Anti-Pirates Wipe Out Movie and TV ‘Fansub’ Sites
Written by enigmax on October 17, 2008This week many sites offering homemade Greek subtitles received legal threats from an organization representing the TV and movie industries. Very quickly, fansub sites closed down or removed access to subtitles, leaving thousands of Greek file-sharers quite literally in a position of not understanding what is going on.
EPOE, Company for the Protection of Audio-Visual Works (known as Eteria Prostasias Optikoakoustikon Ergon), is a non-profit organization working to protect the copyrights of its for-profit members. Operating at the behest of its members, EPOE is given authority by Greek law enforcement and works under license of the Greek Copyright Organization, which itself is linked to the Ministry of Culture. Its members include many Greek companies but its international members are most easily recognized as they include MPA, Columbia, Fox, Universal, Buena Vista, MGM, Warner and Paramount.
On Tuesday, virtually every site offering user-generated Greek subtitles (fansubs) for English language movies and TV shows received legal threats from EPOE. Within a very short time, all sites including greektvsubs.gr, subtitles.gr, greeksubs, subs4u.gr and apsubs.com had either closed down or removed all subtitles. A sample of the translated complaint issued to greektvsubs is shown below:
According to our information and evidence, in your capacity as owner and manager of the website under the name www.greektvsubs.gr, without right and in violation of the provisions of Law 2121/93, without the required prior written permission of the legitimate beneficiaries of copyright and related rights of our member-companies, are engaged in a totally illegal activity, which consists of right without translation in the English language texts / dialogues and subtitles creation of films or television series, the royalties of which belong to our member companies, which you have then illegally and without right, distributed via the Internet.
So why are the Greeks file-sharers so upset? Yiannis, a user close to the subtitling sites explained to TorrentFreak: “Greek TV networks are most of the times very slow in airing the popular shows (one or two years is common), not showing them at all or the worst, or show a season or two and then forget about them, leaving the fans looking desperately for solutions. DVD distribution companies are no better. Some popular shows do not even exist in a translated form.”
“A couple of years ago dedicated fans started working to translate and create subtitles of their favorite shows and they teamed up to create a few web sites to share them with the rest of the fans,” Yiannis said “One of the biggest was greektvsubs.gr. These people managed to do with hard work, love and dedication what the TV industry failed: translate TV show episodes hours after they were aired and offer the subtitles for Greek speaking people to be able to watch their favorite show.”
There is currently a fierce debate surrounding the legality of such fan-subtitling sites. The Greek subtitles (in common with user-generated subtitles in other locales) are the result of hours of really hard work, listening to the TV show or movie in its native English and then translating by hand into Greek. The ’subbers’ don’t have access to the original scripts, everything is created from scratch since the movie or TV show isn’t even available in Greek, so on this basis some believe the sites operate legally. However, some are suggesting that under Greek copyright law, a translation could be considered as a ‘derivative work’ and as such requires permission from the original copyright holder.
Whatever the truth - and this is echoed in the emails we’ve received here at TorrentFreak from the fans - there is obviously a really healthy demand for these products in Greek language (not to mention from deaf people who absolutely rely on subtitles), yet the media companies spend their money on litigation, instead of addressing the core issue of giving the fans what they want.
In the meantime, while EPOE throws its considerable weight around, the show goes on for Greek subtitling fans as they head to their new home at gr.tvsubtitles.net.
Thanks to Yiannis and fakeb0us
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49 Responses
bajs!!
opensubtitles.org is a nice place :)
as seen on torrentfreak :D
http://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-the-founder-of-opensubtitles/
Fucking hell whats wrong with letting people make simple sub-titles for tv-shows & movies?
This just pisses me off because its something so minute and trivial and people are just trying to enjoy some tv etc and then along comes the US lobbyist groups to piss on there parade for absolutely no good reason.
This is lower & sadder then usual.
what a pathetic waste of time and money. get a grip guys! its subtitles FFS!
Hey everybody!
We had the same thing happening in Estonia about a year or two ago. At first the site was closed down for a couple of times and fans were really pissed. But then a solution was found. When you enter the page, it simply says “Stories”. You can search for “stories a-z”, “tell a story”, etc. The guys that translate movies and TV-shows are called “story-tellers”. I don’t know how they managed to win in court, but as the site has been up and running for about half a year now, I guess they did. In the site it is said that you are not allowed to add any subtitles to the webpage, but you are allowed to re-tell a story to others. So it is simply “coincidental” that the “stories” are very accurate to the movies. LOL :)
It’s exactly the same in Estonia that for most tv-shows last year’s season is shown or even older. So fans like to download to get the latest tv-shows and create subtitles to them.
Oh, and if anybody is interested in the link for the Estonian subtitles site: http://www.subclub.ee
The operations manager from EPOE (his name can be found with a simple google search) has a linked-in profile, which states that he works as security manager for MPA (Motion Pictures Association) and not EPOE. This is sick…
malakes
So someone translating to their kid what is being said or someone telling a blind what is said (yes blind ppl enjoy being told stories too, even if they cant see the pictures) are fucked in Greece?
If you cant write it you cant speak it and if you cant speak it you have no freedom of speech, if Greece doesnt fight against that that their going to regret it..
gia ton putso oi karagiozides
I hope that #8 isnt the real Yiannis who TF is thanking in the end.
Malakas (Greek) is a slang word, whose literal translation is wanker but the usage of the term varies widely from the equivalent British English term. A more appropriate rendering covers a much broader spectrum of applications, including both English equivalents of arsehole or jerk or dick or son of a bitch.
if they’re greek, why aren’t they going after w00t?
what hypocrites
i’ve been to greece 2 weeks ago and they are selling dvds, “authentic rolex friend! special offer 10€”, gucci, prada, D&G stuff everywhere on the streets and then they crack down on people who translate tv-shows for no-profit
Derivative works…. Anyone want to place bets on how far a lawyer can stretch that one?
If they sold the DVDs people would buy!! Its dman stupid, they dont deliver the tv show, dont sell, and dont want people to watch in anyway?
What if there was some buisness, your company dont sell the services, and another does, you’r fuckedup!
This is insane, they just dont give any ‘legal’ option to people.
Remember there are people witch hearing impairment (deaf) ?
For this people, no subtitles means nonsense at some points of movies and shows…
I think a lot of people who say “OMG it’s just subtitles” are forgetting that many people don’t speak English and many people are deaf and so they would require subtitles.
Clearly an abridgement of freedom of speech. It must be remembered that all of this “anti-piracy” nonsense is purely not for protecting profits, but rather purely for exercising control over people’s cultural freedom. This is an example.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/fs/
Were they hard-sub fansubs, including the video, or just softsubs, like .sub or .srt?
@17
Most of the subtitles were softsubs handmade by fans.
“The Greek subtitles (in common with user-generated subtitles in other locales) are the result of hours of really hard work, listening to the TV show or movie in its native English and then translating by hand into Greek. The ’subbers’ don’t have access to the original scripts, everything is created from scratch since the movie or TV show isn’t even available in Greek”
@18: Oh, thanks. I didn’t notice that on my read-through.
Learn English! English is a language everyboyd should know as it is the most spoken language in the whole world. International communication is in English and you can make yourself understood in very, very many different places with only basic English. I startet to learn English in school when I was 10, then I had it for the 6 consecutive years. Now I don’t have the need for subtitles.
No, it is not my mother tongue.
I tried to watch a tv show in another language without subs before… Suffice to say, it was all Greek to me!
All subtitles are in srt formats.
The fight has just began, it’s FAR from over
Bunch of BS as usual from the copyright holders, but then again this is the 21st century learn english ffs.
I see their problem! They aggregated to a single website!
They should take a hint from Anime fansubbers and split all over the place. Then you need to be searching Google for very specific things (Show name + “subtitle” + “torrent”) just to find them.
hey no.21
thanks for sharing your one of a kind advice and guidance
> No, it is not my mother tongue.
And what IS your mother tongue? Pork maybe? :-D
Open an account on mybloop.com and put all your subs there.
hey 21 thats not the point of this article to learn english ..its about that the assholes or ‘malakes’ as we like to say, are trying to put laws of copyright fragment in greece a country where even the own tv stations are breaking global copyrights every day by using music songs of many various artists :D
hey 21 thats not the point of this article to learn english ..its about that the assholes or ‘malakes’ as we like to say, are trying to put laws of copyright fragment in greece a country where even the own tv stations are breaking global copyrights every day by using music songs of many various artists :D
Thanks for the article
we are here to fight.
P.S. If Yiannis’s nick start from
io and he is hd fun he can find me
in the “darkness” or on the google
@17 : Quote: “It must be remembered that all of this “anti-piracy” nonsense is purely not for protecting profits, but rather purely for exercising control over people’s cultural freedom.”
Rubbish. These companies exist to MAKE MONEY. So why the hell would they conduct an exercise to gain cultural control that DOESN’T make money.
You can’t have it both ways either.
Hell…
Go EPOE make Greeks proud!………..NOT. >.<
Can’t these subtitles be transformed into torrents - that way they can be made accessible through the Pirate Bay or Mininova instead
@32
These companies want to control WHAT to produce - in what FORMAT to produce - the way it’s DISTRIBUATED - WHERE it is sold
A whole lot of control - but of course PROFITS as end result
@28 & @35
I believe you are missing the point here..!
The problem is not where to find the subs..that’s the easiest part! Real problem when these kind of sites go down, is that the whole structure/organization from the translators is lost, everyone starts to upload its own subs and we are proceeding in chaos state where everyone is on its own!
Minoas Kyriakou to blame!He is a total jerk!Skatopsixos!He has one of the biggest channels here in Greece, and he thinks he can rule the world!Ant1 SUCKS!
viva la chaos
come find them all now you morons
/me turns on some subs
its simple all the trackers are hosted outside greece so they can’t enforce their law, in the meanwhile, its illegal for an isp to give information about an ip just for sharing files (its a privacy law) the only sites that are hosted in greece and have greek domain are these ones, these are the only sites that they can go after
Hey..
# 21 “Norway FTW!”
so, what you propose in case we wanted to watch a movie/series spoken in Norwegian (or Chinese, or Ugandan ) is to learn all these languages.
speakin’ of Norwegian logic.
SUCK OUR BALLS EPOE NOW hohohoho
this is part of the full spectrum control they want. they are trying to achieve unprecedented controls on distribution and resale, using piracy as a false flag.
So i guess it is illegal to share text with other people..
What the hell has the internet become??
Lets be honest.. There is nothing illegal about a text file, also not a text file with text that fits whatever TV show.
Stupid greek EPOE!
After China and Iran, Greece is the most democratic country in the world!
After the law against the blogs, now it’s gonna be a new law against subtitles!
Long Live Democracy in Greece!!!
(Trizoun ta kokkala twn Arxaiwn Ellinwn progonwn)
Talk about shooting new markets in the face.
Guys i am from GREECE,the problem is that when i can find a hole movie in torrent even if it is “piracy” i am pissed off if i cant find the right sub for it in my language because they just find out ways to stop it.what if you wanted to see a movie in spanish language?for all of us torrentfreaks and there was no subs.what would you do the torrent?so if its not important lets stop the movies too,and the “crkd” progs and games and everything..everything its illegal..whatever,i hope the guys find a way to serve us the “real thing”(if ringing any bells) in another way..
and by the way i am run out of internet connection too…
because for once more here in greece something goes wrong..and internet providers are shuting down..
so long guys..
hope when i am connected again things are better,not worse..
who knows,maybe i’ll find the pirate bay and the btjunkie closed too for some reason..i hope not
sorry if my english are bad.
“ …
Hey guys,
My man and I are from Greece too and we’re seriously pissed off too.
We do have a proposal to make ‘though:
Let’s state our complains at the EPOE site. Give them a taste of our power in numbers.
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