NarutoFan.com

Website
Name:	NarutoFan NarutoFan.com
Owner/Maintainer:
Dates:	2003 - present
Type:	For-profit fansite with release hosting
Fandom:	Naruto
URL:	NarutoFan.com (now owned by VIZ) Naruto.Anifreak.com
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NarutoFan.com, later forced to move to Naruto.Anifreak.com, is one of the first and most well-known Naruto fansites. NarutoFan hosts Naruto content such as manga scanlations, anime fansubs, and soundtracks, and has been reliable on updating with release information. It possibly has the largest Naruto series forums.

The site and its owner Tazmo are infamous in anime/manga fandom and often cited as violating fandom ethics. NarutoFan has become a for-profit site by selling the scanlations and fansubs done by other groups, and members of both Naruto fandom and greater anime/manga fandom have serious ethical problems regarding it.

History

Tazmo, the owner of NarutoFan, first "supported" the site with advertisements and donations even though he was originally getting the webspace for free. He later got his own webspace and continued to request donations and use advertisements. It was well-understood by other site owners that the massive amount of traffic to NarutoFan would have more than supported overall costs with the advertising, and donations were excessive.

Major controversy arose when Tazmo began to offer "Plus!" memberships for a fee, effectively selling scanlations and fansubs for profit. This is considered a major violation of fandom ethics, particularly because Tazmo/NarutoFan only hosted releases and did not contribute to the work that scanlators and fansubbers were doing for free. This caused Inane, the major Naruto manga scanlation team of the time, to begin putting watermarks on its releases that NarutoFan did not have the right to host its work. Tazmo publicly announced that this was just miscommunication and that NarutoFan did have permission to host the scanlations, and continued to host Inane's releases.

A movement began against the site with the catchphrase "Stop Tazmo" around 2004(?). The website StopTazmo.com was registered as a counter-site and hosted scanlations for free.

Greater fandom continues to try to put an end to NarutoFan. In July 2007 Blud (aka Bloodshock or Bluds), the owner of BSManga.com and later MangaShare.com and who was at the time a leader in quick Naruto scanlations, released an information page regarding NarutoFan and Tazmo's actions. He addressed the problem of making profit off of fandom and how this hurt scanlation and fansub teams. This re-sparked the movement against NarutoFan and the page is still in circulation today in one form or another. Mangaupdates.com, a popular site which lists scanlation releases, hosted Blud's version of the page and later drafted their own. A link to it remains at the top of their main page in red font.

(References: There's a lot of information on this out there...)

Domain Seized by VIZ media

In 2011, after nearly a decade of activity, the domain was seized by VIZ Media. Tazmo moved the site to Naruto.Anifreak.com.

According to Tazmo, "Earlier this month we received notice from VIZ Media [...] that they intend to try and claim the NarutoFan.com domain as a domain that should *rightfully* be theirs, and take ownership of it." "VIZ Media's major complaint is that NarutoFan.com can *easily* be confused for an official Naruto website" despite that the site "[has] the word *FAN* in the domain name" and that "we mention in one way or another that we are a fan-site on nearly every single page of this website."

Tazmo speculates that VIZ's interest in his domain might have been "to capitalize on [NarutoFan.com's] traffic by forwarding it to their own site," since VIZ had previously "been on friendly terms with" them, and would "send us free stuff to give away, keep us in the loop by sending us press releases, have had their publishers send us to Los Angeles, given us press passes at major game shows, etc." He says it's possibly Additionally, "VIZ Media has not targeted any of the other thousands of websites with the word "Naruto" in its domain name."

VIZ did not, and has never, sent NarutoFan a DMCA to take down scanlations or fansubs. Whether or not VIZ's decision to seize NarutoFan.com had anything to do with Tazmo making money from fans is unknown -- but also unlikely, since everything that happened at NarutoFan.com continues on Naruto.Anifreak.com.

• VIZ Media Says "All Your Domain Are Belong To Us" - post by Tazmo, 2011-01-26 (mirrored at WebCitation)
• WIPO Sides with VIZ Media on NarutoFan.com Issue - post by Tazmo, 2011-04-06 (mirrored at Webcitation)
• Notice of page move
• Discussion on AnimeSuki.com forums in which fan reactions are mixed
• World Anime Government vs. Pirates! by Triple_R, 2011-01-28, briefly references the incident in a larger-scale post on fandom and corporate issues

See Also

Other sites which have, or have tried to, make a profit off of a fan's free work include: Fandom, Inc., FanLib, MangaHelpers.com, Mangafox.com/Noez.com...