Subtitles Download Sites Targeted In Israel

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The Israeli equivalent of the MPAA, ALIS, is now attacking subtitle download sites and in particular, the people who rip and upload subtitles to these sites.

Three individuals who ripped and uploaded subtitles to the Israeli subtitle site Qsubs have been ordered to pay $240,000 each in damages and, in an act of further humiliation, ordered to publicly apologise for their behaviours.

Subtitle ripping is quite controversial, and legally, it's not as quite straight forward when it comes to declaring them legal or illegal, at least not as straight forward as say movies of music. And this is perhaps why uploaders of subtitles are less inclined to hide their identities as compared to uploaders of movies, music or software, and this perhaps makes them an easier target from groups like ALIS.

Subtitle files are primarily text, and are of little value by themselves. The words contained in the files are protected by copyright, and these subtitle files are usually ripped from commercial DVDs, another illegal act in many countries. Furthermore, subtitle files are mostly used for movies converted from DVD, and you can argue that if people have the original DVD, then they can rip their own subtitles as opposed to downloading them, and so if people are downloading them, it must mean they don't have the original DVD (and so have pirated the movie to use the subtitles with).

But even so, $240,000 in damages is excessive, and the subtitle uploaders do it for no profit and benefit to themselves.

More:

http://torrentfreak.com/israeli-mpaa...g-site-090913/