Why would anime fans download their favourite shows for free when they could wait and buy the DVD? Part #2 of a series.

(Writer's Note: By the way, before you start wondering whether or not I'm on crack, yes that summary was sarcasm)

If one believes GDHI president Arthur Smith, then fansubbing and Internet piracy have driven anime producers to the brink of destruction. Certainly, there are compelling facts to support his theory: sales of anime is down 50% from its peak in 2005, FUNimation and ADV have laid off employees, Tokyopop has pulled out of the biz and Geneon is pushing up the daisies.

So what is this scourge called fansubbing? There was a a three-part series published last year, but here's a refresher.

What Is Fansubbing?

After animation fans got a taste of what Japan was doing with cartoons, back in the mid-1980's, they wanted more. However, there was a significant snag. Almost no distributors were bringing the titles to North America, and even fewer anime were being dubbed into English. Fans had to either learn Japanese, or stick to the rare programs that received an English dub.

So anime fans took matters into their own hands. They made their own tapes, found someone who could translate between Japanese and English so that they could make their own dubs, and distributed them to their friends.

At first glance, fansubbing seemed like just another act of movie piracy but there were compelling differences.

• Fansubbers rarely charged anything for their work. They were doing this because they were fans of the medium, and they wanted to see more anime available. Most major fansub sites still refuse to take any money for their dubs, and many of them put up advertisements reluctantly.
• In fansubbers' eyes, they were helping the Japanese producers by disseminating these obscure titles to their friends. If a particular title was getting heavily fansubbed, then the original producers might realize that this anime could do well internationally. They perceived what they were doing as a form of free market research. As GHDpro, site administrator for Anime Suki says, "The idea is to fansub shows so that they gain popularity and are more likely to be licensed by U.S. companies."
• Anime producers were aware of fansubbers, and closely monitored which titles were popular among fansub groups. Often, fansubbers became employees of the companies they were originally stealing from. ADV's David Williams admitted that "we have actually hired quite a few fansubbers . . . A lot of our timers started out as fansubbers and a lot of our translators did translations for fansubs in the beginning."
• Fansubbers only subbed animes that hadn't been licensed to be distributed internationally. Obviously, a movie like Akira was off-limits. But there were plenty of other properties that hadn't been licensed internationally. Even a classic anime like Gatchaman, which had been bowdlerized and changed into the more kid-friendly Battle of the Planets in 1978, could be fansubbed since BotP was so different from the original anime. In a potential testament to the power of fansubbing, Imagi Animation and the Weinstein Company plan to bring a CGI version of Gatchaman to movie theatres in early 2009.

As long as fansubbers illicitly dubbed animes onto VHS videocassettes, which degraded rapidly, anime producers tolerated (and occasionally enouraged) their presence. Producers discovered which titles were getting a lot of love from subbers, and find a North American distributor. Fansubbers would stop disseminating a title when it received North American distribution, and fans would quickly purchase a high-quality, official English dub to replace their craptacular, third-generation bootleg.

"When I was a fansubber back in the VHS days," ANN's Justin Sevakis writes, "fansubbers felt lucky if more than a few hundred people saw their fansubs. Copies degraded with every generation, tapes wore out (and never looked great to begin with), and the whole thing was very ephemeral. You had to have connections to get fansubs, or be one of the few that knew how to use the Internet to make contact with a distributor. Even if you already had a fansubbed anime when it was licensed, the legal copies were usually far superior in quality."

However, the game changed in the mid-1990's, with the advent of file sharing.

How the Internet Changed Fansubbing.

"Suddenly, an infinite number of very high quality copies could be made," Sevakis continued. "Advances in data compression, computer horsepower and broadband connectivity over the years means that now even the least motivated fan can easily find, in English, whatever new is coming out in Japan merely days after it airs on TV."

Distribution is no longer in the hands of the producer, but under the consumer's thumb. And why should the consumer pay for anything if it doesn't have to?

Because of this, a culture developed over the past decade that is highly resistant to actually paying for anything they consumed. Thanks to file-sharing sites like Napster, an entire generation of music fans could (and did) download whole CD's for free. Not only that, mp3's didn't degrade like older-generation cassettes. Legal downloading sites like Apple's iTunes were only a partial fix, and anti-file sharing publicity stunts from the RIAA and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich proved to be counter-productive.

This "don't need to pay for it" attitude was less prevalent with movies, since video files are much larger than mp3's (and take longer to download), but the advent of BitTorrent has made downloading movies and data storage that much easier. That means there is no longer the incentive for consumers to buy the official product when it comes out.

Why Do Anime Fans Still Sub?

One of the biggest reasons why fansubs are still so popular is the time lag between a show's Japanese release, and its North American distribution. It often takes a year for a show to find a U.S. distributor, develop a decent English dub, and repackage the show for domestic consumption. That's a problematic window in this Internet climate, where shows can get dubbed and placed on BitTorrent sites within a week.

"The internet . . . effectively takes distribution out of the hands of the rights holder and puts the consumer in charge," writes Sevakis. "Now, even the smallest release – an airing on a satellite TV channel in a small island country, for example – can be put on the internet and distributed to millions of people, should somebody be motivated enough to upload it. Anime fans, being younger and more technically savvy than most demographics, quickly adopt these new methods."

"Anime fandom has long been built on word-of-mouth," says FPF's Emru Townshend. "Even if we stay within the commercial sphere, what happens when people hear the buzz about films like Mind Game and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time but can't get them domestically on DVD?"

"This is totally understandable and I agree this is a valid complaint," admits GDHI president Arthur Smith. He goes on to describe the many difficulties U.S. distributors face in bringing animes to the North American market.

"U.S. distributors (FUNimation, ADV etc.) can't license shows until they see the show (at least 5-10 episodes usually) and Japanese production operates on a 'just in time' basis (i.e., the episode is only finished a few days before the Japan broadcast date)," Smith explains. "Once the U.S. distributor has made an offer, then the Japanese company needs to decide WHICH (all emphases his) distributor to choose and may well go back and renegotiate with several U.S. distributors. This all takes time so deals with U.S. distributors could easily not be finalised until 6 months after initial broadcast (which is already 3 months after first DVD is released in Japan).

"Marketing and translation - once a deal has been done, the U.S. distributor needs to build up its marketing ideas for a show and also translate the show," he says. "Sometimes the Japanese production company wants to be heavily involved in the translation and dubbing process (e.g., I have heard of some shows where ALL the voice actors are auditioned by the Japanese director...). This takes several months. "

"Selling to the retail stores - this takes some time as well and since anime is still a niche product it's not an easy job," Smith continues. "Product releases sometimes need to be delayed to avoid quiet periods (e.g., in the UK, releases in October are best and summer releases are normally poor sellers).

"Overall - it can easily be seen that it can be at least one year between Japan TV broadcast and release in the U.S."

That kind of a time lag is a killer for anime producers. If fans hear about a hot new show, they can either wait until it (maybe) crosses the Pacific in an official DVD, or they can hunt for it on the nearest fansub site and get it for free. Which do you think they will choose?

And even though, fansubbers have that "gentleman's agreement" not to sub shows that have already been licensed for worldwide distribution, subs can still hurt a show if the Japanese producer takes too long to find a distributor.

An analysis of Sailor Moon DVD sales proves that collections of early episodes (which were heavily fansubbed) didn't sell well, but later DVD's box sets did much better. This proves that fans weren't replacing their illegal product with official collections when they came out in stores, but they were willing to buy the later episodes when they came out on DVD. Hence the devil's bargain which anime producers had with fansubbers, and which appears to be killing them now

(In the next episode: Sympathy for the Movie Industry?)