The things we love

So, I've been blogging a lot about movies, and games, and in part that's a way to stay connected to the things I love independent of law. And in part that's a response to a lot of the music I've been listening to.
I really am enjoying the study of law (and yes, Mom, I'm studying... studying hard...). I may talk here a lot about Pokemon, or Barsoom, or whatever happens to be sitting in my Game Boy at the moment, but rest assured, gentle readers, that I'm also passionate about the law. At least certain aspects of it.
For example, I find the current battle over P2P filesharing very interesting, and not just because I know people (ahem) who have engaged in filesharing before. I download and watch a lot of anime, and download and read a lot of manga, and the relationship between the fansub groups and the copyright owners is also a very interesting legal situation in and of itself. This wouldn't work so well as a model for domestic copyright holders, but it's interesting nonetheless. And I've gone over this before, but perhaps not in as much detail as I'm about to do. Those of you who have no interest in anime may think about the copyright implicatons, those of you who like anime may find the copyright stuff boring. Maybe not.
Essentially, fansub groups on the 'Net will capture an episode of something (let's say Naruto, because I know the schedule for that pretty well) on Wednesday nights in Japan. That gets posted to a server as a "raw" episode. Then, translators get a hold of it. They translate the episode, and insert subtitles. Typically, a translation of Naruto takes my particular fansub group about 48 hours. They put that episode up for download with BitTorrent, and thousands of people then engage in the download.
That's at least five copyright violations - the posting of the "raw" episode to the web is a distribution, anyone who downloads it is making a copy, the translators are making an unauthorized derivative work, then that derivative work is distributed, then the people downloading it make another copy. How does this continue?
It works for two reasons. First, the fansub groups are very careful not to translate anything that's got a U.S. distributor. (I'm just waiting for Naruto to be licensed here in the States - each episode of Naruto typically has thousands of downloads - and that's just from one translation group - it's inevitable). Once a series is licensed for distribution, translation stops, and all the files are pulled from the web. That happens VERY quickly after the announcement is made.
Second, even though the copyright owners in Japan could very easily shut this down (after all, they own the initial copyrights on the raws, and could attempt to prevent their distribution - no raws=no fansub), and despite the fact that they are VERY MUCH aware that this happens to their series, they do nothing. The fact of the matter is, they are counting on that fansub distribution. It helps them drum up U.S. interest (which is getting higher and higher - check out the manga section of your local Waldenbooks if you don't believe it), and it gives them an idea of which series would work well in this area. If I were a U.S. distributor of anime (and I hope they're not reading this), I'd be paying really, really close attention to download sites like AnimeSuki. The next big thing is right there.
So, an uneasy peace is maintained between the fansubbers and the distributors. As long as the fansubbers provide a valuable service (as a market indicator) and they play by the rules (stopping when U.S. distribution happens), the game continues. Anime fans buy the DVDs when they come out, because they're really well done. (Geneon's Trigun DVD set is the most incredible DVD menu setup I've EVER SEEN. Yes, I am raving over menu screens - they're that good).
I loved reading Rurouni Kenshin and Hikaru No Go online, and now that they're coming into stores, I'm picking up the graphic novels. It's a reasonable price for content that I already know I enjoy. The format makes it handy. It's added-value.
Somewhere out there is a win-win for the music and movie industry and the public at large. It may not have the form of the Japanese fansub community, but it's out there.