“Perhaps the industry would be more keen to Globalization if the “fanned subtitles” community hadn’t already stolen the market share?”

Are you really that naive? globalisation is not an option my friend, it’s a fact. Your reply clearly demonstrates the industry’s lack of knowledge and foresight. Keen or not, its already happened, move with it or die, that is what free market economy is all about.

Your corporate clients are all too quick to demand a free market and less regulation until the point that it kicks them in the backside. You reap what you sow. THAT is the bottom line.

“Piracy leads to a decrease in sales. A lack of sales indicates that a film is not well liked by the masses. If a film is not liked by the masses, it is killed (no sequels, tv rights, etc).”

Yours definition of murder is as ambiguous as your definition of cogent. Are you meant to be a lawyer? You’re either a spotty teenager with a grudge yourself or you clearly don’t understand your own field. This has been demonstrated by the many huge errors made during TPB case. If you’re are all there is to worry about then people will go one fleecing your clients forever, just as you are doing.

Fansubbing a movie which, for ridiculous reasons, is not available in your native tongue seems perfectly logical, fair, and even can be seen to work FOR the industry. People watch the movie, enjoy it, and then might buy it from an overseas source, or when it FINALLY gets released in their language, will buy it because they enjoyed it. Not to mention want to see more work by the same actor/director/company.

For example, I’m in Australia. A reasonable, fairly upwardly-motivated country. We speak English. Movies made in Hollywood do not need to be subtitled, dubbed or otherwise altered for us (yes, Tarantino, your original audience needed Grindhouse dumbed down, the rest of us actually comprehended your intentions). Yet, over and over, movies have been released on DVD for weeks if not months before we even get it at the cinema! Silent Hill and Wall-E are two that I can think of off the top of my head, and for both of them we struggled to resist the temptation of buying from Amazon. Instead, we held off, watched it at the cinema and then bought the hideously marked-up Australian versions. I’m glad we did, but so many do not wait. Global (and I mean really global) releases are not that difficult, and certainly limit the temptation to download.

The industries really are just shooting themselves in their feet.

/end rant

This is very common in Europe, where movies are edited too late, and some of them don’t even get released. For example, The X-Files, are only been released this year in my country.

You should thank the fansubs, since they are simply promoting your work (movies, tv shows, anime …), if it wasn’t for them most of your (studios) work wouldn’t have the awareness you have now.

In my country, thanks to fansubs, large communities of TV fans where created. This opened the eyes of the local TVs broadcasters that bought the rights of many of the popular shows. Other shows are simply released straight to DVD.

Another thing, if fansub is illegal why do studios use them. Yes you’ve read it right. Many legal dvd’s and tv shows have fansubs subtitles in it. Here’s an example: http://vimeo.com/3065888

More importantly, it’s impossible to claim this harms revenue. If the movie in question wasn’t available with Hebrew subtitles, then it’s a fair bet that the majority of Israelis won’t pay for it. This, to my mind, would amount to added value rather than damages.