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« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2006, 03:11:31 AM » |
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Licensed Anime
What is licensed anime?
Licensed anime is any series or movie (part or whole) for which the rights to publish the anime in a specific area have been bought. Simply put, if a company buys the rights to put an anime series or movie on TV and/or release it on DVD in the USA (in English), that anime series or movie is considered licensed anime by AnimeSuki. Note that of course it's also possible for anime series and movies to be licensed in other areas (such as Europe). Such licenses usually involve publishing in languages other than English though and therefore are of no interest to us.
The original purpose of fansubs
As recent as about 10 to 15 years ago anime was not easy to get outside of Asia. The few anime companies that existed could only bring out a few titles as they lacked the funds and the market for licensing more shows. To get more anime and also to encourage certain titles to get licensed in the US, some anime fans started to make fansubs: series which were taped of Japanese television with subtitles added. These fansubs were distributed on VHS tape. One of the self imposed rules the fansub groups adapted was that once a series was licensed in the US, distribution of the fansub should stop. After all, the fansub had served it's purpose.
Eventually the popularity of anime grew in the US and with it the market for anime grew, which in turn resulted in more money to be available to license even more shows. It is probably this reason why in the past few years more and more shows are getting licensed. The popularity of fansubs also grew explosively with the introduction of digisubs: digital fansubs which could be easily distributed over the internet.
Fansubs violate copyrights
We have to admit it: the distribution of fansubs is technically a violation of copyright under the WTO TRIPS agreement. However the TRIPS agreement does not demand that distribution of copyrighted material is a criminal offence unless it is done on a commercial scale. This means it is up to the copyright holder to bring the offender to court. The copyright of unlicensed material is held by the original creator. In the case of anime this usually means the Japanese distribution company. If something is licenced, the licensee holds the copyright and thus the right to sue any copyright infringers within the area covered by the license.
Up until now fansub groups have had little to worry about legal pressure from Japan. However US companies are more likely to sue, therefore it is an additional reason for fansub groups to stop distributing a series once it gets licensed in the US.
The future of fansubs
Whether fansubs have a future remains to be seen. David Williams of ADV Films recently mentioned at Anime Boston 2003: "One thing fans might not know is most shows are licensed now during the financing stage, before the show is even produced. This makes a lot of fansubs pointless now. Of course, there are still old shows that probably won’t be licensed; but new shows are almost guaranteed."
Still some series might need some help to get popular. Would you buy Azumanga Daioh DVDs if you had have never heard about it? Fansubs probably helped this series and others gain popularity. Also as there is so much anime being created in Japan, there will usually always be some series which don't get licensed for some reason, like Boys Be or Kokoro Library.
It's not a perfect world
If you are wondering why you can still find fansubs of licensed shows (even of episodes aired after the show was licensed), the answer is that the world is not perfect. Certain fansub groups do not follow the general fansub ethics of ceasing the distribution and fansubbing of a show after it is licensed. AnimeSuki does not recommend downloading these files, but there is little we can do to stop them.
What if you're not in the US?
While a large part of the visitors of AnimeSuki are from the US and Canada, not all of them are of course. Those people might be thinking: "If anime is licensed in the US, what has that to do with me? Why stop fansubbing? Why remove it from AnimeSuki?". AnimeSuki's view on this is that the US is the largest market for English subbed and dubbed anime, therefore once anime is licensed in the US all English fansubbing of it should stop.
If you're not from the US, this means you can still download non-English fansubs of the same series (if it's not licensed in your region as well). Alternatively you could also import the DVDs when they are released in the US. It is not expensive to do so if you order directly from online DVD shops in the US. You will need a region free DVD player of course, but even those are easy to get - just ask around or check out The Firmware Page to make your DVD-ROM drive region free.
If a title is not licensed in your area and you still want to download English fansubs, AnimeSuki won't stop you from doing so. However, we won't help you find them either for reasons mentioned earlier. Also be aware that (again for obvious reasons) newer episodes of series which have been licensed before being completely fansubbed might be very hard to get. So even if AnimeSuki did not have the policy of removing licensed anime, we would still be left with very little to link to!
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