Beginning

And so… the bomb finally drops. In a historic event, a Japanese company (and not just an individual working for the company) issues a direct legal statement to fansubbers.

Removal of Media Factory Inc. Works

AnimeSuki is a website that aims to be a portal for finding all unlicensed English anime torrents. By limiting the content to only unlicensed anime, we had tried to avoid associating AnimeSuki with piracy, even though as stated on the Licensed Anime page, fansubs are technically a violation of copyright. By not listing licensed anime, AnimeSuki avoided getting into any legal trouble with US anime companies, simply because we don’t list anything they hold the copyright of.

As also stated on the page mentioned above, up until now (or we must unfortunately say: up until recently) fansub groups and anyone involved in the publication of fansubs had little to worry from legal pressure from Japan (ie. from the anime studios – the original copyright holders). We believed that at best Japanese anime studios condoned our actions or at least ignored us as being not much of a threat to them (in terms of revenue, etc).

Unfortunately, it seems times have changed. On December 7, 2004 AnimeSuki received an email from a Tokyo law firm who represents the interests of Media Factory Inc. (a Japanese anime studio) requesting us to stop uploading “works” (anime series) of MFI to our website and/or stop “inducing” our visitors to websites where their “works” can be downloaded.

Needless to say, AnimeSuki has never offered direct downloads of any anime series, nor (with very few exceptions) had anything to do with facilitating the downloading of any of the anime series listed on the site. Also, considering the circumstances it’s not entirely sure if, in case this issue ever goes to court, whether they would succeed as AnimeSuki is nothing more than a collection of links, which should not be illegal.

However, the legal notice was addressed at me (GHDpro, creator and webmaster of AnimeSuki) personally and I do not wish to get involved in any kind of legal trouble. Therefore I have decided to remove any links to any “works” (anime series) by Media Factory Inc. from the site immediately. I hope you can understand that I don’t wish to become the target of any legal action that Media Factory Inc. might take if I fail to comply with their request, regardless of the level of success such legal action might actually have. I simply want avoid any legal trouble, period.

Affected anime series by Media Factory Inc.
The decision to no longer list any anime series (present and future) of Media Factory Inc. currently affects these series:

* Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (including Akane Maniax)
* Genshiken (including Kujibiki Unbalance)
* School Rumble
* Gankutsuou
* RahXephon (OVA only, TV + Movie is licensed already)
* UFO Princess Warukyure (any season)
* Pugyuru

A complete list of Media Factory Inc. anime series can be found here.

Will fansub groups stop fansubbing these series?
That is of course entirely up to them. However, it is not entirely impossible that due to these developments fansub groups decide it isn’t worth the risk and may drop these series.

Licensed?
You may have noticed the affected series (mentioned above) are now marked as “licensed” in the database of AnimeSuki. Please note that this is only because this is the easiest way to get these series permanently off the site. It has no other purpose and meaning than that. The scripts of AnimeSuki will be modified to display a different message soon.

Is this a hoax?
Unfortunately it is not. The main reason for delaying the decision to remove the links was to verify the authenticity of the email. However, the only conclusion we could come to is that this is real. Apart from the email a real letter was also sent from Japan by international mail, futher confirming its authenticity.

The beginning of the end?
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on if any other Japanese anime studio decides to follow MFI’s example. AnimeSuki will continue to list fansubs of anime series for which MFI does not hold the copyright, unless told to do otherwise. So unless AnimeSuki is made obsolete by virtually every anime studio taking the same action as MFI, we won’t close down!

Now, I seem to recall that the company which originally voiced its intention of going after fansubbers directly was NOT Media Factory, (which, sad to say, makes some stuff I like…) so I’m pretty sure that this will not be the last we hear of this matter.

Now for those people going “hey! unlicensed fansub isn’t illegal! they can’t do that!!!11onetwo”, here’s a quick lowdown: fansubs, in any form, any media and any language, have always been illegal. Now I’m sure if you have read any copyright notices from any publications, you’d have noticed the explicit words prohibiting the unauthorized reproduction and translation of the work in question. Reproducing the entire length of a copyrighted animation aside, the mere act of translating it for public distribution is already illegal. And this legality applies whether the work in question has been licensed for distribution in America, because the laws that protect these works are agreed upon universally by all signatories to the Berne Convention, of which USA, Japan and most countries in the world are party to. In plain English, this means that a book copyrighted in England is also automatically copyrighted in America, Japan and every other party country. Whether or not the book will ever be sold or distributed in those countries is a completely different matter.

The only reason why fansubbing has been able to get away with unlicensed titles up to now is because they used to be beneficial to the Japanese studios by helping to generate publicity outside of Japan (mostly in North America). Yes, they used to. In the past few years, anime subculture grew exponentially in North America, popular enough that new series by established producers can be guaranteed good sales figures in that region. Now, the world being a capitalistic society, there is always the matter of making more money, and that means expanding into untapped markets. Asia, with Taiwan and Hong Kong in the forefront, has been caught in the anime fever waaaaaaaaay back before Americans even heard of the word “manga”. However, it is still a relatively untapped consumer base. The problem now lies not with America, where the huge majority of anime viewers get their fix from R1 DVDs and cable TV, but with Asia, where the huge majority of anime viewers get our fix from roadside bootleggers and through our ever-faster broadband internet connections. Bootleggers, like cockroaches, being next to impossible to kill and who will probably survive the apocalyse, the armageddon and the ragnarok, is something that is a given, something that cannot be made to go away. So, the Japanese studios decided to go for the next best thing…

Fansubbers. Compared to established bootlegging rings backed by syndicates and corrupted government officials, a bunch of teenagers, many who are still attending school and have never had to deal with a lawsuit, is so much easier to intimidate. Hell, AnimeSuki didn’t even try to put up a fight, despite having a pretty good chance of winning if the owner did have the time and resources to go to court. (since, technically, it is just a collection of links to file hashes. Heck, even the hashes themselves are not stored on AS, much less the actual copyrighted works in question)

Now of course it’d be naive to think that fansubbing will actually disappear completely. Oh no, definitely not. Just that sooner or later, because they are stripped of their last legal safe haven, the fansubbers that remain will be driven underground and take on a status similar to warez groups and R1 DVD rip groups. Sooner or later, people are just going to give up on working so hard to translate and time the things themselves only to get sued. When that happens, everyone will switch over to downloading R1 DVD rips instead… (let’s admit it, though we talk about “trying before buying” and what not, most of us are just in it for the free stuff. How many did you actually buy? Zero? I paid for a grand total of three out of the hundreds)