN, Saikou had done so. (see first section) Either the company has completed negotiations with CPM, or it's still in progress; ANN doesn't say one way or another (good for them for doing so...), but the guy who wrote the blurb for AoD thinks it may still be in negotiations.

I'm inclined to believe ANN myself. :)

Well, Kyoto Animation is a very small animation studio. MUNTO was their first release to my knowledge, and it was only available via mail-order INSIDE of Japan. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase a DVD because I was living in Tokyo at the time, and I actually asked them about the availability of an english release, and they said that it was to be Japanese only.

Anyway, due to the circumstances of the studio and the release, it doesn't surprise me that this happened. I am 100% positive that Kyoto Animation was losing money because of the Saikou-Fansubs release.

-Tofu

least we all had a chance to download it like months ago. Also i doubt it had many seeds if any at all so noone would be able to. If they were worried about someone stealing it why did they wait so long anyhow?

Hojo: According to the bbs section of the Munto website Munto has been licensed by CPM. And Munto should be hitting shelves in about a year. A link has been put on the bottom of our page to the Munto website to show our support for them. We enjoyed subbing Munto and are eagerly awaiting its arrival in North America. Congrats to the makers of Munto for doing a great job and bringing it to us. So show your support and buy the dvd when it comes out

from site

They probably just found out about it :)

-Tofu

There is(was?) a theory that the licensor (now known to be CPM) wanted distro stopped and went through Kyoto since they had not yet announced the series. (Yes, i realize the former torrent appears in the #3 spot on google, but this is the theory that was passed around before it got leaked that it was CPM)