Fansubbers Are Not Thieves, But Avid Consumers
Last month the Legendas fansub site was taken down by anti-piracy action, only to return a short time later. Now, another prominent subbing community has closed its doors – and has launched a campaign to show the movie industry that they are not thieves, but avid consumers.
On February 1st, action by Brazil’s IFPI and MPA-affiliated Antipirataria Association Cinema and Música (APCM), led to the Legendas.tv fansubbing site being shut down. APCM, which represents the interests of Universal, Warner, SonyBMG, Disney, Paramount, Fox and others were quickly disappointed as the site returned, with hackers even taking revenge against an anti-piracy site.
Now, in response to continued attacks against communities that offer subtitles, the prominent fansubbing group InSUBS has launched a campaign to show the anti-piracy groups and their movie and TV industry bosses that the people they target are avid consumers.
The campaign is called “Queremos Cultura” (translated “We Want Culture”) and is linked from the InSUBS site, which is not currently engaged in subbing activities, largely to avoid the same fate suffered by Legendas.tv in February.
Those running the campaign are asking fansubbers and those that use fansubs to upload pictures of their original DVD and Blu-Ray collections to this Flikr album to show that they are far from being thieves or criminals. On the contrary, they are enthusiastic consumers who pay their way. At the time of writing there are already 570+ photographs showcasing some pretty healthy collections totaling some 10,000 products – everyone is encouraged to upload their own.
This campaign is trying to show that the problem lies with Hollywood. In some countries, people have to wait months, sometimes even years, before their favorite TV-show or movie becomes available. Some of the most dedicated fans can’t be tortured this long – it’s unethical.
The campaign video is in Portuguese, but we’ve added our own ‘fansubs’ at the end of the post.
We could be killing, we could be stealing. But no. We choose to disseminate culture. The subtitles we make are not what makes DVD sales fall, it’s their abusive high prices.
The long delay between the airing of a series in its country of origin and the rest of the world is the number one reason why people choose to download – the wait for the series to reach non-cable TV can take years!
Years to find out what happened with: The island people! Jack Bauer! Hiro Nakamura! Michael Scofield! True fans always try to buy the original products and many series owners got to know about these through the Internet. Today they are collectors.
