I always found Anime piracy kind of impressive since they not only have to rip the material, they have to provide English subtitles, too. Which requires special expertise and is extremely tedious. And people do this work for free.
I find them amazing too - the tools (last i looked) weren't all that impressive, so a lot of manual work is involved.
in my eyes, these fan sub groups aren't classified as pirate (nor are the peopel downloading them), because as far as i m concerned, the anime is recorded off free to air tv, and thus is meant to be freely available to watch. Add to that the fansubbing + cute karaoke, its a product it itself. The american distributors barely make the mark when it comes to anime distribution, and so no one i know buys anime dvds, and only ever watch fansubs.
in my eyes, these fan sub groups aren't classified as pirate (nor are the peopel downloading them), because as far as i m concerned, the anime is recorded off free to air tv, and thus is meant to be freely available to watch
Most legal systems come to a different decision from you about whether or not this is copyright infringement.
It's a lot of work and there's something to be admired in people putting in that amount of work and effort to spread anime/manga that they really enjoy and think other people should experience (and wouldn't otherwise normally be able to experience).
