This issue is not a matter of economics, it’s a matter of self.

DRM NOTE: I haven’t had the luxury of doing a nice, well thought-out post in a long while. I really should do more of this, it’s much better for the mind.

I read the news regarding the Japanese government issuing pleas for help to America for help with their rampant bit-swapping problems. Initially, I waved it off, knowing how Japan has always been unable to enact such laws in the past. Still, with the recent spate of otaku crackdowns and destruction of their hangouts, I waited with bated breath for the inevitable discussion, flamefests and jiggery pokery at the ANN forums.

I did not like what I read. People throwing out the same pro-fansub propoganda drivel, Zac being a pompous ass and muttering about how fansubs have become too big for their own good, people slinging lies and whatnot about BOTH SIDES of the argument, in short, it’s the sort of idiocy that happens everywhere.

However, while both sides are slowing turning into what could be termed a slightly more mature form of “my view is better than your view” circular argument, I read the whole discussion. Zac hits back at how the system is broken. He quips:

Here’s a tip: say like within 6 months or so you watch 9-10 26 or 13-episode series fansubbed and, after dedicating hours and hours of your life to watching this stuff and discussing it on the internet, always downloading more and more, you decide to spend $30 on a thinpak boxset on the one series you decided you liked enough to pay for… the system is broken.

I realized he’s extremely disillusioned with the entire community and industry as a whole. And who wouldn’t be, seeing as the whole community is slowly becoming a circlejerk with no hope for redemption, salvation or even a cure. The pro-fansub pedants keep going about how it is THEIR RIGHT to download Japanese animation just because they can’t get it fast enough/too poor/bad quality/dubs suck/whatever is the excuse of the day, the pro-industry people going on about how fansubs WILL kill the industry eventually, corporations refusing to look beyond their myopic views…

I don’t blame Zac for being disillusioned. In fact, I actually feel the same way about the whole thing too. Yes 4chan, I am empathize with the enemy here. Y’see, fansubbing wasn’t about the amount of leechers one group got, or about the friggen’ drama, or the quality of releases, or the feel-good feeling. It was about promoting a alternative lifestyle that was not just interesting, but also created a close-knit community that was just as wholesome as any group-based activity.

How did such altruism turn into the black, sticky cesspool of elitism, circlejerking, self-serving dung it is today? To be honest, I don’t know. However, I think I can venture a guess, based off human behavior and history.

History has always been rife with traitors, bad people, assassins, dirty politicians and their ilk. In the play Julius Caesar, ol’ Caesar was stabbed in the back by his second-hand man. Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Some of the Egyptian kings were murdered in power ploys they didn’t foresee. The Jews, failing to heed the words of Moses and the prophets, backslided into greed and power, wanting to free themselves from a rather generous Roman occupation of Israel.

In a sense, the fansubbing community was a lot like the Jews in the times of the New Testament. Originally created for a higher purpose, it slowly backslided into what we see today: Grabs for power, recognition, and heck, money. The similarities I can draw from these two events, spaced 2000+ years apart from each other, is frightening.

From all that, I realized one thing: the whole issue of fansubbing had, slowly, and unknowingly, became an issue about self. In fact, the whole filesharing debate can be summed up in one sentence: It is about self.

Let’s get our heads out of the past and into the present.

I’m quite sure the bitter memory of ODEX is still in the heads of many. I’ll use that to illustrate what I have to say.

Now, I live in Singapore, as you all know. Censorship of media is pretty rampant, it’s nearly impossible to get shows locally (and what is available, it’s of such low quality not even a loanshark would touch it, and the main company was founded on unethical standards) , and should you import, the poor sod might not even get what he ordered.

Given such circumstances, do you think I have a good reason to act like a dirty pirate and indiscriminately grab what I like? I know most of you will answer yes, I have every right to do so, but I’m sorry. The answer is, “NO.” Why? Simply because a reason is not an excuse.

Let’s see the reasons for downloading stuff off the Internet in my case, eh?

• Censorship
• ODEX is a shitty company
• Too pricey
• Not value-for-money
• Buying merchandise is supporting the industry
• Can’t get it here, must fly to Japan
• No money
• It is my right to do so
• The law does not explicitly say it’s illegal

I could use any of these reasons to justify my actions, and I’d still be not wholly to blame.

What kind of a fucked-up society would allow such lousy reasons and flimsy defenses to exonerate such crimes? I’ll tell you what kind of society it is. It is a society where no one will be held accountable for what they do, as long as they have a made-up excuse to back it up. It’s the same society that allows flimsy evidence like IP addresses to be used in a court of law as HARD EVIDENCE to defend CORPORATE GREED. It’s also the same society when a bigot is praised for destroying the community and the one protecting it gets called a hypocrite. Sickening isn’t it?

In order to fufill selfish desires, we have turned society into the cesspool of dung it is today, where organizations and companies like the RIAA and ODEX to fuck with the innocent while the real perpatrators get away scot-free and do the same crime until someone kills them.

This is the problem we have today: people care more about themselves than others. This is the truth. You see it everyday on the streets, in the news, on the Internet. Why is there war? It’s because someone wants to fulfill their selfish ideal. The whole filesharing/internet piracy fiasco? IT’S BECAUSE WE ARE SELFISH PRICKS. Unlike DarkMirage and his supposed “attempts” to “help the community”, this is the real truth, and I’ll stick to it no matter what.

The truth is, no one cares about anybody anymore. Companies exploit the proles for short-term profit shared between a few people. Information gets shared because people don’t want to pay a single cent for it. People want all the benefits, without all the responsibilities. I think Gregory Koukl said it right when he said this:

If I would identify a single trend with regard to the issue of justice and moral health in our society, the one that I would put my finger on is a form of moral relativism: people are no longer responsible for their actions. Someone else is always responsible. Your parents are responsible. Society is responsible. Your upbringing is responsible. Your genes are responsible. Your chemistry is responsible. It’s the chocolate you ate this morning or the pizza you had last night or the difficult circumstances that you grew up with. All of these things, these inanimate things that can’t be punished themselves are all to blame. And people, moral creatures who make moral choices, are not the ones to blame. Therefore, it’s inappropriate to punish them.

It’s about time someone realizes that we must give to Caesar what belongs to him. Zac, the system is indeed broken, but it’s not about the system, it’s about the people. They are the broken ones. They broke the system. The system is broken because people are broken and the community would like it to stay broken so that it hides their misdeeds.

Gah, I can’t write anymore. I think I rambled on for quite a bit somewhere in the middle.

Related reading material:

ANN report, and the discussion

An interesting writeup on the early days of fansubbing.

Now I understand why ANN is sometime called elitist.

An interesting writeup on the state of society today.

orz

 

I wuz wrong orz

Yes, I know, I handled myself in an extremely inappropriate and immature manner regarding all this.

Thinking about it, I should have left it at the lolcats.

It still does not chage a few facts.

1. DM still has an overinflated ego the size of a hallway. And one does not flame his or her way into an overinflated ego the size of a hallway.
2. I still hate the guy, most probably because of his overinflated ego the size of a hallway. And I hate it when he does not get what he deserves. This isn’t about my ego, it’s about seeing justice being done.
3. There will be bad fansubbers out there, and I’d rather see 4chan expose them than him.
4. 4chan is dead from DDoS attacks from their own users due to IRC drama regarding a server change.
5. I am an idiot. HAPPY NOW?

Now if you excuse me, I have to go hit my head on a wall.

I present to wildarmsheero the medal of epic lol.

For those of you who can be bothered to read me after that nasty piece of drama… … ….

Remember wildarmsheero? The guy I decided to fanboy because he was asking for it? Now I have a good reason to fanboy him

He makes a hilarious webcomic. So hilarious, it makes my attempts at humor non-existent.

Anyone who starts off with almost explicit yaoi (WARNING: NSFW, YAOI) gets not just top marks in my book, but also the medal of epic lulz.

Yes I like his webcomic, and I do wish he keeps up the humor content.

I think I have a boner now.

Holy shit he draws n00dz of his own characters FUCK WILDARMSHEERO IS THE BEST ARTIST EVER

lolcat responses to dorama posts

Yes, this is what happens when you have too much time at work and on your hands.

In fact this is generally more preferable to starting fansubber dorama or any kind of dorama.

-all lolcats, lolhamsters, and whatnot, are graciously provided and made by ICanHasCheezburger 

To start things off,

Yes I do work for the government, no they don’t have Freecell on their computers.

As for “They see Totoro, they hatin’, my wit has failed me White and Nerdy!“

Because the article I read prior to the original one I read it as “What about the Miyazaki HAMSTERS?” Imagine the hamster is Hayao Miyazaki.

On Shingo and visual censorship…

Oh noes censored porns

We all know Hinano hates that Hecate clone thinger.

Hinano’s response, simplified and in lolcat form.

wildarmsheero has discovered a shocking truth.

What could it be?

bluemist complains about RSS scrapers.

This be how they steals our posts! With a CORDLESS MOUSE. (Hamsters are rodents.)

LESS DORAMA, MOAR LULZ 

(Yes I will consider putting 4chan memes, if and only if there is no lolcats relevant to the dorama’s interests.)

BREAKING NEWS: Japan loses brain, asks America for solutions to lol swapping of bits

YA RLY.

Apart from doing what China and ComCast does, there is really no solution to this problem

Dear Japan,

(Yes I used up my drama quotient for a looooooooong while.)

As usual, lolrabbit is from ICanHasCheezburger 

Let me clarify my stand on this… this… DRAMA.

Mendoi (or MenClave, as they like to call themselves), are accusing me of attacking them.

Let me make it clear, to anyone who is involved, or cares, or wants to see me get ripped to shreds by an elitist self-centered prick and his legions of mindless fans, while I may have trod on some toes by accident, I do not have any intentions to harm Mendoi (or MenClave). I did not mean to harm anyone’s reputation but DarkMirage’s. If I did so I sincerely apologize.

I respect all sub groups, irregardless of translation quality, video quality, or whatever arbitrary standard you compare them to, for it is them who exploit loopholes in their respective countries’ law and the Berne Convention to do something the licensing companies sometimes fail to do: promote animé. While it’s a shame that it’s now degenerated into nothing but who’s got the most leechers and e-penis and drama instead of promoting Japanese cartoons, it’s life. No point complaining

And while we’re at it, yes, I get it, Nyoro~n can’t translate their way out of a paper bag, have mediocre encoders, etc. Let me get that out of the way first. All groups have their issues, and it takes a massive effort to realize that. It’ s a shame lolfang chose to ignore rather than to accede, but he’s got guts standing up for his work in the face of cold, hard evidence. He’s either very reckless or very stupid, and it’s most likely a combination of both. (I GET IT. NYORO~N SUCKS. I don’t need a friggen pdf  to tell me that.)

Now to the crux of the matter.

The only one I am targeting is DarkMirage. It is he that I am calling out for for being a self-centered faggot, not MenClave. In fact, MenClave, while they think he is right about attacking another sub group with the raw facts, and in fact even support such a disgusting effort to undermine the peace (not like there’s any, LOL), the fact is, we don’ t know why DarkMirage did that post, and what are his intentions.

And it does seem that he is not ashamed to use the same detestable tactics ODEX uses, setting himself up as the hero for his cause. The point is, there are better ways to do that. Bring it up in their forum or blog, for instance. Why would anyone currently involved with a sub group pull such a spectacle like this is beyond me. Just because you have a spankin’ JLPT1 does not give YOU the right to act like some sort of arrogant braggart, nor does it give you the right to flame sub groups for sub-par work in your own blog. That is why blogs have a comment field, DarkMirage. It’s for YOU to tell them how much they rock/suck/desu/whatever.

As far as I’m concerned, DarkMirage is no friend to Japanese otaku culture. He’s no better than the self-serving politicians in America. Don’t direct your hate at MenClave, direct all your hate towards the person who started this sorry mess. MenClave areunfortunately victims of this sorry mess, and while they might support DarkMirage, the thing is, they’re not to blame for standing up for their fellow member.

Remember folks, MenClave are not to blame, DarkMirage is. I am ashamed to be even in the same country as him.