We’ve opened donations for the first time in UTW history; the funds will contribute towards paying for our main storage and distro servers. Please help us out by donating; every dollar counts!
If you like reading giant walls of text, you can read more on the subject after the break.
EDIT:: You. guys. are. AWESOME.
Your donations totaled $412.52 USD in the space of just a few hours! I can now fully pay for the servers for two months and still have change for the month after.
Donations are now closed (until at least two months later). Thanks to all of you who contributed!
For the entire 23 months that we have been around, we at UTW have relied mainly on the generous contributions of constituent members, friends, and volunteers, whether it be in skill, in time, in bandwidth, or monetary. We began using Fileserve for our DDLs in the later months of 2010, and we used the small amount of money we made to expand our operations, mainly through buying/sharing the costs for new storage and distro servers so we could operate and do our work more efficiently, as well as get our releases out to you guys quicker. We later added Filesonic as our second DDL host and spent the extra revenue accordingly, as our need for more bandwidth and storage grew with our popularity.
Since about a year ago, we’ve been consistently making about $200-250 a month, almost all of which goes into paying for our servers; the remaining bit of money would be used for other costs, such as site hosting and domain renewal etc. We made a little bit of money some months and lost money in others, but overall we’ve been just about breaking even. Call me stupid, but not a single dollar has gone into anyone’s pocket in UTW; I wanted us to be motivated to fansub by our love of anime and a genuine want to do a good job, not for money (we did joke about dropping a server and saving up DDL money to do a “UTW field trip to Japan” or something, but of course DDL money could never fund a trip like that). I also didn’t want to risk complicating the relationships between group members by bringing money into the mix. Thus, any extra money we made was either spent on our sub activities, whether it be getting more storage space or bandwidth, or stored in a UTW fund of sorts for emergency use or for buying BDs/DVDs so we could sub them and bring them to you.
As I’m sure you are all aware, the taking down of Megaupload in January sent shockwaves throughout the file-hosting industry, with many file-hosting sites either shutting down or removing their affiliate programs, including both Fileserve and Filesonic. I believed that we’d be able to find a new file host that would provide good download speeds as well as enough money to maintain our operations relatively soon, and thus I paid all of the February costs out of my own pocket. However, the March costs are looming right around the corner, and the file-hosting industry is deader than ever, with the few remaining money-making sites proving more trouble than they’re worth.
$250 a month can’t be too bad for someone who’s killing himself working two jobs, can it? It’s true that I make more than enough to get by and can afford these costs for now, but not for much longer. I’m set to begin my medical studies this fall, and much of my income goes to saving up for my education and my future, meaning I can’t afford to spend very much at all. My teammates have offered to contribute to the UTW operation costs if I needed it, but the fact is that it wouldn’t be fair to ask them for money every month when they’re already investing so much time and effort into the actual sub-making.
Thus, we’ve decided to open donations for the first time in the two years we’ve been around, and this is where you come in. If you’ve ever felt appreciative of our work and wish to help us out, please do consider donating to us. Every dollar counts (though, don’t actually donate just a dollar because you’d just be making Paypal richer instead). I’m hoping to raise about $150 a month to help me cover most of the monthly costs. Thank you so much for contributing!
PS:: We’re also happy to hear suggestions on a file-hosting site to switch to. Since money-making is no longer an issue, we’d just need the file-host to have the option of FTP uploading, and of course good upload and download speeds to all over the world.
I’ve only heard of it a few times and never actually went there, so I don’t know anything about the site, but Bayfiles seems to be used by many people.
If i could, I’d donate. I sadly can’t, though, due to various reasons. All I can say is keep up the good work.
Thx for the great quality of your work guys, we won’t refuse a little help you deserve it :3
May I recommend other donation options alongside Paypal? Flattr and Google Checkout spring to mind, Amazon’s service may work as well. They probably won’t give you a *massive* boost, but there are those who don’t use Paypal on principle and are appreciative of seeing alternatives used, and every little helps right?
Just an idea, unfortunately I have none for the DDL issue though
I sometimes thought to myself “I kind of wish there was a way to give back to some of the sub groups I download from.” Please allow me to say this now: We’re even.
Why spend money on DDLs? Why not get a few seedbox’s (ex: https://www.seedunlimited.com/)
Get 4 of the 750’s, upload files to them, then have people torrent and achvie great speeds since you have these massive seedbox’s, they don’t have to upload (bonus if they do), same as DDL imo, and at only $100/mo
You guys are one of the best fansubbers out there, keep up the good work!
ddlanime seems to be a decent file-host. I know you said you don’t need to make money from it, but it does have a decent reward program.
Thanks for the hard work. Animegoon dot com is another popular host being used, has great speeds and made for the anime community.
After all of the enjoyment I’ve received from your work, it’s the least I could do.
Thank you for everything. You deserve it.
you guys suck, i hope you die
arEdit: Sup, you still mad about us dropping Steins;Gate?
Wow this guy.should burn to ash in his home and get erased from this world.
You guys are the best and I’ve been watching all of your releases the past 3 seasons!
$5 is enough for the year or two of me killing the anime industry through your site, right?
Happy to donate some cash to keep UTW releases coming!
I would have helped you, but I;m against donating for the following reasons:
1. I have no proof that you’re telling the truth
2. I rather save up and spend it on desired figurines.
Now if you would send me my desired figurines or would raffle desired figurines to people that donated it would be a different matter but alas….life isn’t so sweet.
Might donate something in the future when you actually release some of your blurays…
However that is ::effort:: as is donating, so nah won’t do it.
is the Paypal name your real name? =o
Keep up the good work, guys! Love sent. <3
Hey, love your work and I’m really greatful for subbing Carnival Phantasm. I’m a hugh Type-Moon Fag and want to thank you with a little donation 😉 Hope to see you around for a long time ^_^ Thanks!
not really ar, you’re my favorite.
come have my babies
@mythos….It’s better if u just shut ur fucking mouth
Fileserve is back up and running.
Just topped off your donations for this month <3
Keep up the good work.
As a fellow medical student, I find it very respectable that you’re able and willing to do so much for the fansub community. Keep up the good work; really enjoyed your work on Summer Wars and Index!
You guys deserve a trip to the holy land that is Japan for all you’ve done for us.
I think we would fear the day you guys had to stop doing this for all of us… *pulls pockets out, discover nothing, cry*
“arEdit: Sup, you still mad about us dropping Steins;Gate?”
Lol, I know I am.
Seriously though, I’d love to donate. Especially for a group like you guys.
You’re doing an awesome work, and even without asking for donations, you’d totally deserve them. (By the way: fansubbers like UTW don’t kill the Anime industry. They sub shows that would be only available in Japanese otherwise. If you enjoyed the show, but refuse to buy it once it’s licensed in your country, it’s YOU who’s killing the industry)
Unfortunately, I can’t donate for various reasons.
One of them is: I barely have any money to spend. As student myself, I have to live on pocket money, which amounts to a little more than $10 for the entire month of March (I shouldn’t have bought the Vita so soon…)
Another is: I don’t have the means to donate. With no credit card, Paypal account or whatnot, I could only donate, if you were standing right in front of me.
And lastly: The moment I noticed you were asking for donations, you’ve already closed it. (Not that I could’ve donated anyways).
By the way: Someone mentioned Bayfiles. I know Hiryuu fansubs are using that, and I liked it too (though I admit, I don’t know if they reward anything).
Thanks for all the good work and I wish you the best of luck for the future and beyond.
There’s minus, ddlanime and cloudcache which could be worth looking into
I just wanted to say, I really appreciate all the work you guys over at UTW do. Living in New Zealand, it’s harder to donate but I’ll see if I can borrow a friends paypal to donate the next time donations open. I wont be able to donate much, but I’d love to give something, you Guys are amazing. Keep up the awesome work <3
DDLAnime has been working really well lately
that or fileserve again, but FS takes longer and no parallel downloads
Thanks guys for the anime good-ness. I’ve been enjoying your works for the past year and am really appreciative of it. Unfortunately I’ve just noticed this donations pledge (because racecar XD), which means that the lines have closed already. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for the next donations run and have already set aside some funds. Keep up the good work!
thanks guys 4 all ur hardwork…. really appreciate that…. i still got 1 month premium account for fileserve n all that happened…. what can i say…. but thanks to animetosho i can still download all anime…. but recently i cannot access them…. does anyone know what happened to them??? really curious…
Cheers!
I still firmly believe you guys are the best fansub group. Not just in your quality of subs, but your overall presentation as people is a cut above the rest.
Suggestion of hosting services :
– Mediafire
– Fufox
For leecher they’re quite good, for uploader I don’t know
About DDL. Only 2 services give me good speed: animegoon and rapidshare. Not sure about FTP, rewards for uploaders or speed for across the world, but for me either they or torrent – the rest most of the time completely useless (<= 50KB/s, unable to download the whole file after 3 attempts,…)
I’ve got “some” cash, nothing to spend on.. But I’m not old enough to have a Paypal account, is it possible for you to bring in other means of donating..? If not, sorry. 🙂
im kinda the same as mix0r, i would like to help out, but i dont have a way to atm
I’d be willing to donate since you guys are bloody awesome. I really appreciate all your hard work especially with the AVI releases.
HOLY SHIT THAT’S A FUCKLOAD OF MONEY. Sadly I came here too late and couldn’t donate… well I’ll sure do it next time. Good luck guys.
^ Ditto.
And I was getting my next paycheck on Friday. Shoot.
High quality fan subs? Don’t mind if I do ..
Gah! I missed the window. You’re a top notch group and will happily put a little in the pot when you open up donations again. Much love 😀
Sorry, can’t donate…no account.
Maybe you can use deposit files? not sure if that’s going to help much.
Ooh, medical studies huh? (If it’s true, then) That’s pretty damn awesome. Kind of an interesting juxtaposition though, as I can’t really imagine a doctor watching Anime and making fansubs. (^.^;)
Wow, that was fast. I kinda wanted to donate this time. Are you guys still releasing Tamayura Hitotose?
I wasn’t fast enough! I’ll donate next time if I don’t miss the window again. 🙂 Thanks for all your work!
Need a new DDL host? Mediafire. They’re just too good. Hardly any waiting time, multiple downloads and a decent speed. All this and you don’t even need premium.
That’s what you get for being the best EN fansub out there. Keep up the good work guys o/
how about you put some ad in the main page?i am sure ppl wouldnt mind disable their adblock for this site (as long as it is sfw)
Boz987 Not everyone can or wants to download anything by torrent. Some people are physically blocked and prevented from downloading anything via torrent. So torrents are good for some people but not all of the people.
If you’re still looking for new DDL hosts, I recently found http://www.fileserving.com/ and I was getting crazy 1-3MB/s download speeds here in the midwest USA, and I’m not even using a premium account. I would imagine if their US connection is that good, then speeds to other countries would be pretty good as well. Also, it looks like they support ftp uploading, so it sounds like what you’re looking for.
@ martinez @ mythos
My thoughts exactly. Some things are just better kept to yourself.
Thanks for being transparent about money and donations.
Also, google Paypal horror stories in case you aren’t aware of their infamy.
I didn’t even get a chance to donate… Well I’ll just have to wait until the next time.
Btw, you guys are awesome and I am very grateful for you putting your time and effort into subbing anime.
Sorry I missed the donations, just got home from work. I will definitely to help you guys keep up and running.
I enjoy your work, look forward to checking for your releases, and are saving many of your releases as archives, so if you need help, I would like to help.
Glad people stepped up to the plate, and you shouldnt really have to pay money to sub for free… that sounds wrong LOL
One more thing… Love the fact that you were transparent about the money (If they were not, they would have just kept the donations open and raked in the cash… the fact they closed them so fast speaks volumes).
Didn’t get to donate. Sorry, it was nighttime here.
Donations are closed now? I’ll donate next time you open. Mostly because you are one of few groups out there who don’t produce Shit tier subs.
That and like most people I’ve downloaded my fair share of UTW stuff.
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that she only bottoms to Yin, detpsie previous comments that made it seem like she had bottomed a lot. Was all that experience really only with Yin? Were all of those paid sessions, or did they change to unpaid?Again, this was a great, great interview. Thanks!