Fansubs are evil!!!!11!!!!one!!

[elwen]

The President of Gonzo International blames fansubbing for all of the anime industry's problems.

First of all, I find it hard to trust the president of anything when he uses multiple exclamation marks at the ends of sentences. Given his bias, I already suspect that he is exaggerating, but the punctuation really seals it. I seriously expected to see a "1" slipped in there somewhere.

More substantively, I have two major problems with what he is saying, which were pointed out in the comments as well: (1) it's generally impossible to identify a single source that's responsible for the entirety of an industry's problems, and that's true here as well. Maybe also blaming rising oil prices specifically is a little silly, but yes, it does cut into disposable income. The bottom line is that there have got to be other things at work, too. (2) where are the numbers and the analysis? All he really said was, "The anime DVD industry is doing worse than the overall DVD industry. Thus, piracy is to blame." Which ignores the fact that English DVDs have problems with piracy as well -- possibly more problems, because it's much easier to release rips of American shows and movies than to release a fansub. [I bet it's a close question on what kills a fansub group faster: a C&D letter or the lack of translators.] I want at least some kind of factual narrative of what the numbers reflect that shows fansubbing is the problem. Maybe it's obvious to him, but it's not to me. As commenter Cameron pointed out, what does a comparison of a niche market to the mainstream market really tell us?

That said, I don't buy the theory that fansubs encourage watchers to become buyers more than they discourage would-be buyers from spending money. I wish he had been a little more clear on this point, but, as I've already said, detailed theories are not his strong point. I was very confused about the distinction between fansubbing and illegal piracy -- his argument seemed to be that fansubs are okay in themselves, but they hurt the industry because they lead to piracy. Whaa? Maybe he's saying that series are shared more once they are fansubbed, because fewer people will seek out raws?

There were two things I commend about his responses:

1. His recognition that the ultimate root problem is that companies are not getting anime to fans fast enough. I really appreciated that his answer to the "How are you trying to stop infringement?" question was not the RIAA "let's sue the crap out of our fans" strategy. Making huge swaths of now-common consumer behavior malum prohibitum is not really the answer to this problem; the industries need to adapt.

2. His reminding people that fansubbing is hurting the creators. People might not feel that much sympathy for the big companies, but I don't think any true fan would not feel guilty that the brilliant minds that wrote the story, created the characters, or drew the art are going to stop because of their actions. Then again, I don't buy this argument from the RIAA's mouth, so maybe it's not so plausible here either. There may be some credit to the comments about there being a glut of anime that's not well-targeted.

Anyway, back to studying a form of intellectual property I'm actually learning about this semester: trademarks.

Comments

[ling84.livejournal.com]

Interesting read, although the multiple-exclamation breakdown was kind of o.O. It was a pity it happened so early in the interview since he did say some logical things afterwards, as you pointed out.

I wish he'd had a more precise answer for "How much does Japanese anime depend on the US market for survival?" After all, most anime was created primarily for the Japanese market (with a possible exception of Cowboy Bebop), so I'd think that the production houses don't even factor a US market into their calculations.

Judging by the slow rate at which titles are brought into the US, I don't think US anime sales have a strong enough influence on the quarterly profits of the production houses to warrant making licensing a priority. It's quite clear that it's the #1 priority for a distributor's survival, of course, so I'm glad at least he mentioned bringing titles in earlier. However, I wonder how much control a distributor has over how fast things are licensed, since I'd imagine the production studio has the upper hand in this relationship?

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

I know absolutely nothing about the anime industry in Japan, much less the international rights licensing situation, but at least one of the commenters seemed to agree that licensing encourages production (though he thought it was a bad thing): "I said it before, one of the major problems affecting the anime industry today is that they make too many titles and hope they can cover the costs with foreign sales. And the American companies help them do it by trying to license everything instead of just licensing what is most likely to sell well in America. That in turn means the American companies are supporting to many series with too few (which hurts their profitability) and that the Japanese companies are dependent on American companies to stay solvent."

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if more and more creators start to factor in international income. I'm sure the very famous ones like CLAMP already do.

[ling84.livejournal.com]

I remember Kishimoto saying something about how he intentionally designed Naruto to be blond and blue-eyed in the hopes he'd have international appeal (which I grudgingly admit did work somewhat, since Naruto's nearly annoyingly popular in the US).

If I were a mangaka, though, I wouldn't count on something created in my culture to work well in other cultures, language barrier aside. Sometimes puns, jokes, and idioms have to be explained, and that often takes half the fun out of them...