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Police, Copyright Industry Raid Movie Subtitle Fansite
Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge reports that a fansite providing subtitles for movies has been raided by Swedish police at the behest of the copyright industry.
"The movie subtitle fansite undertexter.se, literally meaning subtitles.se, is a site where people contribute their own translations of movies. This lets people who aren't good at the original language of a movie or cartoon put those fan-made subtitles – fansubs – on top of the movie or cartoon. Fansubbing is a thriving culture which usually provides better-than-professional subtitles for new episodes with less than 24 hours of turnaround (whereas the providers of the original cartoon or movie can easily take six months or more). What’s remarkable about this raid is that the copyright industry has decided to do a full-out raid against something that is entirely fan-made. It underscores the general sentiment of the copyright monopoly not protecting the creator of artwork, but protecting the big distribution monopolies, no matter who actually created the art."
Sure there is some copyright issues with translatins, but seriously, fuck the copyright holders, and the middle-men, in this case. And, of course, fuck the police.
What the industry needs to do instead of this sort of bullshit, is to contract with the fansubbers, and pay them for their work. The fansubbers provider a much quicker turn around on translations and subs, and are doing it for the love of the work. What better way to make yourself look even better, than to not just tolerate, but to pay!?
The fansubbers allow people to watch the media who would otherwise not be able to (due to not understanding the language). That's great. I wish them well.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
I don't see how it's "entirely fan-made". Under current law, a translation of an audiovisual work's original script into another language is a derivative work.
Yet more proof that copyrights are NOT good for the public. They are only good for big media and other sociopathic entities with deep pockets.
I think that part of their motivation to attack such a site is that people using these subtitles are likely to be using them with pirated versions of the shows/movies. You can select your own subtitle file on many media players for the show you downloaded, however, things you are watching on TV/Blu-ray/Betamax do not usually have the option to overlay custom subtitle files.
Mind you, this just lends more credence to the argument that legitimately purchased versions are often worse than pirated ones because they lack such functionality.
Sadly, you do require the copyright holder's permission to create one...which is sad if the creator of the original work chooses not to authorize it in your language.
I can see both sides of this, but there should be a loophole for non-commercial works. There's no way the studio can show economic losses, and the derivative work is valueless in and of itself (without the original film).
there should be loophole for partials. the subtitles aren't really that useful on their own.
however all nordic countries have basically translator guilds which do sometimes hilarious work, but have been bitching lately how their unionizing hasn't gone all too well. problem is that spending couple of years in university apparently doesn't make good as good translators.. since they don't care shit about the material. fans do.
some of the best subs I've seen have been for japanese stuff, with the translator bothering to mention texts, clues and culturally significant symbols as well.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Because the translated script by itself is not useful. There is no reason to pirate subtitles alone, so there's no need for those to be protected too. If I download fan-made subtitles, I still need to get the movie for them to be useful. It's the AUDIOVISUAL part which contains the entertainment utility (and deserving of some protection).
A book is different because it is solely the words themselves that contain the entertainment utility.
Or are you trying to apply corrupt US law onto Sweden ? There was similiar case in Poland (napisy.org) few years ago. Police raided site administrator and some folks who did actual translation. Then it tool 6 years for prosecutor to determine that those translations were actually legal because it was voice->text translation, not text->text, so it did not constitute derivative work. Yet prosecutors did everything in their power to prolong this case, so it took 6 years to close this case. From copyright cartel point of view it is mission accomplished: napisy.org is still defunct. Falkvinge is right that we truly have two-tiered justice system worldwide. It is totally corrupt, yet as long as people still get their daily fox-news-style crap-propaganda, everyone is apathetic enough to just get along with whatever fraud our corporate overlords instigate on us.
> You aren't allowed to muck with someone else's work without their permission. That's the whole point of copyright,
No it isn't.
The whole point of copyright is that we do have something to muck with. Copyright exists to foster what you would describe as piracy. It is not a virtual land grab. That's just corporate propaganda.
No. The whole point of copyright is piracy.
The corporations have just distorted things.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because I will of course pay the same amount for an English movie, with English speakers, speaking English in the movie as I would for a badly dubbed Chinese version of the movie with translated English subtitles.
How do you remember to breath all the time?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Not exactly true either. They can sue without of the evidence of infringement if they're so inclined. They'll lose if the evidence is against them, but they'll still put a heavy financial burden on the party they'll sue. If Disney thinks they can bankrupt the defendant, and it's worth the cost, then they can sue with practically no standing.
That's why corporate ownership of copyright is a financially asymmetrical and unfair legal allowance. The richest media companies can buy up whatever properties they want and then tie up smaller parties in a civil suit subsequently incurring disproportionate expense on the defendant. They can then offer a settlement deal, and give the smaller party a cheaper option than winning in court. If Disney loses in court, it's objective is still realized by the bankruptcy of the defendant. If the defendant instead settles, they promise to censor their work irrespective of whether or not the work was infringing. If Disney wins, it gets to expand the scope of its intellectual property and bankrupt the defendant. Its a no-lose situation for Disney if the value of the defendant's property is equal to or greater than court costs.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you