Israeli MPAA Goes After Premier Subtitling Site
Written by enigmax on September 13, 2009ALIS, Israel’s answer to the MPAA, has moved aggressively against a site which provides translated subtitles for movies and TV shows. Three individuals who work to provide free subtitles on Qsubs, one of Israel’s most prominent subtitle providers, have been ordered by ALIS to pay $264,000 each in damages and issue a public apology.
Translated subtitles are a wonderful tool for those who either can’t read the official language of a movie or TV show or are suffering from deafness.
Big Media attacks on those who provide these subtitles have been documented regularly here on TorrentFreak. From WikiSubtitles in Spain, to a broad assault on many outlets in Greece, threats of legal action are commonplace.
Of course, those who rely on translated and home-made subtitles can be very passionate about the enjoyment they can bring, so when anti-piracy groups moved against Legendas subbing group earlier this year, hackers were motivated enough to take their revenge.
While Legendas argued that fansubbers aren’t thieves but avid customers, anti-piracy outfits clearly don’t agree.
One such group is ALIS, Israel’s arm of the MPAA. In late 2007 it assisted in raids on the admins of three sites known as ‘xvoom’, ‘MYakuza’ and ‘Donkey‘ which carried Hebrew subtitles for US movies. In the end ALIS reached private compensation and closure agreements with the owners of two of the sites and took legal action against a third.
Now in 2009 ALIS is again active against creators of subtitles. Targeting Qsubs, one of Israel’s best translation groups, ALIS is threatening legal action against three of its members after sending them cease and desist letters last week.
ALIS is demanding that Qsubs, which has dozens of translators, stops their activities and is ordering the three translators to pay damages of around $264,000 each. They also want the individuals to issue a public apology for creating subtitles. ALIS believes that the three individuals it has identified are administrators of Qsubs.
In addition to copyright claims over subtitles, ALIS lawyer Eran Presenti says that there are further infringements on Qsubs such as movie and TV artwork along with various screenshots.
While the legal ramifications are digested by the Qsubs team, its subtitling activities have been suspended.
According to intellectual property lawyer Ran Camille, movie and TV show scripts are considered “dramatic creations” and therefore subject to copyright law. Article 16 of the Copyrights Act states that only the primary copyright holder has the right to distribute any part of a finished product, subtitles included. However, it is unclear how this legal position is affected by subtitles translated from another language.
“We have been doing this for years and never got a dime for our services, everything was done for free,” Qsubs spokesman Amit told TorrentFreak. “We have a lawyer already which is costing us a lot of money that comes out of our own accounts,” he added.
Although Qsubs can finance their lawyer right now, they need further funds in order to mount their defense or sadly they could be forced to close down and pay huge damages. Anyone wishing to contribute can do so by pressing the PayPal donation button on the Qsubs site.
Previously: Trackhub Offers a Solution for Failing BitTorrent Trackers
Next: It’s Time To Sink The Pirate Bay, and Replace It
91 Responses
That is the most ridiculous thing.
What’s clear is:
Hamas are targeting the wrong people.
Yo Hamas, try the bozos at ALIS for size, you would be doing your PR image a world of good and Allah would be pleased with you as well.
Again, just my $0.02
I don’t understand – exactly what’s wrong with subtitling? If anything, fansub groups should be charging film studios for the subtitles. Translation is quite a lucrative business.
Subtitles are evil. Sharing of information is evil.
People must be kept under control.
Okay, while i don’t -agree- with it, movie copying being against the law I can at least fathom. But this…. this is just… just stupid. The content providers, who don’t usually offer subtitles outside of a few main languages, don’t WANT people who speak other languages buying and enjoying their movies? I’m just confused.
I seriously hate these people, why go after subtitlers? I like watching movies from other countries with english subtitles, ok I need to wait a bit but If I bought the DVD, subtitles are never on there anyway!
disgusting. hateful. grabbers. nazis.
“kill them all. let god sort them out.”
what kind of f*cking damage can a subtitle cause these f*cking jerks??????????
Dude, they’re just subtitles!
How is making subtitles illegal?
Again it’s not about the content, it’s about exercising control to make sure YOU understand you have no rights.
I give you permission to make subtitles of my rants in any language EXCEPT Hebrew
In Poland there was recently similiar case. Owners of several subtitle translations websites were attacked and accused by public prosecutor’s office of copyright law infringements. Most of the websites were closed, suspended or became invite-only (in Poland fair use law allows to share artistic work with family and friends).
Now, after many months it has been stated – what was obvious for some – that subtitle translations do not infringe copyright law and are absolutely legal according to Polish copyright law.
Luckily copyright law here has been wtitten by smart man, who says, that fair use – sharing the culture with others – cannot be prohibited. I pray, that no one stupid will ever change it.
NOW WE ARE JUST LIKE EUROPE AND USA, LOLOLOL
I’d imagine this is more about artistic control than it is distributive. This is not the first time something might be “lost in translation”, and the creator probably feels they wish to be involved if and when the dialog finds its way to a different language.
Some art may need a specific language to gather it’s potency and thus the creator might not WANT it in alternative translations.
I think it’s hard for general consumers to appreciate the feeling of helpless anguish and artist will feel when a truly artistic work is simply taken and remixed in any way without permission.
As the “Kaiser Chiefs’ songwriter Nick Hodgson recently said when the last album was leaked onto the web a month before release, “… .it was like having my house burgled and someone was using the internet to sell all my belongings.”
So since we know this kind of sensitivity exists on the higher plane of artistic creation, I’d respectfully suggest it is not the artists responsibility to “get used to” this kind of unprecedented tampering. Afterall, it was never this way until recently.
More equitable would be the so-called “fans” continuing the kind of hands-off respect we gave artists before digital file formats offered tools to facilitate this kind of (clearly unappreciated) trespass.
Basically our culture is owned by corporate douchebags.
I think we should encourage and promote only artists who understand that culture is a shared creation and license under the creative commons.
Anyone else should be boycotted.Let the United states of MPAA and RIAA rot and go to hell.
Fuck this shit, I’m going to start translating Eng->Heb subs right now and upload them. ALICE can die in a fire.
idioti.
Who the hell is “Reasoned Mind” and why is he trolling this site?
@ezee.se —- What has Hamas got to do with this? Hasn’t Sweden made enough of a fool in Israel recently? You know what I mean.
The Israeli gov’t are probably under pressure from their buddy USA in this matter, just like Sweden was with TPB.
What a shame that all the hard work of these Israeli fansubbers should go to waste. I hope they had a backup.
Darn mafiia!
Don’t forget who really is behind this:
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group (The Walt Disney Company)
Columbia Pictures (Sony Corporation)
Paramount Pictures (Viacom)
20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
Universal Studios (NBC Universal)
Warner Bros. (Time Warner)
“I’d respectfully suggest it is not the artists responsibility to “get used to” this kind of unprecedented tampering. Afterall, it was never this way until recently.”
This is the digital age, millions of people now have the capability and the interest in participating in the creation of culture.
The options are:
1. Expect people not to participate because some other people don’t want them to
2. Spend an enormous amount of resources chasing such people
3. Get used to it and even better, find a way to benefit from it
Which option is most reasonable and sane?
I wonder if the MRIIA and other similar outfits are using this site to get insider information?
I know there is nothing very secret here (and those who post such things in comments are risking their own safety) But still there is more in – depth info than most other places.
If they are, they are probably a bit more discreet than Reasoned Mind who is probably just “trolling for fun”
Reasoned Mind seems reasonably intelligent, so he probably doesn’t even believe what he’s ranting about, but just doing it to get a kick– his daily trolling fix.
@18
Haha yeah I know. I very rarely pay for their stuff.
If it wasn’t available for free download I would quite happily live without it…
I had nothing against these studios or even Hollywood in general in my pre-sharing days.
But after seeing the lengths that America and Hollywood are prepared to go to to support their greedy interests I have become
1)Anti Hollywood
2)Anti mainstream media
3)Anti American
Lol wow Israeli governments are pretty stupid.
Israel huh? Does this mean they’ll be fighting p2p using unmanned drones and white phosphor?
I can see the posters now
“DOWNLOAD SUBTITLES AND WE’LL SEND THE IDF ROUND”
can you believe this shit ?!
@ Reasoned Mind
If the government pasted a law to take your family you would hand them over happily because your such a good law follower. The government is perfect they can never be wrong. They are not just a bunch of greedy people that want control over everything, right.
Take them all down. Seriously, that would keep them busy enough to leave us alone and they would see who is really the boss. It is us, worldwide, after all. Hackers, on your mark, set, go!!!
Just to think, We will have destroyed this planet in the next 100 years but right now, the most important thing is making sure people cant get anything for free.
As long as they don’t steal the subs from real companies I fail to see the illegal act in all this.
The same thing happened to the swedish site Undertexter.se once, but as they only provide fan made subtitles they where out of reach from the evil companies who actually subs for a living.
Anyone else who prefer fan subtitles to “real” subtitles?
this is so stupid subs actually help so other country can know about others country work and culture. look at anime it’s well known now because of fansub.
@18
well i seen all of them trying to connect to my uploads lately (bastards)
And they are bragging they caught some guys making subtitles??? Oh yeah that’s really epic… FAIL!
@ReasonedMind
you seem to be brainwashed to a such degree that you actually believe what you’re saying. Now you know why even your mother doesn’t love you :)
Here’s a suggestion, for those of you who actually plan on getting taken seriously:
Don’t talk like psychotic sociopaths, when the issue at hand is just DIGITAL MEDIA. It just makes you sound insane and retarded when you threaten death and murder against these companies, who are after all just trying to turn a profit and make a living themselves.
Also, for those of you who claim to not support the publishers of media, I still fail to understand why you would even pirate what they make. It just gives them the assurance that people still enjoy their movies/music, all they have to do to get back profits is to crack down on piracy.
Common sense ftw.
@2 I couldn’t possibly agree more :D
With having subtitles, the Israeli public has access to the vast American produced (pirated) content, even pre-released movies and tv-shows. The furiousness of ALIS comes to no surprise
I can’t see the “art” in translation and a translation is useless without the ‘original movie’. Translating is more like mathematics, trying to prove a formula by putting it into another form. There shouldn’t be any “get money for free after doing the trick once” for translators, its not “art”. If they dont want to pay for translators, those studios now have free translations from ‘native’ people so why complain ?
These actions may backfire someday as it did when they didn’t like people to make and share midi files. Soon after a new technology was in use: MP3. So people could then listen to a copy instead of an instrumental cover.
As for Unreasoned mind..
Seems desperate now as he/she is unable to use the “sharing is stealing” argument. Strange that it is not about the money all of a sudden. Unreasoned comment makes even less sense than usual and seems “lost in copyrightland (c)” (imagined artistically sensitive purposes)
@14 Bullshit!
@ Digital Future,
“Which option is most reasonable and sane?”
A similar commonsense argument was advanced in the 1930’s, when autos with windowglass began to park on urban streets and were routinely broken into. It was an epidemic of crime, much as online piracy is now. There was a depression going on and a group of “commonsense” individuals advanced the thinking that glass was not security, this would not be stopped and besides, with the depression it was pure provocation to set valuable goods out behind glass overnight as if the car were a display case. It was not the perpetrators fault. This was one situation not worth the effort or resources, so the thinking went, and so it went to public debate.
But we all know how it ended. Massive police patrol became the norm until it was widely curtailed, because in a proper world doing what is “right” always takes precedent over what is “reasonably expedient.”
This is 2009 not the 30’s, I know, and also digital, not material. But the philosophy of a just and evenhanded civilization remains the same, and not incidentally, remains in the majority the world over. Pirates are a very small group in the bigger picture, and well outside mainstream morality.
But it is the internet that will suffer. Online piracy is giving the justification for a police presence on the internet. The internet will look more and more like the real world over time. Pirates are being marginalized everyday—have you noticed?— and are scorned in precisely the same way car break-ins are. And eventually collective licensing will force required payment through your ISP whether you take the content or not, a slamdunk for the cartels, resulting in the fatcats getting fatter still, the risk of investment utterly vanquished, the artists STILL fighting their way through the providers of the medium, and the masses bearing the heavily increased cost of music, movies, books, periodicals, games…..all monthly-fee subsidized and all paid for by the little guy. As always.
Except now, you idiot’s will eventually guarantee the RIAA and the MPAA and the publishers their monthly cut, whether they invest and work in risk as they once did, or not. They may not even need new product but rather coast of their old catalogs when they feel like it.
Piracy is illegal because it is wrong, and the end result will be just desserts to the pirates, I say. And anyone who thinks “world revolution” because they can steal a copy of a record album at the moment isn’t thinking very deeply about the “Digital Future.”
“Aargh matey’s, they’ll never stop us!!”
Troll on that you selfish and shortsighted fools.
Producing your own subtitles for a movie, especially if subs for your language are not available, would be a common sense thing, an I really dont see where the authorities are coming from.
The only thing I can think of is a broad sweep against any activitiy, which could relate to piracy. If for example you cant get hebrew subs for the latest leaked american film, you wont download it, because you wont understand it.
It is the act of desperate men, the signs of control starting to be lost, and in the famous words “The more you tigten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers” (damn I have just created a partial subtitle oops), The authorities need to embrace the internet and then they would find new sources of income.
I am starting to see why they are losing so much money to piracy and I think their figures for loses are correct. They have included the millions they are using for stupid action and bribes to fight the so called problem. WAY TO GO!!!!
Live lean and adapt, is the only way to survive.
If the movie industry wasn’t so focused on headbutting technology at every turn they would get rid of the need for sites like these to begin with by offering a product that these people in particular would actually be interested in buying.
Think about it… why buy a DVD at your local store if it’s not in a language that you understand and there are no subtitles for your language provided with the DVD. This situation would certainly force me to *illegal* means of obtaining a product that doesn’t exist…
I’d be very cautious with how the MPAA proceeds with this.
The corporations “own” the patterns of the english language contained in the packages of a movie script. They don’t own the patterns of other languages.
If the defendants lawyers uses this analogy, the MPAA will lose *BIG* time.
In addition, if someone actually wants to challenge the MPAA, they can prove that NO ONE owns the english language and NO ONE owns patterns of words in ANY language. I’m surprised that such laws even exist as it sets a horrible implication that corporations OWN a pattern of words in a language that people use every single day. This makes anyone prone to copyright violation.
It makes no sense, and any judge that has not been wined, dined, bribed and bought by the MPAA will realize this.
Taking down torrent sites, I can understand. Subtitle sites however, is going too far. It’s as if they DON’T want people to watch their films. It isn’t as if they are ripping the official subs and uploading them, they are translating them themselves. I’m really not seeing he problem here.
The industry is getting incredibly desperate now. The sooner it dies, the better.
Uhm, How is subtitling an issue? Either you payed for a legal copy of the movie or you acquired it illegally.
@40, If it was your money, im pretty sure, you’d be headbutting, not standing around and casually ignoring it..
@reasoned mind
I find it very cynical that you would compare copyright infringement to breaking into cars for loot. You make some valid points but many if not most of your ideas aren’t even somewhat reasonable.
Stupid zionist jews..
In the future the internet will become something of a police state, that’s obvious..but it’s THE FUTURE. Right now,it’s free game and we are enjoying ourselves.”Oh but think of the children!”..sorry you are all doomed but i’m not^^
I kind fail to grasp to why subbing is illegal.
I honestly wonder how it all gonna end… tough like with VHR and other easy to copy technologies before it is probably not for a businesses but for a consumers to decide. IF so then how long all that drama will continue?
Another interesting thought that visits me with all that drama is tough “What if it was possible to filter out copyrighted stuff.” Imagine world where stuff that is not copyrighted and stuff that is copyrighted exists and one that is protected is not copied in any way. No fan remixes, no funsubbing, no sharing for copyrighted stuff and complete freedom for other stuff :) Such picture makes me wonder(for me it is clear tough) what people will choose…
First the French, then the Brazilians and now the Israelis? BTW, the translations aren’t copyrighted; they’re made from scratch by the user so think again, ALIS!
@46, subs are copyrighted if ripped from the DVD or TV-extracted by closed captions. Not when translated since the text is written by the user from scratch.
The fact remains that without fansubs, some things wouldn’t be as popular as they are today.
Well known example: Anime
Going against people who make subtitles? wtf? Is the music industry TOTALLY retarded? Time to make a Pirate Party in Israel!!!
“Massive police patrol became the norm until it was widely curtailed”
Sites that offer access to content are springing up like mushrooms. Even if they were to succeed in closing down one every day, and prevent any new ones from appearing online it would take years to remove them all.
This is the internet with hundreds of millions of computers to “patrol”.
Good luck with that.
I’m not saying that copying is moral or immoral I’m just saying that trying to stop it is a losing proposition.
They have already lost control of the content. Given the scale of the situation and the ever leap frogging nature of technology, do you think it is even sane to try and get it back?
Why not become part of the digital age like Virgin Media has by announcing an unlimited download service for a monthly fee. Instead of suing, prosecuting and fining, create an alternative.
The most valuable thing a business can acquire is the customer’s attention and loyalty. Give people a reason to maintain that attention and loyalty and you have a golden goose (unlimited income).
I’m in agreement with Talorthain, Live lean and adapt, is the only way to survive.
This is clearly a case when Force will not endure. Power is the way to prosper and Power can be developed by creating a portal to digital content that attracts the attention of all who are seeking it. Lesser sites will then fade into the background.
If Sony, Universal, et al would have created a digital store that offered tiered levels of digital products and services that blew away the Pirate Bay, they could be bigger than iTunes is today, THE place to go on the internet for digital entertainment.
Apparently they would rather chase people than capture the attention and $$ of the tens of millions of customers looking for digital content in the largest variety of format, quality and accessibility.
If they were to combine the downloads of iTunes, the hard copy availability of Amazon, the information from tv.com and imdb.com as well as live music streaming and social networking, they could develop one of the largest entertainment communities on the internet which would surely be quite profitable.
It will not stop piracy or ‘unauthorized’ filesharing, but it could certainly marginalize it such that it would be insignificant in the big picture.
Israeli goverment always sucked Donkey Balls in everything, in fight, they killed a lots of inoccents, and their law is all controlled by others. all their government are just motherF***er puppets. what is the big deal in typing a subtitles by their own hands in completely different lanuage which make alot of changes in dialogs and grammer. the only thing that comes in mind is that they totaly suck! and they don’t like us not doing it.
Sunny @
http://www.torrentkit.com
To pro MPAA/Smart one on post 33:
Hey smart one, publisher don’t create anything they just publish stuffs that they think it can make money for themselves, they’re milking the creators and they’re the true pirates. They take the biggest cut on everything. Now they’re protecting the popular media because people are sharing them and claim they’ve lost billions due to pirates. Oh right, they’re already in the billions and they should have billions more “for themselves”.
Not keep forward = fail
Try to milk money from every possible way = fail
Support their action = fail
People enjoy what the creators have created. I am sure there isn’t anything the publisher did that would get enjoyed here.
Their thinking is severely flawed.
Let’s say the MPAA released a movie and any only made subtitles for “abc” language.
Now, someone else makes subtitles for the movie in “xyz” language and releases them for free.
This allows a huge group of people to enjoy of the movie. Free subtitles are causing their profits to rise.
I prefer fansubs over “official” translations and hate it that this is true, but the companies do have legal standing.
Officially, they’re not filing suit based on the translation – they’re filing suit for distributing an unauthorized copy of the show.
Realistically, we know they’re really filing suit for the translation, because the people who see the better-translated fansubs won’t be interested in the crappily-translated DVDs. But they don’t have to file suit based on their real reason, and the copy of the show gives them an excuse.
If fansubbers could find a way to do what the MST3K guys did after the show ended, and start providing subs without the copy of the show, the companies wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. But unfortunately, that’s not realistic right now. And besides, they’d just go after the raw providers instead.
MM99M The fact remains that without fansubs, some things wouldn’t be as popular as they are today.
Well known example: Anime
Bingo. You win one internet. (^_^)
But unfortunately, there’s no law against making money off someone else’s work. Instead, we have copyright law!
It outlaws doing the work that created the market the MPAA now wants to take over, or making money off your own work by distributing your album via torrent instead of letting the RIAA make all the money from it.
They should look at this the same way the anime creators look at it. Fansubbing clearly brings in a new audience and always has. If it wasn’t for fan subs then I wouldn’t watch half of the anime I do and I wouldn’t then tell my friends about it. Free fan subs is 100% the best way to have your work shown worldwide at no cost to you.
@21 and the bitches who complain about America STFU. Its not the american people but a very few select groups. I am not an American but it pisses me off to see people use America as a scape goat. Israeli group caused this so now I hate Isrealis koreans are suing people for downlaoding porn so i should hate korea. That way of thinking is lame. Most americans download shit so don’t blame them.
Wow, subtitles? Can they not find some less stupid thing to sue for, they aren’t really helping their image as greedy pigs. Whatever, their days are numbered.
Subtitles help fund terrorism and drug lords.
And that is what you get for supporting copyrights LoL
A monopoly is a monopoly and have very serious consequences and one off the least ones is profiteering.
Subtitles are a product apart from the video and should not be viewed as part of anything. Granted subtitles are a parasitic product but so are mirrors for cars, wheels and a lot of other things.
Strong Copyright hurts competition and the market. It is not up to the artist or anybody to tell the people what they should like or not, what they should do with what they pay for it.
Copyright = monopoly
@61 copyright is not and never has been a monopoly. A copyright was originally thought of to protect people against making something and then have someone steal their idea and coin it as their own, like a patent. Copyrights are a good idea they always have been, but these days its just a front for getting as much money as people can for failed ideas. This is proven time after time with music and movie industries, if an album or movie doesn’t make any money or doesn’t come close to what they were expecting then they can use copyright infringment as a cop out.
i do think its only reasonable to kill all the lawyers and company’s that dedicate them self’s to going against the flow of society by attacking the sharing of information. If the hole world EMBRACED the hole idea of sharing, people might just get a little less ignorant and more productive. we might actually evolve. instead of spending millions in fruitless efforts going against sharing why not use them to educate or feed the poor people of the world! It will eventually be to much to handle and they will eventually just have to give up! They might as well do it sooner than later and go out while they are still ahead and use the money they using to try and destroy it to embrace it and be able to make cheaper publicity and distribution. If they arrange with major trackers to put a donation or buy original link next to the download it would surely get about the same ammount of money considering what they would save in everything else.
If this was done in the US, fair use would prob work… But anywhere else, oy… Some countries, including the US have some of the strangest and just plain BS laws… Seriously, isn’t providing these subs, helping the culture of the world spread out further? Next they will go after anime subbers… *shudders* Never see a freaking thing from Japan again…
@63 Actually if this was in the US, the MPAA would hand some cash under the table. Not to mention the extreme fines these individuals would receive.
The law works this way.
Business MAFIAA > The average citizen
The MAFIAA tends to corrupt the US courts and thieve their artists
So what’s next, anything discussion about the media is banned unless it’s approved?
Time to cut off that goddam country’s funding.
Reasoned Mind your paymasters clearly don’t understand the simple concept of evolve or die! and you can kiss my arse with your carp arguments, numpty.
“In addition to copyright claims over subtitles, ALIS lawyer Eran Presenti says that there are further infringements on Qsubs such as movie and TV artwork along with various screenshots.”
This is considered fair use. Any judge would rule that using the a screenshot or artwork from a movie is fair use. Are they going to sue online retailers as well?
“While the legal ramifications are digested by the Qsubs team, its subtitling activities have been suspended.
According to intellectual property lawyer Ran Camille, movie and TV show scripts are considered “dramatic creations” and therefore subject to copyright law.”
This is a text translation in another language and should not be protected. This is the equivalent of emailing someone what you read in a foreign newspaper. That person should not be subject to persecution.
No need for an expensive lawyer if you have some knowledge of the judicial system. Study up and represent yourselves.
^
Maybe someone can translate that for me.
If subtitles to a movie were a major departure from the tone and artistry of the script, then I could see an artist claiming misrepresentation. But if the subtitles are an honest effort to convey the artistic work, then the creators should have no complaint. For artists who want to control their work, there is only one thing to do, never release it to an audience. Once you show it to someone else, they have to re-interpret it in light of their own experience. That is how communication works. It is impossible for an artist to control anything once their ideas are translated into someone else’s mind. If the artist/copyright owner cannot handle the fact that the audience will alter the work the minute they experience it, they should not release it. Reinterpretation of someone else’s work has always been the case throughout human history, the difference now is the ease by which an individual can distribute their appreciation, re-interpretations and commentary on the artists work. Thank God for the internet. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press and thankfully, the price for presses has dropped to nothing, so everyone can have one! Really, if you have any respect at all for people, you can’t fart in a crowded room and expect everyone to not talk about it with their neighbours.
In reply to Benny, the whole world does embrace sharing. Everyone shares. The interests who don’t embrace sharing are corporations who view this as a threat to profit. Although the VP of finance may like sharing her MP3s with her husband, the corporate rules and goals dictate that she pay the lawyers to sue the fans to preserve the corporation’s business model. If she rebels, she will lose her job. The only thing that gets a corporation to change it’s behaviour is profit. Corporations are artificial, abstract legal constructs with legal rights like individual people but capable of acting completely in human.
so next step they are going to sue
cd covers sites like
http://www.cdcovers.cc
for piracy
Well, just a couple of words of reason here:
1.Not all of U.S. based TV series ever arrive to Israel, and well, sometimes when they do arrive to cable or satellite they are either limited to one company and not to others, seasons are being showed without any reason, sometimes a couple of years later and well, sometimes they just go down to never appear again after a season or two – leaving the fans puzzled and frustrated, channnels appear just to be disappear a year later (just as happened with AXN, which was showing for 5 years, gathered a HUGE fan base just to be shut down because the cable company didn’t renew the contract.
2.Some of the fan translations are ages better than the official ones, since the subber is familliar with the series, knows all th kinks and is an avid fan (see cases such as LOST or House – in House’s case the subber is consulting med students for his translations).
3.No one from the subbers I (I’m not a subber myself) know does it for money, they lose precious sleep hours and miss entire work days just for the passion of it.
So, a little bit of appreciation for these hardworking folks is in order.
“And anyone who thinks “world revolution” because they can steal a copy of a record album at the moment isn’t thinking very deeply about the “Digital Future.””
Steal a copy of a record album is bad. Copy a copy, however, isn’t.
Just a few facts to enlighten those who obviously don’t know the whole picture:
1. There are no DVD:s legally sold in Israel which don’t already have Hebrew subtitles.
2. You can’t make any subtitle files run on top of a DVD being played, neither in a DVD player or when played in a PC.
3. Consequently, these “home-made” subtitles are intended to be used only together with films that are illegally downloaded or illegally sold.
4. So, in what way would the creators/owners benefit from these home-made subtitles, as nobody would go out and buy a legal copy of the film and then use these subtitles to better understand it?
5. If copyright didn’t exist, nobody would spend money and time on producing films, at least not the kind of films that these subtitles are made for. Because the film would instantly be copied and sold by others, which would mean that the creators wouldn’t get the money back that they spent on making the film. Also, with no copyright there would be no popular books or music produced, for the same reason. And no professional actors, authors, directors, musicians or other artists would be able to live on their work, as it would constantly be stolen by others.
Some people seem to argue that the copyright owners have themselves to blame if someone is able to steal their film, book or music. That’s like saying that you have only yourself to blame if someone has been able to steal your PC or your car. “If I’m able to steal it, I’m entitled to it.”
Please accept that if you want to watch or listen to something that someone else has spent money and time on creating and is offering to you for a price, you either pay that price or accept that you can’t afford it.
re: Tel Aviv Subtitler
1. Are there these subtitles perfect? Are there DVDs which are not sold in Israel which do not have Hebrew subtitles?
2. Why is this? Is the DVDCSS standard a locked down, proprietary mess? This sounds like the system is not very well designed!
3. Refer to points #1 and #2.
4. Refer to the anime example. Increased demand for products which are unavailable.
5. This “point” is utter nonsense. You provide no support whatsoever for your ridiculous statements. It is quite possible that the blockbuster film industry will grow leaner due to the advent of widespread digital networking; whether this phenomenon will be harmful overall is an extremely complicated subject.
Whether the combined societal output of books and music will be reduced is an open question, and I would take the opposite perspective. A free and open internet benefits authors and singers through a variety of ways, and I believe these outpace the damage it causes through online piracy. Obviously, the benefits of this open internet to the wider community are even stronger, meaning that it will not go away no matter what you think of it. Please learn to deal.
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group (The Walt Disney Company)
Columbia Pictures (Sony Corporation)
Paramount Pictures (Viacom)
20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
Universal Studios (NBC Universal)
Warner Bros. (Time Warner)
I boycott all of you.If I really need to buy another movie or TV show it will be from the used bin.
FUCK OFFF HOLLYWOOD, THR MPAA, And The RIAA TOO !!!
The world has gone CRAZY
So, I can’t rip mah DVDs and download subtitles for my language to understand my fucking movie?
Well… I can always stop buying.
comming from someone who is hearing impaired i dont see why they are going after subtitle translators, i for one am greatful for them, otherwise i wouldnt know what people are saying on the TV shows,
i do have a throry mabe is becasue they think they are putting the pros out of buisness ,, but the pros need to do a better job at them anyways i cant count the number of times i have caught the pros make a mistake in the spelling or something
soemthihng tells me they are gonna more and more after subtitle sites and probally say someting stupid like
“they are helping infringe copyright by offering such and such text to copyrighted mmovies”
sorry for spelling and stuff but being hearing imparied something i tend to not get the words correct
Oh boo hoo Reasoned.. you really pulled that argument way deep out of your ass..
People adapt when they feel the need, in this case honest fans want to enjoy what the ‘artist’ cant be bothered to do..
If anything, the artists should be defending them outright, your argument is 100% nonsense.
By your reasoning, we would still be in the stone age since the only way we got this far is people building off of others creation..
Dude seriously give it up, we have destroyed 100% of every weak pathetic argument you have ever made on here.
Oh and I love how absent you are when the industry gets its little secrets uncovered and we are all justified ten times over.
the comments are out of control
eZee.se saying “hamas”!
MAFIAA shills taking over dudes
most of us regulars are ignoring the comments because it is all too easy for anti-p2p to crap here
freak keep up the good work, but the comments are dunk
ontopic: deaf people need subs. MAFIAA are attacking disabled people. MAFIAA truly are scum
ontopic: foreigners need subs. MAFIAA are attacking non-English speaking people. MAFIAA truly are racist.
@Reasoned Mind
Hey idiot! Who is the artist here? Maybe MPAA, RIAA, IFPI and so on? And where are those artists you’re talking about? I haven’t seen single artist to complain about non-commercial home-translated subtitles! In fact you’re the first moron I see to preach rubbish against non-commercial home-translated subtitles, except the MORONS clique of course.
How sad. And they wonder why they have so many enemies; the MPAA that is. They want all the marbles and could care less about the fans.
This is bullshit! Us deaf people rely on these subtitles for our entertainment needs to understand movies and tv shows. This is a serious case of discrimination!
To number 88: Tell that to the judge :)
i already stop watching movies with subtitles but qsubs are gr8
Maybe if the fucking people who made the movies would provide translations for them in a timely fashion other wouldn’t have to do THEIR jobs for them >:(
6 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.