Cels Forum

> I guess my big problem with fan stuff is that it can get 
> passed off as the real thing,

Yes, that's one of the risk.
The other main risk that most people don't see, is the
same as with fansubs : Even if not legal, it may be
tolerated by companies when it's something marginal,
not commercial and doesn't hurt anybody. That's how
anime convention are able to show new anime that aren't
yet translated, for the enjoyement of everybody.
But when it becomes a too common practice, start to
be commercial, the legal owners can't spend the time/money
to sort between well-intentioned people and others. So
they just forbid everything, threatening to sue anybody
who don't obey.

That's what happened with a UK fansub group : As there
was people selling fansub of anime licenced to ADV, they
took a lawyer in UK and asked him to put a stop to that
practice. As he didn't know the situation and how it's
done usualy, he simply theatened the fansub group if they
didn't stop all distribution/fansubing. Not just those
of anime licensed by a european/US company but everything
including those that were used only at the conventions.

Another example is "mp3" files that are banned by many
webhosting companies : In themselve, those files doesn't
have anything special (after all, you get the same result
with avi, au, or other format, just bigger in size) and
you may have legitimate use for them. But there was far
too many abuse and as they don't have the time/will/money
to consider each case separatly, they just forbid _all_
use of such files.

Cheers,
Yann S.