A few questions about Fandubs

I think these are questions best asked to a copyright attorney. The thing is, once you start getting into legal questions, not only does your average joe online not necessarily *know* the answer, but giving out legal advice when you're wrong can get even a lawyer in trouble. The long and the short of it is; anytime you use copyrighted material in ANY way, and you don't have a legal way to do it (either written permission, it falls under "fair use", or something else), it's copyright infringement, and whether you earn money or not doesn't change that fact. What it MIGHT change is how the copyright holders MAY choose to react, it MIGHT affect the ruling if you get taken to court over it and the judge has to rule whether it's fair use, etc.

The thing is, there's so many different ways you can go about it, ranging from horribly illegal to "you probably won't get caught" to going through the proper channels to get the rights to officially dub something -- at which point, it isn't even a fan dub anymore, it's an officially licensed dub.

Now, SOME copyright holders won't allow any fan works they can stop, some allow some things but not others, and some love fan works. It depends on the person and/or company. So just because you break copyright, you might or might not even have the copyright owners care -- they might monetize or take down your video if it's on YouTube, but not do anything else -- or you could get taken to court.

This right here, there would be so much legal tape in doing so.

Now, if this were an original project, with everything purely yours, then go ahead for a donation box. Actually, I impose you to create an original project maybe inspired by Haikyuu and Mystic Messenger and give it a go. Doesn't have to be solely you, you can ask others for help and brainstorm ideas to make it a radioplay or visual novel.

You can put a disclaimer if you like, but it won't change whether what you do breaks copyright laws or not in the first place, and it won't stop a copyright holder from suing you IF they decide to do so.

I'm going to echo Rikka here. What, exactly, is the donation box supposed to "support"? What costs are you trying to cover? Or is this purely for the sake of you making money off of the fandub(s)? What is the purpose for it?

Well, then I understand your problem now. You're putting the cart before the horse.

I may not be a copyright attorney, but I know enough to know that if you want to license something, you need to do that BEFORE you dub it, and never, never, EVER after.

You're not going to be able to license an anime officially from donations. I mean, theoretically I suppose you could (see: Skip Beat), but do you have any experience or track record to show off that you can be trusted to put out a high quality product? Do you have a company set up? Have you hired translators and writers? Do you have a casting and/or voice director? Do you have a professional recording studio set up, or do you plan to rent recording space or outsource the recording of this dub? Do you have a way to contact the Japanese copyright holders to even see if they'd be willing to license this particular show to you?

If your answer is no to most or all of these, then you cannot raise enough donation money for an anime unless you have some really rich friends or kind investors.

Please don't make money from fandubs. You do not need donations for fandubs. Fandubs are just supposed to be for fun and for the experience, not as a way to earn money. Make money from voice acting by auditioning for and booking paying gigs instead (which you can conveniently do from the comfort of your own home nowadays!), or by creating original content that features you and your friends' voices, and then set up a donation box/Patreon where people can support you monetarily. Not from fandubs.

The only record is the previews that I've put out for the dub, KuroDubs is my company, I have writers and translators, I am currently the voice and casting director, I am currently trying to contact the copyright holders, and I do not have a professional recording studio setup.

I pretty much agree with what the others said in this thread. It costs a TON of money to license and officially dub something, and there are a lot of hoops you would have to go through and staff you would have to hire, including those who could properly negotiate with the Japanese companies (who would likely be quite hesitant to give the rights to their show to relative newcomers, and rightfully so.) You'd also need an actual company set up which would require more money, staff, and probably legal advice.)

Furthermore, if you were somehow able to negotiate this arrangement, you'd need to think about distribution so you could even hope to break even. I hear it's quite difficult to make money off anime, even if you manage to get a distribution deal on something like Netflix. Renting studio time/space would be another major expense. It is simply not feasible for a professional sounding dub to have a bunch of people recording from their home setups all over the country/world - you need consistent quality, recorded in the same space or at least same couple of spaces (most anime dubs are recorded in either LA or Texas; there are a couple that have been recorded with actors from both places but I'd imagine they need good engineers to make sure everything sounds seamless when put together). The Japanese clients may also request a say in casting.

The closest I can think of to something like a crowdfunding dub being done was Skip Beat, which I actually played a role in. I'm not sure what their whole process was but I can definitely assure you we recorded in a professional studio with a lot of experienced people involved.

No one here is necessarily trying to discourage you, but the reality of doing something like this is pretty low. Crowdfunding an original series might be feasible, but if you want to do a dub, I don't think there's much harm in doing one for practice/fun with your friends - just don't start making money off of it because then you're going further into what is already a legal gray area.