Does fansubbing/scanslations hurt sales??

[nutype]

Does fansubbing/scanslations hurt sales?? Reading/watching subbed manga or anime online allows you see thing for free that you would of otherwise been forced to buy at book stores or somewhere online. Does this hurt sales for the creators/producers affiliated with the manga/anime??

[Ledgem]

This is no different than the debate over whether MP3 downloading hurts sales. Does it?

The basic arguments are as follows:

1) No, it doesn't. People who download probably wouldn't have bought anyway.
2) No, it doesn't, and it boosts sales. It's free advertising, people like to try before they buy, and as a result of getting into it they end up buying more.

3) Yes, it does. People get it for free, so why would they pay for the real thing?

In reality, it probably depends on the market type. Anime is a niche market, so fansubs and such help to get the word out and create new fans. It's probably good for sales.

[Kang Seung Jae]

Well, in Korea......


Scanslations has a extremely small effect on the market, since we do get most of the comics translated.


It's the same case for fansubbing also, but for a different reason: We're really behind on releasing Korean versions, and most of us don't buy the DVDs anyway.

[ApostleOfGod]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

This is no different than the debate over whether MP3 downloading hurts sales. Does it?

The basic arguments are as follows:

1) No, it doesn't. People who download probably wouldn't have bought anyway.
2) No, it doesn't, and it boosts sales. It's free advertising, people like to try before they buy, and as a result of getting into it they end up buying more.

3) Yes, it does. People get it for free, so why would they pay for the real thing?

In reality, it probably depends on the market type. Anime is a niche market, so fansubs and such help to get the word out and create new fans. It's probably good for sales.

That pretty much sums things up. I would never have bought Byousoku if I didn't get to watch it subbed

[bayoab]

Geneon once said something to the effect of "Fansubs increase the sales of good series and kill the sales of bad series". They have both a positive and negative effect. The only question is which one is actually stronger and that is a very heavily argued and debated topic. The industry, who are the ones with the actual numbers, claim that fansubs are hurting things in general. If you do the actual math out, it turns out the majority of people are freeloaders and aren't buying anything.

And this is very different from the mp3 argument because they are completely different types of media.

[IHaveCrayons]

I think it's naive to suggest that fansubs are not detrimental to US anime sales. You're basically getting the product for free, and let's face it, after a series is licensed people still download it. Any media, any software on the PC faces this same problem. It's a fact of the internet.

[KholdStare]

Yes, it does. That's the truth. The real question is, how much? The real real question is, does it matter how much, and will the companies care to get every penny of their money's worth?

Here are my two cents:

1) People will buy the DVDs if they like dub. Most of these people will never watch subbed. Conversely, people who watch subs rarely buy DVD dubs, and without fansubs, they would not buy the DVDs period.

2) People rip DVDs into iso/mkv files and upload them on torrents anyways, so how is this affecting fansubs?

And yes, Byousoku 5 Centimeter is a wonderful anime that I will buy. I do not buy anime without watching it subbed first, period.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by IHaveCrayons

I think it's naive to suggest that fansubs are not detrimental to US anime sales. You're basically getting the product for free, and let's face it, after a series is licensed people still download it. Any media, any software on the PC faces this same problem. It's a fact of the internet.

Many of us are college students racking up insane debts from having no income while paying tuition and housing/living expenses. Under those circumstances, it's completely unfeasible to be buying DVDs at any reasonable price. Even so, some people become hardcore enough to allocate some money to support their hobby. This wouldn't happen without fansubs. If you had to pay a ton of money for every episode to begin with, anime would be an incredibly niche hobby, even more so than it is now.

So basically, many people wouldn't be here if it wasn't for fansubs, the impact on sales is questionable, it's not that black and white.

[KholdStare]

This question is very similar to AMVs. The distribution of AMVs is illegal, even though you can probably defend your right to make it for yourself. However, in Japan, no one really cares about AMVs and MADs because they promote the editor, anime, and artist, so it's a mutual relationship.

Honestly, if fansubs didn't exist, I wouldn't buy the DVDs. However, I recommend a lot of anime to my friends, and some of them actually do buy DVDs (notably the ones who don't like to watch subbed anime). Therefore, guess who wins?

[Z3120]

I can't imagine not having fansubs available. Having grown up on fansubs like many, I simply can't imagine I'll have a very good first impression on an anime to continue seeing more, let alone, buy the DVDs without first sampling it. It's like the movie Shawshank Redemption (I love it so much). If I never watched it on TV, I would never have even heard of it. I might coincidentally buy it on impulse like Konata's manga shopping, but the chances of that happening would have been minuscule.

Besides, I can't imagine seeing Byousoku 5 Centimeter on TV...

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by bayoab

And this is very different from the mp3 argument because they are completely different types of media.

While one is video and the other is audio, I think they're more similar than you'd think. Both are forms of entertainment. Audio is generally cheaper (more so these days), but neither are necessities. People may listen to a song more than they'd re-watch a certian anime show, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this topic. How much are people willing to pay? If they can get it for free, will they still go out and buy legal copies? It's the same question being applied to both areas.

Originally Posted by IHaveCrayons

I think it's naive to suggest that fansubs are not detrimental to US anime sales. You're basically getting the product for free, and let's face it, after a series is licensed people still download it. Any media, any software on the PC faces this same problem. It's a fact of the internet.

The problem with your reasoning (and with much of the industry) is to make the assumption that a download is a lost sale. It's the assumption that the people who download an entire series would have bought that series, but because they already have it (for free, even) they won't buy it anymore.

I'm sure that this happens with some people, but does it apply to the majority? Anime is an entertainment form. If fansubs disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow I probably wouldn't watch anime, period. I've tried buying random series or going for series based off of reviews and most of the time it amounted to wasted money. On the other hand, I've purchased series that were endeared to me. This removes a lot of control from the anime companies because suddenly all they can do is serve the product up - they have virtually no marketing power to persuade people to try something out. Everyone has already sampled and made up their minds for themselves. It's a win for the consumers but a (potentially) heavy loss for the companies. The music industry hates this as well.

But back to the original question, is a download a lost sale? In most cases I don't think it is. These people probably wouldn't be in the market at all, and if they weren't downloading and watching anime they'd probably be doing something else entirely.

One last thing I'd like to mention is that when you're considering this issue, realize that your own experiences are rather limited. I mentioned that I only buy what has a lot of meaning to me and probably wouldn't be buying anything if I didn't have a way to watch anime and make that connection, but I would not use that as a justification for the argument that fansubs help sales because my experience pertains to me and likely a small group of others.

[IHaveCrayons]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

Many of us are college students racking up insane debts from having no income while paying tuition and housing/living expenses. Under those circumstances, it's completely unfeasible to be buying DVDs at any reasonable price. Even so, some people become hardcore enough to allocate some money to support their hobby. This wouldn't happen without fansubs. If you had to pay a ton of money for every episode to begin with, anime would be an incredibly niche hobby, even more so than it is now.

So basically, many people wouldn't be here if it wasn't for fansubs, the impact on sales is questionable, it's not that black and white.

I kind of have the impression that people are on the offense against me because what I said, I am not a RIAA or MPAA guy over here trying to bring everyone down. It so happens that I am college student as well.

Still, what I said was true. I did not measure the magnitude of the impact that fansubs have on US sales, but I do think that some of the effect is detrimental as I stated in my original post. There's no getting around it.

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by IHaveCrayons

I kind of have the impression that people are on the offense against me because what I said, I am not a RIAA or MPAA guy over here trying to bring everyone down. It so happens that I am college student as well.

Still, what I said was true. I did not measure the magnitude of the impact that fansubs have on US sales, but I do think that some of the effect is detrimental as I stated in my original post. There's no getting around it.

I'm not offended at all, it's a common and logical stance to take, although somewhat hypocritical considering where this discussion is taking place.

From personal experience, my first series (Evangelion) was completely legit from the local Blockbuster, no fansubs. After that, I completely gave up anime for a long long time (4 years) and had no intention of continuing to watch, knowing I had to buy insanely overpriced anime series that I knew nothing about to start this hobby. Then I found fansubbed anime. I think the anime industry is glad that at least they have some patronage from me than none. Without fansubs, that just wouldn't be possible.

Also, the distributors need to understand that this is NOT the same "otaku market" that they have in Japan. We are NOT willing to spend $30 on a DVD containing 2 episodes because various paraphernalia are included. Trying to make sales while preventing reverse importing is dumb, especially with the industry in it's dying state. Frankly, they need to change. They are providing a product that is IMO, inferior to even fanmade productions. Quality groups like Eclipse-SS have IMO, better subs than official R1 releases. When professionals can't have a clear edge over amateurs, they shouldn't expect to make money.

[WanderingKnight]

Should I repeat my "die, American anime industry, die!" stance again?

If the American anime industry dies, it probably means a new way of catering to the public has been born. One that doesn't require distributing middlemen, who leech off the artists' talent, to exist.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Should I repeat my "die, American anime industry, die!" stance again?

If the American anime industry dies, it probably means a new way of catering to the public has been born. One that doesn't require distributing middlemen, who leech off the artists' talent, to exist.

Eh, that argument works against the RIAA, but how does it work here? Are you proposing that the Japanse companies sell the DVDs themselves? DVDs in Japan are insanely overpriced compared with American prices - and that's before the cost of importing is added on. Who's going to do the translation work?

[WanderingKnight]

Are you proposing that the Japanse companies sell the DVDs themselves?

No, I'm proposing what Gonzo is doing right now (check the thread in the General Anime forum).

PS: DVDs should also die. Physical media sucks and it's a terribly ineffective way of distributing content.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

While one is video and the other is audio, I think they're more similar than you'd think. Both are forms of entertainment. Audio is generally cheaper (more so these days), but neither are necessities. People may listen to a song more than they'd re-watch a certian anime show, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this topic. How much are people willing to pay? If they can get it for free, will they still go out and buy legal copies? It's the same question being applied to both areas.

Anime is meant to be, for the most part, a direct to video market in the US. There are a few ways to preview an episode or so and that's about it. They may get a few series on TV to increase exposure, but in general, a sizable number (majority?) of people have not seen the entire series before buying it.

Music on the other hand can pretty much be sampled at most CD stores, the radio (there is a station out there for everything that exists), internet radio, etc etc. There are ways to legally hear the entire CD for free before you even buy it. Most people have heard a track or the entire CD before buying it. People might want one or two songs off a CD instead of buying the entire CD and thus download them.

Also, there are no illusions of quality with CDs. You know CD you buy will sound basically the same as the audio file you downloaded. Nobody is going to claim that the CD is lower quality.

With anime, you have people who claim that they are losing content when they buy the disc, are buying a lower quality product, and hundreds of other variations to justify not spending the money. You also have a thriving bootleg/download market which people do spend money on (which is fueled by... *drumroll* ...fansubs!)

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by ApostleOfGod

That pretty much sums things up. I would never have bought Byousoku if I didn't get to watch it subbed

Same same. Fansub is what i like to consider the vanguards, if they fail, so will everything else behind them. If i dislike an anime, I will never touch it again.

[cyth]

My understanding is that while fansubs promote series among the niche fandom, fansubs have overall devalued the anime product. This is not only true on the consumer side, as consumers demand cheaper and cheaper physical media, but also on the business side of things. Japanese copyright holders simply can't demand big buck for their properties anymore because American companies can no longer sell niche properties at high prices or high number of units (there's a myriad of possible reasons for this, but let's not go there). So either the Japanese refuse to sell their properties or they get very little out of them. Two years ago I remember that the consensus media outlets had was that licensing an average anime series cost ~$10,000 per episode, upfront. Now we have FUNimation's Fukunaga Gen saying upfront licensing fees are a thing of the past, which means the Americans pay the Japanese royalties based on sales numbers. They could get ~$120,000 upfront from Americans on a 12-episode series. That, my friends, is a lot of money. I don't think cancelling upfront licensing fees was market correction in a sense the Japanese were asking for too much. They certainly had to go down as it was a necessity for the Americans to be able to stay in business and deliver anime to the English-speaking demographic.
The majority of consumers buy R1 DVDs because most of those include an English dub, so American licensing companies do play a significant role here, no matter how much of a middle man they pose. There will always be a place for American companies in anime, albeit more on the production side of things. I expect they will either succumb to the same Japanese system of closed distribution paths and assert themselves as the only way to effectively sell anime in North America. With the advent of Blu-ray, licensing regions are changing and Americans can't keep playing the same role they've always been, that much is true.

[LiberLibri]

Short-Term Effects:

- advertisements

- reducing the motivation to buy of the potential customer on the border
(core fans are not satisfied with the bad picture, light leechers won't pay anyway. the problem is for the intermediate)

Long-Term Effects:

- expanding the total market size

- spoiling the notion of the people that anime is not a free fruit and it takes much time and money and man/womanpower to make a series