The Legality of Sharing Unliscenced Animé

[Alakazam]

This debate has been raging across the US for a few years now, and we really haven't found the answer yet - Is it legal (according to US law) to download unliscenced animé?

For those who aren't familiar with this topic, read below, everyone else can just skip this next section:

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Unliscenced animé are animé series/movies that are not copyrighted by any company in a given country (We're specifially talking about the US here, but the same applies to Canada, the UK, etc).

There are groups of people called "fannsubbing groups" which record episodes of anime off of TV in Japan. Then they translate it, and insert english subtitles. Episodes are distributed on the internet (via p2p networks, bittorent, and IRC) free of charge*

*the episodes are usually free of charge. Some fansubbing groups that host their episodes on a website will charge a small fee to cover the cost of the webspace that they use to host the episodes. The point is, not profit it ever made.
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Some claim that since no company in the US owns the rights to the anime, that it isn't protected at all by US copyright laws.

Others claim that since the anime exists within the US, that no one other than the company who created it, has the right to distribute the anime.

However, the interesting thing is that the Japanese companies who own the rights to the anime don't seem to care. They're not losing any money because of fansubs being distributed overseas. In fact, itr acts as free publicity for their anime in other countries which could become future markets for them.

For example: Naruto fansubs have been available for over two years now. Between that and manga being released by Shonen Jump, there will be significant hype for the dub of the series starting in the fall.

[Sudo]

Nah it shouldnt be legal after all the anime is someone elses work and shouldnt be downloaded for free. It should be illegal just like downloading music without paying is.

[mlugia]

The thing is, the Japanese anime creators KNOW of this, and yet they don't want to take any action against it. If I was taking a cookie from your cookie jar, and you just watch me do it without attempting to stop me, am I still committing a legal offense?

Now if the creator actually said "Stop subbing, etc." Then yes, subbing should be immediately ceased on said anime.

[Kenny_C.002]

There are always many sides of the rabbit hole. In this case, the fans from outside of Japan, the Japanese company, and the potential licenser.

Generally speaking the fans themselves generate the revenue for the Japanese companies inside Japan, and the licensers when they are outside of Japan (although there are exceptions such as overseas anime). Inside of Japan, we already know of the incidences at which raw anime IS being hunted down.

In retrospective, the fansubbers require the same raws to initiate their fansubbing. Whether or not that would be legal is one thing to keep in mind. If the Japanese are going to have a major crackdown on raws in Japan, well fansubbing wouldn't be an issue to begin with.

Now the target for fansubbers are the overseas market, where genreally speaking raw anime is of no use to them other than get good pictures for their next banner. In that sense, raw anime has absolutely no impact on the overseas market. Unfortunately, the internet cannot distinguish between different areas of the world.

Fansubbing would pose a problem to the overseas market ONLY if distribution of the anime continues after licensing, which isn't of any worth in this discussion other than how attractive it is for a licenser. However, we know that it may impact the potential licenser if a certain anime is fansubbed. That's where all the controversy is coming from.

Fansubbing is certainly a double-edged sword. In a sense, anime can be made from subbing, and it can "rob" the licenser of their valuable DVD money. I noticed that some anime that would never even have the chance to hit these shores have made it here due to fansubbing, so again that is a factor. However, the negative side of it is that generally speaking the licensed anime already has a "copy" that the overseas people can watch and enjoy, leaving the DVD player unutilised.

In the end, it's up to the Japanese anime distributor to decide whether it is a threat or not to have a series fansubbed, in it that it may negatively impact the series from being licensed (their final source of income, abide a small one compared to the money they get inside their borders). Some, like the distributor for series such as Genshiken and School Rumble, have outwardly spoken that they do not wish fansubbing on their series, BUT DID NOT TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THOSE WHO CONTINUED, while others potentially have decided that it's unlikely of any impact to the licensing process and left fansubbing alone.

An interesting issue is that some licensers actually USE fansubbing as a tool to pick out different anime to license, as I've seen series such a Girls Bravo get licensed even though it's a completely no name before fansubbing even began.

So in it that if you're in a region not in Japan, I feel that sharing of unlicensed anime should be fine, simply because it's likely been decided that fansubbing was no threat to the Japanese companies' profit...and may sometimes increase profit. Any issues of distributions of anime after it is licensed isn't even their problem anyway.

In conclusion, even though clearly the licensers generally don't want fansubbing to even exist and generally have spoken against it, as long as the Japanese companies aren't affected, nothing is going to happen.

Oh, and sudowoodo, it's legal here to download whatever the heck I want due to a privacy act. GO CANADA! ;) (Heck the new "bill" for copyright music doesn't even MENTION the word downloading, just uploading and sharing. lol) So in any case, any of this has nothing to do with me nor Mana. lol

[Goat Cheese]

I think that you should get it legally because the people distributing it are doing so without a profit. So they are LOSING MONEY.
Becides, dont the creators get enough money anyway?

[ElimN8]

Think of showing your friends a taped episode of a show they missed on VHS, to which you've added visual aides so that they understand the language it's in. Now replicate that a couple million times, and you've essentially got the legality of sharing unliscenced animé.

The fact that the liscencing companies don't like it doesn't mean it should be/is illegal. It may be bad for sales, but so is any other good competition. Which isn't saying that subbing groups are in direct competition with them, because a lot take the animé down after the particular title they're offering gets a liscence here in the US. And since there's rarely any profit involved, there's just no way you can speak badly about it, especially when it's generating the buzz that makes liscencing that animé a good business decision.

Regardless, I don't see myself ever starting to not download any episodes. :tongue:

[Alakazam]

I think that you should get it legally because the people distributing it are doing so without a profit. So they are LOSING MONEY.
Becides, dont the creators get enough money anyway?

Er...like I said before, the creators of the unliscenced anime wouldn't be selling it to us if its just on TV, so they're NOT losing money. Plus, the market for importing anime DVDs is pretty small.

Elimin8: I completely agree with the sentiment.

[The Elite Ygseto]

I think its perfectly fine. I haven't downloaded any Anime, but i have read unlisensed manga on the Internet. Once it gets lisenced its taken off of the sites. (Now i have to buy the damn books.XD)