About two months ago I was contacted by a certain party who wanted a fansubber who was doing FMA Brotherhood to answer a few questions for an ANN interview. I agreed and contacted the ANN editor in chief, who two weeks later came back to me with a few questions, which I answered. I was then asked to comment on some other questions ANN had asked Funimation and Aniplex. This was fairly urgent; I got the mail on a tueday or wednesday IIRC and was asked to reply before Friday. I did so. I sent off my reply on May 8th, early in the morning European time. Then ANN proceeded to ignore me for almost a month. A week ago I sent them another email asking what had happened and if they actually planned on publishing anything or were just dropping the entire thing. I have received no reply at all, so I decided to not let my hard work talking to other fansubbers and writing a lot of :words: go to waste and publish it myself, in the best citizen journalism style.<\/p>\n
Without further ado; here is an interview with a fansubber, and with Funimation and Aniplex.<\/p>\n
I’d like to start with stating that I speak mostly for myself and that my opinions are my own. I did run this by most of the group members of the groups I’m in and while the ones that did comment didn’t have any particular concerns and generally agreed with what I said, I obviously cannot claim to speak for every single individual.<\/p>\n
1: Can you tell me about your motivation to fansub FMA: Brotherhood? Why did you decide to fansub a show that was licensed and would be streamed in North America and around the world 4 days after the Japanese release? Was there any debate as to whether or not the show should be fansubed, or was everyone involved in agreement?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Fansubbing has changed. These days, with raws and streaming Japanese TV so easily available, you have to release within 1-2 days from airing or people will start complaining about slow subs. No one cares about your release if you’re a week late, unless you happen to be the only group doing the show (and that is most assuredly not the case with this show). And of course extremely low-resolution (let’s face it, 640×368 is like a postage stamp these days), terribly encoded streaming VP6 video that takes two hours to buffer for a 25 minute episode and cannot be watched outside the US cannot really compete with a 720p HD release that takes half an hour to download and can be watched anywhere, even offline (I never thought I’d say this but they should take some streaming lessons from Crunchyroll, which, while terrible, are still several orders of magnitude better). Not even Funimation could be delusional enough to think it could. They (Funimation) should also be concerned by the fact that fansub translations are often perceived as better than official translations these days. I’m not saying that they _are_ better (with some notable exceptions, they usually aren’t), but they are _perceived_ as better, and that is what matters.<\/p>\n
As for the motivation to do it, I don’t think it goes any deeper than “we wanted to do it”. There was no debate to speak of in any of the three groups I’m associated with. Here, as well, fansubbing has changed. There isn’t really anyone I know of (except some oldschool types who were around for the VHS era) who cares about licensing anymore. The illusion of “ethics” and working in symbiosis with the American licensing companies has finally given way to the pragmatic realization that what we are doing is just warez; nothing more, nothing less. In my own humble opinion, it was about time, too. The only reason to drop a show these days would be a real threat of getting sued; C&D’s don’t really do anything anymore because everyone has realized that there are never any further consequences. It’s just a fancy letter with a lot of threatening hot air.<\/p>\n
2: Will you stop fansubing it if\/when you receive a request from Funimation, Aniplex, or any other party involved with the series? Would you stop if a non-North American, non-Japanese company made the request (ie: Madman)?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No, none of the groups I’m in would. If a threat was deemed to be “real” enough it would most likely only result in the subbing “going underground” under another name and using an open tracker such as The Pirate Bay or similar.<\/p>\n
3: How would\/will you feel if\/when you receive the request to “cease & desist?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Funny that you ask this, now that Shinsen-Subs has received one. The letter they published on their website claimed that they weren’t being singled out and that all groups would be receiving similar letters. So far though only one of the three groups I’m in have received one, though. (They will actually be dropping the show, but it wasn’t because of the C&D. It had already been decided before Shinsen got the first letter, and the reason was that it was collectively decided that the show sucked. It may have looked good when viewed through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia but it was soon discovered that it really wasn’t all that spectacular, and that we were a _lot_ younger when we watched the original.)<\/p>\n
That said, I seriously doubt anyone in the groups I’m in would be surprised or angry at such a request. We know what we’re doing, after all, and we knew that it was licensed. At worst it would be seen as a mild annoyance.<\/p>\n
(edit 2009-05-31: another group has since dropped the show; sudo dropped it (and everything else) due to disappearing group members.)<\/p>\n
4: Under what circumstances would you feel that it wouldn’t be beneficial to fansub a show like FMA:Brotherhood (ie: under what circumstances would you have decided not to fansub FMA:Brotherhood)?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Personally I’d stop when I got bored with it, I guess. The same probably goes for most fansubbers I know; we aren’t really doing this because of idealism or anything, we’re doing it purely for fun (and these days the fun isn’t really in the anime anymore; several fansubbers I know (myself included) hardly watch anime, and the anime they do watch usually isn’t the one they sub).<\/p>\n
That said, I’m not sure what you mean by “beneficial”, but if you’re asking under what circumstances it would most likely be seen as “not worth the effort” for most people to fansub FMA (or indeed any show), the answer is when we get a simulcast HD release that isn’t terribly encoded, can be downloaded to be watched anywhere (no DRM) and preferably is accessible in Europe as well. This is obviously impossible under the current conditions and business models, so if the American industry wants to put an end to fansubbing of their licensed shows I suggest they better start changing their business models (and get the Japanese studios in on it too), preferably yesterday.<\/p>\n
If you want examples on what will happen if you start simulcasting something that is perceived as “not good enough” video quality-wise, or something that won’t be available in Europe, you just need to look at Crunchyroll, where the former fansubbers have switched to ripping the subtitles, possibly editing them a bit, and re-releasing with a better video source within hours. CR’s attempts at DRM-protecting their subtitles have so far been completely unsuccessful, which isn’t surprising in the slightest given the inherent security flaws in any form of DRM (i.e. you need to protect the decrypted text from the one who is simultaneously supposed to be reading it, which is obviously impossible unless you have complete control of the decoding environment).<\/p>\n
The above are the original questions I was asked to reply to. Here follows the questions to Funimation and Aniplex (in that order), their answers, and my comments.<\/p>\n
\n1) Can you tell us a bit about the motivation to release Fullmetal
\nAlchemist: Brotherhood online nearly simultaneously with Japan? (ie:
\nWhy do it?)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn short, the market is changing. DVD\/Blu-ray physical product is the
\nmajority of our business, but there is a growing demand for digital and
\nstreaming. Streaming has been available for a while, but we had to
\ntackle two issues: 1. Transition further into digital production and 2.
\nJapanese licensor education and approval of the concept of simulcast.
\nWe know that any media company has to have a digital alternative.
\nWe\u2019ve had digital download to own on iTunes and Xbox for nearly two
\nyears.
\nWe know from fansubs that some people can\u2019t wait to view a series on
\nDVD. None of the files downloaded and streams watched generate any
\nrevenue back to the Japanese licensor (Aniplex) or the companies who
\nlicense the show for a certain territory (FUNimation and others).
\nAnime production is not free. It costs money to create these series.
\nThe revenue generated from domestic and international sales of an anime
\nseries goes back to produce more anime.
\nWe\u2019re doing this to provide a legal version of the series so people can
\nwatch for free while providing revenue as a means to support the show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n>2. Japanese licensor education and approval of the concept of simulcast.<\/i><\/p>\n
Four days late doesn’t really qualify as “simultaneous” to me. Looks like you need to work on that education a bit more, but sure fine whatever. <\/p>\n
\n2) What special preparations went into this project that aren’t
\nnormally involved in other non-simulcast projects?
\n2b) How long was the simulcast in planning?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nLots of negotiations and late nights on the telephone :) People might
\nnot be aware that every show has a committee of rights owners (TV
\nnetwork, manga publisher, animation studio, production studio, others).
\nWe have to provide education on the concept and get approval from all
\nparties. This is not a one meeting deal. This involves lots of
\npresentations, conversations, explanations, deliberations,
\ncomplications, and celebrations once the concept is approved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n3) Is there any special work\/preparations\/changes on the Japanese side
\n(at Aniplex and\/or Bones) of the production of the series in order to
\naccommodate the simulcast?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nFile transfer security was a concern but it was highly researched and a
\nsolution was found that met all parties\u2019 needs. That was a key issue in
\nall discussions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI see that your research resulted in being able to circumvent your own security so you managed to release Phantom episode 4 before it actually aired in Japan. How do you research secure file transfer anyway, it’s not like SFTP is hard to use. <\/p>\n
Edit 2009-05-31:<\/b> In recent news it turns out that this “security research” resulted in uploading an episode of One Piece with an extremely predictable filename to a public server at least one day before<\/b> it aired on Japanese TV. The “security” was only security through obscurity, because the only thing that protected this episode from getting viewed by the general public (the server in question doesn’t even have the easily circumvented region block Funimation’s usual flash player does) was that it wasn’t linked from anywhere on Funimation’s site. When someone figured out the filename and discovered that the file had been uploaded early, Funimation accused “hackers” of circumventing their “strict security measures”. I lack a facepalm.jpg big enough to accurately portray my feelings about this. Toei, please sue Funimation for breach of contract by intentionally leaking the episode ahead of time, because there is no way anyone responsible for security protecting someone else’s intellectual property could be dumb enough to do something like this. Or, wait, damn, this is Funimation<\/i> we’re talking about. HMMMMM.<\/p>\n