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NetFlix Caught Stealing DivX Subtitles From Finnish Pirates
An anonymous reader writes with word that NetFlix recently opened its streaming service in Finland and was promptly caught stealing movie subtitles from a local DivX community site. How were they caught? NetFlix failed to remove references to the pirate site in the subtitles.
Keeping in line with illegal translations, I'll give you my own translation of the article from Ilta-Sanomat (since Google translation may have missed a couple of nuances):
A few comments from someone who lives in Finland.
First, Netflix reacted by posting a note saying it was sorry for the trouble (the exact wording changed a time or two). It has also removed those programs where the DivX Finland subtitles were used. Or said that they will do so, I am not a subscriber, so I am not able to check.
The representative of DivX Finland is just feeling amused, although he did say "well they could've asked for permission..." (this from TFA) - there is no outrage there.
Apparently Netflix buys their subtitles from Broadcast Text International, who in turn buys them from a multitude of sources, including a number of freelancers. Probably one of those sub-contractors just got them from the easiest location.
According to a blog post (in Finnish) from the website av-kaantajat.fi (video subtitler's site), Netflix is getting their subtitles with super-tight schedules and expecting to get 1,5h worth of subtitled programs per day, whereas to do this properly it would usually take a week.
From the same blog post, in an interview with the Netflix subtitling chief Neil Hunt, he said outright that he's not interested in quality. So apparently the subtitling for them is just a feature checkbox that needs to be ticked off, with minimum cost and without other considerations.
Now for some background. At the same time as this has happend, the major Finnish TV media house MTV3 has recently in September outsourced all of it subtitling and translations to the same Broadcast Text International. MTV3 used to employ more than a hundred translators in-house. The difference is that BTI is offering to pay freelance translators to what amounts to less than a third of the income from a monthly salary.
The translators have been taking quality seriously, and now with these changes the quality is expected to go down a lot. While this saves money for the media companies, there is an argument that there are subtle effects on the population. For example, many Finnish children and youths start to learn to read from subtitles, and some also start to learn the English language from English programs with Finnish subtitles. Another point was that poor subtitling may make the whole movie worse, without the viewer realising that the source of poor dialogue is not in the movie itself, but just in the translations for the subtitles.
Netflix's approach to "quantity over quality" is just another move in the same direction, and as such, worrisome. It's also not a surprise that when paid very little and expected to deliver a lot, someone would resort to the easiest approach. Also, given Netflix's attitude, I'm not surprised if they don't have any quality control of their own for the subtitles which is why something like this would pass through.
Except that they demand money.
They don't demand extra money for subtitles. And the subtitles are not copyrighted by the pirates in the first place. You can't copyright someone's work by just transcribing it.
Incorrect. Under the Finnish copyright law, the translator has the copyright to the work (i.e. the translation). But since it's a derivative work, the author of the original work also holds copyrights. Unless the original copyright has lapsed, in which case the translator gets the sole copyright.