The Business of Subtitles

[repeat]

Apologies to American users for the Eurocentric nature of this digression, but tenia's post on the previous page made me wonder: isn't all this corporate fuckery with forced subtitles and other similar hindrances - done explicitly in order to limit the desirability of importing certain products into certain marketplaces - clearly abuse of a legislative loophole in the EU competition laws that effectively allows a company to limit competition without actually violating the principle of free movement of goods? Aren't these clauses that are described above expressly designed to that end - to limit competition? Because if you look at it that way, it is certainly not a minor issue at all (as some of the members here have suggested) - and the more it is tolerated, the more widespread it will certainly become.

[MichaelB]

I would love to get in touch with AE and hear what they have to say from their perspective, but they don't seem to respond often these days.

They have yet to respond to my Facebook comment. Unfortunately, I'm completely out of touch with whoever's running the company these days - my old Artificial Eye contacts now run New Wave Films.

[TMDaines]

Apologies to American users for the Eurocentric nature of this digression, but tenia's post on the previous page made me wonder: isn't all this corporate fuckery with forced subtitles and other similar hindrances - done explicitly in order to limit the desirability of importing certain products into certain marketplaces - clearly abuse of a legislative loophole in the EU competition laws that effectively allows a company to limit competition without actually violating the principle of free movement of goods? Aren't these clauses that are described above expressly designed to that end - to limit competition? Because if you look at it that way, it is certainly not a minor issue at all (as some of the members here have suggested) - and the more it is tolerated, the more widespread it will certainly become.

Yeah, I think you're correct. We're already getting to the stage where the DVD market is becoming pan-European. All the mainland European Amazon stores are starting to directly sell each other's stock and even British DVDs are now showing up on there too. It won't be long before Amazon UK starts selling all the European releases directly too, I'd imagine. Any challenge to this I don't think would have much of a chance because of the EU competition laws.

We've already seen similar cases with satellite TV and the exhibition of football in pubs. Some woman won the right to broadcast Premier League matches from the Greek broadcaster, regardless of the fact that Sky has the UK rights. Films and football matches are obviously two different kettles of fish and are viewed differently by the EU, but I'll be interested to see what could happen in the future.

[MichaelB]

Yeah, I think you're correct. We're already getting to the stage where the DVD market is becoming pan-European. All the mainland European Amazon stores are starting to directly sell each other's stock and even British DVDs are now showing up on there too. It won't be long before Amazon UK starts selling all the European releases directly too, I'd imagine. Any challenge to this I don't think would have much of a chance because of the EU competition laws.

...although in the UK it's technically illegal to sell something that hasn't explicitly been approved by the BBFC - or at least over the counter. I imagine Amazon gets away with it because of their offshore subsidiaries, or because they're merely acting as a go-between for the actual seller, whose location is their own legal responsibility.

Talking of "over the counter", last week I tried to buy a DVD of a film that I needed to watch at short notice as background research for a review I was writing. I walked from Oxford Circus to Leicester Square via Tottenham Court Road, calling in at every shop that sold DVDs, from HMV to Foyle's, and drew a complete blank. And this wasn't an obscure film at all - the British DVD of Carancho came out less than a year ago, on a respected indie label. Five years ago I could have tried HMV, Virgin and two branches of Border's, and I'd probably have struck lucky at at least one of them - but all but HMV are now closed, and HMV is in its death throes.

Which inevitably means that we'll be purchasing more and more online because we have no choice - and therefore much more inclined to shop around internationally.

[TMDaines]

Yeah, I think you're correct. We're already getting to the stage where the DVD market is becoming pan-European. All the mainland European Amazon stores are starting to directly sell each other's stock and even British DVDs are now showing up on there too. It won't be long before Amazon UK starts selling all the European releases directly too, I'd imagine. Any challenge to this I don't think would have much of a chance because of the EU competition laws.

...although in the UK it's technically illegal to sell something that hasn't explicitly been approved by the BBFC - or at least over the counter. I imagine Amazon gets away with it because of their offshore subsidiaries, or because they're merely acting as a go-between for the actual seller, whose location is their own legal responsibility.

Yes, I forgot about that. That may be why the majority of Europeans DVDs can't be bought through Amazon UK, but the other European Amazon stores all sell the foreign stock. You would have thought though that the German FSK system would have proved a similar stepping stone and all Italian DVDs come with that little SIAE shiny certificate of authenticity. I don't know the ins-and-outs of their systems though and whether they are mandatory.

The concept of buying nearly everything but food and clothes in stores is such a waste of time. I never bother. No wonder high streets are just filled with pound shops, charity shops and pawnbrokers nowadays. There's a certain pleasure about trawling about in a lot of Western European countries, where even small towns may have four or five well-stocked independent bookshops, but over here? Ergh. The abolition of fixed book pricing killed it off... not that I'm complaining!

[pro-bassoonist]

We've discussed this before at great length, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that this wasn't something that AE couldn't have negotiated around.

Your criticism of Artificial Eye's recent releases is not justified.

I am not in any way associated with AE, but I can confirm to you that AE were in fact not in a position to negotiate optional subtitles on the releases that you and other members have criticized. They are aware that optional subtitles are preferable, and where possible such have been included. The titles that were mentioned earlier in this thread -- Holy Motors, Amour, etc, -- had to have imposed subtitles in order to be released in the UK. I know this for a fact.

This trend of content owners requesting imposed subtitles isn't new, but in the EU it has become a rather important issue during the last couple of years. Furthermore, it affects all labels, from the top majors, such as StudioCanal, to smaller labels with much larger than AE's distribution networks, such as Pathe. Examples:

In 2010, Warner-Japan demanded that StudioCanal have imposed English subtitles on Takeshi Kitano's Outrage:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Outrage-B ... 32/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In 2009, Fox-UK had to include imposed English subtitles on Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Broken-Em ... 60/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In 2011, Pathe had to include imposed English subtitles on The Skin I Live In:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Skin- ... 62/#Review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As you could see, companies with much bigger resources and much greater influence on the market than AE have not been able to do what you think was possible.

And one final bit of info which I think you might find quite interesting: A couple of months ago, I was able to assist a distributor (which shall remain unnamed) that wanted to get in touch with the producer of what I believe to be a very good short documentary film. This short documentary film will be included on an upcoming Blu-ray release. Because it will be released in a different market from the one where the short documentary film was produced, the content owner demanded imposed subtitles for it. It was the only way it could have been used. In other words, imposed subtitles are nowadays requested even on certain supplemental features that appear on different releases.

[peerpee]

Some labels capitulate, some fight and win.

The practice cannot be condoned in any way.

[MichaelB]

I imagine it also relies on whether it's a buyer's or seller's market - if the UK distributor is the only company interested in handling a particular title, I can't imagine a rightsholder making this kind of thing a deal-breaker if there's a realistic chance that another deal might not be on the cards.

For instance, I can't imagine that Second Run has had to fight too many battles of this nature, and virtually all their titles have optional subtitles (I think the exception is Shinjuku Boys, where the only available master had them burned in, and removing them would have required the creation of a whole new master that was clearly way beyond the production budget for what was essentially an extra).

So conceivably, if UK distributors collectively refused to accept anything other than optional subtitles (except in Shinjuku Boys-style cases), rightsholders would have to capitulate eventually?

[TMDaines]

Pathe is a strange example considering they were one of the first labels that burnt me when I got into DVD buying, as they've long burnt-in or fixed subtitles in no obvious pattern.

StudioCanal is even worse though. Their releases, and those of the people they licence too, regularly come with fixed or burnt-in subtitles for no apparent reason.

Sorry, but I think it's disingenuous and frankly insulting to the labels who do fight to deliver the best product, to say that these films couldn't be released with optional subtitles. There's simply too many labels out there who consistently deliver them as such. It's also a slap in the face to the consumer who has the right to watch the film as intended and who may, believe it or not, have developed the capacity to speak a language over than the dominant one in his/her region.

[pro-bassoonist]

Sorry, but I think it's disingenuous and frankly insulting to the labels who do fight to deliver the best product, to say that these films couldn't be released with optional subtitles. There's simply too many labels out there who consistently deliver them as such. It's also a slap in the face to the consumer who has the right to watch the film as intended and who may, believe it or not, have developed the capacity to speak a language over than the dominant one in his/her region.

I understand your concern, as a consumer, but the reason I left the info above is to clarify that your criticism towards AE isn't justified. They do understand the market very, very well. The reality, however, is such that imposed subtitles are indeed required.

The example Michael has given above is also irrelevant because Second Run has never released a film from the same category Amour, Holy Motors, and A Royal Affair (Metrodome Video/also imposed subs) fall into -- these are very big films, Oscar winners, big festival winners, etc. When you start targeting such content -- which very clearly appeals to a much larger base of consumers as opposed to what a Second Run catalog release would -- and you happen to release in the EU, subtitle restrictions will come into play. This is the market reality. And this is the reason why even the likes of StudioCanal cannot do anything about it.

[vsski]

I must be missing something in the business rationale for forcing labels to do fixed subs.

Is it to prevent imports from or exports to other European countries and/or to protect the sales of a licensor within different markets?
It doesn't make sense to me, because if I'm a French speaker living in the UK and don't want English subs, I would import a French disc instead - and all that would do is dimish the sales of the UK label, the licensor would get their royalities presumably through the French label rather than the Uk one, which depending on the agreement may or may not be worth more to them.

[knives]

If AE releases Holy Motors at a cheaper rate French people may import seems to be the thought to this misguided thingy.

[vsski]

If AE releases Holy Motors at a cheaper rate French people may import seems to be the thought to this misguided thingy.

So then all of this is designed to suppress competition between labels and in other words screw the consumer (either on price or features or both)?

[zedz]

Is the suppression of competition / creation of import restrictions within the EU even legal?

[knives]

It's not legal, but nobody is going to do anything about it.

[pro-bassoonist]

Surely though Svet this doesn't create some kind of justification for them to impose fixed subs on the Bressons?

1. I have not seen these upcoming releases yet and do not know if there are imposed subtitles on them. In fact, I am unsure where this info is coming from.

2. I think that you are missing the point. It is not them deciding to have imposed subtitles - which is the reason why I took the time to post here. If such high-profile French films appear first in the UK, it is almost guaranteed that they are required to have them. But lets see and test the discs first instead of speculating.

(Point: If AE owned the rights to the films in the entire EU, then they could decide to do whatever they want. This is why Gaumont, for example, can afford to have English subtitles on many of their Blu-ray releases and at the same time have them coded ABC/Region-Free. And this is why some of their films appear on Blu-ray elsewhere but are locked to Region-B. They can dictate the terms).

I am not trying to debate what is right or wrong. All I am trying to clarify is that the decision to have such imposed subtitles is made elsewhere.

This is the way things are, David. One may post that region locking isn't fair, it can be fought, and so on, but at the end of the day the content owner dictates how the product you license will be released. Especially in regard to high-profile releases, new films, and big festival winners there is very little room for experiments.

As you know well, there are a number of companies that initially insisted that they will release only Region-Free Blu-rays, only to eventually realize that unless they lock certain Blu-rays they won't be able to release them. (Because if they don't, someone else will be willing to accept the content owner's terms and release them). Scorpion Releasing is the latest company to join the camp. (By the way, this was one of many reasons why the big studios killed off HD-DVD, which was a Region-Free format by default. It could not have worked with the distro system).

What Knives has posted above is absolutely true. And as I said earlier, such restrictions have been in place for many, many years, but only recently they've become an issue for some people in the EU. Imposed subtitles is just another form of region/market restricting.

Much more severe restrictions on Japanese films, for example, are done with very specific contracts precisely so that parallel imports can be prevented because Japanese releases are traditionally far more expensive than, say, U.S. or EU releases. Without such restrictions, the Japanese market will essentially collapse.

All in all, the right and wrong may seem very easy to deal with on a forum, but once you start licensing and signing contracts things become far more complex. This is all that I am trying to point out.

[manicsounds]

Let's not just bash AE for imposed subs. The French labels are more notorious for doing this than any others, as well as some US anime labels.

[Zot!]

Still, consider Svet's point. Respected favorites Criterion, MoC, BFI, etc. all impose region coding to a large degree, or in Criterion's case, always. It's not like they refuse to capitulate, when they are forced to. Forced subs are ridiculous, of course, but it's not like Region locking isn't.

[kidc85]

This has come up before but I'm never precisely sure what it is that makes fixed subtitles such a huge deal breaker. Daines and Hare: are you both multi-lingual, do you both rewatch the same film over and over until you know it word for word, or is there some other reason I've missed?

[TMDaines]

The example Michael has given above is also irrelevant because Second Run has never released a film from the same category Amour, Holy Motors, and A Royal Affair (Metrodome Video/also imposed subs) fall into -- these are very big films, Oscar winners, big festival winners, etc. When you start targeting such content -- which very clearly appeals to a much larger base of consumers as opposed to what a Second Run catalog release would -- and you happen to release in the EU, subtitle restrictions will come into play. This is the market reality. And this is the reason why even the likes of StudioCanal cannot do anything about it.

Metrodome are a third terrible example. They've been forcing subtitles on their releases for an eternity, sadly. I think you're giving far too much credence to the perceived intentions of a label. StudioCanal, Pathe and Metrodome have never shown any consistent desire to ensure that they provide optional subtitles on their releases.

2. I think that you are missing the point. It is not them deciding to have imposed subtitles - which is the reason why I took the time to post here. If such high-profile French films appear first in the UK, it is almost guaranteed that they are required to have them. But lets see and test the discs first instead of speculating.

(Point: If AE owned the rights to the films in the entire EU, then they could decide to do whatever they want. This is why Gaumont, for example, can afford to have English subtitles on many of their Blu-ray releases and at the same time have them coded ABC/Region-Free. And this is why some of their films appear on Blu-ray elsewhere but are locked to Region-B. They can dictate the terms).

I am not trying to debate what is right or wrong. All I am trying to clarify is that the decision to have such imposed subtitles is made elsewhere.

This is absolutely false. Never are AE obliged to sign any contract, whose terms they do not agree with. Labels have been contending with these issues for an eternity. For whatever reason, AE have chosen to capitulate here and have tarnished their standards. As several of us have commented, this will affect our purchasing of their titles. I'm not getting burnt any longer.

This has come up before but I'm never precisely sure what it is that makes fixed subtitles such a huge deal breaker. Daines and Hare: are you both multi-lingual, do you both rewatch the same film over and over until you know it word for word, or is there some other reason I've missed?

There's a couple of reasons. For a start, most people in the world are multilingual. The idea that all people living in Britain in 2013 are monoglot English-speakers is absurd and quite frankly insulting. Others have commented on the fact that people should have the choice to watch a film the way a director intended, and that fixed subtitles compromise this experience.

[MichaelB]

This has come up before but I'm never precisely sure what it is that makes fixed subtitles such a huge deal breaker. Daines and Hare: are you both multi-lingual, do you both rewatch the same film over and over until you know it word for word, or is there some other reason I've missed?

Personally, I'm not bothered if it's a language I don't speak and realistically will never learn - I wouldn't be the least bit fazed about fixed subs on, say, a Satyajit Ray film (which is just as well as a great many of my Ray DVDs are presented just like that!).

On the other hand, if I do understand the language, either reasonably well (French/Italian) or with a better than passing acquaintance (German/Czech/Polish), then being able to switch off the subtitles is a big deal for me*. Films are a qualitatively different experience if watched without subtitles: even if you don't understand every single spoken word, the chances are that you're going to listen to the original dialogue properly in a way that you probably won't do if you're using subtitles as a crutch. And you'll certainly pay far more attention to the actors' faces if your eyes aren't constantly darting down to the bottom of the screen.

(*as is being able to switch them on when needed, which should answer the inevitable "so why don't you buy the French/Italian/German edition, then?" followup question!)

[Tommaso]

For me, fixed subs can be even inacceptable on a film whose language I don't speak. I was terribly annoyed about the fixed subs on the German disc of "Ran" because I definitely wanted to replay the scenes in the burning castle or the old King Lear (whatever he's called in Japanese) and the fool in the green fields without subs, sucking in those stunning images without distraction. Thankfully the CC came to the rescue (now gone again). More or less the same might go for any film that lives from the images, and Ray's films are among them. One reason, apart from the picture quality, why I'll now definitely wait for the Criterion releases of Ray's films.

[vsski]

I never realized how distracting subtitles really can be until I used them on a movie whose language I understood, but where one character spoke in an accent I struggled understanding. The moment I turned the subtitles on, I found myself reading everything even though 80% of the dialogue was clearly understandable to me - it just has this effect of forcing your viewpoint downwards away from what can be great expressions on actors' faces or beautiful visual compositions (at least for me).

[zedz]

Once you're literate, it's not something you can turn off. If there's text in our eyeline, we're obliged to read it, so subtitles will inevitably distract from the intended visual experience of a movie. Usually, there's the important trade-off of comprehension, but when there isn't (i.e. if we're already perfectly fine processing the language we hear, or if we're deliberately trying to focus on purely visual information), it wreaks havoc with the way we mentally process a film.

If you want to really understand how much of the film you're losing when watching with subtitles, just switch on the HoH subs on an English language film and try not to read them. Or, for the worst of all possible worlds, watch an English-language film with subs in a different language that you also understand (or sort-of understand). The viewing experience becomes swamped in cognitive dissonance, and you're spending most of your time evaluating translations and omissions (and, boy, do any discrepancies between the spoken text and the written one become highly irritating) rather than parsing the meaning of what's being said or appreciating the image in visual terms. Our internal language-processing software is designed to override and overwhelm a lot of other mental processes.

[colinr0380]

I've never really had the 'cognitive dissonance' issue with subtitles but I do think that subtitles, unless actually part of the original print (i.e. very short scenes or title cards (which strangely always used to get removed and replaced with player generated ones on MGM discs) that are made in the style of the film with specific fonts i.e. Silence of the Lambs, Traffic) in its original release territory and therefore part of the original film, should be removable.

I agree with Tomasso about the option to remove subtitles to enjoy the film 'clean'. I haven't gotten to that stage with many films yet but with favourites rewatched many, many times (Contempt, The Vanishing, Wages of Fear, Seven Samurai etc) it is great to be able to turn the subtitles off and follow the film without them.