From: the.wise.one@abel.co.uk   
      
   Pfhhh, you call that a copyright violation?   
      
   By Steven Lin (China Daily)   
   Updated: 2007-03-06 11:22   
      
      
   What makes YouTube so popular? It is the website's content, such as   
   snippets from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, South Park, or any of the   
   latest television shows from around the world.   
      
   Though TV networks have asked YouTube to remove them, users keep   
   uploading more unauthorized video clips.   
      
   In China, some websites are doing much more than that. "Western   
   executives must be very jealous of the copyright situation here," a   
   Chinese Web 2.0 entrepreneur once told me. Posting copyrighted videos   
   online? Who cares.   
      
   The result of this laissez-faire approach to unauthorized uploads is to   
   popular culture-hungry Internet users what pirated disks was to Chinese   
   cinephiles a decade ago.   
      
   Nowadays, go to a Chinese video-sharing site, type in the name of your   
   favorite show, click on the search button, and voila! Every single   
   episode of the show will pop up on your screen faster than the fairy   
   godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage for Cinderella.   
      
   Case in point: ouou.com. Here you can access new episodes of 24, Prison   
   Break, Heroes or any other series, one day after they air in the United   
   States.   
      
   What's more, there is no downloading (a process that belongs to the   
   BitTorrent/KaZaA age), no commercial breaks to bother you every few   
   minutes, and most importantly, no Babel-like situation where language or   
   cultural misunderstanding makes the global village a pitfall of perils.   
      
   It is all thanks to the effort made by volunteer translation groups.   
      
   These are fans who prepare Chinese subtitles as soon as they get the   
   video from the Internet. After Episode 1, Season 2 of Prison Break came   
   out in August 2006, the first Chinese subtitled version was finished and   
   uploaded in less than seven hours.   
      
   For shows that require in-depth knowledge of American culture, there are   
   footnotes with the subtitles. For example, footnotes on Studio 60 On the   
   Sunset Strip help Chinese audiences understand in-jokes about Hollywood   
   history and American politicians.   
      
   Here's one secret for high-quality translation: embedded English   
   subtitles for HDTV programs are recorded and sent to the translation   
   groups for reference, kind of like a secret agent that Chinese couch   
   potatoes have planted inside Hollywood.   
      
   The irony is, when official Chinese television stations present new   
   imported hit shows, people rarely take notice, partly because of the low   
   quality of translation, and partly because of the terrible dubbing. A   
   year ago, when CCTV screened Desperate Housewives, the ratings were   
   abysmally low. So low that Hollywood had better consider breaking into   
   the Albanian market.   
      
   Volunteer translation not only happens in China. On YouTube's "Most   
   Viewed" page, some Japanese cartoons come with English subtitles also   
   the work of volunteers. Fortune magazine said that if the official   
   versions of these Japanese anime are bought by American networks,   
   grassroots translation will cease operation immediately.   
      
   That would be like guerrillas dispersing when the uniformed troops march   
   in, wouldn't it?   
      
   -   
      
   To comment or contribute, e-mail hopot at chinadaily.com.cn   
      
   (China Daily 03/06/2007 page 20)   
      
      
   http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/entertainment/2007-03/06/content_820719.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)