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Media Censorship Movies Your Rights Online

Polish Fans Held By Police For Movie Translations 204

Posted by Zonk from the harsh-critics dept.
michuk writes "Nine people involved in a community portal Napisy.org were held for questioning by the Polish police forces this Wednesday. They will be probably be accused of publishing illegal translations of foreign movies (which is forbidden by Polish copyright law). Napisy.org website was shut down immediately afterwards by the German forces (since the servers were located in Germany). The service was the most popular Polish on-line portal where users were free to submit translated subtitles for popular movies. 'According to Polish copyright law any "processing" of others' content including translating is prohibited without permission. The people held (aged 20 - 30) were questioned on Wednesday and Thursday and then allowed to leave. In case of being accused of illegal publishing of copyrighted material, they can spend in jail up to 2 years (in the worst case).'"
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Polish Fans Held By Police For Movie Translations More

Polish Fans Held By Police For Movie Translations

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  • Illegal thing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashthedot ( 991354 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:00AM (#19179017) Homepage
    If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.
    Rather than blaming them, the law needs to be changed.

    • Re:Illegal thing... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:09AM (#19179141) Homepage Journal
      If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.

      to a certain degree, this makes sense. witness the 2003 illegal translation of harry potter and the order of the phoenix. it was so bad that the quality of the content was dramatically reduced... at one point the translator even wrote "Here comes something that I'm unable to translate, sorry."

      so, the idea of having 'approved' translators can be necessary to preserve the integrity of the content.

      my source for this is here [bbc.co.uk]

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        Yeah, but what if it's the "state approved" translation that's horrible? You'd be up a creek. In this case, the horrible translation would be replaced by a much better one when someone realized they could do a better job. This happens a lot in the fansub community. Often the first translation is the worst because it's a rush job, but then a "HQ" fansubber will follow up and put out a solid translation.

        • Re:Illegal thing... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:44AM (#19179687) Homepage Journal

          Yeah, but what if it's the "state approved" translation that's horrible?
          State what? State apporved what???

          Did you even the article or this thread? Those translating need approval from the HOLDER of the copyright -- not the state. If it's "horrible", then I doubt the copyright holder will see much of a profit...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jandrese ( 485 )
            Well, as in legal.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by risk one ( 1013529 )
            "State approved" doesn't make much sense in this context, but the sentiment still holds. What if the content holder produces a horrible translation? Case in point, the movie Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. A movie, ten years in the making, highly anticipated by fans of the original, clearly extreme attention to detail. Go Fish, a Dreamworks distributor gets the American distribution rights, and includes only English subtitles for people that are hard of hearing. That means that while you're looking at a chop
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • There are times in Full Metal Complex on the Cartoon Network where the translation differs from the fansubs AND it clear that the "official" translation is wrong and the fansubs were right. Without the fansubs, I would have never known just what the heck they really said there since the official translation was just goofy. I bet that it is a literal transalation of an idiom that the translater didn't know.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 )
        DO NOT WANT [exstatic.org]

      • to a certain degree, this makes sense. witness the 2003 illegal translation of harry potter and the order of the phoenix. it was so bad that the quality of the content was dramatically reduced... the idea of having 'approved' translators can be necessary to preserve the integrity of the content.

        It is, of course, necessary to prohibit all unauthorized translations for at least half a century, as the quality of the film would be adversely affected were it to be shown with poor translation. Whereas, if th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Skapare ( 16644 )

        However, it would still be better for the law to be changed to allow the independent translations if the original content is released without a translation in the given language. In effect the law would be saying to the legal content distributors "translate it into our language, too ... or be screwed in our language".

      • Actually, the inverse situation existed in Russia. Harry Potter was first translated by volunteers and published freely on the internet. Once the copyright holders got interested in the russian market, they made a translation and started publishing but the translation turned out to be so bad that the paper book was a big failure. Unfortunately, copyright holders did already shut down the (previously legal) harrypotter.ru that distributed a better translation. Nowadays, the only way to find a good translatio
      • It's one thing if you're making and distributing content for free.

        If napisy.org was ad supported and made money from the ads, even if it gave away the content for free, they're still profitting from someone else's intellectual property - no one would view the ads and thus they'd bring in no money if it wasn't for the free content.

        That said, I'd go after the owners of the site and any profits they made rather than users who really were offering their translation services for free.

        There's also the good questi

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by MWojcik ( 859959 )

      If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.
      Translating for your own use is not illegal in Poland. Publishing is.

      Same as with music and movies - we can download them, we can't publish (upload) them.

    • If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.

      Here's my question: In American and European countries, would it be illegal to publish a transcript of an entire movie without permission? How about if the transcript were in a different language from the original movie? It may not be just Polish law in question.
      • I'm pretty certain it is in most countries (I'm certain it is in the US and in Sweden... see my earlier post in this thread). Think of it in this way: any part with sufficent originality in a movie is copyrightable. So you have copyright restrictions on using anything from the musical score, still pictures and dialogue etc.

        Next you need to think about what would happen if a derivative work in form of translation wouldn't need permission from the copyright holder: I could translated Harry Potter into swed
        • You're totally free and clear to rip characters, plot devices, musical phrases, etc. It's when you substantially copy it that it becomes a problem. If you weren't allowed to use bits and pieces from previous productions society as a whole would halt.

          As for the entire screenplay being written "clean house." That's still a violation. It'd be like cam cording the movie.

          Tom

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by fluffman86 ( 1006119 )
          >>Next you need to think about what would happen if a derivative work
          >>in form of translation wouldn't need permission from the copyright holder:
          >>I could translated Harry Potter into swedish and sell copies as I saw fit
          >>since JK Rowlings wouldn't have anything to say about it...

          You are comparing apples and oranges. These Polish people were creating Subtitle files to be added to a movie. In other words, people could theoretically go purchase an English-speaking movie, then rip it
          • The story seems obviously wrong and I think that your point makes it absolutely clear why the arrests are nonsense. The translations themselves are only attachable to the original work or copies of it - it is the possible theft of copies of the original work which they appear to have been arrested for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfulmer ( 3166 )
        In the US, yes, assuming the dialog itself was original and not otherwise exempt from copyright. The transcript would be considered a derivative work, the preparation and distribution of which is an infringement. You can't just do an English transcript of the dialog -- why would you be able to do a translation of that transcript into a different language?

    • Re:Illegal thing... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Yetihehe ( 971185 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:24AM (#19179391)
      Well, it ISN'T illegal to translate only text in Poland.

      By judgement of Highest Court from 23.01.2003: The making of translation of word layer of audiovisual creation does not make processing of it as a whole. Thereby it can be spread without consent of the maker of original work. The translator have copyrights to translation.
      So whole action was on illegal grounds. But they found many upon many pirated films in those folks' houses, so they will have jail or fines anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheVelvetFlamebait ( 986083 )

      If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.
      They didn't arrest the guilty. They never arrest the guilty. They arrest suspects who may be declared guilty later. I know it sounds like nitpicking, but it is an important distinction.
    • The police share some blame too. They have substantial leeway into what they prosecute and what they ignore. For example, in the USA people get over 20 years in jail and are branded terrorists for non-violent crimes against corporate polluters, but willful neglect leading to mass manslaughter (a felony crime), as in the case of FEMA and New Orleans, gets a pat on the back. Both are crimes, but in one case an already draconian law is applied to the letter, while in the other case a moderate and reasonable la

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )
      Moral people do not enforce unjust law. We all have a conscience and we all have the responsibility to use it. "Just doing my job" is not an excuse.
    • Oh come on, we're talking about DANGEROUS CRIMINALS here. I mean, think of all the directors and producers who will have to forgo that third yacht and fifth vacation home because of these evil kids who are translating movies of their own accord - essentially providing a free service which will increase popularity and uptake of those movies. Yes sir, dangerous criminals indeed. They deserve to rot behind bars, those EVIL infringers of copyright!!!

  • Are you kidding? (Score:4, Funny)

    by prothid ( 302906 ) <slashdot AT unfit DOT org> on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:02AM (#19179037) Homepage
    This has to be a bad Polack joke. I bet they arrest signers for the deaf at concerts, too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 )
      If they get the death penalty the court will order them to smell the scratch-n-sniff sticker at the bottom of the community pool.

    • My question is (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 )
      How do they determine that this is actually a translation? Presumably by having someone make an (illegal) translation and comparing the two?

  • Same type of laws in the US (and most countries)? (Score:4, Informative)

    by KokorHekkus ( 986906 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:06AM (#19179083)
    I would think that most countries classify translation as an derivative work. And surely the dialogue in a movie must be copyrightable. Only reason it hasn't happend in the US might be that foreign movies aren't as popular in the US and that MPAA mainly cares about homegrown material.

    The following part of USC 17 Chapter 1 seems pretty clear to me (my emphasis):

    A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work".
    USC 17 Chapter 1:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/ usc_sec_17_00000101----000-.html>
    • The dialogue in films is indeed copyrighted. It's just that film scripts and transcripts are one of the longest continuing copyright violations on the modern Web. (Who else was around for the whole "Kirk dies in Star Trek Generations" uproar, fueled by that script being leaked to the Internet?) So, people have just become a bit more complacent about it than most other copyright violations.
    • The US and Japan both are the same -- translations are derivative works. I wanted to translate an old silent-era Japanese film and release it to the public, but it's still under copyright in both countries. However, there's no freaking way this film would ever be commercially subtitled, so it's a shame that potentially interested parties are being deprived of the opportunity to see it.

      On a more positive note, there are other silent-era films available to watch. I suggest "I Was Born But..." by Yasujiro Ozu.

    • The difference is, most films are made in the USA, and few USA filmmakers provide translations into Polish.

      Whereas most Polish films are already available with English subtitles (admittedly- or rather, thankfully- usually EN:GB).

      This sounds like something the EU normally fixes. I'm surprised the EU haven't created a legal exemption in these kinds of cases. Translating into minority languages is normally heavily supported by the EU. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if the guys take it to the European Court or somesu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      Certainly a translation of a book is a derivate, even if it doesn't contain any of the exact same words. In the US, I would try for a fair use defense though. The subtitles have very little value without the movie, and I think you could reasonably consider the movie "the work" for this purpose. And makes it:

      Transformative, but personal: 1-0
      Imaginative work: 1-1
      Part of work: 2-1
      Need a copy of original work, thus not destroying sales: 3-1

      Then again, it all depends on how you read the law, it would clearly imp

  • Wiki.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:07AM (#19179103) Homepage
    Would that mean a Polish person can't legally alter a Wikipedia entry? If I go and deface the entry for some leading Polish politicians could they be arrested if they fixed the page? That's really quite tempting. :twisted:

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by orra ( 1039354 )
      Wikipedia content is *licensed* to all recipients under the GFDL, and so translation is allowed.

  • Encounter (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:15AM (#19179259)
    Officer: Ok, come along nice and easy and nobody will get hurt.
    Fan: Geck, wo ist mein Auto?
    Officer: Suspect appears to be armed with translated movie quotes, shoot on site!

  • Anime fansub (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:18AM (#19179311)
    This sounds like it could have a big impact on the anime fansub culture in Poland. Fansubs distribute the entire video, seems like these people were just offering .sub texts.

  • Poland has nothign on the USA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SQLz ( 564901 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:18AM (#19179315) Homepage Journal
    In case of being accused of illegal publishing of copyrighted material, they can spend in jail up to 2 years (in the worst case).'

    In the USA you get less jail time for phyiscally beating someone and taking their copyrighted material than publishing copyrighted material.

    • Same here in Poland ;). Although if you harm the offender, he can sue you and you're going to jail.
    • It makes perfect sense, seen in the right light. If you mug someone and take their copy, no new copies are made and the publisher has no 'lost revenues.' Since no [fictional] person of consequence has any of their federally guaranteed profits taken away, it's not such a big deal; however, deprivation of guaranteed profits is a very serious offense which is very seriously punished.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )
      Is that actually true? Has anyone actually spent time in jail for copyright infringement recently? There have been lots of lawsuits, but it's generally a civil matter. I know there are aggravating circumstances that can make it a criminal matter, but I don't remember hearing about any such cases recently.

      This sounds like hyperbole to me. If you want to convince people that you're right, at least portray the facts in a fair light. Otherwise they're likely to dismiss your entire argument.

  • punishments fitting the crimes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DriveDog ( 822962 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:19AM (#19179329)

    2 years? For the equivalent of making closed caption files?

    I am always reminded of the rules applicable to Commonwealth of Virginia employees when I was one.

    An employee could be fired for one instance of a level 3 offense immediately. It took more than one level 2 offense to be fired.

    Punching one's boss was a level 2. Sleeping on the job was a level 3.

    Sleeping while driving a bus might be worse than punching a boss, but most of the time this seemed upside-down and backwards to me.

    • Punching one's boss was a level 2. Sleeping on the job was a level 3.

      What would you have to do to get it down to a level 1? Burn the building down?

    • Punching one's boss was a level 2. Sleeping on the job was a level 3.
      Sleeping while driving a bus might be worse than punching a boss, but most of the time this seemed upside-down and backwards to me.

      If the boss knows that each and every guy working for him can pop him in the face and still not got fired, the's going to treat them more equitably.

      It's like a version of checks and balances, or maybe it's a version of, "an armed society is a polite society." Something like that.

  • On the topic of making your own subtitles: can someone point me to some software that helps you to create subtitles on Linux? I have looked, but haven't found anything really yet. I would expect something that works in conjunction with a video player like mplayer that helps to record (approximate) time stamps of when the subtitles should appear. Any hints?

  • Question: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by killjoy966 ( 655602 )
    Admittedly, I don't know much about the process of DVD subtitling, but I was under the impression that these were files distributed separately from the DVD rip. If that's all the site was supplying, isn't this akin to allowing the distribution of emulators but not the beloved ROM images associated with them?

  • Understandable sort of... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cptnapalm ( 120276 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:27AM (#19179447)
    So these guys enabled people to be able understand what the characters are saying in a movie.

    I can see why this would be a threat to Hollywood.

    After all, who will want to see the bulk of these films when it becomes common knowledge that behind the beautiful people and gorgeous back drops are atrocious dialogue and paint-by-numbers plots.

  • UPDATE ON THE STORY! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:31AM (#19179481)
    Fortunately, Polish authorities didn't realize they locked these fans on the outside of the jail cells at the same time trapping the police inside and the fans just ended up walking away.
  • the impact of the internet is that it turns what were previously audiences into publishers. now everyone is a bertelsmann or a metro goldwyn mayer, in their living room or den or study. the same sort of power dynamics was at work over the creation of the printing press: fedualism depended in part on the ignorance of the serfs, the inability to read. when they were freed form this ignorance due to the sudden cheap and wide availability of the printed word, all sorts of political dynamics changed, fomenting revolutions and evolutions i think that are still playing out in the world over 500 years later

    well the internet frees people from being tied to distribution channels. and as with the printing press, there is an entrenched power that is losing because of this. of course movies, music, etc. is not going away because of the internet. but how movies and music are made and distribtued and how they make money is very definitely going to change, and there are real losers because of this. big (currently rich powerful, not for long) losers

    but the internet was originally designed to route around damage in the event of nuclear war. compared to that, the "damage" that entrenched media interests will exert on the net is paltry, and easily routed around

    there's no putting this genie back in the bottle

    • fedualism (sic) depended in part on the ignorance of the serfs, the inability to read. when they were freed form this ignorance due to the sudden cheap and wide availability of the printed word

      Where have you learned such an historical absurdity?!? In Medieval Europe, both nobles and serfs didn't know how to read! In particular, it was considered shameful for a noble to know it because such a "womanly" job was thought unfit for a warrior. And this is quite literal: women, at least noble ones, used to learn r

      • it is point of historical fact that the spanish, in the philippines, south america, central america, etc., would expressly forbid the natives from learning spanish, so as to retain power in the hands of the spanish

        it is one of the reasons the philippines is an english speaking country: spain was there for centuries, but forbid the filipinos from learning written spanish, so as to retain their grip on power. when the americans came, despite all of their other injustices, they had no problem with the filipino

        • of course none of this has to do with feudal europe though, but you get my point now: this system the spanish brought over to the places they colonized was not miraculously invented on a boat along the way. it was borrowed outright from feudal europe

          This surely isn't the case. The Modern (notice the word) states invented lots and lots of very original things. This was one among them.

          furthermore, are you going in any way say that the renaissance, and therefore the death of feudalism, was not powered by the p

          • a romantic for the feudal era. now i've seen it all

            dude, there's a reason it is aka the dark ages. it was nasty, and brutal, and injust. farbeit for me though to interfere with your whitewashing campaign

            let us hear all about the glory of the dark ages, and the horrible crimes of the eras that followed

            (rolls eyes)

            progress actually exists in this world friend, and moving away from the dark ages was nothing but progress

            • there's a reason it is aka the dark ages
              Yes, there is. Or, rather, no, there isn't [wikipedia.org].

              Do you remember what I said about "pop-medieval" not being history? Yep, it still applies.
              • and all that wacky stuff since then- printing press, antibiotics, the internet, a mistake?

                i just want to know if you are a harmless romantic or a deluded wackjob

                • and all that wacky stuff since then- printing press, antibiotics, the internet, a mistake? i just want to know if you are a harmless romantic or a deluded wackjob

                  Neither. For you to recognize the good there was in one age has no relation whatsoever with you denying the good there is in another. Notice that saying the Middle Ages was "bad" while the Modern Age is "good" is the same error, just inverted. Take the good from them all, reject the bad from them all, and you end up with the best possible outcome.

                  B

  • Things Haven't Changed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @10:43AM (#19179667) Journal
    Punishment for translating? Looks like things haven't changed in Europe much. [greatsite.com]
  • in case anybody wonders why this happens ... movies in poland are normally dubbed with ONE guy translating all the roles in the movie. i already hate the german dubbing. not lipsync. you may even see a totally different movie with german dubbing and their creative dubbing. .. etc etc ... but at least its professional and every actor gets its own german dubbing-actor. but the most horrible thing is an age 40-50 guy translating the movie by himself. its been like that forever in poland.
    • In theaters some films even don't have subbing, just polish subtitles. Like many cd's.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GiMP ( 10923 )
      I don't call it dubbing, I call it voice-over, because there needs to be a better distinction.

      Imagine how it is for me, an American in Poland (Pozna).. I can't find anything on television other than news in English. Any movie I might want to watch, from the USA, on television, is with voice-overs.

      Legitimately purchased DVDs already have subtitles if they were bought in Poland. On the other hand, Germany and English are not too far away and most Polish DVD players are region-free -- so there might be some

  • What you should understand about Poland (Score:5, Insightful)

    by C4st13v4n14 ( 1001121 ) on Friday May 18, 2007 @11:37AM (#19180491)
    I have had the displeasure of living in Poland for the last four years. What you need to understand is that all foreign films/series released to VHS, DVD, and TV are dubbed into Polish BY ONE MAN. Yes, that's right. One guy does ALL the voices for ALL the actors in EVERY movie! If it is decided that a certain film will not be dubbed (and there are many of these), there will never be the possibility of watching this film by Polish-speaking people, unless they speak English. In the large cities, finding someone who speaks English is becoming easier as capitalism takes over, but let me add that when I arrived here four years ago, absolutely no one spoke English! I had to visit the local university's English department to find any. So in order to bring the people of Poland classics like Twin Peaks, and a whole slew of Hollywood and non-Hollywood films, there's a group that focuses on writing subtitles to these films and series. It's basically something anyone can contribute to, and it's just like the Polish police to shut it down.

    Every good thing that happens in this country gets shut down. It's completely hypocritical and they are targeting the wrong people. I live in a city of around 700 000 inhabitants and there are eight copy shops within 500 metres in any direction of my flat (I don't even live in the centre). I can go out to any of these copy shops and have a copyrighted textbook photocopied for about 3 cents (US) a page. Some copy shops even keep a library of texts that one can look through and order. Anything you want you can get, whatever subjects you're studying. One guy even has a website where you can order copied books beforehand, pay by credit card, and pick them up at your leisure! Most of the students here in Poland have never owned a real textbook, everyone buys photocopies. While it's true that many Polish students live off of less than 100$US a month (the average salary here is about 300$US a month or 5zl an hour so their parents don't have much to give them), the copy shops are making their living off of copyright infringement. Any day of the week, one can also go down to a special market and purchase bootlegged DVDs, CDs, software, and games. The police don't do much about these people, either.

    In order to combat book photocopying, the government started a tax on all photocopies of 3gr a page (about 1 cent US). Now all photocopies are about 4 cents a page, and the tax goes not to the publishers or companies being infringed upon, but to the government. I think it's something like the tax the Canadian government puts on blank computer media. I think it's ridiculous. In typical Polish style, rather than identify the problem and deal with it, they do something completely stupid. For two years after I moved here, there was dog shit all over the pavement/sidewalks wherever people walked. You had to really look where you were going, because you would step in it. Rather than teach people to curb their dogs, or give fines for not picking up after animals, they hired people to go around every morning and clean the sidewalks of dog shit! They need to think about their labour laws and how much people are being paid (in an EU country, no less!), but instead they worry about some young people doing the people of Poland a service by writing subtitles for those who don't know English (or Turkish, or Greek, or Hindi).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mzs ( 595629 )
      "One guy does ALL the voices for ALL the actors in EVERY movie!"

      And he is not my father-in-law. Seriously a funny story: When I first met my future father-in-law he sounded just like the guy that does the Polish language voice-overs on all of the foreign TV shows. Being the joker that my wife and him are they ran with it and had me convince that it was him for maybe a month. They even said he used a stage name so that people would not threaten him! Another funny one was when they convinced me that the stree

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by jonfr ( 888673 ) *
      I have seen polish tv stations with satellite tv and I can confirm what is sad here, there is a one guy how dubs all the movies, problay tv shows too. This is also the reason why I never watch polish tv stations.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Makdaam ( 1026158 )
      "One guy does ALL the voices for ALL the actors in EVERY movie!"
      That is not true! There are 3 guys, one does most of the documentaries and two other read the vioces on other movies. All of them have similar voices. Anyway it sucks...

      "Every good thing that happens in this country gets shut down."
      After 20 years of living here you get used to it :)

      The worst part is that there is no law forbidding downloading or even sharing movies. However FOTA and ZPAV (local MPAAs) claim that it is completly illegal to downl

    • Let's see. There is at least some demand for decent subtitles, there are skilled amateurs willing to do the work for free and the current quality of movie releases sucks.

      What would happen if you guys got organized, created a company and sold your translation services? If you were a corporate entity you would get more credibility with the copyright holders, which would mean more business, etc. You would get to do what you love, and you'd be paid to do it.

      Think of this incident as a golden opportunity.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jedrek ( 79264 )
      If it is decided that a certain film will not be dubbed (and there are many of these), there will never be the possibility of watching this film by Polish-speaking people, unless they speak English.

      Unless... you know... THEY CAN READ. The fact that one guy does voice overs (not dubbing - that's a whole other industry, limited mainly to children's movies.) doesn't mean 95% of movies in the theaters are subtitled and you can buy thousands of movies that are, again, subtitled with neither a voice over or dubbe
  • ...the movies translate you.

  • They will be probably be accused of publishing illegal translations of foreign movies (which is forbidden by Polish copyright law).
    I applaud the Poles on their consistency, but I think it's a bit superfluous to declare that illegal translations are forbidden under law... after all, it would be quite an oxymoron for an illegal translation to be permissible...
  • International law signed by Poland (and the United States) states that:

    So, yes, even our beloved ROM fan translation community is technically acting outside the law, but they're not sued out of existence because it's not worth the publisher's paying their lawyers when th

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