Author Notes: I was going to do a full transcription (unedited, every single word) but this got unworkable after the first 5 minutes or so. So after that I started cutting out the um's, uh's, etc. Some of the people, like the moderator, use a lot more 'garbage words' than others...
[UN] = unintelligeable
If you want to comment on it, start another thread, I'm locking this one as I want it to be only the script itself.
The panel actually starts about 1:30, what you see before there is apparently just background chatter.
END NOTES
BEGIN
0:00
Usually like this-
[UN]
Eh?
[UN]
0:05
You know what you can do?
Next... later on...
I recognize some people.
You can scratch your back and say- hold on, I got to crap... I got to [UN]
0:14
You say [UN] tits [UN]
[UN]
0:34
There she is.
0:48
Mike check.
0:56
Do we have mikes for the audience?
For [UN] QA [UN].
[UN]
Okay, cool.
1:04
You know what?
[UN]
[UN]
(groaning noise in background)
Are you surprised they got a lot of responses.
1:15
Okay...
[UN]
Oh really?
Is it a bunch of [UN]
[more chatter in the background]
1:28
Alright, I think we're ready...
If people can quiet down a little bit we'll start.
[laughing]
1:40
All right, all right, so...
[background chatter: He used to work with Media Blasters, and now he's starting his own I guess company...]
Welcome to the 2008 Otakon fansubber and industry discussion panel.
Umm... uh... this is uh basically a panel involving fellows that do fansubbing and people from the industry itself to discuss the uh developments in the world in the industry and in the fansub world and um hopefully it will be fruitful and uh cordial and uh no fights will break out.
[muffled laughter]
We hope.
2:10
Um so uh, my name is Ken Hoinsky and I'm with MX Media, and I'll be moderating the panel, um but uh these fellows over here will be doing most of the talking, so I'll just ask everyone to uh introduce themselves.
2:25
Um, Yes, I am known online as Yaoiboy, I work with live-evil as part of their matsumoto division.
[muffled laughter, audience cheers]
2:35
I'm known as getfresh, I work with anime-empire, freelance-fansubs, and shinsen-subs
[audience cheers, single laugh heard in background]
2:45
Hi I'm interactii I uh mostly work for dattebayo but I do do a little work for live-evil as well.
[loud cheering]
Hi, um hishouburaiken I also work with dattebayo.
[more cheering]
And I'm lance heiskill and marketing director for funanimation.
[cheering]
Chung
and I work production at Media Blasters and Anime Works.
[muffled cheering]
John Sirabell and I work with Media blasters.
[some cheering]
Alright, so now that you know everbody, uh we can begin.
Uh basically, the format of this uh panel is I'm going to put up a discussion topic for the panelists to uh chime in on and uh just try whatever they want.
I'm assuming that folks uh are um familiar with fansubbing and um uh because we don't have a lot of time to spend on exact details with this that uh on this panel.
But uh, I guess we will begin.
So, without further ado.
[laughter, clapping]
I uh... I couldn't resist.
No way jake(?).
Now the actual first slide, okay.
[Note: I've had enough of this "uh um", I'm just going to start omitting them now]
Just some things to keep in mind for the panel, this is not an us versus them thing, that's not the idea of the panel, that's not the spirit of it, I want everyone to go under the assumption that fansubbers are not going to stop working on their own, it's going to take some catalyst to force that. So don't just say they should just quit and that will solve all the problems, that's not beneficial.
We're here to talk about how the industry can adapt and how maybe fansubbers can help and basically try to help the industry out which has been in decline recently and that's... some people you know say that fansubbing is a big part of the problem so that's the spirit of the panel.
Some facts about the industry in recent years. The industry has seen the collapse or near collapse of many anime companies, that's in the US and in Japan.
Fact: many companies have scaled down production, less shows are being made in Japan right now for a variety of reasons and digital piracy again some people claim is one of the reasons. We're not assuming that's necessarily true but this is basically that's the idea of the discussion.
And sales of anime have gone down in last couple of years.
About fansubbing what's changed recently, fansubs are more accessible than ever, a big part of this has to do with the streaming sites, youtube, crunchyroll, etc. Also fansubs are higher quality then they've been before. h.264 is a great codec, it's really, it's blu-ray uses it so that gives you an idea of the quality. A lot of fansub groups now have access to what are called transport streams for Japan which give them the closed captions so they literally have the same script that the industry uses to translate from. This renders very good translations. And they have access to very high quality video, literally what's better than on avaliable on DVDs. Another fact, outside of Japan, many shows are viewed more on fansubs than they are on legitimate sources. Not all shows, but certainly that's the case.
You can just look at the download numbers for certain titles and then look at the DVD sales after the fact.
[OWN COMMENTARY]
1) Downloaders are not necessarily viewers, how many files are downloaded over BT but never watched.
2) DVDs can be viewed by many people, ie. a DVD shown to a club or shared within a circle of friends.
[END]
6:25
There was a study done by Central Park Media I believe who said that 6 million fansubs are downloaded or viewed every week. That number might even be small, but that just gives you an idea how rampant fansubbing is. Certainly I'm sure the fellows at the end of the table can say that they're not selling 6 million DVDs a week. So let's begin.
6:50
Okay so discussion topic number one, and anyone feel free to jump in and talk, to what degree does the proliferation of fansubs affect the industry positively or negatively. What is your thoughts on that.
7:00
Anyone can chime in.
7:04
I think it's more of a gray area.
Because fansubbing itself has brought the attention of anime itself to more fans than the actual sale of DVDs has.
'cos if you look at it there's not a whole lot of advertisement unless the shows are getting on something like 4Kids or something like that.
People that didn't really know that it was out there. But with a fansub hitting the internet, somebody just searching for video or going on youtube, they find a fansub and they learn about anime. They see the show they like it, and they start searching more and more and more and more and then they start getting into going to cons and doing all this.
Maybe someone, Lance Heiskill.
It's... you know with industry you got a kinda like defined industry b'cos we license the shows from Japan, and whenever we license a show, we have to get all the approvals.
So, with that, it's more of creators' rights. That, you know that the japanese licensors can control how its distributed, how it goes out, and I mean fansubs can do faster to market than anything but you know you kind-of the creators lose control of how they want it to go out, of how it is. And then, you know, at the beginning you know fansubs weren't you know granted they did get into a show earlier than it was legally avaliable, but right now I mean you can go to Youtube, Veoh(?), Megavideo, Google video, Daily motion, [UN], Yahoo live video, Googa broadcaster, Go fish, Mega(?), Rapidshare, [many more sites, some uninteligeable] and then you can go to series clearinghouse sites [UN] manga-updates, anime(?) [UN] naruto center, baka-updates, animeforever.org, animeplus, naruto chaos, manga traders, animesix, bleach portal, sane(?) island, naruto wire, anime stash, otaku center, zomg anime, anime eden, manganews, anime pile, anime upload, [UN], it's just I have a list of 94 sites.
9:15
Would you like to publish the list?
I have a list of 94 sites so it's kinda like uh they're easy avaliable, they're (emphasis) real easy avaliable. 'cos you know, I mean, before I got into funimation, yeah, it's like, enter the game, irc, xdcc, get an episode, see if you like it, that was old school. But today, it's like, like, I would say hey dad, go to this website, there's this show. Ok. Click. It's really easy so the access, it's just like the control of gaining the access is kinda like you know in economics its lowers the [UN] entry. And so yes, people love anime right now, it's just kinda like the creators rights are kinda like dwindling because they can't have control over how when and where they want to license it.
10:00
But you know, granted like anime is good content. It wants to be out there. People want to watch it. It's just you know talking, that's why we have these panels, so we can just discuss all this stuff. It's good content, people want to watch it, it's just you know how can we work on this.
10:17
I think one of the major ways that fansubs I mean originally, absolutely it was a method of fans to get to know anime series and get to understand them and get a preview of them, I think that's almost completely changed now.
10:30
I think the people who consume fansubs are demanding different kinds of things that the industry is not quite delivering but they're moving in that direction. And I think once that gap gets filled, we'll see a very different picture of things.
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