laws of fansubbing

i live in australia and i d/l many fansubs because it takes ages for anime to come out in australia. we have no anime on tv cept for adult swim which is still on oprhen, cowboy bebop and trigun.
now i understand that many animes are released in america before they ever come out in australia, finished final dvds of FMP and escaflowne this month. so would it be legal for me to download unlicensced anime that is already out in america because i live in australia.

well, technically it's not legal for you to download unlicensed anime at all, it's just that less people care about it than licensed. Don't think that it's "legal" just because it's unlicensed in your country -- someone still owns the rights to it (namely the company that made it).

You are probably not going to get sued either way though. The anime industry is sane, unlike the US recording industry.