CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Dattebayo Staff Arrested at Otakon [UPDATED]
2007/07/22

Baltimore, MD USA
Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:10PM EDT

Today at 5:57PM five members of the Dattebayo staff were arrested at the Baltimore Convention Center as they prepared for their panel as part of the Otakon Convention. Four uniformed police officers, along with legal counsel of a complaintent company, approached the stage shortly before the presentation was to begin. Witnesses said that along with the arrest, the officers seized the laptop of one of the group members, which was intended to be used for presentation purposes.

The officers, as well as the lawyers, would not respond to media inquires regarding the reason for these arrests beyond stating that they stemmed from the illegal reproduction of copyrighted works.

The panel, which was originally called "Fansubbing/Manga Scanlation" was recently renamed to "Dattebayo Fansubbing". Experts speculate that this may have alerted authorities to the location of the group members and left an opportunity for this course of action.

Witness reactions varied including one Richard Sequoa who said, "I just can't believe something like this could happen at our convention." Another witness, a Judy Hibertson, said, "I'm glad. This is what they get for their constant trolling. It's just not funny!"

When asked to comment, group member Interacti said, "I've been told by my lawyer not to say anything because of the sensitive nature of legal matters however this has been a trying experience and I'm glad my new cell-mate "Spikes" has been there to comfort me."

Update: July 22, 2007 - We've recently received further information that the arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday morning. We will continue to update as details are forthcoming.

Update: July 23, 2007 - Good news, the arraignment was rescheduled on short notice for early this morning. Naturally the staff plead not guilty. It just got done and the staff was released on bail. Pre-trial will be in two weeks. When asked for comment interactii had this to say, "<~interactii> MY *** is kinda soar". The staff is very gracious for the support that we've received via the feedback and chat room.

YHBT

I just found this humorous as we were just talking abou them. At first I thought it was a joke, but then I realized it wasn't April and they had been pushing this fan-sub panel for a long time.

I know most people here as I myself watch fansubs, so its not like I wanted a fansubber to be arrested, but I think they had it coming being so blatant as to host a fansubbing panel when all their subbed shows are already copyrighted state-side.

Actually, I agree. Who would be stupid enough to put up a panel about anime that is already licensed? D: They had it coming.

I fear this could triger a backlash among fansubbers, which is a shame. I have watched a lot of fan subs in my day. It was the only way I could see any anime at all back in the day. There would be little anime available here in the US if not for the work of fansubbers back in the 80's.

Even then, though, I disliked and spoke against the sale of fan subs. It is never OK to take some else's property and sell it for your own profit. It is never OK to give fan subs away in the same market where someone else is attempting to sell the same product with a legal and valid license.

The real tragedy is that I truly believe the copyright holders are staring a marketing opportunity in the face and don't get it. "Good guy" fansubbers (meaning the ones who shut down their efforts and pull the files when the series is licensed. The first one that springs to mind is Shinsen Subs) would probably cooperate with an effort to promote legal fansubbing. What I am talking about is the distribution of timecoded subtitles of legal Japanese recordings. Shinsen et al could be distributing subtitle files instead of AVIs. If the legal owners sold the discs region-coded for the US, the software already exists to display such files during playback.

They could also be distributing files for subtitling streaming video out of Japan (a lot of Japanese TV is available on the web for a price) if the file could be hooked up with the stream. If this season's TV were available to me, subtitled, I would buy it. When I eventually master enough Japanese, I intend to subscribe, anyway.

While it wouldn't be a huge market, DVD recording isn't all that expensive, and they wouldn't even have a remastering cost.

Of course, that also begs the question, why in the heck are Japanese DVDs a different region than US/Europe anyway?

Hehe that is pretty funny actually. Sticking a subbing panel at a CON?! What the heck would you expect??

XD This is actually fake news. It didn't happen. I was also at Otakon and I didn't hear anything related to this. Dattebayo is infamous for producing fake news about themselves.

Edit: Hit Ctrl A on the front page and you'll see the "YHBT" on the bottom. YHBT means "You have been trolled". Since it was copy pasted onto this topic, the "YHBT" is clearly visible.

Aww that's too bad... I hate fake news :/ It's just not funny unless it's true...

ha, now that's just stupid. You shouldn't post fake news and update it like its real. Thats just retarded.

Kai Robin wrote:ha, now that's just stupid. You shouldn't post fake news and update it like its real. Thats just retarded.

Yeah it's stupid. Dattebayo does it all the time (I guess they like to be stupid).

Figured it was fake after this stanza.

Kai Robin wrote:When asked to comment, group member Interacti said, "I've been told by my lawyer not to say anything because of the sensitive nature of legal matters however this has been a trying experience and I'm glad my new cell-mate "Spikes" has been there to comfort me."

Fish and Chips wrote:Figured it was fake after this stanza.

Yet it sounds like the type of humor that they would use... I just figured they were almost making fun of the situation themself or something :/

There's a YHBT at the bottom.

Had it been true, however, it would have been interesting. Is there any precedent for the government taking action against fansubbers?

Fish and Chips wrote:Figured it was fake after this stanza.

Same here. I can believe a one of them would say something like that, but not that it would be quoted.

Kai Robin wrote:ha, now that's just stupid. You shouldn't post fake news and update it like its real. Thats just retarded.

But you see, that's exactly it. Their intention is to evoke a response from people who believe everything they say. Updating it as if it were real just throws more people off.

The same goes for most of their other trolls. They happen when people aren't paying attention, like when people don't remember that Naruto is cancelled for a week. It happens every time.