It was interesting to read this entry and this entry about how Odex, a company that owns a large majority of the licensed animation in Singapore will be cracking down on animation downloaders in Singapore.

Catching people is one way to solve the problem of illegal downloading (and probably the most straightforward), but it is not the only way. As technology improves, making it easier to share unlicensed content, shouldn’t regulation also improve to meet the challenges of technology instead of applying a blanket solution of catching people?

The best case in point would perhaps be iTunes. To date, more than two billion songs in digital formats have been downloaded from iTunes store. Each song cost approximately USD$1, and that means that $2 billion in sales have been registered. This amount of money would have been lost to pirates if there was no innovative reponse to the ease in which music can be easily ripped off CDs, digitised into files and posted online for download.

I hope that similarly, an innovative response will come from the Japanese animation industry with regards to fan-subbed animation. Currently, there are many fan-subbing groups that captures animation that is being aired in Japan, work out a translation, subtitle the captured animation and release it for download via peer to peer networks.

The chief reason why fan subbing groups exist is because global distribution of Japanese animation takes way too long. It takes months, if not years for licensed animation to reach places out of Japan. People always want the latest animation as fast as possible, and since distributors take so long to respond to demand, it is little wonder why fans resort to subbing the latest animation to release to other fans who do not understand Japanese.

Actually, this need not necessarily be a bad thing for the animation companies. While fan-subbing can threaten the bottomline of animation companies, there can be ways to overcome the issue without having to resort to regulation. Since people like fan-subs for various reasons, such as speed and quality of the sub, why not make a business out of it?

All animation companies have to do is just to allow fans to purchase a license for the animation. An animation fan can choose to download one copy any fan-subbed animation, as long as the animation company is paid because the company is the rightful owner and creator of the animation series. The company just have to issue an official letter/email bearing the name of the purchaser of the license and authorising the person to own one copy of fan-subbed animation.

This way, fan-subbing groups can continue to do what they like, which is to bring quality subbed animation to other fans while animation companies don’t lose revenue. The fan subbing groups are not interested in making money (aside from getting enough to maintain their peer to peer servers) and they often encourage those who download their subbed animation to buy the original animation when it is available. I’m pretty sure that the fan subbing groups will support a scheme that allows them to continue subbing, and yet ensure that animation companies get paid money to produce even more animation.

I don’t see any possible disadvantage for animation companies with such a scheme. They don’t need to put in any effort on their part to produce the fan-sub; they just sit there and collect the money. And, the price for each animation series can be lower since there’s no distribution/middleman cost involved in such an arrangement as well. The savings can be passed on directly to consumers. Of course, quality-wise, fan-subbed animation might not be as good as DVD versions. Animation companies can ship seperate DVD boxes for the hardcore fans who care about quality at a later date for these people to collect.

Of course, whether animation companies are willing to give it a shot is another matter altogether.