Hi. Jo_o. It's actually none of the above. I'm just interested in finding someone who can provide this service and I want to demonstrate that there is a need to it. I certainly know I would be willing to pay for such service. I love watching Asian dramas but I don't understand Korean, so I would wish there was a better way to improve the viewing experience, even for a price. That's why I was asking.jO_O wrote:@asianbuzz
When i read your post, i can only think of those 3 explanations to your querry/question/curiosity :
- you are thinking of creating your own website on wich you would "sell"/"make available" korean (/asian ?) dramas with subtiles but you are not sure of the price of your "service(s)"
- you are a member (/chef-edidor ? ;-) of a fansub team and you would like to earn some money if possible
- you are thinking of creating your own fansub team and earn some money by the process.
If i'm totally mistaken about your intentions - and of course i am... - can you forgive me and give me your *real* reason for your post and explain why/how you came up with your "pay-for-your-subs-of-each-episode" theory ?
By the way, i think i'm almost pretty sure that it would be TOTALLY illegal for fansub teams to be paid in exchange for their subs...but i can be wrong, again...
It is certainly stupid idea if a business is only thinking of generating based on this business model.nophankh wrote:I think your intentions are good, but it is stupid.
I don't think this type of service can ever be profitable because of the napster effect.
The first person who paid for the subs could share it with everyone else through sendspace, torrents, and megaupload.
It would be impossible to keep try of who got it for free or who paid for the subs.
The subbers can't do anything about it because fansubbing is illegal.
It's like a crack-dealer reporting to the cops that someone stole his crack.
The studio heads who have control over drama media don't care about us because we're not in their demographic. We could one day, but for the time being we're too small in size for them to care about.
I posted this also on soompi to get my point across.
I don't mind the wait because it's free and WithS2 is pretty fast.
Thanks. *sigh* it seems like everyone's assuming that I mean "fansubs" when I said "subtitles". While the anime subtitled content are indeed expensive, there could be other possible ways to make it more affordable.ethidda wrote:If this weren't a completely unrealistic question (listed with my sister's "What would you do if you could get a real Pegasus?"), I would pay to get a series of drama all at once, without the delay, as they do on YAE's released.
HOWEVER, there are several reasons why this is a useless question.
1.) Fansubs are never going to charge money. That is against all the spirit and ethics of fansubbing. We do it because we like doing and because we want to share drama. We don't care about the money, and any good fansub group would refuse donations even if it were offered. Money complicates our obligations (none) and makes it (more of) a legal mess. While we can get sent letters from official companies asking us to cease subtitle and distribution of certain dramas, we can be MUCH easier sued and found guilty if we charged for the drama. The nature of the lawsuits change.
2.) In order for anybody to LEGALLY charge for dramas, they have to first get the license for the drama, which is very pricey. Ever wondered why anime DVDs are so expensive? The subtitles would be much more expensive than just $1 or 2/episode, because who ever buys the license would have to make up for the cost of buying the license. Then, there's the time commitment. If you get a group to work on it, with a schedule, then you'd have to pay people. And everything will actually have to be perfect because you ARE charging people. It would be like starting your own entertainment company. Only, you wouldn't be making money.
Hence, I do not see a legal option to get subbed drama for less than YAE price. Nor do I see anything like this happening anytime soon. I can tell you that as a (Taiwanese drama) fansubber that I COULD translate, time, and encode a 70-minute episode all in 24 hours, but I would burn out very quickly and it's not worth the stress and the headache and the dizziness. (Trust me, I did it. Several times.)
Fansubs are fansubs. If you are impatient, wait until all the episodes are subbed before watching it. As a fansubber, I love it when viewers enjoy our work. However, I do not fansub for any PARTICULAR person (read: leechers) and honestly, it's not that big of a deal to wait a few extra weeks for the next episode. Sometimes, I have to wait, too, because I have too much school work.
nophankh wrote:Okay. what is your idea because I don't know.
If you're not talking about fansubs that what subs are you talking about.
Corporate media heads don't really care about us at the moment.
Please explain. How are you gonna improve the viewship experience?
How are you gonna export subs to your customers?
How are you gonna prevent leeching?
These are the questions I'm asking.
I think companies will be glad to provide the service if they find that there's market for it. Economies of scale.RyuNoKami wrote:well if it isn't fansubbed how can you pay for subtitles other than official companies?
Well, personally, there are only a few reasons why I go for fansubs. One, DVD prices are high, I don't have much money to spare. Two, it is quicker than official english subtitles since they take forever to release DVDs. and finally i find fansubbed works to be "better". *rolls eyes @ official Rurouni Kenshin subs*
lol. But you still need to buy the script--so you'd still need to buy the license. And I'm not sure on the legality of the timing issue.belleza wrote:asianbuzz is essentially asking about the legality of paying for softsubs. In other words, you find whatever way *wink wink nudge nudge* to DL the raw video, but you pay for the ASS/SRT files.
They probably are and even if they are not stealing fansubs, it would still be illegal. They are just implicating the fansubbers as well as themselves if they are stealing fansubbers' works.ysetiawa wrote:I found some people already charging kdrama on veoh, princess hours and kim sam soon. I think it's about $2 per episode. I was wondering about the legality side of it too. I certainly hope these people not stealing the fansub's work then charging it out for their own profit.
okay what the b*tch!!!!!!ethidda wrote:They probably are and even if they are not stealing fansubs, it would still be illegal. They are just implicating the fansubbers as well as themselves if they are stealing fansubbers' works.ysetiawa wrote:I found some people already charging kdrama on veoh, princess hours and kim sam soon. I think it's about $2 per episode. I was wondering about the legality side of it too. I certainly hope these people not stealing the fansub's work then charging it out for their own profit.
Oh, i absolutely agree that fansubs are NOT to be sold. I would think if there's a need, a company would be interested in supplying that need for profit. They can air the Chinese subs with the Korean dramas there in China, why is it not possible for English? You hit a point that I was thinking aboutethidda wrote:I would love to work as a translator, but I think I would ask for at least $10-12/hour, and that amounts to about $40-50 an episode, assuming that they can buy the timing of the scripts with the license.
However, I think even that is much more expensive than the people they hire, because the translators they hire are obviously not native English speakers--if they can be considered English speakers at all. YAE's subs don't make sense half the time, and sometimes they do, but are still missing verbs or articles. It's very distracting to try to decipher what closely resembles English but isn't really. But yeah, my point being, hiring ANY native English speaker will probably push them over their budget...
And as fansubs, we do try to improve "viewership experience". We provide hardsubs as well as instructions on how to play them and which model of DVD players to buy if you want to watch them on TV. There are endless walkthrough pages if you really want to re-encode into DVD. However, we also want to make things simple for encoding and distributing. If we uploaded things encoded in mpeg2 (standard DVD format), the files would be 5-10 times bigger and you wouldn't be able to enjoy as much drama.
No, not feeling testy... just a bit on guard because I don't want yet MORE people to get into their minds that selling fansubs is an easy way to make money. It's UNETHICAL, ILLEGAL, and the fastest way you can get people to stop fansubbing.
They are... when the license is bought by an American entertainment corporation and aired on TV. This never happens as fast as the show airs in the original country though. I don't think you will ever get subs from illegitimate companies as the show airs. If you want to pay for it you will just need to wait for box sets because exporting dramas requires lots of legal paperwork you aren't even considering. Plus it's really expensive to export stuff. No American company will buy licenses before they see the popularity of the show in the native country. It's bad business. And unfortunately because you are bringing money and profit into this, that is what businesses concern themselves with first. Making money not providing services to the consumers whim.asianbuzz wrote: Oh, i absolutely agree that fansubs are NOT to be sold. I would think if there's a need, a company would be interested in supplying that need for profit. They can air the Chinese subs with the Korean dramas there in China, why is it not possible for English? You hit a point that I was thinking about
Interesting opinion. Thanks.Puppet Princess wrote:They are... when the license is bought by an American entertainment corporation and aired on TV. This never happens as fast as the show airs in the original country though. I don't think you will ever get subs from illegitimate companies as the show airs. If you want to pay for it you will just need to wait for box sets because exporting dramas requires lots of legal paperwork you aren't even considering. Plus it's really expensive to export stuff. No American company will buy licenses before they see the popularity of the show in the native country. It's bad business. And unfortunately because you are bringing money and profit into this, that is what businesses concern themselves with first. Making money not providing services to the consumers whim.asianbuzz wrote: Oh, i absolutely agree that fansubs are NOT to be sold. I would think if there's a need, a company would be interested in supplying that need for profit. They can air the Chinese subs with the Korean dramas there in China, why is it not possible for English? You hit a point that I was thinking about
You are just dreaming. What you are asking for will never happen. DVDs? Yes. But subbed itunes downloads as the show airs for dirt cheap?.... never gonna happen.
Why you ask? BECAUSE, China is a huge market. China is one of the most populous country in the world with a population of 1 Billion people. South Korea entertainment industry hopes, supports, or even supplies ways to make Chinese subs go out faster. They could make Billions of Trillions of dollars from the chinese consumers.ethidda wrote: Oh, i absolutely agree that fansubs are NOT to be sold. I would think if there's a need, a company would be interested in supplying that need for profit. They can air the Chinese subs with the Korean dramas there in China, why is it not possible for English? You hit a point that I was thinking about
I'm on your side. I'm Chinese so I understand it's a big market. I just believe there's got a be a better way to make it a win win situation, maybe now it seems impossible. But I wouldn't want to stop trying to find solution just because it's challenging (or frustrating). Wish me luck.nophankh wrote:Why you ask? BECAUSE, China is a huge market. China is one of the most populous country in the world with a population of 1 Billion people. South Korea entertainment industry hopes, supports, or even supplies ways to make Chinese subs go out faster. They could make Billions of Trillions of dollars from the chinese consumers.ethidda wrote: Oh, i absolutely agree that fansubs are NOT to be sold. I would think if there's a need, a company would be interested in supplying that need for profit. They can air the Chinese subs with the Korean dramas there in China, why is it not possible for English? You hit a point that I was thinking about
China is part of the demographic while we, who live in Europe or North America or even South America are excluded. We are so few in numbers that we don't even get considered. Dramas are expensive and fansubbing is a gruesomely long process that would be too costly to produce.
Thanks for the input. They're good. Most people thought iTunes model would fail, record companies thought Apple was crazy to think people would pay .99 for a song when they can download for free. Steve Jobs had to fight record companies for insisting .99 per song , no more no less. Yet, iTune is one of the most successful business. The record company also make money (maybe not as much as they want). Apple gave customer value added service, free itunes software and slick ipod designs. It's became popular that it became a must to be selling on itunes. For now, it may look like our market is small, but it has potential to grow where license companies would work out something to still make some money. Afterall, who would have thought kdrama would generate this much interest as it has now. Business model changes over time, there's no denying that. But it may also mean there's 2 -5 years time to figure out a way to make things improve.deadd wrote:I think that even if a successful business model can be found and quality softsubs are produced on a regular basis, I have a feeling that, after a while (anywhere from 6 months to 10 years, who knows) the business model will change to a lower cost formula that results in terrible quality subs.
Because:
- eventually, subbers will want more pay
- license fees will gradually increase over time
- the Company will be pressured by new competition to survive in the industry
These examples are theoretical. But if you have taken Micro-economics, I think they are realistic. Plus, look at any business industry today. Many companies are following a lower cost business model, such as the airline industry, the retail industry, healthcare industry, etc.
(off topic) Most of these costs are taken out of the workers' wages and benefits.
I guess what you wrote doesn't make sense to me. I personally don't care if Asianbuzz is selling out or if fansubbers have pride in their work. That's nice and all, but how well is this business venture gonna progress. It doesn't seem possible with our size and ddl links.groink wrote:Here's my point of view.... It seems that within the community, it is looked upon negatively when someone become a professional subber. It has absolutely nothing to do with fansubbing and such. It is basically looked upon as "selling out". For example, if a fansubber from XYZ Fansubs decided to get a job at KTSF-TV as a subber, most of the community would think he's selling out.
Why? Because, just like computer software and music, people believe that subtitles should be free. Even the people who are subbing at TV stations right now are looked at negatively. These professionals tend to focus less on detail or accuracy, and their work appears cold. So there's also pride involved - where the amateur feels that he can do much better than a professional.
Most of the people here forgot (or never knew) that just a few years ago subbing was all done professionally. But, because fansubbing is so huge today, the people who enjoy fansubbing couldn't think of gettings subs any other way - especially if they had to pay for it.
So that's basically it in a nutshell. asianbuzz is selling out! He would rather turn his skills into money than to do it for free. That's why any business model he brings up will not be welcomed here. If I were asianbuzz, I would do it anyway, but not talk about it in public - especially in a community like D-Addicts. If he understood the community, this topic wouldn't even exist.
--- groink
Sounds like another "free as beer" conspiracy theory. Arguments like this one are spinning my question and my comments in directions that were never intended. Whether or not one does the subbing for free or for pay, if he/she did not produce the original content or acquire it legally (via a license), then he/she is breaking the law technically. For now, many of the big companies (producing the content) and lobbying organizations like MPAA and RIAA have been silent but not blinded to these activities. Just because you haven't have a knock on your door, it doesn't mean that they're unaware of our activities. They're aware, and they're collecting data. These entities regularly receive web traffic reports, collated per user, from most of the major ISPs--some reports are sent voluntarily and others involuntarily (coerced by the courts).groink wrote:Here's my point of view.... It seems that within the community, it is looked upon negatively when someone become a professional subber. It has absolutely nothing to do with fansubbing and such. It is basically looked upon as "selling out". For example, if a fansubber from XYZ Fansubs decided to get a job at KTSF-TV as a subber, most of the community would think he's selling out.
Why? Because, just like computer software and music, people believe that subtitles should be free. Even the people who are subbing at TV stations right now are looked at negatively. These professionals tend to focus less on detail or accuracy, and their work appears cold. So there's also pride involved - where the amateur feels that he can do much better than a professional.
Most of the people here forgot (or never knew) that just a few years ago subbing was all done professionally. But, because fansubbing is so huge today, the people who enjoy fansubbing couldn't think of gettings subs any other way - especially if they had to pay for it.
So that's basically it in a nutshell. asianbuzz is selling out! He would rather turn his skills into money than to do it for free. That's why any business model he brings up will not be welcomed here. If I were asianbuzz, I would do it anyway, but not talk about it in public - especially in a community like D-Addicts. If he understood the community, this topic wouldn't even exist.
--- groink
Nophank, I actually agree with a lot of your point. When I first came to the US, everything looked uninteresting to me. Not to say it is worse or better, it's just that I do miss my TVB programs. In the process of looking for TVB shows, I stumbled upon Kdramas and found that they are really good too. Western movies and tv shows goes to Asia all the time, the reverse may happen too one day. Afterall, we are in a trend where Americans are remaking Asian films (The grudge, Departed, Lake House etc) or showing them as they are (KungFu Hustle, Crouching Tiger. Flying Daggers). They're also remaking Latino shows. The way "Ugly Betty" has been mainstream is how I envision it for Asian content. I envision a day where Asian dramas can be as ubiquitous and mainstreamed as others (like anime). Hence, asianbuzznophankh wrote:I guess what you wrote doesn't make sense to me. I personally don't care if Asianbuzz is selling out or if fansubbers have pride in their work. That's nice and all, but how well is this business venture gonna progress. It doesn't seem possible with our size and ddl links.groink wrote:Here's my point of view.... It seems that within the community, it is looked upon negatively when someone become a professional subber. It has absolutely nothing to do with fansubbing and such. It is basically looked upon as "selling out". For example, if a fansubber from XYZ Fansubs decided to get a job at KTSF-TV as a subber, most of the community would think he's selling out.
Why? Because, just like computer software and music, people believe that subtitles should be free. Even the people who are subbing at TV stations right now are looked at negatively. These professionals tend to focus less on detail or accuracy, and their work appears cold. So there's also pride involved - where the amateur feels that he can do much better than a professional.
Most of the people here forgot (or never knew) that just a few years ago subbing was all done professionally. But, because fansubbing is so huge today, the people who enjoy fansubbing couldn't think of gettings subs any other way - especially if they had to pay for it.
So that's basically it in a nutshell. asianbuzz is selling out! He would rather turn his skills into money than to do it for free. That's why any business model he brings up will not be welcomed here. If I were asianbuzz, I would do it anyway, but not talk about it in public - especially in a community like D-Addicts. If he understood the community, this topic wouldn't even exist.
--- groink
I read somewhere that the Korean wave "hallyu" is declining. More exports of American tv shows are being exported into asian countries.
Prison Break is like Korea's favorite American TV show. That's what I've heard.
I don't see asian dramas hitting the Western market any time soon. I watch a lot of dramas and I don't think the taste and style of these dramas can ever enter the US market where things are more graphic and hardcore.
I have a video ipod and I've never downloaded music from iTune...EVER! I think the only reason iTune did so well because all iPods need iTune to upload files. I wouldn't even look at iTune if it wasn't a requirement for uploading files to my iPod. I hate iTune.
sorry for being so negative. IF you find a good way for me to get cheap subs and quick I'm all for it, but for now, I just think it's impossible.
Besides, Asian dramas gives us the ability to define ourselves on our own terms, we don't have to be mysterious kungfu fighters who eat all kind of weird things and utter confusing statements.Not to dampen your spirits further, but Apple's iTunes store doesn't make any money. They make their money on the IPods and Macintosh computers. The reason why iTunes is still considered a success is because of the tie-in with their hardware products (IPods needs iTunes to work, iTunes is pre-installed on a Mac, Macs are more secure than MS-based PC, etc.)asianbuzz wrote: Thanks for the input. They're good. Most people thought iTunes model would fail, record companies thought Apple was crazy to think people would pay .99 for a song when they can download for free. Steve Jobs had to fight record companies for insisting .99 per song , no more no less. Yet, iTune is one of the most successful business. The record company also make money (maybe not as much as they want). Apple gave customer value added service, free itunes software and slick ipod designs. It's became popular that it became a must to be selling on itunes. For now, it may look like our market is small, but it has potential to grow where license companies would work out something to still make some money. Afterall, who would have thought kdrama would generate this much interest as it has now. Business model changes over time, there's no denying that. But it may also mean there's 2 -5 years time to figure out a way to make things improve.
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