Death Note Licensed — A Good Thing?
You have probably read about it already. Death Note has been licensed by Viz Media. This is no ordinary licence. Viz has announced that they will be distributing the episodes online “soon after they air in Japan”. This means that Death Note will be the first anime ever to be legally distributed in North America while the series is still airing in Japan.
This has huge implications for anime fansubbing. For good or for bad.
But first, let’s take a huuuuge detour and look at a little comparison between fansubs and official DVD releases…
Speed
Fansubs have always been faster than commercial releases. Even if a show was pre-licensed and released with subtitles only, physical distribution just can’t beat BitTorrent.
Fansubs win by a wide margin.
Quality
Fansubs appear to have the upper hand with their fancy karaoke effects and typesetting, but in reality commercial translations are of significantly higher value. Personally, I would rather have professionally translated and edited subtitles than colourful effects. Official translations are done with the original script on hand, which makes a lot of difference compared to me translating Happiness! by ear.
Of course there are exceptionally good fansub translators, such as crustol who used to translate for AnimeOne, but they are extremely rare because if you are that good, you are usually getting paid to translate. Watching Triad’s Nanoha reminded me of just how bad fansubs are…
DVDs win. But I guess some people, such as Doremi fanboys, don’t care about translation quality. :P
Price
R1 DVDs are certainly not as overpriced as their R2 counterparts, but even factoring in the manufacturing cost, quite a huge portion of the price tag goes into overheads (wholesalers, retailers, transport…). Fansubs, like all other forms of piracy, are not exactly free. There is a moral cost involved which is dependent on your conscience and a risk cost involved which is dependent on your country’s copyright enforcement. Generally speaking, most fans want to support their favourite series and in that sense official DVDs have the advantage of providing a warm and fuzzy feeling after you purchase them…until you look into your emptied wallet.
It’s hard to compare this, so I have come up with a brilliant formula instead.
Makes no sense? Well I thought so…
To put it simply, fansubs are not free because money is not the only cost involved. However, fansubs generally still enjoy a “price” advantage because we are all heartless pirates and Big Brother has more things to worry about than cartoon pirates. Unless of course you live in Singapore. Ops.
Conclusion
Commercial releases are of higher quality than fansubs, (again, unless you live in Singapore. Ops.) but physical distribution is the fail. The only reason people like me buy DVDs is for the extras that come with the limited editions, which defeats the point of having DVDs at all.
In this age where data can be copied as many times as desired for almost no cost, it’s only a matter of time before the death of physical media arrives. Well, except for books because they provide a significantly different experience than from reading an e-book, whereas watching anime off a DVD or an exact digital copy makes zero difference to the viewer. So books are safe, that is of course until digital paper technology is perfected.
iTunes recently overtook Amazon as the 4th largest music retailer in USA. It’s only a matter of time.
What about anime?
It’s not going to happen overnight, but eventually the best model for the anime industry (at least IMO) is to legally distribute the anime episodes themselves as cheaply as possible to an audience as large as possible over the Internet, and then make a killing off selling merchandises (i.e. things that still hold meaning because they cannot be digitized…yet). It’s like how non-label bands give away their songs for free online and make money by holding live concerts and charging people $5 for a can of Coke.
By switching to digital distribution, the speed advantage of piracy is automatically gone. Commercial releases will still enjoy the advantage of higher quality. Because the overheads associated with physical distributions are gone, the price will be low enough (with a little push from fanboyism) to “underprice” the guilt+risk factors involved in piracy.
Now if only someone would take the first step…
…Or did Viz already?
I believe in a digital future. :P
January 13th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Didn’t Jason Miao already go over this, several times in fact?
January 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Beowulf Lee: With blogsuki down, no one remembers Jason Miao exists. :(
January 13th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Alright my immediate concern is…
OMGWTFAPPLEPIE!!~ The chances are high that i wouldn’t be able to get my dose of Death Note anime for this week. Coupled with the fact that i don’t understand raws. AHHH!!
I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy! Pls write my name in your death note Lord-Kira!!!
January 13th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Viz Media will release the Death Note anime on DVD in addition to its previously announced series of downloads.
“We look at Download to Own as a means to satisfy fans who are at the forefront of these properties released in Japan and want to see the properties in the U.S. closer to Japan’s release, and also as a means to broaden that audience by allowing viewers to try a single episode of a property before they purchase the physical product,” a Viz representative told ICv2 on Friday.
“We do not see these two distribution areas as mutually exclusive and believe that fans who want to catch the official version via download to own (subtitled version) closer to Japan’s release date will also collect the home video (dubbed version) to have the physical product for their shelves and their collections.”
Viz has not yet announced specific release dates for either the downloads or DVDs.
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Viz = god… they even distribute translated SHONEN JUMP in America. They are gonna take over the world if other companies don’t follow suit.
January 13th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Marwin, I think you misunderstood anon’s comment. I think he was trying to imply that people are going to read the initial part of your first comment and, whether you intend it that way or not, see it as a elitist, inflammatory, and decidedly bigotted comment, in a forum of discussion that’s used to only seeing those kinds of comments from trolls. And since people are seeing that from the beginning of your comment, they may skip past the rest, or read it with a jaundiced view, and miss out on the rest of the comment, which is actually fairly insightful into the way anime and fansubbing works in Norway. Unfortunately, your second comment makes you seem even more of a bigot, which makes me think you need to need to reflect more on the difference between being able to read English and being able to understand it.
Now back on topic. I think, as has been stated previously a little less succinctly (making it much easier for me to state succinctly, since I don’t have to explain as much), the success of Viz’s venture is going to rely nearly entirely on three things: how they protect it, how they distribute it, and how much it will cost.
DRM is a guarantee, as has been stated before. There’s no point railing against it, as that’s about as useful as complaining at an impending meteor strike. It won’t make any difference to the result. I would like to think that they would want to use Apple’s iTunes method of distribution, and the DRM that goes with it, because, for what it is, it’s a fairly flexible model; it’s cross-platform, for the pinko sissy Mac owners among us ^_^; and it’s a proven success (the fact that the ever-porcine record companies wanted the price to be raised is proof enough of that). Some may complain as to how many computers it can be played on, but honestly, how many computers do you save your fansubs onto? How many computers do you own, for that matter? I know that some may want to share their anime with others, like they can with fansubs, but how difficult is it to have them come over and watch it? And if they’re an internet friend, they should be able to get it themselves as easily as you can. Worst case scenario, you can think of it as a way to get their appetite whetted for when the DVDs come out and you can share it more easily with them due to the largely ineffectual copy protection of that format.
As for distribution, I again agree with the Apple Store format. Direct download is going to be the way to go. Sure, for some of the people who have tweaked out their internet connections and routers to the point that BT is near instantaneous, DDL may be a bit slower, but for your average broadband consumer, DDL is still the way to go, especially considering the fat upload bandwidth pipe Apple can afford. For slower consumers using dial-up, the fact that you can stop and restart a BT download is an important thing (I have experience with this), but with them the download speed advantage from DDL is even better, and due to the lower encoding Viz’ll likely put on these to avoid killing their DVD sales (my guess is 640×480 with compression similar to that on iTunes’ current TV show selection, or slightly higher, since animation hides it better), most dial-up users should be able to start the download before they go to sleep at night and have it waiting for them when they get up, which is probably what they do with their BT’ed fansubs already anyway. And frankly, with most US DSL companies just about giving away service for free, there’s really little to no excuse not to have some kind of broadband any more. I know most of those in other countries may not have as easy a time getting fast internet, or even connecting to the US Apple Store, but non-English subs likely will continue, if not increase (Viz is a US company, after all, and could probably not care less how many Croatian subs of Death Note people are downloading), taking care of the former, and there are ways around the latter.
As for price, that is the most important feature. After all, there are a number of groups which revel in subbing licensed anime (I partook of the labor of one of those groups just today, since I don’t feel like waiting two years for Adult Swim to show me how they’re going to animate the current manga arc of Bleach), so if Viz charges an arm and a leg for something that’s likely to be of similar to lesser quality than what [TW] was putting out 3 weeks before, there will always be a free alternative if someone looks hard enough. And we fansub fans usually know where to look already. On the other hand, if it’s nearly free, there’s no incentive for fans to then buy the DVDs (unless they’re loaded with extras, which, knowing Viz, they won’t be), because they’ve always got the copy they downloaded. I’m thinking the sweet spot is $2-$3 per episode. For a 4-ep DVD, which is the norm nowadays, that comes out to $8-$12 for a DVD’s worth of episodes. If this is successful, and Viz can then turn around and drop the “early bird” tactic and sell the actual DVDs for less (maybe $15 retail average, instead of the current $20), I think they may end up making more money in the long run, due to those who end up buying both, and the larger number who will buy the cheaper DVDs who otherwise would not have.
Point is, it’s workable, and whether Viz is able to get it to work or not, now that someone is trying, it’ll be no time before they all want to do it. You just know that ADV and FUNimation especially are foaming at the mouth over just the idea of “lower overhead.”
Heh… So much for “succinct.”
January 13th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
(I feel weird giving a short comment now. Ha.)
That’s really fast. I guess it’s cause Death note is very popular and all.. >w>
Well, if I ever spot the boxsets on sale, I’ll probably get it. :D Raito!
Good chance to play it on the school computer during breaks.. since it’s not downloaded.
Trackback from
meidocafe » Death Note - Rest in piecesJanuary 14th, 2007 at 3:10 am
[...] Mittlerweile dürfte wohl schon jeder mitbekommen haben, dass Death Note Viz Media lizenziert und was das bedeutet wisst ihr ja. [url=http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/01/12/death-note-licensed/]DarkMirage[/url] hat einen sehr interssanten Blog-Eintrag dazu geschrieben. [...]
January 14th, 2007 at 8:57 am
This is all natural progression and you can fight the tsunami as it knocks at your door to let it in. However as long as humans exist so will piracy and hacking, no DRM or any organization will tell us how to use and manage our data.
The DRM can be cricumvented by many orthadox and unorthadox methods. For instance with Music you are allowed to burn straight to CD after you aquire your purchase and there is no rule about it being a CD-RW or a CD-R. Thats the easy way. The other route involves building or buying or freewaring your way to a digital recorder and I can guaranty you that someone is building or built a program to make straight records of playback. Next wonderous issue is hacking the files themselves, no form of encryption is impervious to being broken. Once one version of an encryption algorythm is broken then a new version must be built from scratch. So DRM is a non issue. The more popular online distro’s get the more hackers will apply their talents.
DVD vs Online Distro. DVD’s are overated and it really is time to let them go. Most of us (as afformentioned) are dependent on the physical possession of these items. However it is important that there is nothing physical about light and sound they can only be reproduced, just like any sound or video algorythm does. DVD’s are facing a struggle with three formats, HD-DVD’s, BluRays, and the Digital Distrobution. However all three of these will be cracked much like DVD’s have been with programs like DVD-Decrypter and the like. Each of these produce not only a better picture, but more options in the long run then DVD could ever provide us with. Online Distro is the end all be all of media distrobution and while we will always have those people who are stuck in the golden age it will bring all this to a halt.
I personaly believe we are better off with online distro. Who knows it may convince alot of these distro companies to stop charging an arm and a leg for three 23 minute episodes on a Single DVD for a dollar a download. This will help my wallet and I have no convictions about breaking security protocol on any encoded media.
January 14th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
SOMEONE UPGRADE THE INTERNET CONNECTIONS IN S’PORE! NOW!!!
January 14th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
have another earthquake then maybe the Govt might upgrade it..
January 14th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Hey DM,are u watching the raw version of DN now? Or watching from another fansub group?
January 16th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Been a while since I have read something, for the most part, this insightful. I think game theory, the crazier side of it, was the last niZe thing I read. Well, I just got to say why doesn’t the ton of merch those who download fansubs usually buy factor into the “equation of ‘legal risk + personal guilt’.” It would eliminate personal guilt that’s for sure. Viz’s new old idea is something I will track. I wonder if anime cartoon will start selling their pirate versions this way too?
January 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
To mac and anon: this is not Congress or the United Nations. Email each other (if possible) for long debate discussions.
January 19th, 2007 at 6:01 am
I completely disagree with the whole ‘fansubs are not as good as dvd subs’ thing you’re trying to say.
First off, fansubs are made by fans, thus they will want to make them good. Fansubs don’t spend tons of time subbing an episode to make a lousy job of it.
Second, dvd subs are crap. almost every dvd anime I have bought, i usually listen to english auidio because the subs are simple terrible.
Yes they have the original script, that doens’t mean that they are going to use it! Try Tsubasa chronicles for example. The anime is awsome, and the fansubs are excellent, however I purchased the dvd before watching it fansubbed and found that the subs were of such bad quality, I never watched them all on the dvd, instead I downloaded the Fansubs just so I could understand thew story.
The same goes for Otogizoushi, (The BEST ANIME EVER!!!) THough I don’t understand the story anyway shape or form simply because they use phrases like, ‘raiko, your dingy is better’ when they really mean to say, ‘your stomach is more honest’ (Refering to being hungry)
SO SHUT UP!
February 5th, 2007 at 12:44 am
well, as for me, fansubs are enough as long as they have good quality and a reasonable size.. i don’t have a thing against DVDs or any official releases, but in countries like mine, where DVDs are really expensive (almost twice or thrice than the original price because of shipping fees and etc.) you can’t blame a person like me if i prefer to support fansubs or piracy.. especially if you’re a student who pays more than what you earn.. hehe..
so, why would you still buy something that you can get faster and get for free? when you can just use the money you’re supposed to spend on buying DVDs to buy more important stuffs.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Its usually easy to just find whatever u want to watch off the internet…to find the dvds would be just a waste of time (or me at least, cos my parents dont do any form of online shopping..) Finding what u want in shops is just…tough…
Fansubs arent usually that bad… and yeah..i guess price is an issue too…especially if u arent going to watch the anime more then once…
and…rite….the govt wants sg to have internet connection and blah blah blah and guess what?.. we get crap connection…
June 15th, 2007 at 2:17 am
well, here are 2 reasons i am angry at deathnote being licenced and a few of my problems with dvds
1) It was 2 episodes away from completion. that REALLY pisses me off. i mean, how the hell can viz “release them in the us shortly after they have been released in japan” if the epsisodes are allready out?
2) i cannot afford dvds. also, when i can, they immediately get scratched beyond recognition. and the problem with anime is that there are multiple episodes on a dvd, and i only know how to rip an ENTIRE dvd to a .avi file.
if anyone here knows of a program that will rip individual files with subs included to an avi file, lemme know, spikeon@gmail.com
October 25th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Damn subs are way better than Dubs plus Light’s voice is the worst in the Dub version he sound sooooooo gay.
Also Communism will never work due to the selfish gene contained in all humans if read Dawkins book it explains everything. Plus if I had the Death Note i would do what Light did because bad people shouldnt exist in the first place and I bet all people feel the same even if they don’t admit it.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Your points about subbing quality are in fact not correct
I have seen many DVDs of Anime where the provided subs were terrible, due to my ridiculous obssession with fansubs and my 1TB 7000 episode collection I can for the most part understand anime without subtitles, this is the case with many fans, except for noobs
They’ve gotten such a grounding in japanese that the subtitles are more just a guide than anything else.
Also your comments about price and guilt and morals?
why should there be any confusion over morals
If you were born in Japan you could watch all of these for free whenever they aired, but simply by the virture of where you live your forced to source them off the internet
I see no moral dilemma
and also the quality of the media, now with HD encoding advancing so much, its easy to get quality thats better than DVD with many fansubs being released at 1280X720 and a few even at 1920X1080
and due to the awesometasticness of the h264 codec, the size difference isnt nearly as big as you’d think
so FANSUBS RULE
LICENCING COMPANIES, ESPECIALLY VIZ!!!! CAN GO EVISCERATE THEMSELVES WITH A PAIR OF RUSTY SCISSORS!!!!!!!
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Kuro-Hana was the Last Name in the Death Note « WebMurder’s Inc.February 12th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
[...] Death Note made Kuro-Hana a reknown fansubbing group because they continued to sub it when it got licensed; and now, it will be the last the group ever [...]