Opensubtitles stealing your work to make money !

[Araldwenn]

The real reason I created an account on the forum is because I realized for a few days/weeks now opensubtitles.org adds publicity in subtitles taken from addicted.com, where they ask people to subscribe to opensubtitle.org VIP account, or propose an advertisement space in subtitles.

I don't get too much offended when people take your work from a site you posted to (It happened to subtitles I originally created and posted a few years ago), as long as the content is left untouched, and nobody tries to make money with your work without your consent.

I hope Addicted will take legal action to make this shame cease, and show strong support to all his contributors.

[pixxxie]

I've come across such requests recently in subs downloaded from OpenSubtitles. If they are indeed doctoring other people's work without acknowledgment then I would not be impressed.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has direct experience with subs they've created and later found to be 'watermarked' with an OpenSubtitles promo.

[alex28]

Hello, Araldwenn. 

First of all, glad to have you here! 

Regarding OS: They do it for every subtitle they host on the website, not only Addic7ed ones, afaik .

I'm personally against altering subtitles with promotional lines or call to actions. 12 years ago (we're turning 12 this month!) when we started Addic7ed, we wanted to help people that rely on subtitles to enjoy TV shows. That was and still is the only goal. If we also reach this goal by Opensubtitles reuploads, then we're happy. If the quality of the reuploads is changed, I think you should report it to their staff. 

We support and help our team members, contributors and users (even in social causes, on some occasions) and we're grateful for the work they do for the entire community, for free. 

Thank you for your post and for being an addic7 

[Araldwenn]

I don't understand... Should I go to OS and tell them they're thieves ? What's the point ?

You say helping people that rely on subtitles to enjoy TV shows was and still is the only goal.

But all of this cost money (servers, etc...)

And what is actually happening and didn't happened before, is OS stealing the work of thousands to make profit. And this does NOT profit you and and doesn't profit in any way the community of hard working translators.

I agree reuploading is sharing with community, but what they're actually doing is hold-up, grand larceny !

 

[alex28]

2 hours ago, Araldwenn said:

And what is actually happening and didn't happened before, is OS stealing the work of thousands to make profit. And this does NOT profit you and and doesn't profit in any way the community of hard working translators.

 

Think I remember OS having promotional lines in subtitles (not -only- ours) for a long time (I might be wrong tho).

Thing is, you're only noticing OS because they're the biggest subtitle database around (and they're also doing it on a platform level, it's not the uploader to blame). There are / have been others that replaced credits entirely with their own, even if it was our work. It's a cat and mouse game and we decided not to waste resources on it. We'd rather focus on our own service and quality.

As said, if people don't know about Addic7ed but want subtitle for episode X, and they grab it from OpenSubtitles, then fine. One happy user, no matter who served him / her the content. 

Yes, all this costs money and we cover expenses with the help of donations and ads. 

I really appreciate your concern and honesty about this, but we are at peace, always. How people see fit to use our work, depends on them. At the end of the day, it's users who decide who gets credit or not. 

[volverine73]

Araldwenn, probably some consolation that OS new site (.com) is a disaster. Nothing works as it should, i.e you see that the show has 50 subtitles uploaded but you see maybe two, or none at all. You are to wait 20 seconds to download anything unless you install their "search engine" app. And then again - 20 sec, as if you didn't do it already. Like I said, nothing works. All that while the old site (.org) is unavailable to the most users due to the court ban.
I have great respect for some of their lead uploaders, explosiveskull and a couple of other guys, but their management's attempts to monetize do repulse the users.

Edited May 20, 2020 by volverine73

[explosiveskull2]

As an admin on OpenSubtitles, I saw the need to present some explanation here.

First of all, we are not making changes to subtitles manually. The lines regarding "advertisements on OpenSubtitles" are added automatically to the subtitles when the users are trying to download the subtitles anonymously. You shouldn't see those lines if you're logged in. Just like Addic7ed, we're not selling subtitles on the site so there should be an alternative to help us with the server costs.

Secondly, we strictly follow up any reports about missing credits. So if you see any subtitles with missing credits, you can report them and we'll take a look.

Thirdly, I don't think "taking legal action" is in the scope considering we're all using what's already available with some tweaks here and there.

Finally, you're welcome in our forum to report any problems you stumble upon. oss monitors the site actively and the critical issues are fixed in a timely manner. We highly recommend sticking to the original .org website for now since the .com website is still under development and has a long way to go.

[volverine73]

10 hours ago, explosiveskull2 said:

As an admin on OpenSubtitles, I saw the need to present some explanation here.

First of all, we are not making changes to subtitles manually. The lines regarding "advertisements on OpenSubtitles" are added automatically to the subtitles when the users are trying to download the subtitles anonymously. You shouldn't see those lines if you're logged in. Just like Addic7ed, we're not selling subtitles on the site so there should be an alternative to help us with the server costs.

Secondly, we strictly follow up any reports about missing credits. So if you see any subtitles with missing credits, you can report them and we'll take a look.

Thirdly, I don't think "taking legal action" is in the scope considering we're all using what's already available with some tweaks here and there.

Finally, you're welcome in our forum to report any problems you stumble upon. oss monitors the site actively and the critical issues are fixed in a timely manner. We highly recommend sticking to the original .org website for now since the .com website is still under development and has a long way to go.

.org is regrettably redirected to a court order page 9/10 of the times, it is what it is

[explosiveskull2]

4 minutes ago, volverine73 said:

.org is regrettably redirected to a court order page 9/10 of the times, it is what it is

So far, I think the only country that doesn't have direct access to the .org domain is Denmark. We received strict orders from the Danish authorities to block the site for Danish IPs and this had to be done, otherwise more problems could've been created. You will have to use proxies to access the website. In case you're not in Denmark and it still redirects to a court order page, try using different DNS servers as your Internet provider is probably DNS hijacking and taking you elsewhere than the original webpage. My personal suggestion is Cloudflare's DNS servers: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1.

[volverine73]

15 hours ago, explosiveskull2 said:

So far, I think the only country that doesn't have direct access to the .org domain is Denmark. We received strict orders from the Danish authorities to block the site for Danish IPs and this had to be done, otherwise more problems could've been created. You will have to use proxies to access the website. In case you're not in Denmark and it still redirects to a court order page, try using different DNS servers as your Internet provider is probably DNS hijacking and taking you elsewhere than the original webpage. My personal suggestion is Cloudflare's DNS servers: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1.

Well, now I live in country where literally no-one cares about copyright wars. I don't have to use VPN or any other kinds of proxy to get access to anything. I think, OS.org was the only issue whatsoever. It works for now, but if it'll stop again, I wouldn't be surprised. On and off for the last few months