Piracy

When you buy DVDs of any sort, you should always make sure they’re genuine - there’s an awful lot of legitimate looking companies (especially on eBay) who sell “bootlegs” and pirate DVDs which have not been legally licensed from their respective owners. This means that by buying them, you’re casting an active vote for not paying the people who made the series, and paying people who illegaly take their business.

Common signs of pirated DVDs:

Use of the same sort of box for a variety of different series (Almost all boxsets are different from each other; most have a large chunky “artbox” made of cardboard, then the DVDs are in standard DVD boxes inside. It’s pretty rare to see anime boxsets on card-backed DVD sets that “fold out”, like many Western TV series come. (Apart from the Tenchi OVA Boxset ofcourse..)
Chinese subtitles are an almost definate indication that a particular DVD is fake - properly licensed western DVDs almost always have English subtitles and no other (a few sometimes have subtitles from other countries too).
No dub. Almost all series that are released in the west are provided with an English dub. There’s a few exceptions, but this is almost always true. If there’s no dub, don’t buy it without making sure this is true of the official DVDs.
Price is often a huge factor. If it’s less than about 10 pounds per DVD, it’s probably fake, unless it’s a used copy.
Number of discs. Often the easiest thing to check; DVDs rarely come with more than about 6 episodes per disc. There are exceptions, but the majority have just 5 or less per disc. If you’re getting a 26 episode series on 3 DVDs, it probably really is too-good-to-be-true.

A good page about this sort of thing is “The Pirate Anime FAQ” at Anime Digital: http://www.digital.anime.org.uk/piratefaq.html

Unlicensed Materials (Fansubs)

A lot of series currently being aired in Japan are released in “fansub” form - subtitled copies made for fans, by fans. This are technically illegal, but it’s up to the owner of the copyright (either the Japanese producer or the US/UK license holder) to prosecute. Japanese companies are too far away from us to really do much about them (despite really not wanting people to produce fansubs - many series actually come with “piracy warnings” to persuade people not to), and US based companies are often quite accepting of so called “ethical” fansubbing.

The idea behind ethical fansubbing is that once a series has been licensed from the Japanese creators (or at least announced to be licensed), the fansubbers will stop producing any more episodes, and cease distribution of the episodes they’ve already subtitled.

Originally, fansubs existed so that the (at the time) very much unknown anime genre could be brought to a US audience - fansubbers would produce VHSs and sell them at cost price, to promote a series to it’s potential audience. Nowadays, most fansubs are produced in “digisub” form - the episodes are taken directly from digital TV or the Japanese DVDs, have the subtitles put onto them, and are released in digital form via the internet. While a large amount of fansub groups still follow the “ethics”, people who download the series often continue to share the fansubs well after the series is announced to be licensed - and masses of people just use them as a sort of alternative to Hong Kong DVDs. In a way, they’re better - you’re not actually paying the companies who steal the series, but you by using them instead of genuine DVDs you are not paying any money to the creators, and in doing so are devaluing the US license - you are in fact taking their money away.

That said, fansubs are often a good way to get a “feel” for a particular series. You can find out more about getting hold of digisubs at http://www.animesuki.com. In order to play them, you’ll need a media play with relavent codecs (more on this below).

You can get a list of all licensed anime from http://www.animesuki.com, or use the Grand High License List at http://www.animeondvd.com.

For information on playing fansubs see our software page

Where to Get Anime and Manga?

See our shop reviews page for information on shops in our enar coventry where you can buy anime and manga or our online vendor reviews page for where to order online. Also conventions, expos, etc. are a great place for buying anime and manga (particularly second hand stuff), you can find out about the most popular ones on our convention reviews page. Also we of course have a large selection of anime and manga available in our library, for members to borrow.

Understanding Import Duty

[This is my (Sar) understanding circa half three in the morning, so it’d be appreciated if someone else could go over this and check it before anyone takes it as authoritative...]

[...Ficedula agrees generally with the information contained here, but has added some other tidbits.]

If you do choose to import, be aware that you may be liable to pay import duty, which can add up to a significant amount of money if you’re not careful. What actually happens is that the shipping company (a courier, or Royal Mail if sent by regular post) pays the import duty and then recoups the cost from you, so you will find your shiny new DVDs in hock at the local Post Office/courier depot until you cough up the cash. Luckily for you, the consumer, there are ways you can avoid or reduce the import duty you have to pay, and if you do end up paying you should be able to have a pretty accurate idea beforehand of how much it will cost you.

There is a threshold below which Customs and Excise don’t bother to collect Import Duty - typically this is £18 for ‘merchandise’ (which legally speaking includes all purchases from mail-order companies) and £28 for ‘gifts’ (which you’ll often find shady eBay sellers offering to mark your merchandise as). The thresholds vary for different types of goods, particularly as some goods are exampt from duty, but those are the norm. This makes companies such as DVD Box Office or Play popular, as they will ship all items separately whether you ask them to or not, as this reduces the chance of you paying import duty on any of them. While you should in no way rely on it, Customs and Excise are not usually bothered with smaller packages, and won’t normally charge you for packages that are just £5 or so over the limit. On a slow day, they have been known to charge them anyway, of course.
The UK is in ‘Customs Union’ with the whole of the EU, meaning that you never pay import duty on anything sent from anywhere within the EU - for purposes of import duty, the EU is treated as having a single, external border. This makes shops such as Archonia or Play popular, as they send from within the EU avoiding all import duty entirely. However, the flipside to this is that you do pay VAT on the items, and unless the seller is UK VAT-registered, you will pay at the rates in the country of the seller. This is not necessarily good: books and magazines are exempt from VAT in the UK, but are usually charged VAT in most (if not all?) other European countries.
Some goods are not liable for import duty at all, or are liable at a reduced rate. Books, notably, do not incur duty. Assuming that the class of merchandise is clearly marked on the outside of the package, you should never pay duty on shipments of books. Or plastic model kits, it seems. However: be aware that a ‘mixed’ package of anime and manga may end up attracting duty; whether because Customs charge you on the whole value of the package, or because the sender didn’t bother to record the values of the books and DVD’s separately, you can end up being charged for the whole lot.

If you do think you’re going to end up paying duty (and bear in mind that Customs will occasionally open packages to verify their contents), this is what happens:

Import Duty is calculated on a package-by-package basis. No doubt one day Customs and Excise will buy a big shiny computer with malevolent flashing red lights and ticking and clacking noises to keep track of separate parcels coming from and going to the same addresses, but that day is not today.
The threshold is applied against the value of the goods, but not the cost of the shipping.
If the threshold is passed, Import Duty (typically 6.5%) and the normally-applicable level of VAT (typically 17.5%) is levied against the total value - goods and shipping - of your package. This fee is required before the package leaves Customs.
The shipping company - the courier, if sent by courier, or Royal Mail if sent by normal post - will pay the fee on your behalf. Typically they will add a handling charge to the total for lending you this money, and typically this handling charge is significantly higher than the base interest rate. Royal Mail’s standard handling fee, to my knowledge, is currently £5.
(Sar‘s experience): The shipping company will notify you that you have a parcel, and that they have paid X in import duty on your behalf. Usually this takes the form of a slip through the letterbox telling you to visit your nearest post office, but sometimes they’ll bring the parcel to the door and accept cash in hand. If you fail to pay this fee, consisting of the total import duty plus their handling charge, then they keep your parcel.
(Ficedula‘s experience): Sometimes couriers, DHL in particular, will deliver your parcel, then invoice you for it later, potentially more than a month after the fact. In theory, I suppose, if you moved house in that period, you might be unaware of the debt, which could be good or bad depending on whether the courier chose to take action pursueing the debt further ... other couriers are more likely to accept cash in hand; except that they usually prefer cheques, so it’s worth your while keeping a chequebook to hand if you expect an international courier delivery. No money may well mean the parcel being returned to the depot, which is likely to be rather less accessible than your local post office.