Iryu 3 subs dropped

 The big news this week is that Indokid,  Serene and Jasmine have decided to drop the Iryu 3 subbing project. The reason? Serene says Space, the person who runs yellowcinema disrespected indokid. You can see the whole incident here. From what I can gather, it basically started from yellowcinema uploading the series and subs to the website but not crediting the subbers.

The basis of space's argument is that there is no honour among thieves and that anything that is uploaded online is free to be stolen from others. If there is only one link for subs, what happens when the original link dies, yada yada yada. I'd imagine the 2000 people who've downloaded Iryu 3 would have the subs sitting on their HD if the links to the subs ever stopped working.

It comes back to the whole issue of other sites, especially streaming ones taking and using the work of fansub group without permission. An issue that has cause many a fansubber to stop subbing. My view on this is that it is not really a matter of ethics/morality. It is a question of utilitarianism. What is best for the jdorama addicts like you and me?

What would possess someone who understands Japanese perfectly to waste their time and sub for other people? If you can watch jdoramas and jmovies, why waste your limited free time so that other people can understand the show? Its all because they enjoy the shows and want other to enjoy them too. There's no money to be made.

So if a fansub group says that they would appreciate it people do not post their subs elsewhere, I think it is in the best interest of the community to at least respect their wishes for all the time and effort they have put into the subs, regardless of whether one feels that about sub ownership.

This is not anime where every show under the sun will get subbed by multiple subbing groups with fans arguing who has the best subs. Look through the subbing list at d-addicts and you can see many dropped jdoramas. There are a lot of nice shows out there that have never been fansubbed like Tadano Hitoshi. I think this incident could have been avoided if Space had done a proper apology but its too late now. At least the dialogue in Iryu 3 is pretty easy to understand except for the  medical and operations stuff.

Yellowcinema is an awesome website with lots of content. Its great for getting old stuff which are no longer being seeded and is the successor to am-addiction which is now dormant. With the success of the website, the simple act of crediting the subbers on the main Iryu 3 page would have avoided any controversy.