Fears about legal ramifications were fairly common in the world of comedic anime fandubs, despite some arguing they might be protected under parody laws. Philip Sral of Sherbert Productions shared a story of how three fans caused a large amount of stress while trying to get a copy of one of their works by pretending to be lawyers.
Things got even dicier for Sherbert when Robert Woodhead, co-founder of early anime licensor and distributor AnimEigo, attended a showing of their project Urusei Yatsura: Attack Sherbert. “[Robert] personally said that he didn’t have a problem with our showing stuff that he owned the rights to, as long as he got a copy of it from us, AND no other copies got out,” Sral explained. “He said, ‘If that happens I might have to consider some sort of legal action.’”
YouTube, meanwhile, has and continues to present somewhat of a catch-22. On one hand, its massive success allowed popular abridged series to spread farther and wider than prior comedic fandub creators could have ever dreamed of. On the other, this massive distribution finally summoned the wrath of corporate lawyers who were eager to protect their companies’ brands.
On March 8, 2007, YouTube removed the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series , citing copyright infringement. This was the opening salvo against the series, which saw various episodes pulled down before Billany’s account was suspended from YouTube for the first time on July 10, 2007. Channels he created and videos he posted would continue to be removed and reinstated, even as his channel CardGamesFTW became the most subscribed YouTube channel among Japanese users. While Billany still maintains a YouTube channel, most of the videos in Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series are no longer available on it.
Similar issues plagued TeamFourStar, who also fought to keep episodes up on YouTube. The legal issues facing the team were cited as part of the reason why Dragon Ball Abridged would no longer continue. “Copyright claims have put us at risk of losing that channel, and our livelihoods in jeopardy,” wrote Scott Frerichs (KaiserNeko) in a Patreon post. “We have our employees to look out for; our friends, our colleagues, and doing right by them—by striving to create original, monetizable, copyright friendly content, that also carries our heart and soul as creatives—is undeniably important.”
Some creators have continued to upload abridged series to YouTube without facing similar legal ramifications, but any explanation as to why they haven’t attracted the same attention enters the realm of speculation. Unfortunately, some companies are still formulating new strategies to get content removed to try and circumvent whatever little protection YouTube provides its creators. If left unchecked, this would have the potential to destroy livelihoods, as TeamFourStar feared.
Even in the midst of this legal chaos, abridged series continue to evolve to survive. Some creators have eschewed YouTube entirely, and adapted their craft for another, newer platform, TikTok.
