Despite being a regular anime fansub watcher, I’ve been remiss to comment on this CNET article - partially because it’s old news, but more so because discussion of fansub politics and ethics doesn’t particularly interest me.
Still, I’d like to share a few observations…
In many ways, referring to the fansub community as anime’s “underground” is a bit of a misnomer. Most serious fans are at least aware of the existence of fansubs, and the domestic anime industry clearly knows what’s going on underneath its very nose. While the community may be “underground” in the sense that it operates in a region of questionable legality, access to and knowledge of fansubs is not the sort of thing that requires a blood oath or secret handshake. In fact, a large part of the modern domestic anime industry is the product of old-school fansubbing operations gone professional. Many of the Presidents and CEOs of today’s largest domestic distributors were once among those “meet[ing] in college dormitories to watch much-copied videotapes of shows impossible to see any other way.”
Unfortunately, today’s fansub community isn’t exactly a refuge for reasonable people. There’s no shortage of fans who treat fansubs as little more than a free lunch. Appreciation for the domestic industry is difficult to come by; licensing announcements are often met with kvetching and grumbling. Furthermore, while many fansubbing groups operate within certain common ethical guidelines (i.e., “don’t distribute once licensed for domestic release”), there are just as many groups that don’t. And, of course, even if a group ceases distribution of a specific title, many viewers continue to distribute their own copies through various backchannels, long after an official DVD release becomes available.
Arguments in support of fansubs are as varied as the fans who make them. Ultimately, I’m of the “It’s perfectly illegal, but I do it anyway,” crowd. For the time being, fansubs (or raw video files downloaded via the internet) remain the only way a fan outside Japan can keep up with new anime as it airs on television. In other words, it’s about accessibility and convenience. It’s not, however, about getting something for nothing. I still buy many of my favorite shows on DVD once available.
For all the talk regarding the “death of fansubbing” that inevitably followed the Media Factory incident outlined in the article, the fansub community if still going strong as ever. DVD sales are still going strong as well. Even though one unnamed executive’s claim that “top titles still sell well, but the middle categories that used to sell respectable numbers of copies are being forgotten…” implies fansub involvement, an increasingly saturated DVD market is likely the better explanation. It’s a good time to be an anime fan, at least from an availability standpoint.
Oh, and one last piece of trivia: some might recognize Nikolai Nolan (as interviewed for the article) as the man behind the Bloggies. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Nikolai over the past couple of years, and have to say that, if the fansub community needs a goodwill ambassador, he’s an excellent choice.
