Polish Fans Held By Police For Movie Translations 204
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).'"
Illegal thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than blaming them, the law needs to be changed.
Re:Illegal thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
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]
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Re:Illegal thing... (Score:5, Informative)
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...
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Good point - but copyright's a bad way to do it (Score:2)
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
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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".
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Purely From The Good Of Their Hearts... (Score:2)
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
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Same as with music and movies - we can download them, we can't publish (upload) them.
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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.
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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
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As for the entire screenplay being written "clean house." That's still a violation. It'd be like cam cording the movie.
Tom
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>>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
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This is just another case of how the current "lets treat a book like a piece of land" mentality causes stupid and unnecessary problems.
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The RIAA goes after those who infringe on the copyright of the recording. The Harry Fox A
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Yeah, I started to include this point in another post. My personal opinion is that posting song lyrics should be a violation of copyright (as it is). However the RIAA members are complete idiots for actually litigating it and/or sending takedown n
Re:Illegal thing... (Score:4, Informative)
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Are you kidding? (Score:4, Funny)
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My question is (Score:3, Interesting)
Same type of laws in the US (and most countries)? (Score:4, Informative)
The following part of USC 17 Chapter 1 seems pretty clear to me (my emphasis): USC 17 Chapter 1:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17
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On a more positive note, there are other silent-era films available to watch. I suggest "I Was Born But..." by Yasujiro Ozu.
Compare US:Polish film subtitle ratio (Score:2)
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
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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)
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Encounter (Score:4, Funny)
Fan: Geck, wo ist mein Auto?
Officer: Suspect appears to be armed with translated movie quotes, shoot on site!
Anime fansub (Score:3, Interesting)
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Poland has nothign on the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
In the USA you get less jail time for phyiscally beating someone and taking their copyrighted material than publishing copyrighted material.
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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)
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.
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What would you have to do to get it down to a level 1? Burn the building down?
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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.
Software that helps to create subtitles on Linux? (Score:2)
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Re:Software that helps to create subtitles on Linu (Score:2)
Question: (Score:2, Insightful)
Understandable sort of... (Score:5, Funny)
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)
nugget of the larger story playing out (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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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
dude (Score:2)
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
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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.
my god (Score:2)
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
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Do you remember what I said about "pop-medieval" not being history? Yep, it still applies.
so it was a utopia? (Score:2)
i just want to know if you are a harmless romantic or a deluded wackjob
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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)
polish movie translation situation (Score:2, Informative)
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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)
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).
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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
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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
How about going professional? (Score:2)
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.
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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
In Soviet Russia... (Score:2, Funny)
department of redundancy department (Score:2)
Berne Convention (Score:2)
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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Also, the DVD for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" includes a feature called "subtitles for people who don't like the movie" (it consists of lines from 'Henry IV, Part II').
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The translated subtitles were published online. You realize that the "Your" in "Your rights online" doesn't just refer to you, specifically, right?
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So you think he meant that "Your rights online" only refers to the rights that one has, not the rights one doesn't have, or wish one had? I can see how you could read it that way, but that would make for a rather dull discussion, chatting about all the things one could do online if one wished to .
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They were releasing translated subtitle files to be used with videos. Presumably, since they needed translating, these were foreign discs. Possibly imported, sure, but the implication is likely that people need these subs to enjoy material not released by the media cartels for that region, and therefore instigates piracy: the favorite bogeyman.
Of course, since the big companies couldn't be bothered to translate it and release it in that
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And now you know (Score:2, Insightful)
The ideas of copyright and patents have grown into this thing we call IP. I've mentioned this dozens of times now, but it is the simple truth.
IP laws have been about control of information and not profit for at least 25 years. Simple profit motives tell you that region encoding is not a bright idea. If someone wants to pay to import a disk, have it translated, etc. they will still be in the market for a nicely done local language version. You could potentially make two sales, or one sale if you never
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And that's why it sucks so much.
Please someone mod parent up
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You know that Slashdot is viewed worldwide, not just in the US. (And, yes, I'm an American).
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Pretty much, with one exception - We don't have that right in the US, either. But we damned wellshould.
If so, here are two choices for remedy: lobby for a change of law in Poland or convince Dub-ya to invade Poland and impose American law.
Presuming the Polish goverment, much like our own in the US, doesn't give two shakes of a rat's ass about what the plebes want, you missed the si
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Wouldn't that be something like pointing two mirrors at one another?
Poland is already in many ways an "American lapdog". Poland was used for CIA flights, the US is pressuring Poland to use it as a defense shield, and the US managed to sell Poland a bunch of supposedly defective F16's. Plus, Poland was one of the strongest European allies for the invasion of Iraq.
I'm honestly not sure what Poland is getting from all of this, but I suspect it has some
Re:Polish and Germans co-operating for law enforc. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Polish and Germans co-operating for law enforc. (Score:2)
Sixty years ago - maybe. The war ended in 1945, and the 40+ years of communist regime that followed has made Poles quite friendly towards Germans. Having a common enemy can do wonders towards friendship and West Germany was the closest non-communist country at this time. Well, that and the fact that most people who remembered the German occupation are now dead. The fact that the communists tried to take advantage of the anti-german sentiment probably helped too.
To su
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Whether they have the will to do so is another matter. It's not like Elliot Ness is going to bust down the doors of the whomever runs the place over there.
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These translators would probably be guilty of "felonious pirate barter" if tried in the US.