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Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941
The founder of a site that provided fan-created subtitles has lost his appeal against a conviction for copyright infringement. In 2017 a Swedish court found that the unauthorized distribution of movie subtitles is a crime, sentencing the then 32-year-old to probation and a fine. The Court of Appeal has now largely upheld that earlier verdict.
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Site That Provides Fan-Made Subtitles Loses Copyright Infringement Appeal
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @07:50PM (31 children)
Nothing that I can see.
Subtitles add value to the original product. If someone doesn't understand the language or is deaf or hard-of-hearing, there's no reason for them to buy the movie/show. Make translated and native-language subs available and suddenly there's a bigger potential customer base.
What's also galling is the claim of copyright violation. The fan subs are being created because the original videos are lacking the desired subtitles. The fans are not copying any existing subtitles; they're creating them because they don't exist. There are no original subs to copy, so no rights-to-copy to be violated.
If the publisher can't be bothered to offer what some potential customers want in order to become actual customers, you would think that someone else fulfilling the need would result in negative harm: more customers = more income. You would think that would result in everybody coming out ahead; the proverbial "win-win". Instead, the sub creators get burned, the would-be customers don't get subtitles so have no reason to buy the movies/shows and the publishers lose sales, so lose-lose all around.
Good job, Lou. /s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @07:57PM (19 children)
All he had to do was pitch the project to the rights holders.
Instead, he thumbed his nose at them and said "Come at me, bro."
Civilized society demands mutual association, not imposition. Get agreement before you act. It's that simple, comrade.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 26 2018, @08:18PM (10 children)
And how much are you willing to pay to provide these subtitles?
You can't expect the rights holders to distribute your stuff for *free*, or let you dsitribute your stuff for free!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @08:29PM (8 children)
Those subtitles are in demand because the content is in demand.
Those subtitles are only possible because there is existing content from which the subtitles can be almost mindlessly crafted.
Strike a deal, or fuck off. What don't you get about that? WHAT DON'T YOU GET?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @08:39PM (7 children)
"almost mindlessly crafted"
I would say the same thing about how your parents made you :P
You are in violation of the Shared Property Act which makes you my de facto slave. Thank GOD we live in a civilized society!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @08:45PM (6 children)
Thanks for playing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @08:51PM (5 children)
Not playing, this isn't a game. I understand your "logic" and I can see how legally this decision is the correct one, however it is still really stupid and is not the correct way forward for society.
Thanks for making the world worse, even if it is just one opinion on a small site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:03PM (4 children)
Property rights allow people to live-and-let-live, and they allow good stewards of society's resources to be found through voluntary interaction.
How is that not a good idea for the foundation of society?
Pray tell, what is the better direction? Pray tell!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @10:01PM (3 children)
Property rights are definitely essential at this point in time, but we do need to put the brakes on copyright lifetimes along with much improved fair use laws.
God I hate your "evolve / find" rationale for human society. The current system has corporations buying out all IP that becomes popular and locking it away. Our shared culture thus becomes stewarded by greedy shitbags who want to profit forever while doing little to no original work.
"Good stewards" lolol. Right now the current mindset is use up all the resources with zero plan on sustainability. Get with it sucka! Arguably the capitalist system has us on a collision course with ecological collapse and potential extinction, but hey that is #fakenews or tech will magically save us somehow. I abhor your limited viewpoint that pretends to have the best answers, but I will not be arrogant enough to say I have THE answer, only suggestions as to better directions to take.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @10:59PM (2 children)
Yeah, well, God I hate your complete inability to perceive that you're railing against anti-Capitalism rather than Capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @11:19PM (1 child)
Nope, such absolute property rights are the basis of capitalism. I don't advocate pure communism nor pure capitalism. Your inability to see beyond the ideological version of capitalism is the problem here. The Earth and its resources are finite, pure capitalism would only work if every single human had the same exact option to create competing industries. Many people think they could do better, but much of humanity's capital is licked away in private coffers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:30PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:59AM
Those subtitles are in demand because the content is in demand.
Those subtitles are only possible because there is existing content from which the subtitles can be almost mindlessly crafted.
Strike a deal, or fuck off. What don't you get about that? WHAT DON'T YOU GET?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday March 26 2018, @09:55PM (7 children)
That would be all of us. Human rights, you may have heard the phrase?
The idea that only big corporations have rights, and the practice of calling their privileges 'rights,' need to be rejected. Instead you've clearly swallowed them whole.
You'll get what you deserve, but the rest of us don't deserve to have to share it with you.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @11:01PM
Or do only savages think a person's sexual tissues should be off limits to other people's knives?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:05AM (3 children)
Or do only savages think a person's sexual tissues should be off limits to other people's knives?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:50AM (2 children)
You're not the only hardline individualist/right-to-life-above-all-else advocate out here, as I've explained to you before. Posts at -1 are NOT "censored", and even if you stubbornly and incorrectly disagree, more -1, Spam mods will not help your situation.
Please stop spamming your posts when authoritarians mod them down.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:02AM (1 child)
If that's the default, then I define that as censorship.
So... suck my intact cock.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:23PM
I'm not ignoring it because I don't see it, I'm ignoring it because it seems senseless and off-topic.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:41PM (1 child)
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:20PM
A document that gets off to a good start and deliberately goes completely off the rails by the end.
Sad, that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 26 2018, @08:45PM (10 children)
Do you sincerely believe that subtitles in commercial releases just come into existence spontaneously?
Could you believe that maybe, just maybe, there could be people involved, and therefore paid, in the process of formatting such subtitles? Would those people have a vested interest, and long relationships, in the pursuit of the quite silly activity of clamping down on people providing for free what they provide not for free?
I know you're actively ditching horse carriages, but I sure as hell won't let you get away with not buying my whips!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:12PM (9 children)
Time and effort went into crafting (that is, finding) content that the world considers valuable.
Now, people want to take all that hard work, pretend that it was theirs, slap a customized sticker on it, and either give it away or sell it for "donations" and ad revenue.
It's theft.
Or, do you believe that creators shouldn't have control over the content that they craft? Are you suggesting that as soon as said content is in the world, it belongs to everyone? That's starting to look like the Tragedy of the Commons, which of course means it's a bad idea; there needs to be an owner, and you have 2 choices for that: State ownership, or "private" ownership. Which do you think is best (in this case)?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 26 2018, @09:15PM (3 children)
Just asking, in case my kid mistakenly wants to ever go there: where did you learn to read ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:35PM (2 children)
Your last sentence reveals quite clearly that your intention was sarcasm.
Let me help you by using your own stupid analogy: The vested interests aren't forcing people to buy whips. Rather, the upstarts are stealing buggies and re-painting them.
Your view of the situation is entirely wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:21AM (1 child)
No, it is more like someone modifying the whips for left handed people and the buggy and whip folks getting pissed about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:40AM
Let's see... The OP wrote:
Now, let's replace "buggy" with "whips":
Yup. You haven't rebutted the OP; you haven't put forward a new point; you haven't changed the argument.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:00AM (4 children)
Most all creative works are built on others creative works. That's the way it is with humanity and has been probably since before we were human. It's part of what makes us human, telling stories is a survival trait, the tribe that told stories about the croc in the waterhole survived better then the tribe that didn't tell stories.
Now we have idiots who don't understand that stories lead to more stories and want to lock everything up without thinking about where new stories will come from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:08AM (3 children)
No one is arguing otherwise.
What people are arguing is that you need to interact with others voluntarily—build on others' work with their blessing (or at least without their explicit disapproval).
Get it yet?
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:53AM (2 children)
Why? Building on others work is a natural right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:04AM (1 child)
I suggest you work with others to ensure that you are indeed building on others work rightfully.
Until you have that confirmation, you are existing in a perilous fashion.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:49PM
What steps should an individual take to convince a publisher to become willing to work with said individual rather than continue a blanket policy of refusing to work with individuals?