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Netflix Caught Using “Pirated” Subtitles in Finland

This week Netflix launched its popular on demand video streaming service in Finland, but not without controversy. To cater to the local audience, on some of its programming the company displayed “unauthorized” fansubs. Unlike regular subtitles, fansubs are created without permission from content owners and often used alongside pirated content. Netflix apologized for the use of the unauthorized subtitles and has promised to take them offline.

The fansub community “DivX Finland” has been translating subtitles for foreign TV-shows and movies since 2003.

Their fansubs have been downloaded 26 million times over the years and are generally used with pirated TV-shows and movies. However, during the past few days the hobbyist group got the ultimate recognition from an unlikely corner.

This week Netflix debuted its movie streaming service in Finland, but not without making a rather embarrassing ‘mistake’.

Instead of displaying official Finnish subtitles, Netflix was caught using DivX Finland’s fansubs on the Canadian-American science fiction series Andromeda. It’s possible that Netflix made this same ‘error’ for other TV-shows and movies as well.

DivX Finland was quickly alerted to this atypical usage of their work and the group jokingly noted on Twitter that Netflix never asked for permission to use the subtitles.

“It’s nice to see that the texts are used, but they did not ask permission,” they wrote, adding a link a clip from the Netflix video where DivX Finland’s credits are clearly visible.


Netflix Finland uses Fansubs

Responding to the mishap, Netflix apologized for the use of the unauthorized subtitles and assured the Finnish newspaper HS that they will be taken offline. Netflix did not explain how they ended up there to begin with.

DivX Finland member Jarmo Hakala tried to reach Netflix to discuss the use of “their” subtitles, but he has yet to receive a response from the company.

This is not the first time that fansubs have been controversially used in official programming. Last year footage from the dubbing room of the American anime distributor Funimation revealed how the company was also using ‘pirated’ subtitles.

Apparently some elements from this “pirate” subculture can also be of use to copyright holders, when it suits them.

Update: In a comment on the issue Netflix told TorrentFreak the following:

“We buy movies and TV shows from many different distributors. Generally they provide the subtitles. We’re investigating how these subtitles were added to Andromeda.”

“We have removed the series from Netflix pending the investigation. We are a legitimate service and pay a lot of money for the TV programs and movies on Netflix, including subtitles.”

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  • Michael Greenberg

    Everyone benefits with piracy!

    • yello

      dear mpaa, i apologize for my usage of pirated material.
      now it would be hypocritical to ever chase me again, cause you aint going to shutdown netflix finland… are you?

    • http://twitter.com/DavidNine2 DavidNine

      Randall responded I am impressed that a single mom can make $8585 in four weeks on the network. did you look this(Click on menu Home)

    • http://twitter.com/DavidNine2 DavidNine

      …..goo.gl/Qvb1w

    • Mastermikeywwt

      Personally I just find it funny that Netflix didn’t notice a difference between the pirated content they were supplied and the real thing. It seems likely the TV series was pirated content as well. Would explain why they took it offline completely. But this just goes to show that pirated content is not low quality like media companies try to lead us to believe.

  • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

    pff, I personally see no problem if they’re using fansubs. Really, what’s wrong with it

    • Guest

      As long as they credit the fansubbers, I don’t see a problem with it either.

      Official, “professionally” done subs are usually seriously inferior to fansubs, anyway.

      • http://www.frontier-space.com/ Lethn

        I can attest to this having bought Lucky Star on DVD, I thought I may as well support these people but the subs were just daft and of course for me most english dubs either make my ears bleed or want me to smack my head repeatedly against the nearest blunt object so my brain cells don’t get tortured by it.

        Particularly when it comes to anime, I can totally understand why people pirate because the products you get when purchasing legitimately are completely inferior.

        • Copyrght Info AntiPircy Centr

          Quote “Apparently some elements from this “pirate” subculture can also be of use to copyright holders, when it suits them.”

          It was a wholly intentional and deliberate use of unauthorized subtitles and Netflix wrongly assumed it could get away with it. Bullshit could they, the fucking assholes.

          Just because Netflix is a bona fide company, it doesn’t absolve Netflix to abide by basic copyright laws as and when Netflix so desires, even if it was only just some fansubs.

          As a result of Netflix’s flagrant actions, they must face the full force of Finnish Law, and serious punitive actions must be brought against them.

          Netflix must be tried in a court of law, and made to pay financially to DivX Finland for unauthorized use.

          These corporates think they can do whatever they fucking like, and that they are immune to prosecution for abuse of copyright or any other law for that matter. Go fuck yourselves you bastards. Netflix needs to have a copyright 101 lesson drilled hard up their arse till they understand the fundamentals, in particular Lex Karpela, the 2005 amendment to the Finnish Copyright Act and Criminal Code.

          There needs to be a level playing field concerning the violation of copyright and the subsequent punishment, and more often than not, corporates get away with it time and time again. Netflix should be made an example of so other corporates will think twice about having scant regard for intellectual property rights of others.

          Screw ‘em, the mother fucking bastards.

          —————————————————————-
          The Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC), Helsinki, Finland

          http://www.anonym.to/?http://antipiracy.fi/inenglish/

        • Melanie

          And they let everyone know about it intentionally too…so screw your fag.

        • OneRuleForOne

          Full force of the law. Something like $100,000 per word, after all the work is copyrighted to DivX Finland.

      • TReN

        Yes, those official or so-called professional translations are inferior subs.

        But nowadays, there are some people, fansubs and groups translating a little bit like those companies. Liberal translations with misleading interpretations by the translator are a disaster, those ones translating in a more accurate way and using more (if not all) of the words said in the real dialogue are better. I remember some sub used in Macross Plus, most of the subs were self-interpreted and the names were completely misspelled.

        About this news: It’s supposed everybody must pay to access Netflix, in the meantime, they used videos that you can watch and download for free. That’s ironic. Now I can confirm why I don’t pay for services like that.

      • ItsNotFunny

        LMAO. Something like

        “Subtitles created by B1gH4iryC0cksuck3r”

    • Qjo

      I don’t see why it should be an issue either. After all, even if the fansubs were incorrectly translated, IT’S ANDROMEDA FOR GOD’S SAKE! How much worse could it possibly get?

      • ScrewEwe2

        I don’t see why it should be an issue with me ignoring copyright laws and making copies of DVD’s from Netflix, if Netflix is ignoring copyright laws too, hypothetically of course. Yeah, that’s the ticket, hypothetically.

        • http://www.facebook.com/bjerklund Steinar Tveit Bjerklund

          An eye for an eye, what a brilliant solution. “If my neighboer speeds, Ill speed too”.

        • Melanie

          Speeding can be dangerous, and tragic, especially in Europe where logic is a lot like what you’ve demonstrated with your analogy. Subtitle creation is usually not dangerous….though sometimes “tragic” in its execution.

          Meaning, there’s a big difference in your psuedo-application of what you seem to construe as “an eye for an eye” mentality. If you want to create analogues, try comparing apples to apples, if your twit brain can manage it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/bovski Dmitri Bovski

      They haven’t paid royalties to the creator of the subs.

      • YouDumbBastard

        people who create fan subs don’t do it for the money dumb fuck.

        • YouDumbBastard

          I meant fansubs

        • Guest321

          They are still making money off the subtitles which available for free. So atleast credit to the fansubber is due.

        • Joe

          They also don’t do it so that someone else can profit from them ;)

        • http://twitter.com/Alanman6 Alan man

          @Guest321 Uh, they do sorta credit the subtitle-rs, in a pretty big ass way. Look at the screenshot.

        • Water Angel

          if you read the credits of fansub videos they mostly say this “if you payed for this you have been scammed” so the problem is that the company is scamming people. that is all… the money from watching the video should go to the people who made the videos not NETFLIX. thats whats wrong here. and thats what i belive should be complained about.

      • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

        You clearly misunderstand who fansubbers are

      • bmnnoboz

        You are a pretty big dumbass. No lie.

    • Guest

      Fan subtitles websites are illegal in some countries. I remember some websites were shutdown or simply harrassed by copywrong extremists.

      • vhaero

        The sites aren’t illegal, it’s the subtitles the users upload that are. If you rip subs from a DVD those subtitles will belong to the subtitle company that made them, just like the video and audio belongs to the production company. Almost all subtitles you find on these sites are ripped from DVD’s, and all of those subtitles are copyright infringements.

        • Esn

          It doesn’t matter if the sites provide subs ripped from a DVD or not. If you create an entirely new translation, it is illegal. If you translate something that has never been translated before, it is illegal. If you create a translation that is much better than the “official” one, it is illegal.

          In essence, loving a movie enough that you want to spend your free time creating a great translation so that others can appreciate it is illegal.

          Promoting what you love is illegal.

        • vhaero

          (Can’t reply to Esn, so replying here)

          I have never heard of any law in any country that doesn’t allow one to create subtitles. What is illegal is spreading other people’s already copyrighted subtitles. Not allowing people to create personal subtitles sounds ridiculous and I highly doubt it’s true. Show me some credible source for that.

          The following is what you have written, and to me this just shows that you’re more of a conspiracy theorists, and it’s all bullshit:

          “If you create a translation that is much better than the “official” one, it is illegal.

          In essence, loving a movie enough that you want to spend your free time creating a great translation so that others can appreciate it is illegal.

          Promoting what you love is illegal.”

        • Esn

          @vhaero, there are plenty of credible sources. Read up about the legal status of translations sometime. Translators have very few rights. Or try Wikipedia’s “fansub” article, which states:

          “In countries subscribing to the Berne Convention, fansubbing is illegal as it constitutes copyright infringement.”

          It’s legal as long as you don’t share your translation with anyone who doesn’t live in your own house. Otherwise, it is illegal in THE WHOLE WORLD except for a few countries like Iran and Burma.

          If you’re in Poland, you might be jailed for two years:
          http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/05/17/police-raid-polish-subtitle-site/

          If you’re in Norway, you might be fined $2500 per infraction:
          http://torrentfreak.com/student-fined-for-running-movie-tv-show-subtitle-download-site-120608/

          If you’re in the US you might actually be shot and killed by police (Google “FanSUB staff member from DB (DatteBayo) killed In police arrest”).

          Obviously that last one is an exception. But still. My first post was true, and you’re misinformed. I subtitle movies myself, and this is the reason why I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that my real name never becomes known. It’s very much like publishing samizdat in the Soviet Union (which I left when it collapsed).

        • vhaero

          (Can’t reply to Esn, so replying here)

          You are mixing some facts.

          That case in Norway is not about personally translated subtitles. It isn’t even mentioned in the article. I know that site, it had mostly subtitles ripped from DVD’s.

          The Polish article is different. However, the case doesn’t just say he translated a subtitle, it only says that it “including translated movie dialogue”. Neither is it a settled case, and two years is the maximum for the paragraph, which obviously isn’t designed specifically for subtitles, but copyright infringement or similar.

          Anyway, it seems you are right about it being illegal in some countries to translate subtitles (that are copyrighted or based on a copyrighted audio track). It seems like the same laws for translating e.g. books applies for translating/creating subtitles, which to some extent is logical, and it’s obviously not legal to translate a book and distribute it.

        • BuddhaFacePalmed

          @esn & vhaero

          Stop. Think about how utterly ridiculous that statement is;
          “In countries subscribing to the Berne Convention, fansubbing is illegal as it constitutes copyright infringement.” It’s subtitles… No one’s claiming credit that the entire movie dialogue is theirs….

          How is this even….

        • Lawnstone

          @Esn

          So I googled it. That last one certainly is an exception… because it didn’t actually happen.

        • Guest

          You are wrong. Most of subtitles are created by fans, then after DVD or BluRay comes out the “official” subs are uploaded.

    • thedude321

      What are they going to do next? Ban translations?

    • Sup

      The “wrong” with it is that they (the fansubbers) are braking copyright laws.

    • Cock_block

      Because they charge you for it.. da hell with NetFlix!

    • Melanie

      They usually suck…that’s a problem.

    • Water Angel

      i think using fansubs is just fine, but since it is a “company” is think is a lack of respect and work ethics to use without at least asking the fansub team, i mean is THEYR work, even if it isn’t entirely legal they worked a lot for it.

      plus fansubs are often a lot better then profecional work so the use of fansubs should be encouraged and not treated like this. it gives a lot of people the oportunity to see what they couldn’t otherwise!

      because companies don’t sub what they don’t think won’t be beneficial even if theres people who want to see.

  • Anonymous

    would have been better to own up and come to an agreement so the subs could keep being used. bet they are more accurate than the ‘official’ ones. this is another case of the customer being the loser because the relevant industries dont want to cater for the obvious need

    • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

      Excellent point in which I STRONGLY suspect your quite right.

      This whole shitstorm of CopyWrong so-called rights, patents and the overall general restriction of knowledge, education and freedom to share said culture is becoming a VERY serious and legitimate problem in 21st Century life and society at large.

      We need thes awful laws updated or abolished and to allow people Worldwide to share our knowledge and culture as we see fit.

      • Guest
        • Anon

          Yes, Rob will puke on and on about the sad state of those who volunteered of their own free will to work the UK Olympics, while he uses technology to make unlawful copies of an artists work for himself using tech to FORCE the artist to become an unwilling volunteer. What a two-talking sad sack.

          On that website, they questioned his hypocritical sanity.
          They finally caught up to us here.

        • Fredrika

          > “..to FORCE the artist to become an unwilling volunteer.”

          You seem confused, nobody is forcing the artist to anything? First, all artists are volunteers, as all entrepreneurs are. They choose themselves of their own free will if they wish to perform the work when they create, and then they again of their own free will chooses of they wish to publish the work, so that society can do with it as they wish(as whether they wish to privilege the author with a limited legislative monopoly or not).

          Everything the artists did they did without force, they volunteered themselves.

          Now the force comes in to work, when the copyright monopoly forces people to refrain from acting according to the free market rules and the natural state of things, using their own property in a manner that creates an infinite value to them and society, when it forces them to give up their human rights protected freedom to seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers.

          Standing up against this, according to all rules for how legitimate legislation should be drafted, clearly unjust force that has been forced upon them, that force is definitely not a force that is directed at the artist, it is a counter force that is directed at a previous unjust force, and the actions that people perform when they do this does in no way touch the artists or forces them to anything. They are not involved in the process at all. Their involvement is long over.

          But for someone who advocates against the free market, who advocates violation of human rights, who advocates illegitimate legislation such as the one’s used in dictatorships, and who advocates some bizarre mix of communism and a planned economy, to protect the profit of some weak failed fascist entrepreneurs that can’t handle themselves on the free market, i guess accepting logic and staying in reality while trying to come up with arguments isn’t that important. Maybe in another reality or dream world force means something completely different or opposite, but in this reality is has a very clear definition, and it does not match your use of the word.

          Care or dare to try again?

          Judging from your behaviour over the last 12 months, that’s a no(not a bingo). Nothing new then.

        • Guest

          7th_Guest, thanks for the reply.

          There is a glaring contradiction between advocating the right of indiviuals to be paid for their work whilst simultaneously asserting a perceived right (or aspiration) to be able to avail of works created without paying for doing so. If you, like Robin, cannot see that then I’m afraid there is little I can do to make it any clearer for you.

          Irrespective of what you claim pirates do for the greater good (whether not for commercial gain, not for profit etc) or what their motivation for doing so is the fact is that in many cases rights are being infringed in order for them to do whatever “good” you, and they, feel they are doing.

          Yes, of course you, Robin and others have the absolute right to campaign for changes to the law & legislation should you wish to do so, that is beyond question.

          However, irrespective of what you think Robin means when he types or what you choose to interpret the UNUDHR to mean or represent the the fact remains that it is particularly foolish to profess one thing publically on one forum whilst espousing and advocating the polar opposite on another.

          ! appreciate mature and reasoned debate, but let’s not get carried away with what some people think ought to be the conventional norm and what the current reality is.

          As for the “smug condescension” I only give as good as I get, thanks.

        • Guest

          Sorry, 7th_Guest I meant to point out that it’s important not to confuse “Human rights” with “Employment rights”. They are two distinctly different things. Robin was, of course, referring to the former.

      • Guest

        Holy shit, Rob. You scare the MAFIAA so much they’re personally sending trolls after you. I’m jealous. =D

        @Guest
        Are you illiterate? Because I went to your link. I read the comment. And it has nothing to do with anything Rob just said.

        @Anon
        Hahahahaha, oh god your logic. Sharing an unlawful copy of an artist’s work doesn’t magically turn the artist into a volunteer. They’re still getting fucking paid. In fact, they’re being paid the most by us pirates, because we’re the best customers. Don’t believe it? Then I’ve got about a dozen studies to show you. One of them is still on Torrentfreak’s front page.

        • Guest

          Had you read all of Robs rantings on that thread you would see that he strongly defends the right of people to be paid for their work – he even quotes and links to Article 23(3) of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

          “(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.”

          This directly contradicts everything he posts on TF about the right to copy materials for free.

        • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

          “Holy shit, Rob. You scare the MAFIAA so much they’re personally sending trolls after you. I’m jealous. =D”

          lol, as it should be my friend. In fact, I’d have it no other way. It makes me feel ‘loved’ teehee.

          As for the comment below from the other “Guest” (who’s clearly not one of my friends, but a mere lover of my posts) in which he quotes Art.23(3) of the UNUDHR, he clearly has no idea how to interpret, let alone apply sensibly, any item of law whatsoever.

          He seems to attempt to accuse me of have double-standards when none exist whatsoever. But that what happens when we deal with narrow-minded, ill-educated trolls who have no real interest in law, justice, jurisprudence or even fairness.

          And if he thinks I’m going to take my valuable time to try and explain the inexplicable to him (as he’s clearly too thick to understand), then he’s got another think coming.

          So as usual the bottom line is, “fuck off troll” and go get yourself educated before you criticise anyone with a modicum of sense.

        • Guest

          Hey Rob, You’ve plenty of spare time on your hands since you don’t work.

          Where is the commonality between you claiming to want the right not to have to pay for things and the right of people to be paid for their work?

          Explain to me and the world how those two positions are not contradictory.

          Let’s keep it mature and reasoned and leave the fairytale “troll” name calling at the door.

          Go ahead, educate me.

        • Guest

          @retarded Guest

          I read the whole thread. Rob’s problem is with the Tories encouraging the unemployed to do unpaid volunteer work instead of fixing the unemployment crisis and giving them jobs.

          Which has nothing to do with filesharing and does not contradict his anti-copyright position(since piracy doesn’t prevent artists from being paid or employed).

          You sir, are fucking illiterate.

        • Guest

          You, Einstein, are the illiterate in the conversation.

          Irrespective of what you think his misplaced rant is about (by the way it’s not just “Torys” it’s a coalition Government) Rob quotes Article 23(3) of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states unequivovcally:

          “(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.”

          How does this square with his argument to the contrary that he and others are entitled to take for free (without ” favourable remuneration” going to the creators of the works he downloads) whatever he wants?

          Feel free to ask advice from an adult.

        • 7th_Guest

          @Guest above me: Quite a few things to set straight here. Let’s take it step by step…

          First off, regarding the factually flawed assumptions in your question,
          >[...]How does [UNUDHR's Article 23.3] square with his argument to the contrary that he and others are entitled to take for free (without “favourable remuneration” going to the creators of the works he downloads) whatever he wants?[...]

          Rob’s, and indeed the Pirate movement’s, actual position regarding the dissemination of intellectual works is that private citizens should be criminally and civilly exempt from any liability for the non-profit, non-commercial sharing of copyrighted works regardless of method as no ethical or socioeconomic, reputable research-based evidence exists to support the claim that society would benefit it they did. This falls quite far from the simplistic “we’re entitled to take for free whatever we want” derivation, then. If anything, creators and artists would struggle to find a better supporter or indeed direct revenue source than Pirates themselves, given today’s established global market practices that effectively amount to oligopolies.

          Secondly, in case it wasn’t obvious, that specific UNUDHR Article that talks about fair and dignified remuneration, even through possible social/state intervention, is targeted at unethical employer practices. The reason it’s there is to redress people being subjected to slave driving practices regarding their wages, severance compensation, work hours, leave and assorted social benefits, particularly in desperate job market situations. I fail to see how file sharers from across the world can be considered artists’ employers.
          The other part of the context you so glaringly seem to be missing (dodging?) is that file sharers seek to freely disseminate digitized versions of culturally relevant intellectual works across the world at zero cost with near zero effort and for incalculable social benefit. Determining all the ways that is different to daily manual labour in paid service to a registered, state taxed and regulated employer in terms of beneficiaries, nature and social impact is left as an exercise to any reasoned reader. Hopefully, that’s an easy task.

          Thirdly, Rob’s invocation of UNUDHR’s 23.3 does in no way run contrary to his above explained position regarding file sharing, as far as I can tell. It’s easy to see that the common theme in both cases (“pirates should not be legally pursued for non-profit sharing”, “employers should not be financially abused because of their position”) is the intention to safeguard the rights and dignity of the naturally disadvantaged individual against larger organizations that are liable to encroach upon them, be those copyright rightsholding or any other kind of persons, companies or corporations. How you regard those two beliefs to be at odds, I can’t understand.

          Lastly, this site and its comments section is populated by a multitude of people from across the world whose age, education, intelligence or other qualities you have no reliable way of gauging. This dismissive and judgemental posturing you’ve assumed isn’t going to help the discussion of these serious matters in any way. So… think you can tone done the smug condescension there, chief?

        • 7th_Guest

          Sorry, meant to type employees* in the penultimate paragraph there :/.

        • Guest

          7th_Guest, thanks for the reply.

          There is a glaring contradiction between advocating the right of indiviuals to be paid for their work whilst simultaneously asserting a perceived right (or aspiration) to be able to avail of works created without paying for doing so. If you, like Robin, cannot see that then I’m afraid there is little I can do to make it any clearer for you.

          Irrespective of what you claim pirates do for the greater good (whether not for commercial gain, not for profit etc) or what their motivation for doing so is the fact is that in many cases rights are being infringed in order for them to do whatever “good” you, and they, feel they are doing.

          Yes, of course you, Robin and others have the absolute right to campaign for changes to the law & legislation should you wish to do so, that is beyond question.

          However, irrespective of what you think Robin means when he types or what you choose to interpret the UNUDHR to mean or represent the the fact remains that it is particularly foolish to profess one thing publically on one forum whilst espousing and advocating the polar opposite on another.

          ! appreciate mature and reasoned debate, but let’s not get carried away with what some people think ought to be the conventional norm and what the current reality is.

          I should also point out that it’s important not to confuse “Human rights” with “Employment rights”. They are two distinctly different things. Robin was, of course, referring to the former.

          As for the “smug condescension” I only give as good as I get, thanks.

          *Apologies for the double posting.

      • Guest

        Fredrika, your comment “First, all artists are volunteers, as all entrepreneurs are. They choose themselves of their own free will if they wish to perform the work when they create, and then they again of their own free will chooses of they wish to publish the work, so that society can do with it as they wish(as whether they wish to privilege the author with a limited legislative monopoly or not)” is not true in every case.

        It may be how you would like things to be but it is unfortunatly not the case in all instances. Many, if not all, artistes who are contracted to managers / record labels and / or publishers are indeed forced to meet the terms of their contracts regarding recordings, releases and performances. In a huge number of cases these artistes / entrepreneurs have little to no say in the timings / usage of anything. Another important fact is that they will (ordinarily) have signed contracts voluntarily and with proper qualified legal advice. Anyone who feels they didn’t receive adequate legal advice or were unduly coerced can contest their contract – and some do.

        Uncontracted (as opposed to “out of contract”) artistes who wish to operate differently in respect of how they record, release and distribute their original works are, of course, entitled to do as they wish.

        • Fredrika

          > “..is not true in every case.

          > “It may be how you would like things to be but it is unfortunatly not the case in all instances. Many, if not all, artistes who are contracted to managers / record labels and / or publishers are indeed forced to meet the terms of their contracts regarding recordings, releases and performances. In a huge number of cases these artistes / entrepreneurs have little to no say in the timings / usage of anything.”

          If you wanna argue that employees that voluntarily have taken employment for an employer are slaves that are forced into things, that’s fine by me. But if so that is forced upon them by their employer, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the comment i responded to and the crap that pirates force artist to anything, which they clearly don’t. Nor has it anything to do with the text i wrote, because rather clearly the comment was not about employees, wouldn’t you agree?

          But thank you for bringing attention to what the recording industry are and how they can mistreat artists because of the copyright monopoly.

        • Guest

          We are not talking about a specific artist, are we?

          You are making sweeping generalizations. I’m not arguing anything and I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m merely correcting a fallacy in your position.

          I was making the point that up to the point that artists become legally obliged by way of a contract (management, publishing or recording) they are (broadly) free to do as they wish with their material.

          Once they are contractually obliged under the terms of a contract (management, publishing or recording) they can then be legally forced to comply with the terms of that contract. That is a fact.

        • Melanie

          Did it take a law degree to figure that out? I hope you didn’t pay too much for that information.

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Yeah but the problem is that the subbers don’t have permission to reproduce the script (even translating is reproduction).

    • Melanie

      I find fansubs to often be of unbelievably crappy quality…by some moron who thinks he knows two languages well enough to translate.

  • SS-Untersturmführer

    who the fawk pays for this garbage anyway

  • Shogunreaper

    Since when do you need permission to translate something into another language?

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Since copyrights. Even a translation of the work is considered reproduction.

    • Anonymous

      check with Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industries. they’ll be able to answer you. hope you have an answer ready for them in return, lol

      obviously the translation isn’t the problem, it’s yet again releasing something that is helpful to the customer that those industry morons want to prevent, especially when they cant be bothered to put out that something that the customer needs themselves. not that they are like that, are they? (sarc!)

  • Violated0

    To begin then subtitles have their original in the original script and studio production where from what I have seen fan based subtitles are not a complete recreation but a rip or even language conversion from something official. That of course makes questionable ownership claims.

    Second would be that NetFlix is of course a paid-for service and so they should not be using media without approval or payment. I can see how this happened though when if official subtitle supply says “we cannot supply” then the person involved in the job can seek other sources in the belief all Andromeda subtitles are owned by the official series production.

    Now the third aspect is more taxing when fan subtitles exist for convenience and there is not much hassle in anyone using them for any reason. Making money from it is a touch more questionable but we can assume that Netflix has indeed paid the production company for subtitles use even if there has not yet been official supply.

    So who really cares as long as good subtitles? This is little more than a got’cha.

    • Mikko Rauhala

      At least around here in Finland it’s pretty clear-cut (IANAL though) that the fansubbers violated the Andromeda copyrights by distributing their translations. However, they still do hold the copyright to their particular translation and the CC-NC license they chose doesn’t allow Netflix to legally use the stuff. Netflix probably doesn’t like to be legally shaky (bad PR for one, since part of their point is that they’re the Legal Option).

      The DIVX Finland community quite possibly might have given permission if negotiated with (and they did comment publicly that they’re not going to push the issue further), but as I commented elsewhere, even if they were willing to play ball, I don’t think it very likely that the people in charge of Andromeda want to bless the fansubbers’ unauthorized work.

      • Esn

        I don’t believe it is legally possible for them to release the subtitles under any sort of license. Legally, subtitles are considered a derivative work, so they are property of the original copyright holder no matter who the translator is. There is only one kind of derivative work which is permissible in the current legal system, and that is satire.

        You cannot translate a copyrighted work into another language.
        You cannot translate a copyrighted work into another medium.
        You cannot create a serious artistic commentary on a copyrighted work.
        You CAN create a SATIRIC artistic commentary on a copyrighted work.

        Our society will give you a pass at breaking the rules, but only if you’re funny.

        • Mikko Rauhala

          Maybe around there. Translators do get copyrights here, as I said. They aren’t allowed to publish without also the original copyright owners’ say-so, but that’s a different matter.

        • lattari

          @Mikko RauhaIa

          I find it very unlikely and implausible that somebody could have any legal claiming to an object that is unauthorised and an illegal copy in the first place. By that logic, people could make remixes on pretty much anything and than claim ownership.

          For example, if I were to re-translate a copyrighted book, would that be my legal property under Finnish law? I don’t think so.

        • Mikko Rauhala

          The copyright to the particular translation would be yours, as copyright is automatic from creation. Sure, in this case it’s not _independent_ creation, and as I already indicated, you’d get in trouble for spreading it if the original author decided to pursue it; they’d _also_ have rights to the translation. Do try to keep up, everything’s not an either-or proposition.

          Oh, in case that’d confuse you, when I say you’d both have rights, that doesn’t mean positive rights to do what one pleases with it, even in the case of the original author. The copyright law is all about the right to exclude use by others, and such is the case here as well. So you can both exclude each other from distributing the translation (legally, anyway).

  • Mikko Rauhala

    Getting an actual agreement to use the fansubs would be beneficial on the whole but I don’t think the media companies want to bless unauthorized subbing in any way, rather worsening their service (at least until they replace the subs).

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  • Blah, blah, and bla.

    In other news, The Pirate Bay is ranked 76th in the Alexa Top Global Sites while Netflix is chasing them far behind at around the 97th spot.

  • Yyzppaqe

    I’m not surpised one bit.

    It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last either.
    This practice has been going on for many years.
    The local studios take the subs I made for free and use them, over and over, and they sue if anyone copies their stuff… because they breach the retarded “copyright”.

    I’ve said this over a 1000 times already:

    It’s OK when they do it.

    • http://twitter.com/moronaffairs Moron Affairs

      Ah well. Subtitles are for idiots. If you don’t understand the language, don’t watch the movie. If you’re deaf, don’t watch movies.

      • Anonymous

        I highly recommend raping this persons hard drive repeatedly if anyone know what I am talking about.

      • Deaf Advocate.

        Ok most of the time when I read comments on here about subtitles I let go but this one from “Moron Affairs” makes himself look incredibly small and uneducated him/herself. Subtitles is proven to be very beneficial to education. Please don’t be like Mitt Romney for dissing 47% of the world’s population who are Deaf. First of all Deaf people use subtitles in order to understand content. What if movies removed audio and say if you can’t lipread then don’t watch the movies. Fair is Fair right? Don’t be a dick.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/ZE2QKDYSRBM3RRYZTCYSUZVPNU DumpFacebook

          Fuck off. Owebama is fucking out of here political troll.

          EDIT: Really? Are you so polarized by the non-performance by our POTUS (to me that should actually be POSTU (which is Piece of Shit to US) although perhaps I am dyslexic. Owebama has done very little right and most everything completely wrong but I digress. See you at the polls.

        • IceBeam

          Come on man, the guy you are replying to is either a troll or deeply retarded – no point in wasting your time replying to him.

      • Guest

        As your name states you sure are an moron

      • ScrewEwe2

        WHAT?, Speak Up Damnitt.

        Before Deaf Advocate. below jumps all over me for my post being in poor taste, I have partial heaing loss from too damn many years of loud heavy metal music. I’m addicted to metal, and it used to be good, when LOUD. It’s still good, LOUDER. That’s my story, and i’m stickin’ to it.

      • IceBeam

        Your time on the planet is up – please leave.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

    right, they’re threatening fines and penalties if all programming isn’t subbed, yet subs aren’t even available half the time, or get used as another chance to gouge a few million off….but god help you if you try to actually make programming available for deaf people. There is no right way with these pieces of shit.

    • lattari

      Sure there is; pay them multiple times for the same thing. That’s what they dig.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

    did you actually just call netflix a copyright holder? wtf torrentfreak, you know better than that shit.

  • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

    Personally, if I was Netflix, I wouldn’t remove the subtitles. I would say “Hey, these subtitles are done by the fan base for free and put out there for free. If you don’t like that they are out there, make your own ‘approved’ subtitles, until then we will use what we can get!”

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Then you’d go to jail for intentionally violating copyrights. Official subs are allowed through reproduction and distribution license.

      • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

        Yes, they are ‘allowed’ but the problem is that using ‘unofficial’ subs kinda makes them legitimate. The only thing you didn’t do 99.9% of the time was pay for them to be made, TROLL!

        • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

          You didn’t make a valid argument. You just told me how you think the system should be. The world isn’t logical, fair, or any of that. it is what it is.

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          No, the invalid argument is yours, krozareq. Somehow, you seem to deem a ‘paid’ sub to be ‘more valid’ than an unpaid fansub. Sorry, but that is not the case in the real world.

          Just because someone does something for free and it is connected to the ephemeral ‘piracy’ that seems to take in everything the content makers don’t like, doesn’t mean it automatically becomes illegitimate and not worthy of use by companies like Netflix.

  • Dude
  • Netgrazer

    Oh, you done fucked up now. Netflix better donate to the community or some shit like that.

  • Ophelia Millais

    Was it just the subtitles that were borrowed, or was the entire film a fansub?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=553388096 Vair Renato Carvalho

    I thought it was a Brazilian issue :) Now I see It’s worldwide. Follow @Netflix_BR

  • xincheng

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  • Boblenton3

    there isnt much differance between fansubs and the real thing so long as it follows the plot and is understandable. Their just getting too keen now

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Yeah I’m going to take that advise from someone who doesn’t even know that “their” is a possessive of the pronoun “they”.

  • Sattsamm

    lol, imagine that dude, too funny!

    Anon-UP.tk

  • Seltox

    In my experience, good fansubs always win out over official subs in terms of quality.

  • JordanKratz

    “We have removed the series from Netflix pending the investigation. We are a legitimate service and pay a lot of money for the TV programs and movies on Netflix, including subtitles.”

    If you really care about stopping MAFIAA you have to Boycott MAFIAA and sitting there with your Netflix,iTunes,Amz etc is not Boycotting.MAFIAA gets paid from these sites so a real Boycott equals NO MAFIAA AT ALL.

    DO IT !!!

  • natraj

    I get paid over $87 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I’ve been doing
    …. qy.fi/Dr

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      It’s obvious what you do… you spam comment boards. You’re also not making $87/hr because most of these spammers are from ultra poor countries like Bangladesh and often just make what they need to make… a few bucks a day.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/ZE2QKDYSRBM3RRYZTCYSUZVPNU DumpFacebook

    It doesn’t sound like they paid very much for *these* subtitles. Just sayin’.

  • xiatianns
  • bjorncanute

    There are several korean drama’s that are also using fansubs in netflix.

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  • bno112300

    the person in charge f sourcing the subs for netflix probably just thought it easier to get subs from the group rather than having to cantact the owners.

    though, the sub group should get hired to do it professionally, if they’re that good that nobody noticed until now

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      Agreed. Personally, I would think that the companies would LAUD unpaid fansubs because that is one job that they now don’t have to do! Nor pay someone to do!

      Saves them money and as long as the fansubs are quality ones, who cares.

    • IceBeam

      I doubt its someone who works AT netflix, its rather some contractor they hired who screwed. They have hired legitimate companies like http://www.broadcasttext.com/ to do texts as well (and I’m sure they have nothing to do with this) – but since Netflix has so much material which needs subtitles they may well have hired someone they shouldn’t have.

      • bno112300

        or just someone they should have hired and they just had a lazy worker finding the subs.

  • watfordjc

    Andromeda subtitles that aren’t pirated? Let me just play a random episode… “What Happens to a Rev Deferred?” (Region 2, Volume C4 Disc 1) has subtitles in “Open file…” only.

    Yeah, good luck on getting official Swedish subtitles, the DVD distributor couldn’t even get English subtitles. So much for Article 30 of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

    • IceBeam

      The US DVD version of Andromeda has closed captions – that is text,which is store in the image as data (ie not visible text) – but the CC method is a peculiar american way which isn’t really supported elsewhere. If you had ripped such a DVD there are someplayer which will show then (VLC I think) – and there are even programs which can rip the CC to something else.
      But given the prices of the DVD the company is clearly only interested in money and not caring about their fellow man (ie supply subs)

  • Who

    you can’t pirate subtitles. STUPID MPAA grow the the FUCK up.

    • IceBeam

      Actually you can – it is protected works as well as a book (several cases to support this) – most of the time they don’t care about that though.

  • foff

    This whole thing makes me madder then fuck. The industry can’t get it’s shit together and the wonder why we pirate. Thank-god for fan subs. Half of Japanese anime would not be available to me without fansubs. So fuck mafiaa and the industry as long as you can’t properly serve the public fuck all of your stupid copyright treaties will do whatever hell we have to to watch want we when we want.

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CH76QIKXYIFA2FZ2DXC6NUZ24A Andrei

    I for one never knew that there’s such a thing as “unauthorized subtitles” and that use of other subtitles can be illegal.
    Personally I definitely prefer “open” subtitles even for movies that I buy mostly because they tend to be less retarded that “official” subs. In the countries I lived in (mainly France and Romania, but also a bit of Bulgaria and Hungary), the cinema & DVD/BR release subs are generally atrocious while for TV they vary a lot.
    Usually I prefer to download a sub for me DVD/BR and resync by hand (if I really want subs).

  • JohnGaspardo

    Ah so your saying when you catch me redhanded with 5TB of pirated crap I should just delete it and say I didn’t mean to steal that and btw I’m sueing your ass for jacking my copyright? Ah yes corporate doublespeak for fucking the customer multiple times equals more profit…Makes sense now.

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  • robthom

    Which one again proves piracy>netflix.

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    Watch Streaming Movies online for free in HD, no redirecting, no membership, no downloading – in LosMovies

  • Sprecheragentur

    interesting, thanks

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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