Anime fan-subbing [was Re: Kinema Club Subtitling Consortium]

[Dion A. Madrilejo]

On Sun, 16 May 1999, B Dunn wrote:

> 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)? 

The legality of anime fan-subs competes with the 'sub vs. dub' debate for
the most argued issue in anime fandom. 

Is it legal?
fan-subbing AFAIK would never stand up in court if someone were to
actually litigate. There are some self-imposed ethics in fan-subbing that
seem to make the industry tolerable and also some effects of the industry
that seem to prevent serious litigation but in pure legal terms, I would
say it is illegal.

So if it's illegal, why do companies allow it to happen?
There are a bunch of reasons why fan-subbers still operate in the US.

1) 'Rules of fan-subs': These are self-imposed rules that all fan-subbers
   and fan-sub owners are 'supposed' to follow.
   -Not for sale or rent: This is the biggie which that video store is not
    following. As long as no one is making a serious profit from fan-subs
    then that's one less reason for companies to take legal action.
   -No commercially available titles: The only 'ok' fan-subs are ones of
    non-commercially available in the US titles. Some people stretch this
    to titles not-commercially-available-subtitled-in-the-US. This also
    goes to the idea that as long as fan-subs aren't taking money away
    from legitimate US companies then no one is really 'hurt'
   -Destruction of commercially available fan-subs: If a title is actually
    picked up and made available commercially then if you happen to own
    fan-subs of it you're 'supposed to' erase the tapes and buy the
    commercial copies to encourage more commercial licensing.

2) FAN-subs: These are tapes made by anime fans, for anime fans. Suing
your own customer base is generally a 'bad idea' and would as least be a
serious PR problem. Also, fan-subs are probably the industry's best way of
finding out which titles to acquire for US release.

3) Cost: As someone else already pointed out, the legal costs for a
Japanese company to litigate in the US would be horrendous and just not
worth it.

4) US vs. Japan: Except in one (as far as I know) recent case; Japanese
companies, luckily, tend to ignore US fans. The anime club I am a part of
has attempted to contact the appropriate companies for written permission
to screen their material and with all the Japanese companies, we have
heard nothing. The only recent case of a Japanese company actually doing
something was when Sony sent an apparently very serious email to various
fan-subbers demanding they immediately cease distribution of Rurouni
Kenshin even though Sony was (and still is) in the process of trying to
sell the rights to a US company.

So, fan-subs may be illegal but they seem to occupy a 'grey area' that no
one seems to be in any hurry to eliminate or change.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-As fun as a barrel of monkeys...=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Stun settings are for       | Dion A. Madrilejo     dmad at umich.edu
people who can't commit"-JMS | www-personal.umich.edu/~dmad 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-with dynamite strapped to their backs=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=