Comcast Targets Unlicensed Anime Torrenters

SailorSpork writes "According to a thread on the forums of AnimeSuki, a popular anime bittorent index site, Comcast has begun sending DCMA letters to customers downloading unlicensed fan-subtitled anime shows via bittorrent. By 'unlicensed', they mean that no english language company has the rights to it. The letters are claiming that the copyright holder or an authorized agent are making the infringement claims, though usually these requests are also sent to the site itself rather that individual downloaders. My question is have they really been in contact with Japanese anime companies, or is this another scare tactic by Comcast to try and reduce the bandwidth use of their heavier customers now that their previous tactics have come under legal fire?"

Why?

[Goldberg's Pants]

Haven't the anime companies pretty much said "It's okay, so long as it hasn't been licensed"? I remember the first season of Ghost in the Shell:SAC. When it got picked up for the US market, the company who owns it politely asked the fansub groups to stop. (And they did if I recall.)

DMCA requires the *copyright holder* to issue

[corsec67]

The DMCA requires the copyright holder to issue the takedown. If the anime is unlicensed, that means that **nobody** in the US is legally able to issue that takedown, and it should be ignored, or a counter takedown/law suit should be initiated...

IANAL, of course, but the wiki page [wikipedia.org] is pretty clear on that.

Re:Why?

[Asmodai]

Thus far the Japanese animeka's and mangaka's have never protested. I have also not seen any such hints in the Japanese media. It only served to further their fanbase and potential market. Whenever a series became licensed in the US most groups fansubbing that series stopped.

Of course there's more people interested world-wide and it can be difficult to find it locally. (Not to mention some English translations are horrendous and the fansubbers are doing a very good job.)

Re:DMCA requires the *copyright holder* to issue

[Microlith]

No, but the Japanese licensors can request it be done, or authorize a 3rd party to make a request.

Re:what is this anime thing ?

[wizardforce]

-ongoing storylines
-many of the plots are based in part on japanese legend and myth
-extensive use of metaphor and symbolism
-it's not like cartoons here which are mainly for kids, a lot of anime is geared toward older age groups and tackles more difficult/mature topics
-science fiction and fantasy brought to life through animation
-a great way to test out your understanding of the japanese language if you watch the original non-fan subed versions
-anime reflects japanese culture to some extent just like our own entertainment is molded by current events/culture
-a lot of really good story lines that actually are worth watching and draw you into the story.
-there are *a lot* of different genres and stories, if you find yourself bored with a certain anime series you can switch to another easily
-there's a big community behind anime and manga- lots of fan-fiction and what not that explores the story further

Re:Anime is porn..

[Zorque]

If you'd actually read the comment at all you'd realize he was saying it's like porn in that it uses so much bandwidth and is so widely distributed. So I guess your comment is a troll.

Re:Will it ever stop?

[darkpixel2k]

For f*** sake... when will this stop? When will people say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" and jump off these ISPs and stop being their customers?

In my area it's Comcast and Qwest. Qwests prices are significantly higher than Comcast.
When Comcast called me and said that 300 Gb/mo is way to much, I simply asked them if I could pay more for them to stop harassing me about bandwidth usage. So for another $30/mo I went from being a 'home' user to their business class connection. And even though their home and business connections are listed at the same speed (8 Mb), I now actually get 10-12 Mb. (Plus I go from 768 up to a full meg).

Now, since I'm a business class user, they expect traffic levels they would see from a business that has anywhere from a few computers to fifty computers. Now 300 Gb/mo doesn't seem so high when you compare it to one of the sites I do contracting for--they have 40 workstations, 3 servers, and are constantly transferring high res x-rays to other sites.

The only part that pissed me off about Comcast calling was that they simply never told me of their magical cap, and they refused to tell me what it was--just that I had run over it.

I would have had no problem if they flat out told me their rates and caps--like 500 Gb for $80/mo.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Thus far the Japanese animeka's and mangaka's have never protested.
But they did. http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/legal/mediafactory.html [animesuki.com]

Re:thanks for the new.

[Kandenshi]

animesuki is one of the two sites I get most of my anime torrents from. Tokyotosho is the other that I'd heartily suggest. Some torrents are duplicates, but they do carry a fair bit of different stuff too(eg: OSTs on tokyotosho, raws, etc...). And tokyotosho doesn't mind carrying some shows that animesuki wouldn't be willing to.

Re:Copyright holder?

[asuffield]

More than that, if the takedown notice does not include all of the relevant information, then it is invalid. The required information includes:

• Identification of the work that is allegedly being infringed
• Identification of the material that is allegedly infringing that work
• Sufficient information for you to contact the complaining party
• A declaration under penalty of perjury that the complaining party is the copyright holder, or is authorised to act on their behalf (meaning that if you send a takedown notice for something you don't have the rights to, you go to jail - perjury means roughly "lying to the court", and is a very serious crime)

If no contact information is provided (so you don't even know who complained), you may simply ignore it. For some of the other parts you are obliged to inform the complaining party so that they can correct the error, but you don't have to do anything further until they do. Since you can't contact them at all without their contact details, you have no obligations when that bit is missing.

I do not think that Comcast are sending real DMCA notices here, they're just making noise in the hope that people do what they say anyway. But if they were, the above would apply.

Re:DMCA requires the *copyright holder* to issue

[Microlith]

fansubs tend, historically, to increase sales of the released product, since they generate buzz about a show

This is an unproven assertion. At best a fansub makes the show available to those who wouldn't buy anyway, with a FEW additional buyers. At worst it may be cutting down the number of people who actually pay. I know there are a lot of die-hard downloaders who hate licensors for specious reasons, spouting arguments that have been destroyed regularly over the past 8 years. Suffice it to say, if the number of people downloading a given episode of a show off Animesuki were to buy the DVD it was on, the whole industry would be doing much better than it is now (which is to say, not very well.)

the aforementioned "don't fansub licensed work" rule works in their favor, and such a bad-faith enforcement will shatter the basis for what's essentially a tentative moral code. Treat your fans like shit and they'll return the favor.

The "fansubbers" blew it when more than a few started mouthing off regarding pre-licenses or mid-run licensing of shows, and only made it worse when they continue to sub and release shows for studios that have explicitly asked that it not be done, up to and including the 2004 Mediafactory letter to Animesuki.

The fansub area is nothing like what it once was, resembling more an 0day warez clusterfuck than fansubbing of old.

Re:Why?

[Fourier404]

And if said car happened to be packed with a quarter ton of high explosives, it definitely wasn't me.

Some History here...

[initialE]

A bit of history here, could get long-winded.
The actual origins of the letter are a group of Japanese Anime Licensors, acting under the umbrella of a foreign distributor, Singapore-based Odex Pte Ltd, which itself provides local distribution of VCDs, DVDs and sublicensing for on-air distribution. They first started going after their own customer base, by obtaining lists of ISP customers through their ISPs, (and please note the ISPs themselves were so ignorant of their customers rights that they didn't really put up much of a challenge to the right to obtain customer data, but hey, lawsuits like this doesn't happen often in Singapore). Once having obtained the contact info of the customers they started issuing letters of demand to the individual customer themselves for the amounts of SGD3000-5000 in restitution, together with a promissory note not to do it again.
Of course, there are those who would say it was a fishing expedition, just to get the person to admit fault and become liable for prosecution (which would mean possible jail time under Singapore law).
In any case, the PR backlash was immense, it made the news, and anime communities around the world took note. In order to pursue the alleged infringer without compromising his identity, Odex is now attempting to use the ISP as it's middleman to communicate their demands to the ISP customer. Which is why the letter is sent from Comcast and not from Odex itself, the company is supposed not to know the exact details of the infringer.

http://xedodefense.org/articles.php?art_ID=3 [xedodefense.org]

Re:Ah, the free market

[tsotha]

Actually, most utilities in the United States are regulated monopolies. In my area we only have one source for water, electricity, gas, and (wired) phone service. I have the choice of two cable providers, but that's very unusual. In most places the cable company has a monopoly. If Americans have faith in the free market, one of the reasons is we have to deal with regulated monopolies like the cable company. Next time please check your assumptions before you start ranting.

No, they haven't

[SmallFurryCreature]

First there are two laws at work here. The first is obvious, anime/manga is subject to copyright just like any other creative work. Just because it comes from japan (or anywhere else) does not change that.

Second is the issue that it is NOT legal to make a translation of something without permission from the original creator. If I translate your post, that could land me in legal trouble. The law is a bit idiotic as it is broken the moment a reader translates something in his own mind to his native tongue. It also conflicts with most countries own laws on accesibility, translating for instance for the hearing impaired into sign language or in braille for the sight impaired.

Nonetheless, providing a translation of a copyrighted work is by itself illegal.

Now for the position of 'some' anime/manga producers from japan on the subject of foreigners distributing their work with subtitels. They ignore it. Some individual authors have expressed themselves more clearly, but as far as I know no company has ever uttered a statement on the subject OTHER then that they were against it. Any official statement that says otherwise would have the lawyers shitting themselves.

Why? It would mean they would also have to tolerate domestic redistribution of their work by fans. No japanese court would accept a claim by a anime/manga company against japanese filesharers if they given an official statement that it is okay for the rest of the world.

This is in fact the problem, the fansub community has become so big, so reliable and so good that the japanese themselves now use them as their source for 'illegal' downloads. This obviously upsets some companies, and is changing the attitude to fansubs, it is no longer just a few otaku's who share homemade vhs tapes. Some of the subs are in fact of better quality then the commercial release because fansubs are not restricted to the horrible subtitle system of DVD's and can use all kinds of fancy tricks like overlays and color and multiple subs to truly translate and explain what is going on. Plus, well, most commericial subs just plain suck as they get even simple things wrong such as the first name, last name order and use the wrong one in the subs even if the correct name is an essential part of the plot.

Speed is another issue, fansubs are done in days, at times hours. By the time the offical release ever happens, the fan community will have moved on. The idea that you watch the first few eps fansubbed and get the rest on DVD just ain't real anymore, by the time the official western version is out, the fans will have fixed the few errors in the subs, rereleased it with the japanese DVD's as the source including promo's and tv specials and you would have to be very dedicated to buy it on dvd. With bad subs, and always the threat of censoring.

So how come japanese companies still haven't openly attacked this? Well some have, and send out copyright notices immidiatly regardless of wether it has been licensed in the west.

But there is a part of it that goes against japanese culture.

This is turning into a long rant but the first is relatively simple, japanese anime and manga is often far more directly produced by the creators then in the west. They want to produce their work, and don't care about all the legal crap. Just like not all music artist in the west care about filesharing, they are too busy with their art to worry about it. This however is changing as the nature of fansubbing has changed and become far more proffesional. Most material can't be licensed anyway, because it deals with subjects you could never broadcast on western television (well US television anyway) or because it just too specific to japan (Card Captor Sakura was carefully editited in its western release to remove all traces of the series actually being set in japan). In short when you got a small business to run, that is constant on the edge of bankruptcy you got other things to do about then worry what some foreigners are up to.

That neatly leads to the

Re:DMCA requires the *copyright holder* to issue

[MMaestro]

At best a fansub makes the show available to those who wouldn't buy anyway, with a FEW additional buyers.

Seeing as the overwhelming majority of animes are NEVER shown on U.S. cable, saying that fansubs only creates a few buyers at best is sheer idiocy. Would you have watched the original Star Trek series if the only way was to buy (or borrow) a VHS copy with 3 or 4 episodes on each cassette tape at $20~30 each? What about American Idol? Lost? What about something several seasons long like 24 or Grey's Anatomy? For every Pokemon and Naruto success story, theres a Full Metal Panic and Ah! My Goddess (both direct-to-DVD series, both popular enough to receive sequels in Japan but are essentially unknown outside of the fandom).

Re:Why?

[zalas]

1. I defy you to cite examples of Japanese anime houses (not US dub shops) objecting to the fansubs of unlicensed shows.

http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/legal/mediafactory.html [animesuki.com]

2. No US media company would ever have bought hard-to-categorize shows like Death Note, Nana or Prince of Tennis before the fansub community proved that there was a market for such shows among western viewers. Fansubs are basically free market research for the distributors.

Don't be silly and use examples like Death Note. Death Note was insanely popular in Japan and has been out in translated manga form in the US for a while now and NANA has also been available in manga form in the US as well. If you're going to use examples, at least mention Azumanga Daioh, which is more likely to have been licensed because of fansub popularity. Keep in mind that research from fansubs determine what people want to watch, and not necessarily what people want to pay money for.

3. The big money in US anime distribution comes from dubbing shows with English-speaking actors and putting it on cable TV. When a show is released to DVD as a subtitle-only set (such as season 2 of SuperGALS!, or the "Uncut" editions of Seasons 1 & 2 of Sailor Moon,) sales have been lackluster at best.

I think you might be confusing cause and effect here. Subtitle-only DVD releases are generally only done when they believe there would not be a good enough return on the dubbing. Thus, usually it's the relatively niche shows that get that treatment, instead of the lack of dubbing causing less people to buy it.

Re:Don't lump me with the 35% which are dumb as di

[PipianJ]

The problem is our constitution, which requires a "majority" of electoral votes to become president rather than simply the greatest number... it locks us into a two party system. You won't get choice in the economy if you don't get choice in the government which presides over it.

It's not the electoral system. Only one person can hold the singular political office that is the Presidency. If you're complaining about the two-party system, look at the first-past-the-post system we use to elect people to office. Proportional Representation systems would fix this in the legislatures, and instant-runoff voting can somewhat ameliorate the issues in the cases where we still can only elect one person (e.g. the Presidency)

The real problem with this concept, however, is threefold:

1. The politicians will never allow something that weakens their power to get reelected (and thus, anything that weakens the two-party system. This is why it's so hard for third-parties to even get on the ballot, and why many states still have closed primaries, despite the benefits to the public to allow open ones)

2. The public has an investment in having a representative they can point to and say 'that's my representative' and when, in trouble, can ask for help getting through government issues, etc.

3. Groups that are already represented by a minority (e.g. small states like Wyoming and Rhode Island in the House) will be completely ignored because their several hundred thousand votes are now positioned relative to the 'nation' and hence, irrelevant compared to the millions of voters in New York and California. This same argument is also used to defend the Electoral College, because otherwise, small states would be irrelevant for candidates to pander to or listen to.

Re:Ah, the free market

[Anonymous Coward]

the thing you dont understand is that america's population is spread out alot more then other country's.

hello from australia. land of faster broadband than you schmucks can get (sadly with data limits)

Re:No, they haven't

[Anonymous Coward]

You sort of sidestepped the central issue here: While somebody may not have purchased or announced that they have purchased the rights to dub/sub distribute a show, the show itself is copyrighted and IS "owned" and otherwise represented in the US by either the anime company themselves (yes they have offices here) or by sales agents -who have to own certain rights in order to resell the show- or by any number of other distributors who may not be the Name Brand Video company names we all know and love/hate.

The moment an anime show is made, it's "owned" by somebody on US soil. It might be the Sunrise or Toei L.A. offices -but so what. For purposes of law, that is good enough.

The copyright part also exists the moment a show is made because the US recognizes Japanese copyrights.

Personally, I bet the complainant is JASRAC. They along have the legal standing to make these sorts of DMCA complaints since they rep everyone and everything, or nearly so. The companies themselves haven't show much interest in chasing downloaders but JASRAC has, including the repeated suits against YouTube.

Re:Why?

[DrLang21]

While I can't say for sure whether or not Comcast is acting on behalf of other parties, the Japanese anime industry is beginning to feel the pinch. Back in the days when fansubs were on VHS and trading required some exceptional effort, the industry didn't really feel much. But now that mass trading is easy, even those in Japan are beginning to make use of American made fansubs rather than buying the media in Japan. In addition, anime is being licensed much faster in America. Many shows coming out in Japan are licensed in American almost the same day as the pilot episode. I would not at all be surprised if Japanese companies are making complaints to Comcast.

Re:Ah, the free market

[Timinithis]

In all actuality, telephone and cable service are provided by franchises granted by the city/local government. The market my be free, but the entry is controlled not by market forces, but by bureaucratic tape. A company that currently does not provide service must apply to the local government for the right to provide service -- even a company that is already well established in other areas. I live in DC. We have for internet, either Comcast for Cable, or Verizon for DSL. Those were the only choices when I moved in, and 2 years later, they are still the only choices. There is a new company, RCN, that is slowly working its way across DC, but it is not in my area, and will not be until 2009 most likely. And Verizon FiOS? Not even in the district -= they can't get the franchise from what I understand at last check -- it is available in every area around DC in Virginia and Maryland, but not within the District itself.

I would love to have unfettered access to use the internet as I choose -- listen to foreign radio, watch YouTube for 24 hours 7 days straight, pull down the latest ISO build of any distro I wanted (I have 4 PCs, I want to see which runs best on each one, or what ever).

The government and the bureaucracy IS what determines what ISP/service I am able to access.

I listen to Virgin Radio, and I hear in the UK you can get Tele(TV for us Americans)/Phone and internet for 19 quid. Is that good service/bundle? I know that is on par with our $50 for the bundle.

Right now, I am using Sprint Mobile Broadband. I am supposed to have unlimited access, but I keep my usage down to 1GB down or less a day -- by choice. I do not even have Cable TV in the house -- I cut COmcast off 100%.

Re:Some History here...

[Megane]

Thanks to Comcrap hiding the name of who sent the notices, we had to wait until someone in France got hit up. Apparently it is Odex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odex%27s_actions_against_file_sharing [wikipedia.org]

(currently, the wiki page hasn't been uploaded, but I'm sure eventually someone will gather the info from the current drahmah and add it)

P.S. mod parent up!

Re:Why?

[madman101]

Irrelevant. The work is automatically copyrighted in the US. Registration has advantages once you sue, but is not required to protect the work from theft.

Re:Why?

[eganloo]

Yes and no, but specifically in the case of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, no. Some creators, such as Read or Die director Koji Masunari, openly supported or encouraged fans to view anime, whatever the means. However, Yoshiki Sakurai, a scriptwriter of Stand Alone Complex asked [animenewsnetwork.com] American fans to not download it without authorization while it was still being released in Japan. That's because America's Bandai Entertainment was involved in the production from the beginning; the anime was already "picked up" for the US market before it even aired in Japan. Some fansub groups ignored Sakurai's request, though, and continued distributing his series. Egan Loo Anime News Network

Re:Why?

[RicoX9]

I think your analogy is flawed. You seem to be looking at this from a US point of view.

Prior poster mentioned that the Canadian courts have validated the P2P filesharers multiple times. There's a reason. Every piece of storage media has a *IAA surcharge/tax/extortion built in. Regardless of what it is used for. That money goes straight to the pockets of the media companies/*IAA. The charge is there specifically because the media COULD be used to copy music/movies/etc - DESPITE what it actually gets used for. For years, the *IAA has gotten tons of money for media that never had a scrap of music/movies copied to it.

Basically, the agreement the government made (despite the protestations of its citizens) with the media companies is now turned on them because every time a Canadian buys digital media, there is an inherent contract that they already paid for whatever media they want to copy to it. Law of unintended consequences. The *IAA whines now because they want everyone to buy media twice, guaranteeing that they can have their cake, and eat it too. Tough nuts for you *IAA.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

3. The big money in US anime distribution comes from dubbing shows with English-speaking actors and putting it on cable TV. When a show is released to DVD as a subtitle-only set (such as season 2 of SuperGALS!, or the "Uncut" editions of Seasons 1 & 2 of Sailor Moon,) sales have been lackluster at best.

I think you might be confusing cause and effect here. Subtitle-only DVD releases are generally only done when they believe there would not be a good enough return on the dubbing. Thus, usually it's the relatively niche shows that get that treatment, instead of the lack of dubbing causing less people to buy it.

One of the owners of ADV, who goes to many conventions, when asked why they don't do sub only releases, has indicated that releases with dubs sell 10 times more than subs only.
While this doesn't contradict your point, this does show that the major market for anime DVDs is in-fact for the dubs, a market in which fansubs don't compete.