Fansub
[citation needed] They would copy the anime (often from laserdiscs) onto VHS, translate the dialogue, and painstakingly time and format the subtitles for the video.
Soft subs can also be rendered at higher resolutions, which can make for easier reading if the viewer is upscaling the file, but also are more difficult to blend into the video (for instance rotated text/moving text).
[citation needed] The resulting fansub is a digital video file and can be distributed via CD, DVD, DDL, P2P software, and by file-sharing bots on IRC and also FTP.
[citation needed] Until the late 1970s, Japanese community TV stations' broadcasts were aimed exclusive at very young children.
[9] Soon after the release video cassette recorders in November 1975,[10] post-Astro Boy anime began to spread throughout the United States.
Fred Patten describes his first exposure to anime at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society (LASFS) in 1976 when he met up with another fan who was an early adopter of Sony's betamax technology.
These shows were not translated; however, Japanese animations remained simple enough that the average viewer could discern the plot exclusively from the visuals.
[3] Throughout this period it was considered socially acceptable to screen anime for an audience without the publisher's consent, as few companies had American offices, and the few that did would invariably refuse to grant permission.
[3] After anime companies pulled out of the United States in 1982,[15] there were no longer any legal or moral forces to discourage fans from copying and distributing tapes among themselves.
In the mid to late 1980s, fans began to make booklets containing the translated dialogue for entire films (typically $2–3 to cover costs) and anime-focused magazines.
Harmony Gold, who had acquired international licenses for several series and planned to distribute them in Latin America, Europe, and the US, reached out to Macek and enlisted his help for the US market.
Macek edited Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA together into Robotech, which became a major commercial success and earned him significant recognition within the fanbase.
John Renault helped lead the C/FO chapter in Japan and played a key role throughout fansub history due to his Japanese fluency, anime industry contacts, and military background.
In 1989 members began to accuse Patten of disloyalty for writing articles for general magazines rather than the perpetually behind-schedule C/FO fanzine.
[3][18] Some companies such as Protoculture Addicts with its titular magazine and Viz Media with Animerica drew their origins from anime club fanzines in the early history of fansubs.
[3] Lee describes an unspoken rule in the early fan community: "once the anime was licensed the fansubbed version should no longer be circulated".
[3] As fansubbing was so expensive in the 1980s, and official Western releases of anime were rare and often poor-quality, bootlegging tended to be financially infeasible during this period.
The 1993 Anime Expo was the first time when US industry representatives publicly discussed the ways in which pre-existing copies were eating into profits.
[24] Intellectual property lawyer Jordan Hatcher situates fansubs on the boundary between the desirable doujinshi fan culture and the "massive online file trading so vilified by the recording and motion picture industries".
Furthermore, Hatcher states that fansubs compete with the original cultural product since they have the potential to replace the market need for official translations, thus creating a similar situation to the debate over peer-to-peer file trading.
[28] In 2003, a fansubbing group known as Anime Junkies was involved in a conflict with Urban Vision, the licensor and co-producer of the Ninja Scroll TV series.
[32][33] These actions were considered controversial by the local anime community and have attracted criticisms towards the company, as they are seen by fans as heavy-handed.
[34] On May 18, 2007, Anime News Network reported that the police in Poland and Germany seized the fansubbing site Napisy.org arrested at least 9 people related to it.
These raids were orchestrated by the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry (ZPAV), a collective rights organisation, and German authorities shut the site which was hosted on servers in that jurisdiction.
[43][44] On September 21, 2016, the Kyoto Prefectural Police in Japan arrested two Chinese company workers, Liang Wang and Wangyi Yang, on Wednesday on suspicion of violating the Japanese Copyright Act by uploading the anime series The Heroic Legend of Arslan: Dust Storm Dance and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya Drei!!
[45] On October 27, 2016, the Kyoto Prefectural Police arrested two Chinese individuals on charges of violating the Japanese Copyright Act.
This is the first ruling in the world that values subtitles as intellectual property and that punishes with fines and imprisonment those who violate copyright laws.
[48][49][50] On January 31, 2018, Sankei West and Asahi Shimbun reported that police departments from Kyoto, Yamaguchi, Shizuoka, Mie, and Shimane Prefectures in Japan, along with the Association of Copyright for Computer Software arrested four Chinese nationals for illegally fansubbing anime, manga and videogames.
The suspects, who range in age from 23 to 28, are allegedly part of a translating group that distributed Chinese-translated manga, anime, and other materials online.
The Association of Copyright for Computer Software reported that one of the suspects, a 23-year-old female company worker from Niiza City in Saitama Prefecture, translated the 123rd and final chapter of the manga Kimi ni Todoke.
