Hollywood Goes After Korean Fans Subtitling Soap Operas, Pressing Criminal Charges

from the copyright-failure dept

We've written a few times in the past about the movie and TV industries irrationally freaking out over fans in other countries providing subtitles for works that aren't being released locally in that language. These are always labor-of-love efforts by fans who want to share the work more widely by providing the subtitles that the studios themselves refuse to offer. And yet, because of standard copyright maximalism, these efforts almost always end up leading to legal action.

The latest such example involves Fox, Warner Bros and four other Hollywood studios pressing criminal charges against 15 internet users in South Korea for daring to do the most horrible thing in the world: making their soap operas watchable in Korea by adding subtitles. And, of course, thanks to US pressure creating a ridiculous "free trade" agreement with Korea that includes ridiculously draconian copyright requirements, the punishment here can be extreme:

People who make subtitles without permission from the original authors or producers can be given a five-year jail term or fined up to 50 million won [about $50,000 US]

The police involved in this case, go on and on about the "harm" these fan subtitles are creating. They claim, without any evidence or numbers, that there was a massive decline in some cable broadcast revenue based on this and, also, that those poor professional Korean translators are being put out of work.

The [anonymous police] officer went on to say that a cable broadcast, which has aired U.S. dramas, held an emergency meeting recently after experiencing income loss following dwindling viewer ratings because of the massive spread of subtitled dramas on the Internet.

“Professional translators were also hit hard by the subtitle makers. I understand that the U.S. television drama producers took legal action against them to issue a warning to end such an illegal practice rather than making money through an out-of-court settlement fee,” he said.

This is positively insane. This is not what copyright is supposed to be about, and the fact that it's being considered a criminal action to add subtitles to US soap operas is simply ridiculous. While the potential fine is a lot lower than statutory rates in the US, just the fact that this is considered a "criminal" matter at all, rather than a failure by these Hollywood studios to adequately serve their market, really says an awful lot (and none of it good) about how distorted the debate over copyright has become.

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, korea, soap operas, south korea, subtitles
Companies: 20th century fox, warner bros

If Your Product Placement Is Obvious And Awkward, You're Doing It Wrong

from the million-different-flavors-in-your-mouth-at-the-same-time dept

As DVRs usage and on-demand program watching increases, commercial breaks are becoming easier to skip. Product placement has long been discussed as a way to combat this trend, with shows like SNL getting into the act. However, if more shows are going to be placing products into their shows, it's important to remember that it's not just a matter of shoehorning a sponsor's product into the plotline. The soap opera, Days of Our Lives painfully illustrates this point with several embarrassingly awful product placements. Sure, the writing on soap operas might not be great to start with, but the product placement in these spots is so incredibly awkward, that it's hard to believe that the sponsors were happy with these ads. Surely writers struggled with trying to fit the term "Wanchai Ferry Chinese Food" into normal dialogue:

But, the phrase sounds painfully out-of-place, even in soap opera land, which, ironically, was created by Procter & Gamble as a platform with which to hawk their wares. Of course, it's not exactly clear if these are paid placements, since there's no active indication on the screen as such. Then again, when a bag of Chex Mix gets an obvious close up:

it certainly feels like a paid placement. These placements almost feel formulaic, when you start to watch them in succession. Product shot, check. Marketing message inserted in dialogue, check. This placement for Cheerios follows this formula perfectly, and ends with a hilariously melodramatic shot of the comely protagonist, with a huge box of Cheerios included inexplicably in the shot:

These placements are so bad that I almost wonder if this is yet another case of anti-product placement designed to muster negative sentiments for a competitors' products.

Filed Under: ads, days of our lives, product placement, soap operas