Long time Naruto fansubbing group Dattebayo, whose torrent releases are downloaded hundreds of thousands of times each week, has announced that it will cease fansubbing Naruto come January.
In a detailed statement published on their website, the motive behind the drop is claimed to be to pre-empt pressures from the new online anime distribution ventures being launched shortly, and to save them the PR disaster of shutting down DB.
Naruto fans (at least those in the US; others are being left high and dry) may be heartened to hear that they will instead be given the chance to pay for their subs, and failing that to stream them for free, albeit with ads and a delayed release. Paid releases will be only minimally delayed over the Japanese TV broadcasts.
The episodes are to be distributed in various capacities by way of Crunchyroll, Joost and Hulu, starting in January. This also means that Shippuuden will now be officially released at the same time as the lagged English localised version.
The niggling details of resolution, downloads, DRM and similar seem not to be given much attention, but given the viewership and nature of the show such matters will likely be overlooked by most.
Additionally, the comments raise the exceedingly good point that this arrangement applies only to US users; something the US-centric anime media (and Dattebayo themselves) pass over.
As a result, it would seem the overall effect of DB’s withdrawal will be minimal, given that a successor will inevitably emerge to provide the subs to a worldwide audience.
This would appear to bode ill for fansubbing and non-American fans; what are the chances of US companies shutting down fansubs internationally whilst failing to provide a legal alternative to any but the US?
It seems DB’s job as Internet marketing arm for Naruto is at an end.
Unfortunate for them that they failed to profit from their success (or so it would appear) – YouTube, Nico and Crunchyroll clearly demonstrate that blithely ignoring copyright until reaching a level where dealing with the major IP cartels directly is possible is the way forward, for those of a commercial bent at any rate.
And nothing is going to change. They’re just going to upload their private releases to public torrent trackers like Inferno Demonoid or The Pirate Bay.
Honestly, trying to change things in the fansub scene is futile. People will fansub no matter what you do, and if a series is licensed, they’ll just clandestinely slip it in a public anonymous tracker.
Dattebayo did a terrific job subbing all these years.
It’s a shame though that crunchyroll and joost isn’t an option for me because I’m living in Europe.
I found Animebento to at least sub again in HD (the other quality out there is horrible), but still I miss the dattebayo quality 🙁
their 100th “Press Release” sound like a YHBT to me
Ι wonder how many times I have heared Dattebayo announced that they will stop fansubbing Naruto. Even if they mean it that time…I DON’T GIVE A SH*T! There are plenty of fansub groups that can do the job.
hmph! I blame those who uploads DB subs of naruto, as i have read the article on the DB site (before it closed) that the main root of all this trouble are those who uploads their subs in stream sites…. well I can’t blame them, I mean they’ve asked nicely (about in every 0.1 secs of the very beggining of their subs) to stop uploading their subs, but now… all of us who complied by their rules are now suffering a faith that we didn’t deserve, but it can’t be helped, the problem became an epidemic for DB, so they have to resort to permanently stop their operation….. it’s such a waste though, for me, they had the best naruto subs.