Slashdot Mirror
Polish Fans Held By Police For Movie Translations
michuk writes "Nine people involved in a community portal Napisy.org were held for questioning by the Polish police forces this Wednesday. They will be probably be accused of publishing illegal translations of foreign movies (which is forbidden by Polish copyright law). Napisy.org website was shut down immediately afterwards by the German forces (since the servers were located in Germany). The service was the most popular Polish on-line portal where users were free to submit translated subtitles for popular movies. 'According to Polish copyright law any "processing" of others' content including translating is prohibited without permission. The people held (aged 20 - 30) were questioned on Wednesday and Thursday and then allowed to leave. In case of being accused of illegal publishing of copyrighted material, they can spend in jail up to 2 years (in the worst case).'"
upload the subtitles so the actual content isn't distributed?
Just a thought.
You're amazed that Polamd has laws, and that the Polish police enforce those laws? Is that it?
I guess I understand the perspective, given that President Horehay is planning to reward the US's Mexican marine population (10 million, or so) with an amnesty.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Oh this is ridiculous. It's illegal to *translate* something? Selling that translation - like the unauthorized Harry Potter book mentioned - should be adequately dealt with by other areas of copyright.
But just the act of taking something from one languge to another would mean that even viewing a foreign language (non-Polish in this case) website using a website translator like Babelfish or Google's translation service would be *ILLEGAL*.
Also, what about learning a foreign language? Even if you're not producing a formal translation on paper, you're still doing the same operations IN YOUR HEAD. Yay! Being multi-lingual is now a thoughtcrime in Poland.