What are Fan Subs and Fan Subbing Groups?
Fan subs are copies of Anime videos that have been subtitled by small non-profit groups of fans. The titles released by fan subbers are always commercially unavailable in the United States. There has been much debate over the years about the legality of fan subs. There is an important difference between fan subbers and bootleggers. Bootleggers produce low quality reproductions of films and charging a high price for them so that they can make a profit. Fan subbers try to produce as high a quality as possible reproduction of a film and distribute it freely. The only fee they charge is the cost for the distribution medium such a blank VHS tape or a blank DVD-ROM. Fan subbers also stop distributing a title once it becomes commercially available, whereas bootleggers will continue to distribute a title regardless of its licensed status.
