Fansub

Fansub is the contraction of two English words fan and subtitled (lit. "subtitled by fans"), and refers to those videos, films or television series that are translated by amateurs, from their original language, without authorization from the rights owners.

By extension, this term is usually applied to the fansub of Japanese animation and to the respective subtitling groups of this type of material, since they are precisely the branch with the greatest diffusion. There are also groups that subtitle North American series, series of the Tokusatsu genre. and Asian dramas.

Historical evolution

Origins of fansub

Fansubs emerged after the media explosion of anime production in the mid-1980s in Japan. Only some titles were licensed for distribution in foreign countries and this became a difficulty for interested parties to obtain new anime. Some amateurs with knowledge of the Japanese language began to produce copies of amateur subtitles that could meet the needs of those who do not speak the source language. This phenomenon occurred at first in the United States, but it soon spread to Europe and Asia.

The first form of distribution of this material was through VHS videotapes. These copies were notoriously low quality, took too much time to make, and were very expensive (around US$4,000 in 1986). to which was also added the difficulty of obtaining them. A limited number of copies were distributed to small anime fan clubs and they purchased the subtitled series at a modest cost or recorded the tapes on their own videocassette.

In the 90s the final product was based on a videotape, so use was made of a genlock that allowed the video signal to be synchronized with the subtitles coming from the computer, superimposing the latter on the video signal. This video is called "master" and from it come all the copies that are distributed through the channels chosen by the subtitling group.

First digital fansubs

With the growth of high-speed Internet access, video editing programs, optical media copying, digital TV recording and P2P streaming media, the original process was abandoned in favor of digital subtitling and electronic distribution. This allowed fansub to transform from cheap, low-quality copy to medium- and high-quality videos and alternative accessibility. In this regard, a recent study by Yale Economic Review has shown that both people who download movies from the Internet and those who do not, are likely not to buy movies.

Fansubs in the 21st century

Currently, there are fansubs that are characterized by the good quality of their releases, although they take longer to release chapters than others. There are also fansubs that are characterized by their speed (fastsubs), but the quality of video and subtitles is much lower than that of other fansubs, even going so far as to use automatic translators, which in most The cases have errors. This has been an example for Japanese companies such as Gonzo Studios to begin subtitling Japanese series for free, legally and simultaneously at the same time that they were broadcast on Japanese television through YouTube, Crunchyroll and BOST.

There are North American companies like Funimation, and Japanese companies like Media Factory that have expressed their public rejection of fansubs. Among them, Funimation has dedicated itself to sending, on behalf of prominent animation companies, letters to different websites to stop the illegal distribution of different Japanese animation series. Their most relevant action was when, together with Gonzo, they stopped the illegal distribution of the series Romeo × Juliet by an English-language fansub.

Likewise, Kadokawa Shoten has expressed his discontent with fansubs by stopping the distribution of series such as Spice and Wolf, Rental Magica, Junjō Romantica, among others, from an anime download site well known to fans. He has also expressed his desire to legally promote his work online.

Realization process

Generally, to subtitle an anime the procedure described below is followed, although without prejudice to the fact that some fansubs do not carry out or omit some of these stages.

• Acquisition of the medium (RAW hunter). First, the video must be obtained from which the fansub. This original or base video —named RAW — can be obtained through the copy or rippeo of an original medium acquired as VHS tapes, LaserDisc, VCD, SVCD, DVD, Blu Ray, or have been recorded from an analog, digital or satellite television broadcast. Of these, with the advance of technology in the media, the VHS tapes have fallen into disuse, and less and less it is preferred to make recordings from an analogue emission due to their low quality. Some fansub get RAW captured by other people, via the internet, via P2P or direct download. Once this RAW is obtained, it is sent to the encoder or encoder.

• Translation. Once the audio and video quality with which you are going to work is decided, the copy is sent to the translator to begin the translation. The translation can be performed directly from Japanese or from an already subtitled version, usually from English. The translator will not only be responsible for translating the dialogues, but will also do so with the opening theme and the closing theme (also called opening and ♪). Translations are often done in simple text files in SRT or Substation Alpha format, and translators are often supported for this in subtitle editing programs, such as Aegisub or similar.

• Synchronization of times. Here, the synchronizer or timer synchronize the subtitle text with the audio, deciding when a subtitle line begins to be displayed and when it is hidden. When the subtitle is made on the basis of another prexistent, for example, a fansub that translates on the basis of the subtitle made by another fansub, this task does not consume too much time, just to adjust the position of the text and the time if necessary. However, if fansub works from scratch, from direct Japanese translation, this stage is the one that consumes more time.

• Corrigendum. Once the translation work has been done, the correcter is responsible for correcting orthographic and grammatical faults. This stage often, and unfortunately, is often avoided. This factor is usually the most conditional for the vision of one or another version of the same subtitled material.

• Karaokes. The following is done karaoke, that is, the format and style of the lyrics of opening and closing songs. At this point, the karaokeman synchronize the lyrics and set the visual effects, such as "lighting" or "coloring" the syllable that is sounding in the song or displacement effects. The lyrics of the songs often appear in bilingual format, including the lyrics translated plus a transcription of the lyrics sung to rōmaji; or even in three lines, one of them in Japanese characters (kanji, hiragana and katakana), the transcription to rōmaji and the translated lyrics. Many fansubs frequently overlay credits (who participated in the fansubbing) on the video, during the opening theme. For karaokes, programs such as Aegisub or Adobe After Effects are used as support.

• Style Editor. Then the editor handles the typography of the text and the subtitles do not conflict with the images. Here the editor can include explanatory notes about concepts or aspects of Japanese culture that anyone who is the fanub consumer could be unaware of. Sometimes they also translate texts that might appear in the video. Any modification made at this stage should be reviewed and accepted by the translator so that the subtitle file is sent to the encoder. It is possible that in terms of styles here a specialization of tasks is performed, in which the subtitle is adjusted to be more in line with the environment or gender of the series in question.

• Predistribution preparation. The encoder brings together audio, video, subtitle or other attachments (e.g., definition files of sections of a chapter or typography TTF or OTF) into a single container file for your compression. The most used container formats today are MKV, MP4 and AVI. You can also make bug fixes from specific programs, such as xdelta.

• Quality Check. Following this, some fansub, mainly those with the greatest experience, implement a quality inspection phase (quality check o QC) before publishing the file on the web and redistributing it. At this final review stage, members of the staff of the fansub review any mistakes or undesired effect that could have resulted after the process. Thus, tests of the container file are made in different conditions, that is, test it in different operating systems in its different versions and in different media players. In case of finding a mistake, this is where he is responsible to encoder that performs a patch, and once applied, the review stage is performed again.

• Codification (encoding). The encoder is the one who checks the quality of the RAW and decides whether it has sufficient quality or is too heavy, so it will extract the audio and video tracks and collect them to other formats and to different bitrates. To do this, command line interface programs such as x264, or graphical interface programs such as Avidemux, Kdenlive, Adobe Premiere Pro or Lives are usually used. At this stage, the possible edition of the image (cartelería, attacks,...), the karaokes of the intro and the end and everything that it takes or cannot decode to the flight with a multimedia player are usually "touched". Formerly the video containers did not support multiple tracks, so they also hit the video directly the subtitles, making it impossible to separate them later. Today it is usually multiplexing everything under a container compatible with several tracks, both audio and subtitles, such as the MKV container.

• Distribution. Once the previous stages have been overcome, it proceeds to their distribution through the internet. This is done by bittorrent or uploading to cloud storage service providers. In addition, there are web sites that contain "bibliothecas" of links or a place of publication of several fansubs where the fanatic can search and choose from several launch options.

Translation style

Translation is the center of a fansub's work and its purpose, in addition to being its hallmark of quality. The translation process can be carried out from the source language (Japanese) or from an intermediary language (for example English), the latter something that is common to see in Spanish-speaking fansubs. In English-language fansubs, however, the general trend is that those who translate from Japanese to English are native Japanese speakers who also have knowledge of English. This is based on the fact that in order to translate efficiently, one must not only understand the linguistic aspect, but we must also take into account the cultural aspect, something that is not common to see in Spanish-speaking or English-speaking translators.

Another notable point is the preference of fansubs when translating, to preserve certain elements of Japanese speech, culture and idiosyncrasy, such as preserving honorific suffixes or referring to the character in question by their last name, as It happens in Japanese society. This may be because translators know that in general their task is intended for a special audience made up of people interested in anime and Japanese culture.

Several fansubs tend to make spelling and grammatical mistakes in the subtitles, either because their goal is to release their work as soon as possible without caring about the spelling, or because the translation was done with an automatic online translator, or already Either because the fansub does not have enough staff, such as proofreaders or editors who could correct them, or because the fansub members do not have a good knowledge of the "target language", that is, the language to translate into.

Features of subtitling

The subtitling of a fansub, unlike a professional or commercial one, tends to use diverse fonts and multiple styles, often differentiating the dialogue of one character from that of another. In addition, explanatory notes are usually added on aspects that The fansub team considers that the viewer should know to better understand the context of the series' plot. Likewise, karaoke is usually included with the lyrics of the opening theme and the closing theme, something that is not done in the commercial translations.

The implementation of subtitles and their incorporation into the container file can occur in two ways. These are the softsub and the hardsub. The softsub are subtitles that were added to the container without having been "pasted" or integrated into the video track, so this makes subsequent editing possible in case an error is discovered, sharing them free way, and the greatest usefulness of the container file, since it is possible in this case to disable the subtitle track or change it for another from another language that could have been attached to it.

The so-called hardsub, for their part, are those subtitles integrated directly into the video, so they can no longer be edited by users but in return, by providing video and subtitles together, they simplify the distribution of the same and make copying between fansubs difficult. However, this type of integration of subtitles complicates the technical editing process, in the event that it is necessary to make a correction, this must be done on the video track and will not be done with a patch. "If you want to translate from hardsubs, you will have to start from scratch, pausing the video in each sentence to be able to carry out the linguistic transfer."

If the classification is based on the recording media, we speak of analog fansub (if they use VHS tapes) and digital fansub (with optical discs or digital files).

According to the type of anime or series they subtitle, they can be: traditional when they are oriented to old or classic series, or modern, when they are relatively recent with respect to their issue.

Video aspect ratio

The most used resolutions are:

• 480p: is the resolution of the NTSC DVDs.
• 576p: is the resolution of the PAL DVDs, although some fansubs use NTSC DVD and re-scalate them to that resolution, which is to detriment of quality.
• 720p: is the resolution of HDTV emissions and some BDrips.
• 1080p: is the original resolution of some Blu-ray. To be able to play them you need to have a relatively recent computer, which is why fansubs also make 720p versions.

Legal and ethical controversy

The ethical and legal issues of fansub have been the subject of heated discussions since the creation of the first subtitling group. However, it is important to know that literary and artistic works are covered by the Berne Convention as well as by the intellectual property protection laws of most countries, so the activity of fansubs is contrary to law. However, fansubbers have traditionally held to a common code of ethics and generally do not see themselves as pirates.

Fansub groups translate, edit and distribute videos without the consent of the author of the work, which, for example, violates Article 8 of the Berne Convention, which deals with the right of the author to authorize the translation of his works:

Article 8 (Translation Law). The authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right to make or authorize the translation of their works while remaining entitled to the original work.

Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works

However, in article 2 paragraph 3 of the aforementioned norm of international law it is expressed:

2.3 (Draft targets).- They will be protected as original works, without prejudice to the rights of the author of the original work, translations, adaptations, musical arrangements and other transformations of a literary or artistic work.

But this does not mean that the fansubs are original works, but only the translation and subtitling are. The audio and video remain under copyright as far as the Convention is concerned of Berne. It could be deduced that the only thing that would therefore be distributable are the subtitles, but this is not the case, because according to the aforementioned article 8 of the Convention only the authors of the works will have the right to authorize the carrying out the translations, for the duration of their legal protection.

Moral rules of fansubs

In the field of fansubs, one of the implicit rules of these groups is to stop all distribution of the material once a company has acquired the marketing rights of a product to avoid as much as possible, competing directly with the official product. Given that one of the main motivations of fansub is to promote the product, once a company acquires the license in its country, that justification is lost and the translation and subtitling work should no longer continue, since copyright would be directly violated.

The above is not something that all fansub groups follow to the letter, since there are groups that advocate purism in translations or video quality, arguing that companies do not maintain it due to the process of adaptation that the work undergoes so that it is understandable for the public to which the product is directed.

Legal actions

There is a belief among some fans that there is a "tacit agreement" between fansubs and Japanese copyright owners that fansubs help promote a product. Steve Kleckner of Tokyopop noted:

Frankly, I find it kind of flattering, not threatening (...) To be honest, I believe that if the music industry had used downloading and file sharing properly, it would have increased their business, not eaten into it. And, hey, if you get 2000 fans saying they want a book you've never heard of, well, you gotta go out and get it.

Frankly, they seem flattering, not threatening... To be honest, I think that if the music industry had used the download and the exchange of music properly, it would have increased its business instead of eating it. And, well, if you get two thousand fans who say they want a book you've never heard of, well, you have to go out and get it.

This belief was disqualified when in December 2004 Media Factory, a Japanese copyright holder, directly requested that its works be removed from download sites, and since then many other companies, such as Nippon TV, have followed suit. example following the appearance of fansubs on YouTube.

On December 7, 2004, a law firm representing Media Factory sent letters and emails to the anime bittorrent directory AnimeSuki, and to the fansubs Lunar Anime and Wannabe Fansub requesting them to stop their translation, distribution and hosting activity of all current and future productions. AnimeSuki and Lunar Anime agreed, but soon after other fansubs continued producing subtitling and distribution of anime series from Media Factory. To date, this has been one of the few legal actions taken by a Japanese anime company against the fansub phenomenon.

After Media Factory's request was made public, only the Genshiken and Kimi ga Nozomu Eien series were licensed in the United States. Other large projects such as Pugyuru and Akane Maniax were not acquired by American distributors.

In Singapore, the Odex anime dealer since 2007 has been actively investigating the whereabouts of several internet users and sending them legal threats against them. According to the company, these users allegedly downloaded anime "fought" through the bittorrent protocol. The Court ordered the internet service providers to disclose the personal information of their subscribers, a measure in favor of Odex followed by the sending of several letters of legal threats from Odex to users who downloaded these contents; and then in search of extrajudicial agreements of at least SGD 3000 per person, among which the youngest of these was only 9 years old. These actions were controversial in the local community of anime and brought with them criticisms of the company, as they are seen by fans as "hardhand".

On April 22, 2017, a judge in Amsterdam declared fan-managed subtitles illegal, causing several groups of fansubbers to permanently cease their activity. The Dutch court declared that these translations correspond to the producers and no one else. If they do not exist, they cannot be created by the fan community.

After this ruling, the creation of subtitles without the consent of the author of the audiovisual production is now considered a crime in the Netherlands. This is the first ruling in the world that values subtitles as intellectual property and will punish those who violate these copyrights with fines and imprisonment.