Earlier in the month, I wrote The Fansub Quandry, where I mentioned several things about fansubs, including this:
Fansubs are kind of both a curse and a blessing the anime industry in the US. Would series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (or a wide variety of other series) sold as many discs as they had if people hadn’t become familiar with them through fansubs? Probably not. This is the promotional side - the good side - to fansubs, where people view fansubs, and then decide on whether to actually buy the series based on watching the fan sub.
However, fansubs have a flip side and that is, once people are familiar with the series because of fan subs, large chunks - perhaps even a majority of people - who not only watched the series but liked the series keep the fansubs as their copy of the show instead of buying the licensed copy. This is the negative side of fansubbing and it the problem that needs to be addressed.
When I started reading Justin Sevakis’ editorial on Anime News Network, it first wasn’t all that encouraging, because it started off sounding like a “all fansubs of any time are evil! You are evil if you download! Evil! Evil! Evil!
However, once he started getting into his editorial, he started making many of the same points I made in my post, including this:
Before legal action will be effective, fansubs must be replaced. THERE HAS TO BE A LEGAL, INEXPENSIVE WAY TO WATCH NEW ANIME IN ENGLISH. Not necessarily own, but at least watch.
This is eerily similar to my general idea of how to deal with the issue:
The first method [to deal with fansubs] is to try to essentially make fansubs irrelevant by offering what amounts to official versions of the shows which serve largely the same purpose.
My idea was essentially to set up a service which allowed people to legally stream (not download copies of) subbed shows immediately after they aired in Japan. This fulfills the want of people like me to see a series before watching it yet, doesn’t give people an actual copy of the show.
Sevakis doesn’t get into a specific proposal like I did, but his visioned solution fits right into what I had in mind:
ADV Films and Funimation know this and have both attempted to fill this void with television networks, streaming and download services. However, neither can offer a show newer than a year old.
There are myriad ways of supporting such a venture. A low subscription price. Advertising. But it has to exist, and it has to be easier to use than bittorrent. It has to show new anime DAYS after it airs in Japan. It has to be available to most of the world. It can’t lock out Mac or Linux users. All of these are reasons people will use to justify continued piracy.
I agree with the general jist of the editorial that, we can tell people who download fansubs, or as I usually phrase it, people who download fansubs in place of buying the DVDs (since I both download unlicensed fansubs AND but the DVDs once they are licensed if I like them), that downloading them is evil, immoral, and damaging, but just wagging our fingers at those people will do little to nothing.
I also agree that, ultimately the industry is the one who must do something to help themselves. I agree with the editorial that just going after fansubbers will result in a backlash, at least if a legal alternative isn’t in place first for the unlicensed shows.
In glad that someone at a high level of the debate went on record talking not only about fan subs and the need to ultimately get rid of them, but also realize that there must be an alternative to waiting a year or two and then buying a series blind, which very few people will probably be willing to do.
It would be a great pity and loss if the very people who enjoy watching anime end up causing it’s demise, as well as if the people who make anime apparently don’t seem to care enough to save even themselves.
