Question Corner: Does Funimation have the right to seek legal action against consumers?

Recently Funimation has filed a lawsuit against US BitTorrent users for possession and distribution of One Piece Episode 481. This comes right after the incident involving the anime Fractale where the Japanese production company had temporary denied Funimation the right to stream it after concerns of illegal distribution of the show. Take a read at the news report after the break.

"In light of that, it's not surprising that this morning we saw a flurry of interest regarding a lawsuit filed by FUNimation Entertainment just yesterday, citing 1,337 "John Does" under an accusation of copyright infringement.

Having taken a look at the details of this lawsuit filed in a Texas court yesterday, UK Anime can reveal that the suit doesn't actually pertain directly to Fractale at all, but rather episode 481 of One Piece.  The large number of defendants in question are all accused of using the BitTorrent protocol to possess and share an illegally obtained and distributed copy of a file alleged to be the episode in question between January 9th and 12th 2011.  A number of BitTorrent websites are explicitly named as "witnesses" in the infringement, including one hugely popular anime-focused BitTorrent site.

Of course, none of the defendants given in the lawsuit are listed by name, but rather by an IP address, with all of these IPs belonging to major US Internet Service Providers - doubtless the next stage in this suit will be to attempt to tie those IP addresses to actual names and physical addresses.  FUNimation are bringing this suit with a view to winning damages of $150,000 as well as costs from the defendants listed, together with an injunction against any other similar activity in the future."
-UK Anime Network News

Please note that Funimation is seeking legal action against people who live in the United States. The '1337 BitTorrent' users are people who used it to get a fansub from Yibis Fansubs, a popular group that fansubs One Piece. This isn't a rip of Episode 481 from One Piece Official or a raw but an actual fansub made by a fansub group.

It is very humorous that Funimation are suing 1337 people since this translate from '1337-speak' to 'Elite' if my 1337-to-English Dictionary is correct. Still this is a very serious things since in my memory I never heard of an anime company suing individuals in the same way that the US music industry. Many people don't like the idea that Funimation is suing potential fans for a total of $150,000 though when the math is done, each 1337 person being sued only need to pay at the most $113 bucks. Not much considering that most of the amount Funi is asking will go to lawyers and stuff.

I do wonder why Funimation decided to seek legal action involving One Piece since there are many other shows that they stream and simulcast including Hetalia. Maybe Funi is showing a bit of their humor with the idea of suing pirates for pirating an anime about pirates. haha

This is a special situation though seeing that Funimation are potentially suing fans. Not all 1337 BitTorrent users are regular buyers of Funimation or One Piece DVDs but there has to be a good handful in there. One could say that maybe some of these people who were downloading the fansub illegal were going to buy the DVDs eventually but there is no way to prove this. Though the day that the news broke I was discussing with somebody on Twitter who said because of this he won't be buying anything from Funimation. His reasons was that Funimation was attacking the 'community' and that as fans (and members of this community) we should stand up against this.

In my opinion I think that Funi is in the right to sue these people since the company has done all that they can to keep people from downloading fansubs. They provide a legal stream of the show that is for free an hour after it airs in Japan. Of course it can be better if Funi steams it in HQ and with a better player but to tell the truth I know that won't stop people from downloading steams and stuff. Crunchyroll is proof of that since most of the illegal steams uses rips from CR and the quality is worse then CR's but clearly comes from the site. Funi has been working with fans to give them what they want by providing the show subtitled but still people in the US are seeking fansubs.

Also Funimation has become a bit famous for how open they are to fans. They have online conventions such as FuniCon where fans have the chance to ask questions and their Twitter is always active and taking questions. Some of Funi's representatives are on Twitter and they are a friendly bunch that are willing to answer questions most of the time. So this lawsuit will most likely lose Funi a few points with fans. This is being judged by how music fans response to the RIAA when they sue people who illegally obtain music.

So the question that is going to be asked is does Funimation have the right to seek legal action towards (US) fans/consumers? They own the rights to the show for the United States and have provided a legal stream for American viewers. The thing is that things like this never been done towards anime fans and the times that it has been done never turns out good for the image of the company. So the question to answer and discuss is:

QUESTION: Does Funimation have the right to seek legal action against the consumers they are trying to earn?