Fansub
Under Fansubs ( portmanteau of Engl. Fan and subtitle, subtitles ) refers to foreign language film or television productions that are provided and distributed by fans in their own work with subtitles.
Development and distribution channels
Fansubs emerged for the first time about the mid- 1980s (eg, the first English-language anime fansub is in 1986 demonstrated) and mainly often copied in the form of VHS tapes were initially passed from the beginning of the 1990s, then increasingly as a self- burned CD -ROMs. The handover took place in person or by mail.
From about the end of the 1990s, the production and distribution of fansubs have increasingly shifted to the Internet. Such often produced by multinational groups and among others via P2P ( eg via BitTorrent ) spread "Digital Fansubs " also known as DigiSubs.
Ethical claim
Partial follow the fansubbers a code of conduct, the basic idea is that torrents are not intended to compete with commercial publications. As part of this, then ask those fansub creators that their fansubs are distributed free or at cost price, the spread is set, as soon as the work in the language in question is commercially available, or that the original will be bought as soon as it is available commercially is.
Legal situation
Legally make fansubs, since no permission of the copyright holder, is a non- approved modification or distribution of copyrighted material is and are thus illegal - even if the original was not yet licensed in the appropriate language area.
Fansubs of Japanese anime
In Japanese anime licensees are increasingly demanding of an impact on the setting of the distribution of fansubs. There are also cases in which licensees provide not only against the available, but also against the downloading of anime fansubs take legal action.
In the past, the Japanese anime copyright holder tolerated the availability of fansubs implied, since they were regarded as increasing the level of awareness and a legal approach was considered too complicated and costly. In December 2004, however, the Japanese anime studio called Media Factory Inc. under notice of legal action American fansub creators in producing no further Fansubs his series more, and in December 2006 requested a consortium of Japanese entertainment industry from the video portal YouTube, by remove japanese copyrighted images and footage from the side. In October 2007, the Japanese government asked the U.S. government to officially assistance to tackle the spread of Anime Fansubs the internet. ( In Japan itself Fansubs are illegal: So there was in December 2008 for the first time a Japanese man, who had a current U.S. movie with Japanese subtitles provided and made available for free online, sentenced to two years probation, the probation period is three years.. )
There are U.S. license companies, who argue that Anime Fansubs damage the American and Japanese anime industry. While Japanese animator and directors not previously made public their opinion of Anime Fansubs, warnings are loud and out of these circles for some time that the rapid and unlimited distribution of fansubs of Japanese anime industry increasingly inflicts economic damage.
The attitude to fansubs in the German anime industry is fragmented: the German licensee OVA film looks more of a problem in illegally offered so-called " DVD Rips ", ie created illegally and distributed copies of official DVD releases. Tokyopop, however, was the beginning of 2008 explicitly Fansubs as a reason for, only complete open anime series, but to publish more on DVD until further notice, no new series.
In 2010, the Anime Copyright Alliance ( ACA) was founded, which has set itself the goal to remove illegal copies in Germany licensed anime online platforms. To this end, the website a notification form for corresponding video. Importantly for the position of fansubbers here is that both representatives of the anime industry, as well Fansub Anime and portals, as well as trade magazines engage together in the fight against the illegal distribution of licensed anime.