Japanese Government Enforcing Anti-Piracy Law on Anime and Manga - Update
- Thread starter roseofbattle
- Start date
Sounds like this is going to effect my manga and anime habits. Pity, I was just starting to get back into them as well. Maybe if they actually you know, gave a fuck about foreign markets, people wouldn't have to turn to fan-translations. Surprise, Japan! When you ignore an audience, they turn to shady means to get what they want.
And they can effect foreign markets. Two hentai sites have been hit, one so bad it was shut down. The other is still standing, but only because they remove the content they get warned for. We also lost one of the most dedicated fan-translation group because of this.
Edit: I may have just found a list of sites that will be hit. Starts at page 11. Link is safe, I was just there.
http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/contents/downloadfiles/140414.pdf
Some known sites that will be hit are Mangahere(my manga site), mangareader, mangafox, Youtube, Daily Motion, Animeultima, Animeplus, and multiple well known anime, manga, and visual novel torrent sites. Looks like some bigger names are fine, Fuwanovel, Baka-Tsukui, and my anime site are not being targeted.
They aren't shutting the sites down either. Only removing eighty anime titles and five-hundred manga titles from their websites. Good thing I read mostly obscure as fuck manga, should be fine.
And they can effect foreign markets. Two hentai sites have been hit, one so bad it was shut down. The other is still standing, but only because they remove the content they get warned for. We also lost one of the most dedicated fan-translation group because of this.
Edit: I may have just found a list of sites that will be hit. Starts at page 11. Link is safe, I was just there.
http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/mono_info_service/contents/downloadfiles/140414.pdf
Some known sites that will be hit are Mangahere(my manga site), mangareader, mangafox, Youtube, Daily Motion, Animeultima, Animeplus, and multiple well known anime, manga, and visual novel torrent sites. Looks like some bigger names are fine, Fuwanovel, Baka-Tsukui, and my anime site are not being targeted.
They aren't shutting the sites down either. Only removing eighty anime titles and five-hundred manga titles from their websites. Good thing I read mostly obscure as fuck manga, should be fine.
I think Space Dandy kind of disproves part of this. The show aired in the US with a English dub the same day it was first broadcast in Japan, so it's clear that it CAN be done, the only question is if you can find a distributer (and for a lot of the larger studios, there'd be plenty of takers).RandV80 said:
Here's the rub people from Japan: Pirates provide a better service because the stuff I want to see either isn't released here, or it's mangled while being imported.
Who is releasing 80s mecha shows like Braiger and Xabungle in the west? Where can I find uncut, subtitled versions of Yugioh? Where do I go to find the new GARO and Kamen Rider Gaim and ToQger? It's a positive step I can now see stuff like Aldnoah Zero or Terror in Resonance on streaming sites in America, but what if I"m not from America or I'm looking for Inazuma Eleven or Digimon Savers or another older show?
Who is releasing 80s mecha shows like Braiger and Xabungle in the west? Where can I find uncut, subtitled versions of Yugioh? Where do I go to find the new GARO and Kamen Rider Gaim and ToQger? It's a positive step I can now see stuff like Aldnoah Zero or Terror in Resonance on streaming sites in America, but what if I"m not from America or I'm looking for Inazuma Eleven or Digimon Savers or another older show?
Can?t really say I care that much as my interest in the subject pretty much subsided since the industry decided that producing shonen, hentai and ecchi stuff is the only worthwhile business?
Try to find a recent anime/manga that does not start the description of its protagonist with ?is a student/6thgrade etc. ?? and fits into mentioned 3 ?genres?
Good luck with that.
Anyway I think they are going to shoot themselves in the foot here.
Fansubs and scanlations provide an important service to the fans especially outside of the US in terms of prove of interest, advertisement and test-reading.
Additionally for obscure content it is the only viable option to access it all together.
Killing it off will leave the industry more unaware in what will actually appeal to western audiences, repel/prevent consumer with weak buying power (most of the usual target audience) to even enter the fandom, set back release schedules round about 1 to 2 years for actually popular series and kill off access to obscure content altogether.
This could have negative synergy on the business.
As for the ?licensed? status:
Copyright laws exist basically everywhere. Of course they won?t apply Japanese laws outside of their territory. They can perfectly fine shut scanlations and fansubs down on their respective countries laws.
The reason it didn?t happen thus far was that they didn?t pursue it. They left it to the companies that licensed their stuff or their regional subsidiaries to do that and didn?t much care for what happens beyond Japan unless they had scheduled releases outside of it.
That?s why the sites usually removed licensed stuff as with the license came a pursuer and they but themselves at risk being shut down.
However they don?t have to license something to a company in a different country or have a subsidiary to sue for copyright infringement. A fansub/scanlation is a copyright infringement regardless of the license status and they can sue anyway. It is just a hassle to so as they have to confront it a foreign court.
Try to find a recent anime/manga that does not start the description of its protagonist with ?is a student/6thgrade etc. ?? and fits into mentioned 3 ?genres?
Good luck with that.
Anyway I think they are going to shoot themselves in the foot here.
Fansubs and scanlations provide an important service to the fans especially outside of the US in terms of prove of interest, advertisement and test-reading.
Additionally for obscure content it is the only viable option to access it all together.
Killing it off will leave the industry more unaware in what will actually appeal to western audiences, repel/prevent consumer with weak buying power (most of the usual target audience) to even enter the fandom, set back release schedules round about 1 to 2 years for actually popular series and kill off access to obscure content altogether.
This could have negative synergy on the business.
As for the ?licensed? status:
Copyright laws exist basically everywhere. Of course they won?t apply Japanese laws outside of their territory. They can perfectly fine shut scanlations and fansubs down on their respective countries laws.
The reason it didn?t happen thus far was that they didn?t pursue it. They left it to the companies that licensed their stuff or their regional subsidiaries to do that and didn?t much care for what happens beyond Japan unless they had scheduled releases outside of it.
That?s why the sites usually removed licensed stuff as with the license came a pursuer and they but themselves at risk being shut down.
However they don?t have to license something to a company in a different country or have a subsidiary to sue for copyright infringement. A fansub/scanlation is a copyright infringement regardless of the license status and they can sue anyway. It is just a hassle to so as they have to confront it a foreign court.
Well, not YOU, clearly. You get to be a ninja.Pickapok said:
OT: I should ask what they actually plan to do about it, but the usual fore-front question is always... What action are you taking to eliminate the demand? They always treat the symptom. Why not go for the ailment? The cause?
Pretty much my question. I'll admit (regrettably) that I've read/watched fan translation of work that, frankly, isn't available in the states. However, I always try to purchase merchandise available here. I hope they take that into account.gigastar said:
I support the fight against piracy, but they need to make things more available too.
As someone who subscribes to CrunchyRoll, buys his manga and has quite a few DVDs of various series as well, I still disagree with what you`re implying here. The fact is anime and manga, although the former more than the latter, are ridiculously expensive, even when comparing to Western TV series of the same size. For example, to buy 22 episodes of Psycho-Pass, one of my favourite recent animes from the last couple years is around 100 CDN and I`ve seen other series get more expensive than that. The fact is, if one wants more purchases by consumers, one has to set their products at reasonable prices because not all people are as lucky as I am with my current work status and paygrade.Queen Michael said:
That's important. It's how you really mitigate (I say mitigate, for you will never truly eradicate piracy, and attempting to do so entirely will just end badly) piracy.
1. Price it reasonably
2. Make it easy to access.
Anything less than those two things, and you'll be getting pirated to the point that it truly is financially damaging.
Not trying to justify piracy btw, just trying to explain why certain things find themselves so much more pirated than others - just look at Game of Thrones and Australia.
Not really. Just look at GoG. All their games are in nice and neat, DRM-free installers on a well organized website and they provide support for their products. I'd rather buy their old games than pirate them figure out how to get them working. Likewise, have you ever sifted through torrents before? They usually aren't very descriptive and you can wind up downloading many torrents before you find what you're looking for, in the quality you want, the language you want, and with enough seeders to actually download the content (so I've been told...). It would much simpler to sign up for a legit website, buy stuff (at a decent price), and download it in a similar fashion to Humble Bundle which lets you choose between torrents and direct downloadsRandV80 said:
This will never work unless they start speeding up overseas distribution of titles. That will mean starting the translation process long before the product is finished.
I know the BBC had a huge problem with people torrenting Doctor Who because it wouldn't get broadcast on BBC America till 4 months later. They eventually dropped the delay to 1 week, still didn't completely solve the problem. Now I think it's only delayed by the time difference between the US and the UK. By the time someone could actually get it up on a torrent site with enough seeds for a fast download, it's already been broadcast here. A number of other BBC shows now seem to be avoiding the months long wait since the fans can't (and won't) wait.
I know the BBC had a huge problem with people torrenting Doctor Who because it wouldn't get broadcast on BBC America till 4 months later. They eventually dropped the delay to 1 week, still didn't completely solve the problem. Now I think it's only delayed by the time difference between the US and the UK. By the time someone could actually get it up on a torrent site with enough seeds for a fast download, it's already been broadcast here. A number of other BBC shows now seem to be avoiding the months long wait since the fans can't (and won't) wait.
You can't combat pirates because they are a hydra: "You cut one head and two more will grow back up".
You are just enforcing more piracy by doing this. There are people outside of US that have no means of buying the anime/manga or have a site for premium payed streams like Crunchyroll and they resort to piracy..there is no way around it really.
This will hurt the japanese government more than they think if they close sites of fansubbers.
You are just enforcing more piracy by doing this. There are people outside of US that have no means of buying the anime/manga or have a site for premium payed streams like Crunchyroll and they resort to piracy..there is no way around it really.
This will hurt the japanese government more than they think if they close sites of fansubbers.
Wow, that is really interesting. I know very little of anime beyond that it exists and that there are strange people somewhere that watch it, making it very much a niche product. But this aspect of fan translations is not one I've heard about before and is likely unique to anime as a Japanese export.
I realise that legally it likely makes no difference, a copyright is still being infringed but it highlights an issue of demand not being met by supply unique to a product that is produced in one language and may or may not get translated for International fans. It certainly adds an element of grey to the debate. From a strictly moral standpoint, I wouldn't think anything of a fan who got such a copy in the absence of a legal alternative.
How does it work then? Bi-lingual Japanese people faithfully and without remuneration write subtitles over the dialogue? Is Engrish really evident in these translations? Or do we have western fans who speak Japanese? Do all anime films get the treatment, or only select few? Is it a small thing or industrial scale? Are there competing groups like there are for cracking (like Razor1911, Fairlight, Skidrow, etc)?
From a legal standpoint I wonder, would a fan who downloaded an illegal, translated copy be at any real risk of challenge in the absence of a legal alternative? There's no argument to be made that they're copying a commercial a product (or costing a sale, etc) since there is no commercial product in this case. (I appreciate that the debate changes for films with translations planned/in progress.)
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As for the other parts....10 years is harsh. Serving that sort of jail sentence alongside genuine, hardened thieves and cutthroats isn't just considering the offence. Maybe for those who mass-produce pirated stuff for profit; I've always broken piracy down into two parts: the sleazy kind where someone sells copies for money, cheaper than the original (thereby profiteering from someone else's work) and the free, file sharing kind where people swap stuff, anonymously online, in person with friends, etc. The latter shouldn't be jailed for 10 years, it's just not commensurate with the offence.
There are competing groups, a few dozen large ones and even more smaller ones. Basically any show or movie with a halfway decent production value will tend to be translated by at least one and usually more, and some will even have everyone trying to get at it if it's the big hit of the season. It tends to be both fluid Japanese speakers translating to English, and English speakers who know how to speak Japanese doing the bulk of the work, though at times (pretty much always with manga) you can find people who don't know the language, but use translation keys to figure it out (though it tends to be lower quality).KingsGambit said:
For how small it gets, it's basically next to anything that gets made for and aired on one of the 9 national channels, plus the bulk of what's left on the speciality ones. At this point pretty much everything that's made can be found within a week (usually a day, it's pretty competitive for the bigger ones) of broadcast. The real issue is for older programs, usually pre 2005. Once you get to there it tends to become more and more difficult to find things which where never licensed and where not particularly popular (though if it was ever licensed outside of Japan the odds of finding it rise by an order of magnitude).
It is usually someone who speaks both Japanese and English that translates the dialogue. They sometimes even do a better job then later official translations by not glossing over smaller details. I would guess it's probably someone who is fluent in English, mostly likely someone who lives, or did live, in the US. As for how they get picked, no idea. Probably people who understands Japanese watches them to find the good ones then either does it themselves or they pass it on to someone who will.KingsGambit said:
I know not everybody is like this, but for a lot of us, when there is a series piques our interest and we watch it, we buy it as soon as it becomes available (and noone is going to watch multiple episodes of something they don't like). The problem is that license holders and distributors are ignoring (and have been for years) the market in the west. A hand-full of liscensed subs and re-runs on Adult Swim won't even scratch the surface. Those of us that really love the art form and that have a desire to contribute to artist's compensation are happy to buy their products. But the distrubutors and license holders aren't helping anyone **including themselves** with absurd 2-5 year release windows, DVD's with two episodes and token, if not 0, bonus material for $50, lousy marketing and outreach, and just general f---ery.Queen Michael said:
I mean, I get it. I hate piracy - I hate that the artists that pour their blood sweat and tears into their craft - eating and sleeping in the studio to meet deadlines - aren't better compensated for their efforts, and I won't pretend that watching / reading their work for free - in and of itself - helps them in any way. But it can expose paying customers to their work. They sure as shit aren't getting exposure in the West otherwise. Just like how I never would have purchased SMT IV (Ever seen a commercial for that? Because I haven't.), or Shovel Knight, or I don't even know how many other games if I didn't watch no-commentary let's plays - if the content providers aren't providing the content in a reasonable way (if at all), people won't buy it; and if they don't educate the market on how, what, and when content is available, the market will resort to its own devices.
I can't blame anyone for a desire to crack down; but considering the complete lack of business sense and even common sense of distributors and liscense holders, I can't blame anyone for pushing back either.
in my case i'd not bother reading manga's / anime if i had to pay for it, i read / watch because their interesting and free, if you provided a service where ad revenue benefits the creator and i get to enjoy the story they provide i see it as a win win
in fact if they did, i'd be the first person on that service
in fact if they did, i'd be the first person on that service