ViRGE wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 9:04 am
Mikadius wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 8:48 am
What can toei do to a bunch of anonymous people on an internet website?
Go to the courts and get a subpoena for information from TV-N's host. Use that information to then bring the TV-N members in Japan to court on counts of copyright infringement.
TV-Nihon is not an underground organization. They are far from untouchable.
Aye. It's not the US members of TVN that are in real danger, it's those in Japan, especially those providing raws. That part of fansubbing IS illegal (recording isn't, but distributing the raws is), whereas those doing the actual subs technically can have some degree of immunity so long as the resulting translations are in SRT files and not directly patched into the videos.
Another thing that westerners have to keep in mind is that Akamatsu-sensei (the manga-ka responsible for AI Love You, Love Hina, Negima, and many other classics) is very active in government and successfully got a new copyright law passed last year protecting those in the manga industry from piracy. It wouldn't be too difficult for a large corporation such as TOEI to get a judge to adapt those new laws to a franchise like KR.
And that brings up the third important point. This letter didn't just come out of the blue (whether or not it's actually official or just some disgruntled TOEI fan/employee is immaterial for this point). It came after certain people started posting nasty comments on the TTW channel, cussing out TOEI for relying on government funds to give the world free (and often rare) toku with partial subs. Just because they weren't fancy or stylised and the TTW staff asked for fansubs to fill in the gaps (but forgot to add an option to submit said subs - an honest oversight), these people whom I'd reservedly call fansub otaku tore into TOEI and even began approaching the CEO on Twitter.
Even when Shirakura made that post expressing his gratitude for ALL fans (regardless of how they obtain the material), the very first response he got was an attack.
To me, TVN's decision makes a LOT of sense right now, because there are certain individuals who are painting a giant target on TVN's collective back, both by attacking TOEI and spreading nasty rumours about the crew. Removing the two most volatile series from the schedule means protecting Japanese members from some serious jail time (the new laws are no joke) and also taking away the main thing those individuals are using to try and shut TVN down (both directly by attacking TTW/TOEI and indrectly).