

Ask HN: Legality of hosting a subtitles site - bogdan2412

I was wondering if somebody can clarify some of the copyright laws involved. Is it legal to host subtitles of translated lines? Is it legal to host subtitles in their original language (containing exactly the lines the actors said, for example)? I was thinking, since synopses of a lot of movies are available on wikipedia, that it would be legal to host something like translated lines, which are not originally written by the copyright owner, but i don't know about the original lines. Thanks :)
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michael_dorfman
If your question is about the legality of something, for god's sake, ASK A
LAWYER.

Seriously.

And, by the way, if you have a medical condition, don't ask random strangers
about that, either-- ask a doctor.

~~~
kristiandupont
You are right of course, but I still think it makes sense to post a question
like that in here to get some idea of whether it may or may not be legal.
Consulting a lawyer is expensive and getting a feel of the territory - at
least of which questions to ask - is a good strategy.

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DarkShikari
Disclaimer: IANAL.

Answer: Of course it's probably illegal. A fair use argument could
theoretically be made, but I don't think there's been an actual court case
over it, so I would put any such argument in the "dubious" category.

But in practice, most publishing companies don't care; in some cases they will
even support your actions. The only exception is when the original text _is
the work in and of itself_ , such as with translating novels. Legal threats
_have_ been thrown around in that case, particularly in the case of American
companies licensing foreign works and then threatening fan translators who had
been working on translations independently (see the "Support JAST USA's
official localizations of Nitro+ games!" fiasco in which many translation
groups were sent takedown notices).

That's pretty much the only case in which legal threats fly around period, as
such companies view fan translations as a threat to their profits, while the
original company who made $movie would love for more people to buy it,
regardless of the language in which it is purchased.

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cduan
Here is a little copyright intro for you. This is not legal advice; if you are
in need of particular answers for your situation, please consult an attorney
directly, as other commenters have indicated.

Copyright protects original creative expression. This is in contrast to
general ideas, which cannot be protected by copyright. The difference between
ideas and expression is hard to define, but a common example is that the
concept of a story about two lovers torn by warring families is an idea (and
thus unprotectable), whereas the particular story "Romeo and Juliet" is an
expression of that idea (and thus protectable).

I think that most people would agree that the words of a movie are creative
expression, and not general ideas.

What does someone else's copyright prevent you from doing? Copyright gives the
author of a work four main exclusive rights: the right to make copies, to make
derivative works, to distribute copies, and to publicly perform the work. If
you perform an act that is within the author's exclusive rights during the
term of a valid copyright, then you may infringe the copyright.

Subtitles and translations of subtitles would probably be considered
derivative works, since they are derived from the original work, namely the
movie.

There are also defenses to copyright infringement. Two come to my mind: fair
use and the DMCA.

Fair use permits you to perform acts that would otherwise be infringements,
because of certain public policy interests. It is extremely difficult to
determine what constitutes fair use. Two considerations that are important
factors are whether your use of the copyrighted work contributes something new
to society and whether your use is taking away from a traditional revenue
source of the author.

The DMCA provides a shield for website operators who accept user-provided
content. If the website operator complies with certain requirements regarding
taking down infringing content promptly, then the operator will be protected
from many claims of copyright infringement.

Keep in mind that this is purely based on US copyright law, so things may be
different if you are elsewhere in the world. Plus I am not considering the
business side of things.

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jacquesm
It's much simpler than that actually, copying subtitles is a direct
infringement on the rights of the script writer.

Whether someone read the script to you over the phone and you copied it down
or you took it from the movie makes no difference.

No need to get into derived works.

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cduan
(No one's going to read this comment, but we might as well get it right.)

It is a derivative work when you transcribe subtitles because you put in your
own creative (and copyrightable!) elements into it. You choose how to
represent sound effects, how to disentangle crosstalk, how to transcribe
dialect, and so on.

So, if the movie creator decided to rip your subtitles off and sell them, you
could actually sue the movie creator!

As a practical matter, it makes little difference. Most judges won't parse
this finely, and you are equally liable whether under the copying or
derivation right.

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jacquesm
Interesting, but that's a really thin layer to argue your 'original
contribution' over. I think the script writer would have a pretty good case.

And hey, at least one guy read your comment :)

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eli
It doesn't really matter if it's legal (thought it probably isn't) if it's
going to piss off the copyright holders, they'll come after you anyway.

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kierank
A lot of subtitles are extracted from DVDs and Blu-rays in theory content
owners could claim copyright.

