Recently, your new husband Song Joong-ki's "Descendants of the Sun" has been aired simultaneously in China and South Korea, and it was the cooperation of subtitle groups and video media that ensured the synchronization of this update. With the introduction of more foreign productions into domestic broadcasting, subtitle groups are also quietly changing, in addition to continuing to provide free supplies, but also began to participate more in the commercialization of video introduction. So the question is, why have "subtitle groups" become the image of China's unique culture, and where is the springtime for them?
Why do Chinese people love to watch foreign works?
With the rapid development of society, Chinese people are no longer satisfied with listening to people say "the moon is fuller abroad", but more want to go to the world, through the autonomy of participation to learn more about all aspects of the world. Domestic film and television productions, variety shows, popular science programs, and even public lectures are no longer enough to satisfy the curiosity of Chinese people about the world.
When viewers watch foreign cultures and learn about other cultures through those cultures, the language is the gap between them, and subtitling becomes a bridge over that gap.
On the one hand, subtitle groups translate foreign videos for domestic partners to watch without barriers and learn more knowledge; on the other hand, they translate domestic outstanding videos into other languages to realize the cultural output. In this process, the subtitle group has completed the selection of excellent culture and realized the exchange and development of excellent culture.
The reason why subtitle groups are created and flourish is not only because of love, but also because of the urgent demand of human beings for cultural products, and the demand will surely generate supply, which is accompanied by the social attribute of "sharing" that human beings as social beings bring with them.
From the point of view of political economy, the creation of subtitle groups is precisely due to the fact that the current "supply and demand relationship" cannot be satisfied - the ever-growing "cultural and spiritual needs of the masses" and the slow development of the "cultural and spiritual needs of the masses". "The "cultural program and the cultural industry" - and the slow development - are the result of the social development of the destiny of the world.
Are there any subtitle groups abroad?
1. Given how hard it is to learn Chinese, even the subtitling of foreign videos is done with the help of many Chinese students.
Yeah, Chinese is really hard to be proud of.
2. If the TV station doesn't try hard, the subtitle team will try hard for you.
Because the current system of introducing movie and TV works in China is not perfect enough, the speed of introduction simply can't keep up with the speed of what viewers want to see. The new system would have to open up the introduction of film and television, standardize the grading system for film and television, ensure that imported works are of the same quality as the originals, incorporate subtitling into film and television production, and rationalize the existence of subtitling in order to give subtitling the security it deserves.
But the current economic conditions of the cultural market, China's cultural industry is still in the early stages of development in need of protection, if the relevant legal provisions have not been perfected, the people of the degree of absorption of culture is still to be improved at the moment, choose to completely open the introduction of the market will only be destructive to China's cultural industry damage, yes, China's cultural industry is so fragile and vulnerable. But no matter what, please believe that the existence is reasonable, "subtitle group" since it is a good cultural image of the product, then will not be eliminated by society, adhere to the standardized development, will always be able to keep the clouds open to see the moonlight day.
3. The problem of copyright is very serious.
The emergence of "copyright" is to protect the fruits of the labor of cultural and artistic workers, so that their efforts should be able to get a return; but if you really set too high a threshold to protect the cultural products, but also hinder the development of social and cultural exchanges.
There are also subtitle groups abroad, but the awareness of foreign consumers to purchase film and television works on their own initiative is stronger than that of the Chinese.
Relatively speaking, China's awareness of copyright lags behind that of foreign countries, but it is also quietly budding. Hunan TV produced the 2015 Spring Festival Gala because of the theft of an art college student's design has become the object of verbal abuse on the Internet, Youku allegedly stole the video ideas of the post-90s has also been pushed to the forefront of the wind and waves....... increasingly More and more copyright disputes are proving to some extent that copyright awareness is gradually sprouting in the minds of Chinese people.
There is also a serious conflict between subtitle groups and copyright, a conflict that cannot be ignored or overcome, and even brainwashing oneself 10,000 times with "I don't do this for profit" can't give a subtitle group the sense of security they want.
The "source group" is the main focus of the copyright conflict. Generally speaking, if a subtitle group does not have the authorization of the copyright holder (commercial movies and TV shows are not likely to offer free licenses like open courses at prestigious schools), it is very difficult to invoke "fair use" in the Copyright Law as an exemption to share the content of the film publicly, especially when some of the films contain advertisements (proving that they have a profit-making purpose) that the group has added. This is especially true in the case of movies with advertisements added by the subtitler (proving a profit motive), which undoubtedly constitutes an infringement of copyright, whether or not the copyright holder pursues the matter is another matter.
The case of simply creating and sharing external subtitles needs to be discussed specifically, as subtitles are part of a movie or television work, and are also copyrighted, including the right to translate. If the subtitles come from the copyright holder, for example, if they are "ripped off" from a licensed DVD, that could also constitute copyright infringement. But the act of translating and sharing subtitles is easier to explain as "fair use" for "personal study, research, or enjoyment," even if that's a stretch in terms of the number of downloads.
Based on business practices, copyright holders have largely focused their efforts on fighting piracy of film sources, and have been more tolerant of subtitle piracy.
And it is said that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has cracked down on subtitle groups in bursts, never devastatingly, and that many of the well-known subtitle groups that have been sticking around have come and gone for more than a dozen years. Subtitle group on and off, which also contains other countries to copyright reasons to our government's international pressure, in the unknown in the recent situation of the subtitle group in fact also silently protected.
Can you really survive on love alone?
Perhaps in the beginning, subtitling was really just a small group activity, such as a group of people who loved a particular American artist, and even if they could read and understand English, because they were native Chinese speakers, they had the latent impulse to Chinese-language video magazines, and then shared them with more of their fellow fans, purely as spontaneous and conscious fan behavior. If the subtitle group's behavior had stayed as just fan behavior, it would have been fine, after all, fans have a fetish for collecting.
With the rapid development of Internet technology, the traffic generated by content on Web pages has begun to generate huge commercial value, and the movies and TV programs produced by subtitle groups have been targeted by online video sites. In China's imperfect introduction mechanism, the video site to buy the video is not so smooth, since you can not buy the video through the regular channels, then find these subtitles produced by the subtitle site to buy, which is the best assumption of the situation.
The worst-case scenario is that someone uploads the video to a self-marketing platform without the subtitle team's permission, which adds another "respect for the fruits of other people's labor" to the question of whether it's legal for subtitle teams to produce subtitled videos, making the conflict more difficult to resolve. "This adds to the original question of whether it is legal for subtitle groups to produce subtitled videos and whether it is respectful of others' labor, making the original contradiction even more difficult to resolve.
Love is priceless, but love alone cannot sustain a group. Any group will be in the development of progress, will certainly realize from the emotional to economic progress. If you want to prevent your own group from being violated, then you have to formalize, standardize, and professionalize your subtitle group, and when you get to that point, you have to consider the issue of profitability.
In recent years, in addition to the introduction of TV stations, major video websites have also begun to buy popular films and TV shows, hoping to use these different introductions to differentiate themselves and attract more users to stay. These behaviors have made it possible to formalize subtitle groups.