FullMetal*Panic!

Read this at TechCrunch.com:

Japan has decided to beat France and the United Kingdom (both who have similar proposals) to become the first country to ban file sharers from the internet.

Oddly the agreement to do so has not come from the Japanese Government, but from Japan’s four internet service provider organizations after pressure (not surprisingly) from the record and movie industries. According to Torrent Freak, the agreement would see copyright holders tracking down file-sharers on the Internet using “special detection software” and then notifying ISPs of alleged infringers. File sharers will initially receive a warning for a first offense, then be disconnected for subsequent offenses, eventually be disconnected from the internet permanently (it wasn’t clear whether the agreement is a three strikes proposal).

The process will formally commence in April and will primarily target users of Winny, the most popular file sharing network in Japan.

good thing i don't live in japan...

That means it'll be harder to get the raws in the US.. so Fansubs are going to be a hell of a lot harder to get a hold of if they don't find a way around it.

Hardly the end of it.. most of the groups use raw providers that have access to a ftp drop box run by the fansub groups and if they use sftp or ssh the "special detection software" doesn't work.
Winny is their "napster/kazaa" and that is being targeted.

Besides they need the fansub scene to figure out what anime is worth to license.

I heard that fansubbing is the cause of the anime market decline

ive bought many DVD's after i watched a few epps from a fansub.. FMP being one of em

its the same as music a few years back, sales didnt drop after things like napster/kazaa came out.. cause ppl would DL one or 2 songs from a artist, then go out and buy the album. its mostly the minor majority that makes the rest look bad..

I wonder if the anime producers marketing types really do look at how popular the fansubs of their products are? It really would make sense.

Like shim, I watched all the FMP I could find on the net, but as soon as I was able went out and bought the DVDs. Especially in the period of time between TSRs appearance in fansubs and the release of the DVDs, I was pretty glued to the old lap-top, but couldn't wait to see how the familiar English voice actors would handle the material.

By the way, I really like shim's avatar.

XD I want fansubs all the time. I support that actually it gives me a way to watch soemthing before buying it then I DO go and buy it.

i find that all of these large scale actions taken by the record companies only serve to make the conflict over piracy seem less about the crime of theft and more about the david and goliath struggle of the capitalist supergiant vs the poor individual consumer. If they keep it up, they will just make themselves more and more unpopular. This is certainly true in America and Europe, whether it is the same in japan, I don't know.

Anonz wrote:i find that all of these large scale actions taken by the record companies only serve to make the conflict over piracy seem less about the crime of theft and more about the david and goliath struggle of the capitalist supergiant vs the poor individual consumer. If they keep it up, they will just make themselves more and more unpopular. This is certainly true in America and Europe, whether it is the same in japan, I don't know.

*hands over a cookie* Agreed really.

i shall only consume cookie if it possesses chocolate chips

ALL OTHER COOKIES SHALL BE DESTROYED!!!!

...the whole fansubs are (il)legal discussion aside...

All I can say is "Good Luck to Japanese ISPs." I work in the network management field
and hearing stuff like this is part of my usual day. Like Taurec said, there are other ways
of transferring data; it's an action / reaction kind of thing with no end in sight.



Regards