Free Subtitles = Two Years In Jail? Comments

Techdirt by Mike Masnick - May 21, '07 4:43am
Add to Favorites Add to Live.com Add to Google Add to del.icio.us Add to Yahoo! Add to Digg Add to Reddit Add to Technorati Add to StumbleUpon This one was submitted last week, and a few other sites had stories about it late last week or over the weekend, but the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it became. It's the story of a group of folks in Poland getting arrested after having their homes raided for creating free translation subtitles for various movies. Not only is this considered copyright infringement in Poland, but it could net the pro bono translators two years in jail. This raises the question that no one seems willing to answer: under what logical basis could you possibly see this as a crime worth two years in jail? The most interesting part is that the guy who runs the site that distributes these subtitles claims that official translators often use the unofficial translations from the site. In other words, they're helping the industry in many cases -- and now police time (both German and Polish police) was wasted for no good reason, followed up by eventual court time and resources wasted. Aren't there more important things for German and Polish police to be taking care of these days? More importantly, though, what does it say about copyright law in Poland that creating an unofficial translation of a movie is considered a crime punishable by two years in jail?
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