Kinema Club Subtitling Consortium

[B Dunn]

> Property.)  Though how these matters might play out in a real world
> situation could be different (after all, how many producers or sellers of
> fansubbed anime have been sued?), it's worthing keeping in mind that:
> 

    Just a question on the legality of this.  As far as the fan-subbing of anime goes, is this a legal practice?  If they charge for only the blank tape and shipping versus charging additional for the service, does this make a difference in it being legal or not?  Of course, the Japanese companies going after the fan-subbers is a different issue.  I know the video stores I rent my Japanese videos at (in America) all rent out copies of the original tapes, with permission.  They even rent out fan-subbed anime.  Is this the kind of thing going on with the fan-subbers and that we are talking about here (getting permission to copy and subtitle films)? 

>This issue doesn't really seem to be settled, particularly since most of
>the questions have revolved around works that are still protected in their
>country of origin but are public domain in other countries.

    So is this what makes it legal for anime fan-subbers to copy the films?  Or at least keeps the Japanese companies from coming after them?

    It seems like if you are only going to go for very old films (over 50 yrs old behind the copyright thing), you may not get as many participants.  What about all of the movies that have been made since 1950?  I think there may be a bigger desire for more recent films.  As far as English-subtitled Japanese films go, as I'm sure you all know, there are basically Kurosawa's films, Itami's films, and occasionally others, which are few and far between.  Perhaps more of a variety of films (more than 50+ years old) for this project would increase interest and help it along better.  I know there are subtitled versions of newer films going around for the film festivals and everything.  Why aren't these released onto video after all the work has been done to subtitle it?  There are a lot of great films being released in Japan, but hardly anything makes it to other markets.  I have seen subbed versions of "E no Naka no Boku no Mura" (Village of Dreams) and "Maboroshi" (Maboroshi no hikari -- IIRC) come out recently, plus "Tokyo Fist" and "Tetsuo 1" and "2" (on Manga Films, I think).  But that's about it.  Is the rest of the world so jaded about Pearl Harbor that only anime and yakuza films are marketable outside of Japan?  I think that this project could do a lot more than just provide research materials to a few film researchers around the world who don't speak Japanese.  Like someone mentioned, why not go through one of the larger fan-subbers to get things released or at least push other films through channels to get things released on real labels in the US/Europe.  I know Tarantino's company (forgot the name) put out Kitano's Sonatine.  I'm sure he'd dig some of the work by Sabu or Harada or Iwai (I know there are more, but being in the states and a student - read: no time or money - I haven't seen a whole lot).  

    And as far as the actual work, I think that splitting up the responsibilities is a good idea, whether it is with a prof and students/teachers from his/her institution's Japanese department or through members of this list who know Japanese well enough to translate into English.  I myself would be interested in doing some translation, as long as I had the Japanese script.  But I don't have the equipment or access to equipment for the output.  Which is why I am for the splitting up of work.  Having one person responsible for all of the work on one tape is going to cut out a lot of people who are willing and able to do some things but aren't able to do others.  

That's all.  I have been saving this up since the first post because I wanted to see what other people said.


Brian Dunn
bdunn at netmagic.net